“That’s one camera,” I said. “There were at least a dozen others on-site.”
“All showing the same thing,” Wieder told me. He took a beat, long enough to give me a condescending look. “I’m not saying that your allegation about the needle stick is provably false, detective. And we do know about the case history between you and Mr. Guidice—”
“Technically, there is no case history,” I said. “It was his fiancée. And it wasn’t my bullet that killed her.”
But Wieder wasn’t about to let me take charge of the conversation.
“What I’m saying,” he went on, raising his voice, “is that our job right now is to focus on the possibility of police misconduct in yesterday’s incident. So far, we have no corroborating evidence to support your version of the events. But here’s what we do have.”
He opened his file. Inside there was an incident report clipped to the top of several other sheets. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, or the signature at the bottom.
“We have a short but marked history of unflattering articles about you, by Mr. Guidice. We have a documented altercation, up at Lock Seven the other day, where by all appearances you behaved aggressively toward Mr. Guidice and threw a piece of his recording equipment. We have this, of course,” he said, pointing at the frozen image on the TV. “And finally, we have a positive tox screen for opiates in your system, with a chemical match to the pills found in your pocket yesterday.”
Wieder paused again and raised his eyebrows at me. He reminded me of every sanctimonious prick I’ve ever met—the ones who don’t even try to hide how much they enjoy their own power.
“So let me ask you,” he said. “You’re an experienced detective. What conclusion would you draw if you were sitting on my side of the table?”
“If I were you?” I said. “I’d be asking myself why Ron Guidice is writing those articles in the first place. And I might be thinking—isn’t this exactly what someone like him would like to see happen?”
The two investigators looked at each other.
“With all due respect, detective, that sounds like conspiracy theory to me,” Wieder said, closing his file.
The gesture wasn’t lost on me. These two weren’t even interested in my story. They’d already interviewed their witnesses, they’d built their narrative, and this meeting was just—what? A formality? A necessary step toward the indictment they so obviously wanted?
In which case, there was no reason for me to be here. I pushed my chair back, stood, and pounded on the interview room door.
“Excuse me—” Wieder said.
“You want to build a case against me, you can do it on your own goddamn time,” I said. “I’m ready to go back to my cell.”
It was time to lawyer up.
CHAPTER
61
AS SOON AS I WAS LED OUT OF THE INTERVIEW ROOM, I FOUND CHIEF PERKINS waiting there in the hall. Not exactly the last person I might have expected—but not the first, either.
“Chief?”
“Come on,” he told me and signaled to the duty officer that he’d take over from here.
Instead of heading back to the cell block, we walked around the corner, through a locked door, and out to the main elevator bank.
“Where are we going?” I said.
“You’ve been released,” he told me. “The press has gotten their pound of flesh.”
“What?” I wasn’t following. “Did Bree post bail?”
The chief’s features were set hard while he avoided my eyes. This wasn’t easy for him.
“I’m just doing what I can, Alex.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Perkins could have kept me from getting thrown into the cell block in the first place. Now, it seemed, he was pulling strings to save me from any more time down there.
“Thanks,” I told him. “I guess.” He didn’t question my response, or say anything else until we were alone on the elevator. It was a strange vibe I was getting.