The Last Alibi

EIGHT YEARS AGO
90

Jason Kolarich

Assistant County Attorney

The shower water scalded his skin, the way he liked it. The heat would stay on him for hours, keep him refreshed. It was little things like that-small meals, lots of coffee, catnaps when you could get them, and hot showers-that kept him on his game.

Whoever it was who decided to put Felony Review prosecutors on seventy-two-hour shifts had a sadistic streak. He had until tomorrow morning at ten before his shift ended and he could really sleep-unless, of course, he caught a case and had to see that one through post-shift.

He dried off, dressed in the same underwear and the same clothes, knotted his tie and finger-combed his hair. The door in the police locker room popped open, and cool air hit his skin.

“Counselor, we need you.”

“Coming, dear,” said Assistant County Attorney Jason Kolarich.

He was upstairs five minutes later, his shirt still wet from beads of water, his brain foggy. He walked into the detective squad room’s small kitchen, which served as Kolarich’s makeshift office. He put his hand out, and Officer Richard Nova dropped the report in it. Kolarich read it over quickly and then looked up at Nova, looking for any facial expression, finding none.

Kolarich read the report again. “We have the gun.”

“Right.”

“And eyes.”

“Right.”

“Whose eyes? Yours?” Kolarich looked up at Nova. Richie Nova was stocky and fit, young and sometimes too eager, but one of the by-the-book guys, one of the good ones. Most cops were good ones. Some of them were not. It made a difference to Kolarich.

“Mine and Gina’s. Happened right in front of us, the gun toss.”

Kolarich flipped past the officer’s report to the suspect’s priors. Something similar in the past, five years ago-an aggravated assault pleaded down to simple; he’d accosted a woman with a firearm. With the plea, he avoided prison. Six months later, he was arrested for the rape of a teenage girl in an alley off Marquette; the witness had a change of heart and he was released when she refused to testify. In another six months, a gun charge and possession of cocaine that got him three years, give or take. He’d been out just about a year, and now he was back to his first crime, abducting women at gunpoint.

That made three women, including this one tonight, that he’d attacked.

“Marshall Rivers,” said Kolarich. “He sounds like an aristocrat.”

“He’s no aristocrat, this one.”

“Okay. Where’s the witness?”

“She’s in Two,” said Nova.

Kolarich grabbed a notepad, stuck a Bic pen in his front shirt pocket. In Interview Room Two, a young woman was standing over a small wooden crib, where an infant slept with blankets wrapped tightly over her. Kolarich didn’t know where the crib had come from, but they must have kept it around for situations just like this.

It was almost ten o’clock at night. The attack had happened around six, as dusk had settled over the city in early spring.

The woman, the mother, was really just a girl, all of eighteen years, with dark, kinky hair pulled back with a rubber band, a thin face, and large brown eyes. She was wearing a pink cotton long-sleeved shirt and jean shorts, denim cut off a respectable length down her thigh.

Kolarich trod lightly, lifting the wooden chair off the hardwood floor to avoid scraping. “Miss Flores?” he said.

“Yes,” she said with some effort, a hint of j on top of the y. English was not her first language. It might not be her language at all. She sat in the chair opposite Kolarich and laced her hands together, as if in prayer.

“Hablas ingles?”

“Un poquito,” she answered with apology. “Lee-tle.”

“Bueno.” Where the hell was Witness Services? Why didn’t Nova bring up a translator? Gina Alvarez, Nova’s partner, spoke Spanish, but he needed the official translator. It was a union thing. Pass over the certified translator and someone would file a grievance. It took another half hour before Lisa from WitServ showed up.

“Tell her I’m a prosecutor, and would she please tell me what happened?” said Kolarich, which Lisa translated to Caridad Flores.

She felt more at ease with the translator in the room. The story came out in short bites, because each sentence had to be translated, even when Kolarich thought he understood it, so it had an odd quality to it, not simply a freewheeling, natural conversation. Caridad Flores spoke in a soft, restrained voice, fear shaking her words. Fear from what happened, Kolarich thought, or maybe fear of him, of law enforcement.

She was walking on the sidewalk on the 7100 block of South Briar Way with her baby in one of those travel pouches you wear over your shoulders and drop your baby in, so the baby’s back is against your chest, facing forward, that kind of thing. A nice walk in the fresh air before she put her baby daughter, Gracelia, down for a nap.

But then a car pulled up to the curb. A man got out. He had a gun. He blocked her forward progress and motioned toward the car. She may not have spoken English, but a gun to your infant’s head requires no translation.

Then she did something that the offender probably didn’t expect. She did something smart. She realized that if she got into that car, she and her baby would never get out.

So she ran. And she flagged down a patrol car, around the corner and a block away.

Kolarich knew the rest from the police report. Patrol Officers Nova and Alvarez did a drive-around, found the vehicle that fit the description and the partial plate, and lit their overheads. The offender sped forward. Two blocks into the chase, a gun flew out the driver’s side window and bounced against the curb. Nova jumped out of the car and retrieved it while the driver, Officer Alvarez, continued the chase and cut off the offender with the help of a second patrol unit two blocks farther down. Marshall Rivers was taken into custody without incident. A search of his person and vehicle revealed a crowbar, switchblade, and rope.

Caridad had described the man who confronted her as muscular, bald with a goatee, a white T-shirt, and a tattoo on his right forearm of a knife and snake.

“Okay,” he said. He nodded to Lisa. “Explain the lineup to her.”

Officer Nova and the detective assigned to the case, Lou Carnellis, had been putting together a lineup for identification. They used Interview Room One to do it, because it was the only room with the one-way mirror and observation booth.

Kolarich stood with Nova and Carnellis on the opposite side of the plate glass. “He hasn’t requested counsel?” he asked Carnellis.

“Nope.” Carnellis had lost most of his hair and sucked on lollipops ever since he quit smoking, so most people called him Kojak or Telly, the name of the actor who played the TV cop. Kolarich called him Carnellis. Kolarich was friendly with the police officers, but didn’t want to get too friendly. He wasn’t their pal. Sometimes he had to be the heavy. Easier to do that if you aren’t drinking buddies.

Five men entered the room, each of them holding a card with a number. Kolarich knew that two of them had come from county lockup, and two worked here in the station but had dressed down to civilian clothes. And the man holding the placard that said 2 was Marshall Rivers. Rivers was muscular and bald, with a thick goatee that emphasized his scowl. Kolarich would have identified him even if he hadn’t known already. The guy was bad. Those eyes, something menacing just radiating off him, like he’d never known good, he only had one direction and it was through you. A shudder crossed Kolarich’s shoulders.

The lineup wasn’t bad. Two others were completely bald and two had receding hairlines. All of them were stocky enough. One of them, a weight-lifting rookie officer, was bigger than Rivers, the rest of them comparable but probably not as big as the suspect. Three of them had facial hair, and two did not. The key was to make sure that Rivers wasn’t the only anything-not the only big guy, not the only bald guy, not the only goatee. He had to fall somewhere in the middle, or the lineup wouldn’t hold. It was like a game of Goldilocks.

Rivers, he noticed, had his arms behind his back. He was covering up the tattoo on his right forearm, which Caridad Flores had described.

“Tell everyone to put their hands behind their backs,” said Kolarich.

Carnellis did so, operating a microphone on the console.

“We’re good to go,” he said.

Caridad Flores came in with Officer Alvarez, Nova’s partner, and Lisa the translator. Kolarich explained the drill to the witness, though she probably already knew it. When she turned toward the plate glass, her face tight with fear, a small gasp escaped her and she choked up. Kolarich smelled something, then heard the sound of tiny droplets, then saw it for himself: a small pool at the feet of Caridad Flores. She had wet herself.

“Numero dos,” she whispered through her hand. She turned away, and Gina Alvarez put an arm around her.

“Now, arms at their sides,” Kolarich instructed. Carnellis gave the command, and Marshall’s tattoo came into view. Caridad looked again and let out a large cry.

“Numero dos!” she repeated.

Kolarich nodded. Officer Alvarez hustled her out of the room.

Caridad Flores was hovering over her baby when Kolarich returned to Interview Room Two with Lisa the translator. They all sat down.

“I’d like you to sign a written statement,” said Kolarich.

The witness listened to the translation, then said something back so quickly that it failed Kolarich’s four years of Spanish at Bonaventure. She was upset, that was clear enough. Her eyes filled, and she pressed her hands against her chest.

“She wants to know if that’s necessary,” said Lisa.

“Tell her yes.” Kolarich looked at Caridad Flores. “Si, por favor.”

The witness and Lisa talked back and forth a moment in animated terms. Kolarich gave up trying to follow them.

“She says,” Lisa started, then let out a sigh. “She said she may not be positive about everything that happened.”

Jason gave a grim smile. It was how he expressed frustration when it was inappropriate to throw something or shout an obscenity.

“Tell her that with his criminal record, he’ll go away for a very long time,” he said, hoping it was true.

After another lengthy exchange, Lisa shook her head, while Caridad Flores stared at a wall, refusing to look at him.

“Ask her where she’s from,” he said to Lisa.

She did. Kolarich heard the answer: Sixty-fifth and Roseland.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said.

Lisa knew that. So did the witness.

“Ask her,” said Kolarich.

“Ask her what? I already did.”

“Lisa,” said Kolarich, scolding her. “Ask her if she’s here legally.”

He could have added a few things, like I can keep her here all night and find out, but he wanted to start with a light touch.

When the question was translated, Caridad Flores broke into a sob, then a number of por favors spilled out of her mouth.

Shit. She was undocumented. She wanted nothing to do with law enforcement. She wasn’t going to sign a statement. It probably had something to do with a fear of Marshall Rivers, but her bigger fear was being deported.

“Okay,” said Kolarich. “It’s okay.” He patted the air. Caridad Flores looked at him, unsure of what was happening, what was going to happen.

Kolarich said, “Give me a few minutes,” and left the room.

Kolarich quickly found Detective Carnellis. “Put him in Three,” he said.

“Three? Why Three?”

Kolarich gave him a look. The question between them was obvious, as was the answer. Interview Room Three didn’t have one-way glass. Nobody would be able to observe the interrogation.

“Put him in Three,” Kolarich repeated.

Kolarich found a phone at one of the detectives’ desks. He balanced it between his ear and shoulder and fished the card out of his wallet.

Lisa the translator came up behind him. “You’re going to call Immigration on her?”

Kolarich dialed the phone.

“Jason,” she said. “You’re going to get this poor girl deported? Or locked up until trial? She has a baby.”

Kolarich looked at her. “Tell me honestly, Lisa. You think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that this woman will show up and testify against the offender?”

Lisa blinked twice. “No,” she conceded.

“So without her, I have no case on the attack. She’s all I’ve got, Lisa. She’s it. So if she’s unwilling to testify, I need another avenue. Just. .” He waved at her. “Tell Caridad it will all be fine.”

He finished dialing and the phone rang.

“You tell her,” Lisa spat. “I’m not going to lie to her.” She stormed off.

“Patrick Romer,” the voice answered, in that crisp, federal-law-enforcement tone.

“Romie, it’s Jason Kolarich.”

When his call was over, Kolarich went to Interview Room Three, where the suspect was sitting with his left hand cuffed to the metal table. Kolarich tended to trust his first vibe, which had been negative, but now he was seeing him up close, and he let it wash over him as he walked in and introduced himself to Marshall Rivers. Rivers was wearing a plain white T-shirt, torn and straining against his muscular upper body. His head was freshly shaved, and he wore a goatee. He had a bad complexion and eyes that screamed out at Kolarich. Menacing-that word stayed with him. This man was bad. Trouble. He wore a dull expression, but those predatory eyes gave him away. The kind of guy who could part a sidewalk of pedestrians just by walking in a straight line.

Three women, Kolarich thought to himself. The first one, the case was pleaded out; the second time, the woman was scared off.

He didn’t want to miss the third time.

“You need anything, Marshall?” he asked. “Take a piss, cup of water, cigarette?”

He hoped that Marshall smoked, or chewed tobacco, something that Kolarich would do, too, if so. It formed a bond, a small thing, but meaningful.

Rivers shook his head but didn’t speak. A smirk played on his face. A tough guy. Not afraid of nothin’.

Kolarich eyed the tattoo on Marshall’s forearm. It ran all the way from elbow to wrist, a bloodred dagger with a black snake curled around it, a multipronged tongue hissing out of the viper’s mouth. His mother must be so proud.

“I was disappointed to learn you went to Annunzio for school,” said Kolarich. He pointed to himself. “Bonaventure.”

Rivers watched him a moment, then showed his teeth. “Bon-Bons, huh? Too bad for you.”

Rival south-side high schools. It was time to play south-side geography: Which parish did you attend, which place did you go for kraut dogs, which bar was your favorite, Lucky Joe’s or the Green Castle? It loosened Marshall’s tongue. Gotta get that tongue loose first.

“You don’t live near Annunzio anymore,” Kolarich noted.

“Nah. Not the same place no more. I like burgers more than tacos, know what I mean?”

“Tell me fuckin’ about it.” Kolarich rolled his eyes and spoke out of the side of his mouth. “You been by Leland Park anytime lately? I think English is the second language down there now.”

Rivers liked that. He liked that a lot. It seemed to Kolarich like the right way to break through with this guy. People who didn’t amount to a whole lot, like Rivers, tended to blame other things for their troubles, principal among them the shifting demographics. There were lots of good, decent people on the city’s south side, but it was just like any other neighborhood-there were plenty of assholes, too. Marshall Rivers was one of them.

And Kolarich was a chameleon. When his goal was to connect with a suspect-and it usually was-he could flip a switch inside himself. He had actually fallen pretty hard for a Mexican girl at Bonaventure, a sophomore named Tina who never gave him the time of day, but at this moment, Kolarich forgot all about her.

“Anyway.” Kolarich jabbed a thumb at the door. “This mexicana? I’m sorry, this Latina girl, excuse me.” He shook his head. “Seems like a nice girl, but I swear to God, she doesn’t speak two words of English.” He chuckled. He put out his hands. “Best I can understand her, she says you confronted her and tried to get her into a car. Is that true?”

Rivers froze up. “Nah, man, that ain’t what happened at all. That chick, she waves at me for directions, see, so I pull over the car, and then she asks me if I want a little sucky-sucky. I said no fuckin’ thanks.”

Kolarich expelled a short breath, a small laugh, and covered his eyes with his hand in bemusement. It was about what he expected from Rivers, who’d had several hours to come up with that tale. Yeah, he thought to himself, that’s why an illegal immigrant would run to the cops, the last people in the world she ever wants to see. Because a potential john turned down her offer of a blow job while she was carrying her baby in a pouch.

“That’s about what I figured.” Kolarich put his hands flat on the table. “For Christ’s sake. Why am I not surprised?”

Rivers, still a bit wary but loosening up, showed his teeth again, a shark baring his fangs.

Kolarich threw up his arms as if agitated. “You know what? Fuck this,” he said. “I’m not going to screw up your life based on the word of some chiquita who probably doesn’t have her green card and can’t even bother to learn our language. I’m not going to do it. I don’t care. I’m not. So forget that, Marshall. I’m not pursuing that.”

Rivers watched him, his eyes intense, cautiously appraising the prosecutor. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious. I’m not charging you on that.” Kolarich flicked his wrist, a straight line in the air. “That’s done.”

Rivers nodded, sitting back in his chair, still cautious but getting looser and looser by the minute. This guy’s all right, he must have been thinking. “I appreciate that, man.”

“The gun, though.” Kolarich knifed a hand onto the table. “Coppers saw you toss the gun. That’s not on the immigrant girl. That’s got nothing to do with her.”

“I didn’t toss no gun.”

Kolarich raised a hand. “Here’s my problem. I have to clear this case, right? This is a case, with a number assigned to it, that needs a resolution, or someone’s going to be all over me asking why the fuck there’s no ‘solve’ next to it.”

Rivers didn’t speak. Kolarich fell back against his chair, his eyes on the ceiling. Then he made a face, tilted his head back and forth, all like he was pondering how to get around this thing.

He came forward again, elbows on the table. “Let me ask you, off the record. Not quoting you, nobody but you and me. It is your gun?”

“Nah, man. Not my gun.” Rivers closed his arms in on himself. He was tightening up, becoming defensive. Kolarich would lose him if he wasn’t careful.

“Okay.” He clapped his hands together. “This is going to turn into a case, then. Because I got two coppers who say you tossed it from the car.” He jabbed his thumb at the door. “You get that? I can shit-can this part about the Mexican girl, because the coppers, they didn’t see that with their own eyes. I’ll tell them that I don’t believe the girl, and that’s that. But the gun? If I go out there and say, no, he denies it, they’re going to insist that you be charged, because you’re calling them liars. They can’t have that. They can’t have a file that says they lied. Know what I mean?”

He thought that Rivers could follow that. It all made sense.

“So then you go to trial, Marshall. You go to trial, and it’s you against two decorated police officers.”

Rivers ran his tongue over the inside of his cheek. His foot tapped the floor like a drummer on too much caffeine.

“S’posin’ it was my gun,” he said. “Just. . s’posin’.”

“Well.” Kolarich put out his hands. “If you tell me it’s your gun, if you put that in writing, I can agree not to charge you. The cops, they don’t give a fuck about what happens to you after the arrest. They just want their arrest to be righteous. They don’t want anyone saying they fucked up. So, yeah-you admit it was yours, and you agree to give up the gun-can you do that, surrender the gun?”

“Fuck.” Rivers flipped a hand. If it got him a pass, he’d hand that pistol over to God Himself.

“Okay, so nobody’s calling the cops liars, I make the decision not to prosecute you, and we get another gun off the street.”

Rivers pointed at him, animated now, seeing real hope for the first time. “And you put it in writing, too.”

Kolarich smiled. “You’re a smart man. Yeah, of course I will. In fact, I’ll write it first, so you know I’m being straight.”

Kolarich slid the notepad over in front of him and removed the Bic pen from his pocket.

In exchange for the statement below, the county attorney’s office agrees not to prosecute Marshall Rivers in state court for unlawful use of a weapon or for any other firearms charge and will transfer this matter in accordance with Operation Safe Streets. Mr. Rivers acknowledges that he’s been made aware of his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona.

Kolarich signed his name below the words and drew a signature line for Marshall Rivers, too. “There,” he said, sliding the notepad across to Rivers.

Rivers read it over, then looked up at Kolarich. “What’s that mean, a ‘transfer’?”

“It means I’m going to close the file,” said Kolarich. “I ‘transfer’ it from an ‘active’ case to a ‘closed’ case.”

Rivers looked down at the paper again. “And what’s this Oper-”

“Operation Safe Streets is our program for getting guns off the street. If you bring in a gun, we take it, no questions asked. That’s why I can do this, Marshall. That’s why I can give you a pass. Because you’re giving up the gun.”

The best lies, in Kolarich’s experience, had some truth interwoven. There had, truly, been programs like that in the past, sponsored by the city police department. Most people had heard of them, presumably Marshall included. Bring in your gun, we’ll take it off your hands, you walk away, no hassle.

But it wasn’t called Operation Safe Streets.

Rivers scratched at his face. “Should I get a lawyer?”

“That’s absolutely your right,” said Kolarich. “Might not be a bad idea. You want a lawyer to look at it, no problem.” He checked his watch. “Shit,” he said.

“What?”

Kolarich tapped his watch. There was a clock on the wall as well. “This time of night, there isn’t a public defender around. You can sleep in a cell downstairs and they’ll have one for you, maybe, noon tomorrow. Another twelve, thirteen hours. It’s absolutely your right,” he repeated. “Plus. . well. .” Kolarich grimaced.

“What?”

“Well, the coppers again.” Kolarich leaned his head on a hand. “Can I just say this? Cops are a pain in the ass.”

“What about ’em?”

Kolarich sighed. “The two cops that pinched you, they have to stay here until this is closed. They’ll have to stay here all night. I’m just worried that, if I make them wait, they’re going to say to me, Why not just charge Marshall so we can all go home? For them, that’s the easiest outcome. They just want me to sign off on a charge of unlawful use of a weapon so they can go home.” Kolarich sighed again. “Which, I suppose, is the easier thing to do, now that I’m thinking-”

“No, no.” Rivers waved his hands. “I wanna go home, too, right?”

Kolarich shrugged. “Yeah, we all do. But you definitely have the right to a lawyer-”

“Nah, nah. I get what this says. I get it.”

Rivers picked up his pen and started writing. He signed it in both places, next to Kolarich’s signature on the prefatory language and at the bottom after his written statement.

“Great,” said Kolarich after reading the statement. “You’ll be out of here in ten minutes, Marshall.” He extended a hand, and Rivers shook it.

“Appreciate that, man. Y’know, all of this.”

“No worries.”

Kolarich left the room with the piece of paper and walked into the squad room. Walking out of the kitchen was Steve Glockner, the assistant public defender assigned to the station house, holding a cup of coffee.

“Hey, Jason,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Not much. You?”

Glockner sighed. “Busy night. Sometimes I wish some of these mutts wouldn’t invoke.”

Glockner was prone to the occasional off-color remark about his clientele, but deep down he was a true believer in the Bill of Rights. Working inside this station house on a crazy multiple-day shift like Kolarich, but on the other side of the equation, he mainly wanted to make sure suspects didn’t confess without speaking to him first. But first they had to invoke, they had to utter those magical words: I want a lawyer. Until then, a public defender had no role in the process.

Kolarich put a hand on his shoulder. “The right to an attorney is inviolate,” he said. “Sacred. Cherished.”

Glockner gestured absently toward the interrogation rooms. “I heard someone came in on an attempted kidnapping?”

Kolarich made a face. “Didn’t pan out. Dropping that charge.”

Glockner put his face in the steam of the coffee. He was just as tired as Kolarich. “Score one for the bad guys,” he said.

When Glockner left, Kolarich looked around the squad room and had no difficulty finding his man. He looked like a bank manager in his suit.

“Mr. Kolarich?”

“Agent Drew?”

Special Agent Frank Drew was working the late-duty shift tonight for the FBI. He extended a hand to Kolarich. “Romie says you’re good people.”

Kolarich shook it. “What did he really say?”

Drew laughed. “He said he owes you.”

Patrick Romer was an assistant United States attorney who had worked with Kolarich on a joint state-federal drug operation last year. Kolarich had helped him beyond what was necessary, including helping a recalcitrant witness modify his attitude.

“This guy, Rivers, has one prior gun violation,” said Drew. “We usually want more than that for Safe Streets.”

Operation Safe Streets was a program launched by the U.S. Attorney’s Office that scooped eligible firearms cases from local law enforcement so that the cases could be prosecuted in federal court, where the penalties for repeat gun offenses could reach the double digits in years. Typically, they found offenders with multiple gun violations on their records and put them away for ten to fifteen years in federal prison.

“This is his third time using a gun,” said Kolarich. “He pleaded down the first one, so he only shows one gun violation. But it’s really two. Tonight is his third.”

“Only counts as two. You know that.”

“He’s a bad guy, Agent Drew.”

“Still.”

“Still, what? He attacks women. He’s evil, this guy. And anyway, is this your call?”

Drew smiled. “You know it’s not.”

“Romie authorized this,” said Kolarich. “He said if I got a confession, he’d authorize it. Well, I got a confession.”

Gun-toss cases could be tricky, Patrick Romer had told Kolarich over the phone. It’s one thing to find the gun on his person, another to find it on the street and say that you saw him toss it. A gun toss and only one prior gun conviction? he’d said. But Kolarich pushed the matter hard, and Romer finally got tired of listening to him. Get me a confession, Romer had said. You get me a confession, and we’ll prosecute.

“Romie authorized it,” Drew agreed. “I’m just saying, you won’t get fifteen years for this. Maybe ten, more like six or seven if he pleads-”

“Yeah, and we prosecute him in state court, it’ll be, like, two or three, probably. This guy attacks women, Agent Drew. This is his third victim. I’ll take six years over two any day.”

Drew wagged the file in his hand. “Speaking of women. What about this witness? Caridad. . Flores?”

Kolarich shook his head. “Dead end.”

“Dead end? Let me talk to her. She saw the gun.”

“No,” said Kolarich. “The cops saw the gun.”

“It says in this report she saw the gun. It says he stuck it in her baby’s face.”

“The report’s wrong. She didn’t.”

Drew didn’t look satisfied.

“You have two cops that saw the gun toss, Agent. And now you have a signed statement. That’s more than enough.”

“Where is Caridad Flores?” asked Agent Drew.

She was about twenty yards away from them.

“She’s in the wind,” said Kolarich. “She’s worthless. Isn’t really sure what she saw. You don’t need her, anyway.”

Drew’s lips bunched up. He read the statement and looked up at Kolarich. “By any chance would you know the immigration status of Ms. Flores?”

“Didn’t ask,” said Kolarich. “But I’ll tell you this, Agent Drew: If she’s undocumented, then she was pretty damn brave to run to the cops, wasn’t she? I’d call that heroic, wouldn’t you?”

Agent Drew studied him, maintaining that poker face they teach at Quantico, before releasing a sigh. “Fine,” he said. He removed a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “So where’s our guest of honor?”

“Better he hears it from me,” said Kolarich. “Give me one minute, then come in.”

Kolarich unlocked the interview room and found Marshall Rivers with his elbows on the table, his feet tapping a beat. He used the key to unlock the handcuff that tied Rivers’s wrist to the table.

“So I get to leave?” Marshall asked.

“You get to leave here. But you’re not going home, Marshall. You’re being taken into federal custody for unlawful possession of a weapon.”

Kolarich stood back. Marshall Rivers got to his feet and rubbed his unshackled wrist. “What?”

“You’re going to be prosecuted in federal court. You’ll receive four or five times the sentence you would’ve gotten in state court. How does that sound?”

“You lied to me?” Marshall’s chest rose and fell, the venomous hatred returning to his eyes. He lunged for Kolarich, his hands aiming for his throat. Kolarich brought his hands underneath Marshall’s arms, divided them, and stood Rivers up with a double forearm shiver. Then he drove Rivers backward, feeling the crunch of his body against drywall, the clacking of his teeth, the air escaping Rivers like a cushion. Kolarich grabbed his shirt, propping him up.

“Now you know how it feels to pick on someone your own size,” Kolarich whispered, “instead of a teenage girl.”

“I’ll. . remember this,” Rivers managed through gritted teeth. “You don’t know me.”

Kolarich flipped him around so Rivers’s face was planted in the wall, twisting one arm behind his back. “I know all I need to know,” he said. “You’re nobody to me, Marshall. You get that? You’re a fucking stain on the bottom of my shoe. I’ll forget you as soon as you’re gone.”

That last part was probably true. There was little original about Marshall Rivers. There were plenty of guys like him, and there’d be more to come. And this little stunt Kolarich pulled, yes, was probably over the line, but he was planning on losing absolutely zero sleep over it.

The door to the interview room opened. “Jesus!” Agent Drew shouted. He rushed over to the corner, where Kolarich had Marshall Rivers pinned to the wall. Drew cuffed him quickly and placed a hand between his shoulder blades. “There’s a protocol for a prisoner transfer,” he said to Kolarich. “You’re not supposed to uncuff him while I’m outside the room, for Christ’s sake.”

“That’s why I like this job,” Kolarich answered, straightening his tie. “You learn something new every day.”

Kolarich left the room and walked back down the hall to the squad room. Marshall Rivers bellowed behind him, his protests slowly fading as he was escorted down the stairs and out to the FBI car waiting for him.

Lisa the translator caught up with Kolarich as he entered the squad room. “What do I tell Caridad?” she asked.

“Tell her to go home and forget she ever met us. Tell her the bad guy’s going away for a long time and we won’t be needing her.”

He felt Lisa’s hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good egg, Charlie Brown.”

“Counselor.” The lieutenant stuck his head out his office door and nodded at Kolarich. “We have a double homicide in Cowan Park. Rosen will take you.”

Probably a gang shooting. It would consume the next twenty-four hours of his life, at a minimum. Kolarich rolled his neck, took a breath, and nodded.

“I’m on it,” he said.