suit. The trousers looked permanently wrinkled, there was some sort of brownish sauce dribbled down the right hand side of his coat. He attempted to straighten his tie, but only managed to position it slightly more off center. The top button of his shirt was undone , but chins managed to hide the fact. Darker sweat stains began to seep through the underarms of his suit coat.
“Might as well see what they’ve got on you,” he said, heading across the street in the direction of the police station. He was wheezing heavily before he made it to the far curb.
I watched for a moment, then hurried to catch up in the event he needed help crossing the street .
“Maybe you should find out, then let me know, rather than bring ing me in there and …”
“Let’s just go in there and let them know you’ve got nothing to hide. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for whatever it is they found.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“ For the thousandth time I’m telling you I h ave n o idea how in the hell that thing got in my garage. I sure as hell didn’t put it there. ”
I was moving up in t he world, this time we were in Interview Room N umber One. It s décor remarkably similar to the previous interview room, charmless grey cinder block walls with a video camera hanging in one corner. The green light was on, indicating I was being filmed. The back wall had two— way mirrors mounted the entire length, I gathered we were playing to an audience. There was a scent in the room mixed with the damp air co nditioning and most likely emanating from me. Fear, desperation, panic?
Detectives Manning and Franco were in the room with us, sitting across from Louie and me , at a grey Formica table whose only feature was a couple of cigarette burns snaking their way toward the chipped edge.
There were a dozen different photos strewn across t he table in front of us . Each one a slightly different image of a finger they’d found while searching my garage. It was a severed middle fin ger, with the finger tip hacked off .
The thing ha d been wrapped in a plastic bag and place d in a small refrigerator that stood in the back of my garage. Based on the p hotos I guessed the thing was decomposed. Substantially decomposed.
“Dev, do you mean you forgot you left that finger in your garage?” Franco asked. He’d been the good cop for the past hour, or was it two hours.
“No. I’m saying I’ve neve r seen that thing before. I never put it in my garage.”
“Why d id you keep the finger in that refrigerator?” Manning asked.
“So I could give you one, the finger that is.”
“Dev,” Louie cautioned.
“Look, I don’t know how the thing got there, okay. If I was storing a bunch of fingers would I put them in a refrigerator that hasn’t worked in over two years? If you guys bothered to check you would have noticed the thing was unplugged. It’s been unplugged for a couple of years. Someone is setting me up here.”
“So you admit you were storing a number of fingers. Was this the last one?”
“I don’t admit anything of the sort. I just told you, the refrigerator didn’t work. It’s been broken for a couple of years. If it did work I would have had beer in it.”
“Lets go back to the night you fire bombed the hotel room ,” Manning said.
“I didn’t fire bomb anything.”
Manning was walking b ack and forth across the room, p laying to the audience behind the mirrors. As he walked he absently stretched and twisted the rubber band that had held the photos of the fingers.
“So you go to the hotel and…”
“I didn’t fire bomb any hotel room.”
“You stated you were intoxicated that night.”
“No, as a matter of fact, I said I was very intoxicated that night. So much so that I parked on the street , because I didn’t want to attempt driving down my narrow driveway and into my garage.”
“And you left The Spot bar sometime after two that morning.”
“That’s what I’m told.”
“So you drove to
“Might as well see what they’ve got on you,” he said, heading across the street in the direction of the police station. He was wheezing heavily before he made it to the far curb.
I watched for a moment, then hurried to catch up in the event he needed help crossing the street .
“Maybe you should find out, then let me know, rather than bring ing me in there and …”
“Let’s just go in there and let them know you’ve got nothing to hide. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for whatever it is they found.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“ For the thousandth time I’m telling you I h ave n o idea how in the hell that thing got in my garage. I sure as hell didn’t put it there. ”
I was moving up in t he world, this time we were in Interview Room N umber One. It s décor remarkably similar to the previous interview room, charmless grey cinder block walls with a video camera hanging in one corner. The green light was on, indicating I was being filmed. The back wall had two— way mirrors mounted the entire length, I gathered we were playing to an audience. There was a scent in the room mixed with the damp air co nditioning and most likely emanating from me. Fear, desperation, panic?
Detectives Manning and Franco were in the room with us, sitting across from Louie and me , at a grey Formica table whose only feature was a couple of cigarette burns snaking their way toward the chipped edge.
There were a dozen different photos strewn across t he table in front of us . Each one a slightly different image of a finger they’d found while searching my garage. It was a severed middle fin ger, with the finger tip hacked off .
The thing ha d been wrapped in a plastic bag and place d in a small refrigerator that stood in the back of my garage. Based on the p hotos I guessed the thing was decomposed. Substantially decomposed.
“Dev, do you mean you forgot you left that finger in your garage?” Franco asked. He’d been the good cop for the past hour, or was it two hours.
“No. I’m saying I’ve neve r seen that thing before. I never put it in my garage.”
“Why d id you keep the finger in that refrigerator?” Manning asked.
“So I could give you one, the finger that is.”
“Dev,” Louie cautioned.
“Look, I don’t know how the thing got there, okay. If I was storing a bunch of fingers would I put them in a refrigerator that hasn’t worked in over two years? If you guys bothered to check you would have noticed the thing was unplugged. It’s been unplugged for a couple of years. Someone is setting me up here.”
“So you admit you were storing a number of fingers. Was this the last one?”
“I don’t admit anything of the sort. I just told you, the refrigerator didn’t work. It’s been broken for a couple of years. If it did work I would have had beer in it.”
“Lets go back to the night you fire bombed the hotel room ,” Manning said.
“I didn’t fire bomb anything.”
Manning was walking b ack and forth across the room, p laying to the audience behind the mirrors. As he walked he absently stretched and twisted the rubber band that had held the photos of the fingers.
“So you go to the hotel and…”
“I didn’t fire bomb any hotel room.”
“You stated you were intoxicated that night.”
“No, as a matter of fact, I said I was very intoxicated that night. So much so that I parked on the street , because I didn’t want to attempt driving down my narrow driveway and into my garage.”
“And you left The Spot bar sometime after two that morning.”
“That’s what I’m told.”
“So you drove to
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