Jeffery Deaver - The Broken Window

He bristled. “It was window-shopping. I got some coffee, a sandwich. Paid cash for it…” He leaned forward, whispered harshly, “I don’t really think you asked everybody all these questions. I know what you think of us. You think we treat women like animals. I can’t believe you’d actually accuse me of raping someone. That’s barbaric. And you’re insulting!”

Pulaski struggled to look Mameda in the eye as he said, “Well, sir, we are asking everybody with access to innerCircle about their whereabouts yesterday. Including Mr. Sterling. We’re just doing our job.”

He calmed slightly but continued to fume when Pulaski asked his whereabouts at the times of the other killings. “I don’t have any idea.” He refused to say any more and with a grim nod, stood and walked out.

Pulaski tried to figure out what had just happened. Was Mameda acting guilty or innocent? He couldn’t tell. Mostly he felt outmaneuvered.

Think harder, he told himself.

The second employee to be interviewed, Shraeder, was the opposite of Mameda: pure geek. He was gawky, the clothes ill-fitting and wrinkled, ink stains on his hands. His glasses were owlish and the lenses smeared. Definitely not in the SSD mold. While Mameda was defensive, Shraeder seemed oblivious. He apologized for being late-which he wasn’t-and explained that he’d been in the middle of debugging a patch. He then embarked on the details, speaking as if the cop had a degree in computer science, and Pulaski had to steer him back on track.

His fingers twitching, as if he were typing on an imaginary keyboard, Shraeder listened in surprise-or feigned surprise-when Pulaski told him about the murders. He expressed sympathy and then, in answer to the young officer’s questions, said he was in the pens frequently and could download dossiers, though he never did. He too expressed confidence that nobody could get access to his passcodes.

As for Sunday he had an alibi-he’d come into the office around 1 P.M. to follow up after a big problem on Friday, which he again tried to explain to Pulaski before the cop cut him off. The young man walked to the computer in the corner of the conference room, typed and then swiveled the screen for Pulaski to see. It was his time sheets. Pulaski looked over the entries for Sunday. He had indeed clocked in at 12:58 P.M. and didn’t leave until after five.

Since Shraeder had been here at the time Myra was killed Pulaski didn’t bother to ask about the other crimes. “I think that’ll be all. Thanks.” The man left and Pulaski sat back, staring out a narrow window. His palms were sweating, his stomach in a knot. He pulled his cell phone off its holster. Jeremy, the sullen assistant, was right. No damn reception.

“Hi, there.”

Pulaski jumped. Gasping, he looked up to see Mark Whitcomb in the doorway, several yellow pads under his arm and two cups of coffee in his hands. He lifted an eyebrow. Beside him was a slightly older man, with prematurely salt-and-pepper hair. Pulaski figured this had to be an SSD employee-since he was in the uniform of white dress shirt and dark suit.

What was this about? He struggled to put a casual smile on his face and nodded them in.

“Ron, wanted you to meet my boss, Sam Brockton.”

They shook hands. Brockton looked Pulaski over carefully and said, with a wry smile, “So you were the one who had the maids checking up on me down at the Watergate hotel in D.C.?”

“Afraid so.”

“At least I’m off the hook as a suspect,” Brockton said. “If there’s anything we can do in the Compliance Department, let Mark know. He’s brought me up to speed on your case.”

“Appreciate that.”

“Good luck.” Brockton left Whitcomb, who offered Pulaski a coffee.

“For me? Thanks.”

“How’s it going?” Whitcomb asked.

“It’s going.”

The SSD executive laughed and dusted a flop of blond hair off his forehead. “You folks’re as evasive as we are.”

“I guess we are. But I can say everybody’s been cooperative.”

“Good. You finished?”

“Just waiting for something from Mr. Sterling.”

He poured sugar into the coffee. He overstirred nervously, then stopped himself.

Whitcomb lifted his cup to Pulaski’s as if toasting. He looked out at the clear day, the sky blue, the city rich green and brown. “Never liked these small windows. Middle of New York and no views.”

“I was wondering. Why is that?”

“Andrew’s worried about security. People taking pictures from outside.”

“Really?”

“It’s not entirely paranoid,” Whitcomb said. “Lot of money involved in data mining. Huge.”

“I suppose.” Pulaski wondered what kind of secrets somebody could see through a window from four or five blocks away, the closest office building this high.

“You live in the city?” he asked Pulaski.

“Yep. We’re in Queens.”

“I’m out on the Island now but I grew up in Astoria. Off Ditmars Boulevard. Near the train station.”

“Hey, I’m three blocks from there.”

“Really? You go to St. Tim’s?”

“St. Agnes. I’ve been to Tim’s a few times but Jenny didn’t like the sermons. They guilt you too much there.”

Whitcomb laughed. “Father Albright.”

“Ooooo, yeah, he’s the one.”

“My brother-he’s a cop in Philly-he decided that all you had to do if you wanted a murderer to confess is to put him in a room with Father Albright. Five minutes and he’ll confess to anything.”

“Your brother’s a cop?” Pulaski asked, laughing.

“Narcotics task force.”

“Detective?”

“Yeah.”

Pulaski said, “My brother’s in Patrol, Sixth Precinct, down in the Village.”

“That’s too funny. Both our brothers…So you went in together?”

“Yeah, we’ve kind of done everything together. We’re twins.”

“Interesting. My brother’s three years older. He’s a lot bigger than I am. I might be able to pass the physical but I wouldn’t want to have to tackle a mugger.”

“We don’t do much tackling. It’s mostly reasoning with the bad guys. Probably what you do in the Compliance Department.”

Whitcomb laughed. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“I guess that-”

“Hey, look who it is! Sergeant Friday.”

Pulaski’s gut thudded as he looked up to see slick, handsome Sean Cassel and his sidekick, the too-hip technical director, Wayne Gillespie, who joined the act by saying, “Back to get more facts, ma’am? Just the facts.” He gave a salute.

Since he’d been talking to Whitcomb about church, the moment took Pulaski right back to the Catholic high school where he and his brother had been continually at war with the boys from Forest Hills. Richer, better clothes, smarter. And fast with the cruel snipes. (“Hey, it’s the mutant brothers!”) A nightmare. Pulaski sometimes wondered if he’d gone into police work simply for the respect a uniform and gun would bring him.

Whitcomb’s lips tightened.

“Hey, Mark,” Gillespie said.

“How’s it going, Sergeant?” Cassel asked the officer.

Pulaski had been glared at on the street, been sworn at, dodged spit and bricks, and sometimes hadn’t dodged so well. None of those incidents had upset him as much as the sly words slung around like this. Smiling and playful. But playful the way a shark teases its meal before he devours it. Pulaski had looked up “Sergeant Friday” on Google on his BlackBerry and learned this was a character from an old TV show called Dragnet . Even though Friday was the hero, he was considered a “square,” which apparently meant a straight arrow, somebody extremely uncool.

Pulaski’s ears had burned as he read the information on the tiny screen, realizing only then that Cassel had been insulting him.