the Third Twin

9

THEY TOOK STEVE DOWNTOWN IN THE PALE BLUE DODGE Colt. The woman detective drove and the other one, a heavyset white man with a mustache, sat beside her, looking cramped in the little car. No one spoke.

Steve quietly seethed with resentment. Why the hell should he be riding in this uncomfortable car, his wrists in handcuffs, when he ought to be sitting in Jeannie Ferrami’s apartment with a cold drink in his hand? They had just better get this over with quickly, that was all.

Police headquarters was a pink granite building in Baltimore’s red-light district, among the topless bars and porn outlets. They drove up a ramp and parked in the internal garage. It was full of police cruisers and cheap compacts like the Colt.

They took Steve up in an elevator and put him in a room with yellow-painted walls and no windows. They took off his handcuffs then left him alone. He assumed they locked the door: he did not check.

There was a table and two hard plastic chairs. On the table was an ashtray containing two cigarette butts, both filter tips, one with lipstick on it. Set into the door was a pane of opaque glass: Steve could not see out, but he guessed they could see in.

Looking at the ashtray, he wished he smoked. It would be something to do here in this yellow cell. Instead he paced up and down.

He told himself he could not really be in trouble. He had managed to get a look at the picture on the flyer, and although it was more or less like him, it was not him. No doubt he resembled the rapist, but when he stood in the lineup with several other tall young men, the victim would not pick him out. After all, the poor woman must have looked long and hard at the bastard who did it: his face would be burned into her memory. She would not make a mistake.

But the cops had no right to keep him waiting like this. Okay, they had to eliminate him as a suspect, but they did not have to take all night about it. He was a law-abiding citizen.

He tried to look on the bright side. He was getting a close-up view of the American justice system. He would be his own lawyer: it would be good practice. When in the future he represented a client accused of a crime, he would know what the person was going through in police custody.

He had seen the inside of a precinct house once before, but that had felt very different. He was only fifteen. He had gone to the police with one of his teachers. He had admitted the crime immediately and told the police candidly everything that had happened. They could see his injuries: it was obvious the fight had not been one-sided. His parents had come to take him home.

That had been the most shameful moment of his life. When Mom and Dad walked into that room, Steve wished he were dead. Dad looked mortified, as if he had suffered a great humiliation; Mom’s expression showed grief; they both looked bewildered and wounded. At the time, it was all he could do not to burst into tears, and he still felt choked up whenever he recalled it.

But this was different. This time he was innocent.

The woman detective came in carrying a cardboard file folder. She had taken off her jacket, but she still wore the gun on her belt. She was an attractive black woman of about forty, a little on the heavy side, and she had an I’m-in-charge air.

Steve looked at her with relief. ‘Thank God,” he said.

“For what?”

“That something is happening. I don’t want to be here all damn night.”

“Would you sit down, please?”

Steve sat.

“My name is Sergeant Michelle Delaware.” She took a sheet of paper from the folder and put it on the table. “What’s your full name and address?”

He told her, and she wrote it on the form. “Age?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Education?”

“I have a college degree.”

She wrote on the form then pushed it across to him. It was headed:

POLICE DEPARTMENT

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

EXPLANATION OF RIGHTS

Form 69

“Please read the five sentences on the form, then write your initials in the spaces provided beside each sentence.” She passed him a pen.

He read the form and started to initial.

“You have to read aloud,” she said. He thought for a moment. “So that you know I’m literate?” he asked.

“No. It’s so that you can’t later pretend to be illiterate and claim that you were not informed of your rights.”

This was the kind of thing they did not teach you in law school.

He read: “You are hereby advised that: One, you have the absolute right to remain silent.” He wrote SL in the space at the end of the line, then read on, initialing each sentence. “Two, anything you say or write may be used against you in a court of law. Three, you have the right to talk with a lawyer at any time, before any questioning, before answering any questions, or during any questioning. Four, if you want a lawyer and cannot afford to hire one, you will not be asked any questions, and the court will be requested to appoint a lawyer for you. Five, if you agree to answer questions, you may stop at any time and request a lawyer, and no further questions will be asked of you.”

“Now sign your name, please.” She pointed to the form. “Here, and here.” The first space for signature was underneath the sentence

I HAVE READ THE ABOVE EXPLANATION OF MY

RIGHTS, AND I FULLY UNDERSTAND IT.

Signature

Steve signed.

“And just below,” she said.

I am willing to answer questions, and I do not want any attorney at this time. My decision to answer questions without having an attorney present is free and voluntary on my part.

Signature

He signed and said: “How the hell do you get guilty people to sign that?”

She did not answer him. She printed her name, then signed the form.

She put the form back in the folder and looked at him. “You’re in trouble, Steve,” she said. “But you seem like a regular guy. Why don’t you just tell me what happened?”

“I can’t,” he said. “I wasn’t there. I guess I just look like the jerk that did it.”

She sat back, crossed her legs, and gave him a friendly smile. “I know men,” she said in an intimate tone. “They have urges.”

If I didn’t know better, Steve thought, I’d read her body language and say she was coming on to me.

She went on: “Let me tell you what I think. You’re an attractive man, she took a shine to you.”

“I’ve never met this woman, Sergeant.”

She ignored that. Leaning across the table, she covered his hand with her own. “I think she provoked you.”

Steve looked at her hand. She had good nails, manicured, not too long, varnished with clear nail polish. But the hand was wrinkled: she was older than forty, maybe forty-five.

She spoke in a conspiratorial voice, as if to say “This is just between you and me.” “She was asking for it, so you gave it to her. Am I right?”

“Why the hell would you think that?” Steve said with irritation.

“I know what girls are like. She led you on then, at the last minute, she changed her mind. But it was too late. A man can’t just stop, just like that, not a real man.”

“Oh, wait, I get it,” Steve said. “The suspect agrees with you, imagining that he’s making it look better for himself; but in fact he’s admitted that intercourse took place, and half of your job is done.”

Sergeant Delaware sat back, looking annoyed, and Steve figured he had guessed right.

She stood up. “Okay, smart-ass, come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“The cells.”

“Wait a minute. When’s the lineup?”

“As soon as we can reach the victim and bring her in here.”

“You can’t hold me indefinitely without some court procedure.”

“We can hold you for twenty-four hours without any procedure, so button your lip and let’s go.”

She took him down in the elevator and through a door into a lobby that was painted a dull orange brown. A notice on the wall reminded officers to keep suspects handcuffed while searching them. The turnkey, a black policeman in his fifties, stood at a high counter. “Hey, Spike,” said Sergeant Delaware. “Got a smart-ass college boy for you.”

The turnkey grinned. “If he’s so smart, how come he’s in here?”

They both laughed. Steve made a mental note not to tell cops, in the future, when he had second-guessed them. It was a failing of his: he had antagonized his schoolteachers the same way. Nobody liked a wise guy.

The cop called Spike was small and wiry, with gray hair and a little mustache. He had a perky air but there was a cold look in his eyes. He opened a steel door. “You coming through to the cells, Mish?” he said. “I got to ask you to check your weapon if so.”

“No, I’m finished with him for now,” she said. “He’ll be in a lineup later.” She turned and left.

“This way, boy,” the turnkey said to Steve.

He went through the door.

He was in the cell block. The walls and floor were the same muddy color. Steve thought the elevator had stopped at the second floor, but there were no windows, and he felt as if he were in a cavern deep underground and it would take him a long time to climb back to the surface.

In a little anteroom was a desk and a camera on a stand. Spike took a form from a pigeonhole. Reading it upside down, Steve saw it was headed

POLICE DEPARTMENT

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

PRISONER ACTIVITY REPORT FORM 92/12

The man took the cap off a ballpoint pen and began to fill out the form.

When it was done he pointed to a spot on the ground and said: “Stand right there.”

Steve stood in front of the camera. Spike pressed a button and there was a flash.

‘Turn sideways.”

There was another flash.

Next Spike took out a square card printed in pink ink and headed

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION,

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

WASHINGTON, DC 20537

Spike inked Steve’s fingers and thumbs on a pad then pressed them to squares on the card marked 1.R.THUMB, 2.R.INDEX, and so on. Steve noticed that Spike, though a small man, had big hands with prominent veins. As he did so, Spike said conversationally: “We have a new Central Booking Facility over at the city jail on Greenmount Avenue, and they have a computer that takes your prints without ink. It’s like a big photocopy machine: you just press your hands on the glass. But down here we’re still using the dirty old system.”

Steve realized he was beginning to feel ashamed, even though he had not committed a crime. It was partly the grim surroundings, but mainly the feeling of powerlessness. Ever since the cops burst out of the patrol car outside Jeannie’s house, he had been moved around like a piece of meat, with no control over himself. It brought a man’s self-esteem down fast.

When his fingerprints were done he was allowed to wash his hands.

“Permit me to show you to your suite,” Spike said jovially.

He led Steve down the corridor with cells to the left and right. Each cell was roughly square. On the side that gave on to the corridor there was no wall, just bars, so that every square inch of the cell was clearly visible from outside. Through the bars Steve could see that each cell had a metal bunk fixed to the wall and a stainless-steel toilet and washbasin. The walls and bunks were painted orange brown and covered with graffiti. The toilets had no lids. In three or four of the cells a man lay listlessly on the bunk, but most of them were empty. “Monday’s a quiet day here at the Lafayette Street Holiday Inn,” Spike joked.

Steve could not have laughed to save his life.

Spike stopped in front of an empty cell. Steve stared inside as the cop unlocked the door. There was no privacy. Steve realized that if he needed to use the toilet he would have to do it in full view of anyone, man or woman, who happened to be walking along the corridor. Somehow that was more humiliating than anything else.

Spike opened a gate in the bars and ushered Steve inside. The gate crashed shut and Spike locked it.

Steve sat on the bunk. “Jesus Christ almighty, what a place,” he said.

“You get used to it,” Spike said cheerfully, and he went away.

A minute later he came back carrying a Styrofoam package. “I got a dinner left,” he said. “Fried chicken. You want some?”

Steve looked at the package, then at the open toilet, and shook his head. “Thanks all the same,” he said. “I guess I’m not hungry.”