Glenn Cooper - Secret of the Seventh Son

Will listened with rising discomfort because the confession had the ring of authenticity. Still, he didn’t bring papal infallibility to the table. He’d been duped before, and God willing, he was being duped now. He didn’t wait for Luis to stop crying before aggressively and suddenly asking, “Did you kill David Swisher?”

Luis looked up, startled. His instinct was to wave his arms in protest which made his wrists chafe against the handcuffs. “No!”

“Did you kill Elizabeth Kohler?”

“No!”

“Did you kill Marco Napolitano?”

“Stop!” Luis sought out Nancy’s eyes. “What’s this guy talking about?”

By way of a response, Nancy continued the battery, “Did you kill Myles Drake?”

Luis had stopped crying. He snorted his nose dry and stared at her.

“Did you kill Milos Covic?” she asked.

Then Will, “Consuela Lopez?”

Then Nancy, “Ida Santiago?”

And Will, “Lucius Robertson?”

Captain Murphy grinned, impressed at the rat-a-tat.

Luis shook his head vigorously. “No! No! No! No! You guys are crazy. I told you I killed John, in like self-defense, but I never killed these other people. You think I’m the fucking Doomsday Killer? Is that what you think? Come on! Get real, man!”

“Okay, Luis, I hear you. Take it easy. You want some water?” Will asked. “So how long have you been flying the New York-Las Vegas route?”

“Almost four years.”

“Do you have a diary, some kind of flight log handy?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a book. It’s upstairs, on the dresser.”

Nancy hurried out the door.

“You ever mail any postcards from Vegas?” Will demanded.

“No!”

“I heard you say loud and clear that you didn’t kill these people but tell me this, Luis, did you know any of them?”

“Of course not, Man!”

“That includes Consuela Lopez and Ida Santiago?”

“What? Because they’re Latino, I should know them? What are you, some kind of an idiot? You know how many Spanish there are in New York?”

He didn’t break stride. “You ever live in Staten Island?”

“No.”

“Ever work there?”

“No.”

“Got any friends there?”

“No.”

“Ever visited there?”

“Maybe once, for a ferry ride.”

“When was that?”

“When I was a kid.”

“What kind of car do you drive?”

“A Civic.”

“The white one out front?”

“Yeah.”

“Any of your friends or relatives drive a blue car?”

“No, man, I don’t think so.”

“You own a pair of Reebok DMX 10s?”

“Do I look like I’d wear some jive-ass teenage sneakers, man?”

“Did anyone ever ask you to mail postcards from Las Vegas?”

“No!”

“You admitted you killed John Pepperdine.”

“In self-defense, man.”

“Did you ever kill anyone else.”

“No!”

“Do you know who killed the other victims?”

“No!”

He abruptly halted the interview, went looking for Nancy and found her on the upstairs landing. He had a bad feeling and her crimpled mouth confirmed his fears. She was wearing a pair of latex gloves, leafing through a black 2008 day planner. “Problems?” he asked.

“If this diary is legit, we’ve got big problems. Except for today, he was in Las Vegas or in transit during every other murder. I can’t believe it, Will. I don’t know what to say.”

“Say fuck. That’s what you should say.” He leaned wearily against the wall. “Because this case is completely fucked.”

“Maybe the diary’s been doctored.”

“We’ll check the records with his company, but we both know this guy’s not Doomsday.”

“Well, he killed Victim Nine that’s for sure.”

He nodded. “Okay, partner, here’s what we’re going to do.” She put Luis’s diary down and opened her notebook to take down his instructions.

“You don’t drink, do you?”

“Not really.”

“Good, consider yourself designated. We’re going to clock out and go off duty in about five minutes. Your assignment is to take me to a bar, talk to me while I get drunk then drive me home. Will you do that for me?”

She looked at him disapprovingly. “If that’s what you want.”

He knocked back his drinks quickly, shuttling the waitress between the booth and the bar. Nancy watched him slip the bonds of sobriety while she moodily sipped a diet ginger ale through a bendy straw. Their table at the Harbor Restaurant overlooked the bay, the calm waters blackening as the sun began to set. He had spotted the restaurant before they made it off the island, muttering, “That place’s bound to have a bar.”

He wasn’t drunk enough to miss the fact that Nancy was uncomfortable having an after-work drink with her superior, a guy who happened to have a reputation as an office scoundrel and souse. She was literally squirming with discomfort.

She wasn’t talking so he amused himself by doing a boozy profile. She probably felt like an enabler, helping him lube up as fast as he could.

And she was probably falling for him. He could see it in her eyes, especially the first thing in the morning when she came into his office. Most women succumbed eventually. It wasn’t boasting, just a fact.

Right now she probably hated him for who he was and wanted him simultaneously. He did that to women.

In the small glow of a kerosene table lamp, his body compressed and softened like an unfired clay mold left outdoors on a scorching day. His face sagged, his shoulders rounded and he slumped on the shiny vinyl banquette.

“You’re supposed to talk to me,” he slurred. “You’re just sitting there, watching me.”

“Do you want to talk about the case?” she asked.

“Fuck no, anything but.”

“What then?”

“How about baseball?” he suggested. “You like the Mets or the Yankees?”

“I don’t really follow sports.”

“That so…”

“Sorry.” Through the windows she watched the running lights of a powerboat crawling past at headway speed until it was out of sight. His head was lowered; he played with the ice cubes in his drink, sending them into a vortex with his finger and when the glass was empty he crudely waggled his wet finger at the young waitress.

He tried to sharpen Nancy’s blurring features by scrunching his forehead. “You don’t want to be here, do you?”

“Not particularly.”

He made her flinch when he banged the table with the heel of his hand, too hard and too loudly for decorum, turning heads. “I like your honesty.” He scooped up some nuts and crunched on them, then brushed the salt off his greasy palms. “Most women aren’t honest with me till it’s too late.” He snorted as if he’d just said something humorous. “Okay, partner, tell me what you’d be doing tonight if you weren’t babysitting me.”

“I don’t know, helping with the dinner, reading, listening to music.” She apologized. “I’m not a very exciting person, Will.”

“Reading what?”

“I like biographies. Novels.”

He feigned interest. “I used to read a lot. Now I mostly watch TV and drink. Want to know what that makes me?”

She didn’t.

“A man!” he cackled, “A goddamned twenty-first-century male Homo sapiens!” He slammed more nuts into his mouth, truculently folded his arms across his chest and curled his mouth into a toothy shit-eating grin. From Nancy’s stony reaction, he knew he was going too far, but he didn’t care.

He was getting good and drunk and too bad if she didn’t like it. The waitress had a small gold crucifix which swung and knocked against the top of her deep cleavage when she put down another scotch. He leered at her. “Hey, you wanna come home with me to watch TV and drink?”