Anatomy of Fear

42

This was the second time in a week I was walking down the corridors of FBI Manhattan, this time less comfortably between Agents Collins and Richardson. My adrenaline had kicked in for the third or fourth time of the day. I felt edgy and itchy, the way I did when I was fourteen and had pulled an all-nighter high on drugs. Richardson kept up a steady stream of chat-baseball, politics, the weather-but Collins was quiet.

They ushered me into a windowless room with two chairs and a desk, and asked me to wait. They said they’d be back in a minute. Ten minutes passed. Then another ten. I paced, measuring the room with my steps, twelve one way, nine the other. I kept seeing Cordero lying on the floor, blood pooled under him. I checked my watch every other minute, and chewed my cuticles. Another twenty minutes passed before Collins came back.

She took a seat, carefully tucking her skirt under her, ladylike, but there was nothing ladylike in her face, which was frozen, intentionally immobilized. She flipped open a notepad and angled her head toward a video camera wedged into a corner where the wall met the ceiling. “We’re recording this,” she said. “It’s procedure.”

“Guess the FBI videotapes everything, huh?” I forced a laugh.

She didn’t, just looked up at the camera, stated the date and time, her name and mine, then asked what time I’d come home from Boston, which I’d already told them more than once, and asked about my relationship to Manuel Cordero.

“We didn’t have a relationship. He was the superintendent of my building.”

“Did you get along?”

“What the hell sort of question is that?”

“Take it easy,” she said.

I couldn’t. There was something in her tone and even more in her frozen face that was setting me on edge.

Collins cadged a look at the video camera, then at a mirrored wall. I knew there was someone on the other side, watching.

She referred to her notepad. “So you found Manuel Cordero’s body around eleven-thirty.”

“Yes, I said that earlier, to Richardson.”

“But now you’re saying it to me.” Her eyes narrowed, lids compressing the way they do with the onset of anger.

“I’m really tired,” I said, losing patience, adrenaline seeping out of my veins like I was donating blood.

“We’re all tired. But you’ve got to say it for the camera.”

“Yeah, it was sometime around eleven-thirty.”

“And you know that because…?”

“Because I looked at my watch.”

“Before or after you found the body?”

“Before. When I was upstairs. I had been debating whether or not it was too late to go downstairs.”

“And you decided it wasn’t?”

“Obviously.”

Collins glared at me. “I don’t think that response was called for.”

Maybe it wasn’t, but I didn’t feel like apologizing.

“So it was eleven-thirty,” she said, flipping pages in the coroner’s report.

“Give or take a few minutes.”

She made a note in her pad. “And Cordero was lying facedown when you found him?”

“Yes. I’ve already said that. About ten times tonight.”

“Did you touch him? Roll him over or anything?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I’m just asking.”

“No. I didn’t touch him. I could see he was dead.”

“And you could see that how?”

“He was lying facedown in a pool of blood-a lot of blood-and he wasn’t moving. That spelled dead to me.”

“Really?” Collins noted something in her pad, then looked up at me, face neutralized though there was some leakage in the way the triangularis muscle had tightened around her mouth. “Because some people might have thought the man was just hurt, injured, you know, but somehow you knew he was dead.”

“Yes, I-”

“And his door was open?”

“Yes-”

“So you could see in?”

“Yes. Well, no-”

“Which is it?”

“It was only open a couple of inches, so no, I couldn’t really see in. I explained that to Richardson, and-”

“Could you please stop referring to Agent Richardson’s report?”

“No, I don’t think I can.” My heart was pounding and the muscles in the back of my neck had tightened. “I’m getting tired of saying the same thing over and ov-”

“I explained that.” Collins nodded at the camera. “I don’t know why you’re making this so difficult.” Her icy tone matched her frozen mask. “It really doesn’t look good.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I could feel things unhinging, as if screws were being loosened to allow easy entry to my brain and psyche.

“So you went in.”

“What?”

“To the apartment. You went in.”

“Yes. You know that. I knocked, but he didn’t answer. I waited a minute and knocked again. I could hear the television and I could see the kind of bluish light that comes off a TV screen. It was reflecting into the hallway. You know how that is.”

“No. Tell me.”

“I just did.”

“All you told me was that the door was ajar and you went in. You didn’t explain why you went in.”

“Well, I…” Why had I gone in? “I had a feeling-”

“A feeling?” Collins’s mask was cracked by a raised eyebrow.

“Like I said, the door was partially open. I knocked and-”

“Went in. Yes, you already said that.” Collins scratched her head with the back of her pencil. “You mean to tell me the man’s door was unlocked and open in a basement apartment in a fairly crappy neighborhood in New York City? I don’t mean to insult your neighborhood, Rodriguez, but come on.”

“Hey, I know it’s not Park Avenue. But what’s your point?”

“My point is, it’s weird. The door just being open like that, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yeah, I fucking would agree. It was unlocked because it had obviously been left open by the perp, the unsub, by whoever killed Cordero.” I could feel my pressure rising, blood pulsing in my ears.

“And how do you know that?”

“I don’t know it for a fact, but like you, I was there when Crime Scene said the lock had been popped, and since I didn’t do it, I’m presuming it was done by whoever killed Cordero, right?”

“If you say so.”

“I don’t say so. Crime Scene said so.”

“Fine,” she said.

“What are you suggesting? That I…killed Cordero?” My palms were sweating. I had that feeling you get when a store security guard is watching you: that you’re guilty though you haven’t done anything.

“I’m not suggesting-”

“I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.” I stood up.

“Sit down,” said Collins. She glanced first at the mirror, then at the video camera, and I remembered people were watching me, that I was being filmed acting guilty when I had nothing to be guilty about.

“Just take it easy, Rodriguez; relax.”

I took a deep breath, but I did not relax.

“Just a few more questions. Nothing to get so upset about.” She offered up a clipped fake smile, and I sat down.

“Let’s get back to what you did when you came in and saw Cordero on the floor.”

“Like I said, I called 911.”

“Right away?”

“No. Not immediately. I was frozen for a minute, stunned, I guess. Then I noticed the drawing beside the body and it hit me that it wasn’t just some ordinary break-in.”

“So you waited to make the call?”

“I didn’t think about it right away, no. And…I wanted to see the drawing.”

“So you went over to look at it.”

“Yes.”

“Which is why the soles of your shoes had Cordero’s blood on them and why you tracked your footprints across the room.”

It sounded awful when she said it. “I didn’t realize what I was doing at the time or I never would have done it.” Jesus, what the hell had I been thinking? I knew all about contaminating a crime scene. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“But you were thinking straight enough to go over and see the drawing.”

“I’ve been working this case-” My annoyance ratcheted up a notch toward anger. “So, yeah, I wanted to see if it was like the others.”

“And then?” I could see she was assessing me, head tilted back, eyes narrowed.

“I looked at the drawing and made the call.”

“Could you look at the camera and repeat that? And say who you called?”

“Who the hell do you think I called, my broker?”

“There’s no need for sarcasm. This is simply procedure.”

“Really? Because it doesn’t seem like it.” I blew a breath out of the corner of my mouth. “Look, I’m tired. I’ve been up all night and-”

“I know that,” she said. “But you’re the one who found the body.”

Homicide 101: He who finds the body is always the first suspect.

“Wait. I found the body, so you think I killed him? Give me a fucking break. I’ve been working the case, you know that. You can’t possibly think I had anything to do with the guy being killed.”

Collins just sat there.

“Look, I found the guy, yeah, and was stupid enough to track his blood across the floor on my shoes, really stupid, but like I said, I wasn’t thinking. But I didn’t do anything to Cordero.”

“Okay,” said Collins.

“Okay what?”

“Okay, you weren’t thinking.”

“And I didn’t kill him either.”

“Okay,” she said again, in the same noncommittal tone.

Did she believe me? I searched her face for evidence, but she’d frozen her features.

I was beginning to feel like a character in a Kafka story. “I had nothing to do with Cordero getting killed. You know that, right?”

She didn’t say anything, not even okay, and then I saw it, the tic of suspicion, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

“How many times do I have to say it? I’ve been working this case. That’s why I wanted-needed-to see the drawing!” I could hear the shrillness in my voice. I wanted to stay calm, but couldn’t.

“I heard you.”

I didn’t want to utter the classic line, but had to. “Should I be calling a lawyer?”

“If you want to call a lawyer, fine, but I’m just asking questions for the record-and the camera.” She sat back and laced her fingers together. “You’re an awfully paranoid guy, Rodriguez.”

Was I? God knows I’d walked around feeling guilty for twenty years. Maybe it was finally starting to show. I kept telling myself to relax, but my mind was spinning. Should I call a lawyer, or would that confirm I had something to hide? I could call Julio. He was a real estate lawyer, but he’d know a good criminal lawyer. A criminal lawyer. Did I actually need one? Was this really happening?

Collins unlaced her fingers and sat forward. “It’s just a few more questions. After that, you can go home.” Her voice was calm. She sounded perfectly reasonable. But I knew what I’d seen in her face. Words lie. Faces do not.

But I nodded, hoping she was telling the truth. Maybe I was being paranoid. I was so tired I couldn’t reason it out.

“So why do you think Cordero turned the heat off?”

“I don’t know. I suppose because the owners tell him to save on heat when he can.”

“And he’s done this before?”

“Yes. You should be asking the building owners why Cordero turned the heat off, not me.”

“We will,” she said. “Okay, just a few more things. We’ve got to make sure we don’t miss anything. You don’t want to go through this again, do you?”

I didn’t bother to say the obvious. And we did go through it again. And again.

The air outside felt colder and brittle, but maybe it was just me. I made it halfway down the street and had to stop. I could barely breathe, my head aching and light, my body like sludge.

Could they possibly suspect me? It was absurd. I was being paranoid, like Collins said. If they really suspected me of anything they’d have arrested me, right? And here I was, on the street, a free man.

But I couldn’t shake it. I had seen it in her face: doubt.

I’d seen something else too, something I had not yet processed, but was too tired to figure out what it was.

I headed toward the subway but hailed a cab instead. I couldn’t take another step.

I sagged into the seat and tried to relax. I told myself everything would be okay, that I was getting carried away. I was first on the scene and they had to question me. It was their job. It was my bad luck, a coincidence that I’d found Cordero’s body.

What was it they’d taught us at the academy about coincidence? That there’s no such thing.

I shivered though the taxi was hot.

There was something else in that rule that was nagging at me, some other coincidence that wasn’t a coincidence, but I couldn’t see it, not with my head pounding and exhaustion so bad my muscles were twitching.

I got out my cell to call Terri and found two messages from her. She needed me to come to the station right away. It was urgent.