Blood Defense

SIXTY-SIX

I gestured for him to sit down in one of the chairs in front of my desk. I had two matching chairs now. I was so uptown. I went around the desk and sat down. I thought I knew what he was here to talk about. And I was afraid it might get ugly-might in fact be the last time I ever saw him. But I was relieved. It was time to put our cards on the table and find out who we were going to be to each other. “What’s up?”

Dale cleared his throat again and swallowed. “Jenny Knox.”

I nodded. I’d guessed right. This was it.

His face was tight, and I could see it was a strain for him to hold my gaze. He took a deep breath, then exhaled. “I-I killed her.” His eyes shifted to the right.

I waited for him to make eye contact again. “Yes. I know.”

Dale opened his mouth, then closed it. He clasped his hands in front of his stomach, his body rigid. “How?”

It was Alex’s only real rookie mistake. But it was a monster. I gave a deep sigh. “I told Alex to drop the Jenny Knox investigation after Ignacio gave you an alibi. But he didn’t. I didn’t know it, but he kept going back to Jenny’s building to see if he could find a witness who’d point the finger at someone else for her murder.” Given who she was, I couldn’t blame Alex for thinking that’d be easy. “But he wound up finding a guy named Cricket who lived in the building next door to hers. Cricket got out of rehab the night Jenny died, and he was on the street looking to score. He ran into a friend who was in pocket, and they were about to do the deal when the friend spotted a cop he knew-a detective he’d worked with before.” I paused and looked at Dale. He was staring at me, his lips pinched, his face pale. “It was you. Cricket showed Alex the street where they saw you. It was a half block away from the alley where Jenny’s body was found.” I took a beat. “And there’s one more thing. When I told you that Jenny was dead, you didn’t ask me how she died. You said, ‘Who killed her?’” I studied Dale’s reaction.

He stared at his hands, still clenched together in front of him. After a few seconds, he cleared his throat again in a harsh, rasping grunt. When he finally spoke, his voice was choked. “I’m sorry, Sam. I-I wanted to tell you, but I was… afraid of… of what you’d think.”

A part of me wanted to accept that, to pretend I believed him and let it go. But I couldn’t. “Afraid of what I’d think? Or what I’d do? Weren’t you really just worried that I wouldn’t fight as hard for you?”

He drew back as though I’d slapped him. But then his eyes shifted over my shoulder to look out the window. After a moment, he slowly nodded. “Maybe. I guess it was partly that.” He met my gaze now, and I saw pain in his eyes. “But with two murders already hanging over my head, I was afraid you’d pull away, write me off as a… criminal. That I’d never get the chance to show you who I really was.”

Was that true? I supposed it might be. “But you are a criminal. You killed her. Why? No one was going to buy her bullshit rape claim. They’d already washed it out. That is, unless…” I looked him in the eye.

His face suddenly reddened, and he gripped the arms of the chair. “No! I never raped her! I did lie to you, and yes, partly for my own benefit. But that bogus fucking rape charge had nothing to do with it!”

I stared at him. “You need to calm down.” Dale’s eyes widened, but after a few moments, he sat back. I could see he was still breathing hard. “Okay, if it wasn’t the rape charge, then why?”

Dale stared out the window. His expression hardened, and his voice was cold, bitter. “A few days after Jenny made the rape charge, she called me and said she was sorry. That she was going to withdraw it. But she needed a ride to the hospital. She’d been jumped by a couple of crackheads, and they’d beaten her up. And she sounded bad, real bad. I was just a couple of blocks away, so I went to pick her up-”

“In that alley?”

Dale nodded as he stared out the window. His hands had balled into fists on his lap. He had a look of disgust on his face. “But of course, she lied. When I saw her and realized she was fine, I told her if she ever called me again, I’d make sure her story about getting jumped came true. She said she was doing me a favor, that she was giving me one more chance to pay up. I told her to go fuck off and started to leave. But then she showed me…” Dale reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out a cell phone. He dropped it on my desk. “This.”

I looked at it, then back at him. “It’s hers?”

He nodded and jerked his head at the phone. “Go ahead, look.”

I stared at the phone for a moment, wondering why he’d hung on to it. When I looked up, I found Dale watching me. His eyes were narrowed, measuring. But there was nothing contrite about his expression.

I picked up the phone and refreshed the screen. When I saw the picture, a wave of shock that felt like a thousand needles spread over my body. It was Lisa-Dale’s daughter. My half sister. She was looking straight ahead, her hands on the straps of her backpack. It was a candid shot, taken from no more than ten feet away. There was only one reason why Jenny would’ve taken that photo and shown it to Dale. I put down the phone. “What did she say?”

Dale stared at the phone, his jaw clenched. His voice was quieter now, but an icy fury still lay just under the words. “She said Lisa-”

Holy shit. “Jenny knew her name?”

His eyes were hard as he met my gaze. “Yeah. She said that Lisa looked like a nice kid. That Lisa was lucky to be in a good school like Arthur B. Wright. That…” He had to stop. When he continued, his voice was hoarse. “That there was more than one way to get the money I owed her.” Dale was rubbing his fisted right hand with his left.

Now I understood why he’d kept the phone. He was looking into her contacts, trying to find out if there was anyone who really might pose a threat to Lisa. I hadn’t known whether he’d give me another half truth-a story I could never be sure of. But I’d read about girls-even in good neighborhoods-being snatched off the street and sold. I didn’t know if Jenny really had those connections, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she did. Dale’s story felt true. And I definitely didn’t mourn the loss of a foul snake like Jenny Knox. But that didn’t answer the final question. “I get it. But why kill her? Why not just turn her in?”

The angry energy drained away as Dale sighed and leaned back in his chair. He stared at the cell phone as he spoke in a slow, heavy voice. “I could tell you I didn’t know whether any charges against her would stick. And I could tell you I was worried that even from jail she’d be able to retaliate by getting her connections to go after Lisa. And it’d all be true.” He finally looked up at me, and his expression was naked, vulnerable. “But the real truth is, I heard her threat and… I just… snapped.” He frowned and shook his head. But when he looked at me, his expression was frank. “I’m not proud of what I did. But I can’t honestly say I’m sorry, either.” His eyes softened as he added, “The only thing I’m sorry for is lying to you, Sam. I do hate myself for that.”

I was glad he’d come clean. And I believed his story. But I didn’t buy the notion that he’d bared his soul to me now just because of a guilty conscience. He’d kept the lie going for too long.

I knew in my gut he’d never have told me if he’d thought he could get away with it. Why risk rejection? What I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me-or more to the point, him. No, the only reason he’d told me about Jenny Knox was because he knew, or strongly suspected, that I’d figure it out.

But then it struck me: How did I know that? For all we’d been through, I still barely knew him. So how come I was so sure?

The answer crept forward, like a cowering, guilty child: because it’s what I would’ve done. It’d been my motto since I was a kid: Slide by with a lie; don’t admit it till you quit it. It was such second nature I never even thought about it. And that thought forced me to finally confront the bigger, core truth. The one I’d been avoiding ever since I found out he’d killed Jenny.

Dale knew he didn’t have to kill her. But he wasn’t having any guilt pangs over it. And neither would I. I might not have been as sloppy about it, but if I’d been in Dale’s position, I’d probably have killed her, too. I was who I was, and Dale was who he was. And we were a lot more alike than I-or he-could possibly have known. It occurred to me in that moment that it really wasn’t such a coincidence that our paths had crossed, after all. To the contrary, it seemed almost inevitable.

I looked at Dale now, saw his tense, worried expression as he looked into my eyes. When he spoke, his voice was tight. “I don’t know how you feel about me right now. Maybe you don’t, either.” He swallowed and took a deep breath. “But I need to know what you’re going to do about… all this…”

The question almost made me smile. Dale knew so little about me. “You know it’s privileged. I can’t tell-”

Dale waved me off. “Yeah, I know you can’t tell anyone what I said. But we both know you can get around that if you want to.”

He was right. Alex had already put the wheels on the wagon by finding Cricket. It wouldn’t take much to set them in motion. All I’d have to do was get Cricket busted and then drop an anonymous call to the cops saying he had information on Jenny Knox’s murder. I shook my head. “If I’d wanted to take you down, I’d have done it already.”

Dale exhaled and nodded slowly, but his eyes searched my face. He wasn’t 100 percent sure of me. But I wasn’t 100 percent sure that I could trust him, either. He was a loose cannon with a short fuse, and he had no compunction about lying.

Then again, neither did I.

But his hair-trigger temper worried me. The image of Dale exploding with rage after I told him I’d been molested was still fresh in my mind. I didn’t want to wind up sitting next to him in court again. I couldn’t afford it-for a lot of reasons. I had to be honest with myself. Being close to him posed a real danger. But being honest, I also had to admit that seeing his fury in those moments, I’d felt a wild, howl-at-the-moon, bloodlust satisfaction. And that was what I’d always wanted. Not Superman, not Bruce Lee. I’d wanted that raging, untamed monster who’d shred and tear the limbs off anyone who dared to hurt me.

And I still did. That monster, managed right, could be just what I needed.

Dale glanced down at his hands. They were laced together in front of him. “I’ll get it if you don’t want to see me again.” He looked up and searched my face. “But I’m hoping you will.”

I wasn’t sure what our relationship would look like or where it would take us. And it might wind up being a disaster-for both of us. But there was only one way to find out. I looked into his eyes. “I’m in.”