Evan Hunter - Candyland

"Unreliable," he says and turns to Emma and spreads his hands wide, and nods, seeking acknowledgment of a simple police fact: witnesses are notoriously unreliable.

"We'll take a bite impression, too," Manzetti says. "We're allowed to do that, Jimmy."

"Gee, no kidding?"

"We've also got DNA samples from the perp's semen…"

"Scientific experts never agree, ask O.J. about it."

"Point is, we've got a very good case here even without your daughter's clothes in the vic's possession."

"I didn't know you were making a case here. I thought this was just a conversation between fellow officers."

"What was the uniform doing there, Jimmy?" Emma asks.

"I already explained that," he says, and smiles, and starts to rise. "So if this little conversation is ended here…"

"Sit down, Jimmy."

"You giving me orders, Emma? I've been on the job almost twenty years now, who do you think you're ordering around? You know how many arrests I've made? Don't treat me like some fuckin criminal, okay? I told you how that uniform…"

"Were you seeing her, Jimmy?"

"Who?"

"Cathy Frese, who do you think we're talking about here? Were you seeing her?"

"I told you no. Listen, this is turning into an interrogation here, am I right? In which case, maybe you ought to arrest me and read me Miranda."

"You want Miranda? Fine!" Emma says. "You have the right to remain silent…"

"Cool it, Emma," Manzetti says.

"He wants Miranda, I'll give him Miranda. Anything you say may be…"

"Did you call Lois Ford last night?" Manzetti asks.

"No? Who the fuck is Lois Ford?"

"You know who she is. She's Heather Epstein's girlfriend. Did you call her at four in the…?"

"No. I never even met her. Why would I want to…?"

"We'll go to the phone company," Emma says. "Get a list of every phone call you…"

"Okay, I called her, okay? It's okay for you to be a lone wolf, right? But I make one lousy phone call on my own, to a person I believe is a witness…"

"Why didn't you tell me you'd called her?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"At breakfast this morning…"

"I was half asleep…"

"When I told you Thorpe called her…"

"I thought maybe he…"

"Why didn't you contradict me? Why didn't you say No, I'm the one who called her."

"Because I thought maybe he'd called her, too. You know, Emma, there's a logical explanation for everything in this world. There doesn't have to be a rapist behind every bush! Thorpe called a young girl for whatever perverted reasons of his own. I called a witness because I thought she might be able to tell me more about this person who was still a prime suspect in our case. All very logical, Emma. All perfectly under…"

"You always have phone sex with a witness?" Emma says.

"I did not have phone sex with Lois Ford."

"You know a girl named Cindy Mayes?" Emma asks.

"Cindy, Cindy," he says, and rolls his eyes toward the ceiling as if trying to remember. "Cindy Mayes, yes," he says, and taps his temple.

"Did she know you and Cathy were seeing each other?"

"I don't know what she knew or didn't know. And I wasn't seeing Cathy Frese. Except for that night of the disturbance and the follow-up in her apartment that one time. If that constitutes seeing her, then, yes, I was seeing her."

"Did Cindy know this?" Emma asks.

"I met Cindy only once in my entire lifetime, the night of the disturbance. I have no idea what she…"

"Did she spot you waiting for Cathy one night?"

"I never waited for Cathy."

"Recognize you as a Vice cop?"

"No, I really don't think so. Why would I wait for Cathy? I hardly knew her."

"Are you the one she's scared of?"

"Why should she be?"

"Because she knows you're the weirdo who waited downstairs for Cathy."

"Hey, weirdo, that's a strong word, Emma."

"It's her word, not mine."

"Strong word, weirdo."

"Well, how would you describe a man who dresses a whore in his daughter's clothes?"

"Does what?" he says, and actually laughs.

"It's not funny, Jimmy."

"Well, I never dressed anyone in Fiona's clothes."

"Wouldn't you call such a man a weirdo, Jimmy?"

"You know, Tony," he says, turning to him, "I'm just an honest cop here trying to do his job, I really don't have to take this from her. The job's tough enough without this petty bullshit. I may yell every now and then, yes, I may use the word fuck, I may fart, I may belch, I'm a cop, what does she expect from me, sonatas? But I would never use the word weirdo to describe myself. Or any other cop, for that matter."

Emma all but rolls her eyes. Morgan catches this.

"Oh, what is it, Emma?" he says. "Am I disappointing you? Would you like me to say I snatched every strand of hair from Cathy Frese's head, choked her to death, shoved my piece inside her, pulled the fucking trigger? Is that the weirdo Cindy described to you, that cunt? Well, I'm not him, you've got the wrong man here. I got a citation for bravery, you know that? Guy with a sawed-off shotgun, I dropped him in his fucking tracks! So, gee, I'm so terribly sorry I'm not handing you my head on a silver platter, but if you're going to seriously charge me with anything here, you'd better do it now. Otherwise, there's the door."

The room falls silent.

"Is that it, Jimmy?" Emma asks.

"That's it," he says. "No more questions. Find another patsy."

"Jimmy," she says, "what would…?"

"I said no more fuckin questions!"

"What would your daughter think if she knew you were dressing a whore in her clothes?"

"You'd have to prove that."

"Are you going to explain that to her, Jimmy?"

"There's nothing to explain."

"Daddy going to explain that to his little girl?"

"I'm a good father."

"Daddy going to take her on his knee and tell her he let a whore wear her skirt…"

"I didn't."

"… her school blazer…"

"No."

"Her white cotton panties?"

"No, you're…"

"While he made love to her, Jimmy?"

"Hey! Careful!"

"How are you going to explain that to a thirteen-year-old girl?"

"This is my daughter you're talking about here, okay?"

"How are you going to tell Fiona you dressed a whore in her clothes and fucked her?"

The loft goes silent.

"Why'd you dress her in your daughter's clothes, Jimmy?"

He shakes his head.

"Jimmy?"

"I never…"

He stops himself.

"Never what?"

"Nothing."

"Never what, Jimmy!"

"Touched her."

His voice low.

"What?"

"I never did."

A whisper.

"What? I can't hear you."

He buries his face in his hands.

"Never," he says.

Emma waits.

"Never."

And all at once, he is sobbing.

He directs his confession…

But it isn't truly a confession.

… to Emma. He seems to be trying to explain…

No, not explain, actually.

He seems to be… well… apologizing. But it isn't even an apology. It's as if he's just chatting with her over a beer or a cup of coffee, trying to be charming, trying to be engaging, trying to demonstrate through his wit and his obvious qualities that he can't possibly be the kind of man he himself considers a monster. How can he possibly be this terrible person who did such things to a young girl? He is not that kind of person at all. He is James Fulton Morgan, son of an honest bricklayer in the Bronx, veteran of the Vietnamese War, holder of an N.Y.P.D. citation for bravery when he was still a patrolman in the Ninth and broke up a liquor store robbery where the perp was holding a fucking sawed-off shotgun on him!