Touch Of The White Tiger. Julie Beard
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publicity.”
“I wanted to help the girls,” I shot back.
“You were jealous and angry that when Victor needed a retribution job done, he didn’t turn to you like his father had.”
I frowned slowly. “Wait a minute. How did you know about—”
“You didn’t want Roy to horn in on your domain as CRS for the mayor’s family.”
“That’s absurd.”
“So when you found out that Roy was meeting Victor at the Cloisters, you came to express your anger. You were the only one with a gun. Before the night was through, you used it. You killed Roy Leibman and Victor Alvarez.”
I shut my eyes. I shouldn’t have. It would probably be construed as a sign of guilt. But suddenly my eyelids were too heavy to bear. I could take no more. It had become abundantly clear the Diva wasn’t going to cut me any more slack than Lieutenant Townsend had. No surprise there, since he was doubtless programming her with the questions.
The lights came on suddenly. I opened my eyes and found the Diva had disappeared. My chair righted itself and the restraints retreated with a slight hum. Townsend came out of a door near the three-way mirror.
“Speak of the devil,” I muttered to myself as I swung my feet to the floor and rubbed my wrists. When he came close enough for me to shiver at the sight of his gray, reptilian eyes, I said sarcastically, “So, did I pass the test?”
“Yes.”
I blinked twice and tried unsuccessfully to read his urbane, starched features. The Diva showed more emotion than this automaton. “I don’t understand.”
“Based on your eye movements, the D.I.V.A.S. program has come to the conclusion that you did not lie during your interrogation.”
I squelched the urge to say I told you so!
“However, there is a great difference between not lying and telling the truth. Normally, passing the D.I.V.A.S. test would be enough to free yourself from suspicion. But your phone records offer a compelling contradiction to your testimony. Combined with a compelling motive for the murders, that offers us enough evidence of probable cause to hold you over for trial.”
“But I passed the test.”
“Article 34.A of the new 2104 Interrogation Bill passed by the city council two weeks ago allows the lead investigator to override test results in the case of probable cause.”
I stared at him, speechless.
I was aware that the legislature had passed a law designed to add so-called teeth to the bill that had established Q.E.D. two years ago. But I hadn’t realized the “teeth” would be biting my rear end.
“I’m innocent, Townsend,” I said. “If you’re going to abuse due process in the name of public safety, you ought to at least wait until you have a real criminal at your mercy.”
His gray eyes glittered keenly. “Don’t tell me you didn’t consider the new law when you elected to face the Diva. Didn’t the public defender assigned to your case tell you that?”
I hadn’t given him a chance, but I wasn’t about to admit that to Townsend. “No, he didn’t.”
“That’s a pity.” Townsend’s lips turned up in a shadow of a smile. “Angel Baker, you are now officially charged with double homicide.”
No question about it. The fat lady had sung, loud and clear.
Chapter 4
Guilty Until Proven Innocent
The sun was coming up when I finally emerged from the Crypt under armed guard. We stood a moment at the discreet underground entrance, taking in the fresh air. A pink mist hovered over the lake to the east, and across the street coils of silver steam rose from the Chicago River, an entrenched waterway that snaked through the city, splitting it in two.
Momentarily forgetting my troubles, I breathed in the glorious scent of city grime and baking pastries. A deli at the corner was about to open. Freshly brewed coffee wafted from the storefront’s vents. It was a little after 5:30 a.m. Rush hour was a noisy bubble about to burst. Meanwhile, the streets remained surprisingly tranquil. A light breeze picked up, and a little tornado of discarded papers and candy wrappers whirled around us, then rolled away, so much urban tumbleweed.
God, I love this city, I thought, feeling a surge of affection that brought moisture to my eyes. Funny how the threat of imprisonment could make you appreciate even the downside of urban life.
“There she is! Angel! Angel Baker!”
Tensing, I looked to my left and saw a couple of television live trucks parked on the other side of the street. Several well-dressed reporters hurried toward me with photographers dressed in flak jackets and combat boots trailing after them, cameras mounted on their helmets, their wireless controls imbedded in their touch belts. The photographers looked as if they were ready for a war zone, which was a good description of some downtown streets they had to cruise on various news assignments. The reporters could hang back and do a live report on the set with the anchors, but the photogs had to dodge sniper fire and gang wars to get pictures for air.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said to the cop gripping my right arm. He watched the approaching media without batting an eye.
Suddenly feeling abused, I realized this journey down the block from the station to the criminal processing center had been arranged specifically so that the media could get me on camera. It was one of many ways the police and the media worked hand-in-hand. We could have taken the underground passageway between the center and P.S. #1, but then the reporters wouldn’t have gotten their all-important “pictures.”
This was what my foster-brother Hank Bassett, a television producer, called “walking the suspect.” The police made sure suspects were paraded for the cameras. In return, the grateful press was more inclined to give cops favorable news coverage. There was nothing overtly unethical about the arrangement, but now that I was a suspect, it all smacked of collusion.
The walking shot would then be used over and over again on the news as file footage whenever there were new developments in my case. I would be forever immortalized in newsroom archives. Even if I won the Nobel Peace Prize twenty years from now, they’d pull out this footage of me in handcuffs for a retrospective of my life. Oh joy.
“Okay, let’s go,” the cop finally said when four camera crews were practically breathing down my neck.
“Angel, did you do it?” shouted one female reporter, shoving a microphone the size of a pen in my face.
I jerked my head away and kept walking. The camera operators walked backward in front of me, their head gear recording my every grimace and scowl.
“Angel, do you have anything to say to the Chinese girls you rescued?” said a good-looking male reporter.
“Why did you kill the mayor’s son, Baker?”
I turned sharply to see who had shouted this last outrageous question and came face-to-face with Rodney Delaney, a gruff, gray-haired reporter who had been in detox at least five times for five different addictions, according to Hank. Delaney’s face had more lines than a sushi chef’s cutting board, and his nose had more skeins of broken veins than the legs of an aging drag queen.
“What did you say, Delaney?” I demanded to know.
“Who paid you to kill the mayor’s son?” he shot back out of the side of his mouth, clearly trying to egg me into a good sound bite.
I jabbed his chest with a forefinger. “Look here, you presumptuous, drunken, ambulance-chasing—”
“Back off, Delaney!” A man in his midtwenties, with red hair and light freckles, pushed his way through the crowd. It took me a minute to realize it was my foster brother. Hank shoved Delaney back, then pulled me into a fierce hug.