“What’s that?”
“A coercive interrogation that’s more personal than professional. That you arrested him for having sex with her.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“All that stuff about did she initiate the making out, did she rub your bulge, did she go down on you, how she was nothing but a little slut….”
“I’m getting a little tired of you playing Sigmund Freud with me.”
“Maybe so, but it doesn’t take Sigmund Freud to wonder if you tried to pin the rap on Pendergast because you killed her yourself.”
Neil’s hands were on the rail, but in his head Steve saw the explosive attack on Pendergast and rehearsed his moves if Neil went for a weapon.
“I told you the truth.”
“You also told me you hadn’t seen her in four months, now it’s two months. How do I know you didn’t arrest him to cover your own crime?”
Neil glared at Steve. “And how do I know you didn’t kill her, huh? You knew her from Northeastern. Your room was right next to hers, 215 Shillman Hall.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I used to pick her up from class. She said you two met during breaks and had coffee. For all I know you could have been going at it hot and heavy. Plus you like redheads.”
“Where the hell you get that?”
“One, I heard you say that. Two, your old friend.”
“What old friend?”
“Sylvia Nevins. That picture from last year’s Christmas party in the staff room. The redheaded broad with your arm around.”
He glared at Steve with the same gotcha eyes he had given Pendergast. “So you conclude that I killed Terry Farina because I had coffee with a redhead?”
“That and because you’ve got all the answers. You seem to know everything before anybody else, including twenty-five-year C.S.S. vets. You that smart or have you got information the rest of us don’t? The more I think about it, you could have gone up there yourself and done it.”
“In fact, where exactly were you that night?”
“Home watching the game.” The words slid out as if oiled. Except he couldn’t recall a moment of being home or the game. Everything he knew about the Sox win he had read in the Sunday
“Maybe we should do an internal investigation of you, Lieutenant.”
And in a voice straining for nonchalance, Steve said, “Be my guest.”
Neil looked at him and bobbed his head. He made a dry smirking humph. “So now what?”
“We go to Reardon.”
48
Steve had briefed the captain on the phone as they headed back to headquarters. When they arrived, Reardon’s face was a terracotta mask. He looked at Neil across the desk from him. “Were you lovers?”
“Is this a formal interrogation, Captain?”
“No more than Pendergast’s was.”
Neil made a face to say he didn’t like the comment. “We were close.”
“And you never told anybody.”
In Neil’s defense Steve said, “At the crime scene he said that he knew her from the health club.”
“There’s a fucking mile between casual acquaintance and an intimate relationship with a homicide victim. What the hell were you thinking? You kept us in the dark on a critical piece of information.”
“I didn’t want to go public,” Neil said. “Maybe I was wrong.”
“Maybe? This suppression of information is sufficient to disqualify you from the case.”
“Give me a break,” Neil said.
“I’m giving you a break. You could be fired from the force.”
Neil’s face hardened. He looked to Steve, but said nothing.
“You’re suspended from the case permanently and from your current load for the next two weeks, but we’ll call it a leave of absence. When you return you’ll still have your other cases.”
“With or without pay?”
“Because it’s an infraction, with. And let me suggest that you work on your interrogation tactics. You were out of control with Pendergast.”
“Okay.”
A long moment passed. Then Neil asked, “Am I a suspect?”
“At the moment, you’re a person of interest and we’ll want a full statement from you. I’ll see you in your office in fifteen.”
Neil got up, and in silence Steve watched him walk to the door. As soon as the door closed Reardon shot a look at Steve. “Do you think he did it?”
Crosscurrents ripped through Steve.
“I don’t know.”
Reardon nodded. “What was his relationship with her?”
“It started off as trainer and client then became more.” Steve measured his words. “I think he got serious about her. But I think he’s still conflicted, still unresolved in his feelings. He never approved of her stripping, but he feels bad that he made her feel sleazy about it.”
“So maybe he was narrating how he killed her himself—all the sexual taunting, feeding him motives, attacking him with the stocking. Like he was reenacting his own crime.”
Steve’s next words could set in motion the investigation of his own partner—
—or himself.
What Reardon had speculated was the unthinkable: a veteran homicide cop implicated in a high-buzz murder case. Exactly what he did not need on top of all the shrill press about the murder rate and police incompetence.
At the same time Steve was speculating on hideous Monty Hall options:
