So, Joe, really? You don’t remember anything?
No, he did not, and there was no guile about him. No shifting eyes, as if searching his head for something that might be helpful. None of the opposite either: the vomiting of scenarios, possibilities, and stories in hope that something will hit the wall and stick.
Maybe you walked by her place, though, or just in that direction? Maybe you were in her neighborhood, just for old times’ sake. I mean, you had just seen her. So maybe you wandered? It happens. I mean, if there’s video of you on those streets, Joe, we’re going to find it.
Rather than flatly denying any of that, which she had expected and which she probably would have done herself in his shoes, he had just shrugged. No, he didn’t think he had. He never walked very far to begin with, and he certainly didn’t make a habit of going by his ex-girlfriend’s place. He respected her decisions and her distance. Yes, he had loved seeing her after Lois’s body had been found. He had been grateful for their time together that day. He knew what it was, though—an act of friendship, nothing more—and he had no intention of trying to follow up, let alone walk over to where she lived.
But could he swear to it? Well, no. He just didn’t remember. The whole night was black. Most of Thursday night was gone also. He knew a few things he had done on Friday, earlier in the day. He had been hungover. He had gone to the liquor store. By evening he was deep in a bottle, then headed over to Greeley’s just for a change of pace. Next thing he knew, he was waking up on his boat. That, he maintained, happened regularly during the months the boat was in the water. If he was going to wander, that’s the direction he’d go in, and apparently he had. That was all he could say.
In a way, Zochi felt that she shouldn’t have been surprised. Joe DeSantos was not her typical interviewee. He was not a gangbanging kid trying to sound tougher than he was or some fuckhead wife killer or baby shaker, figuring his bullshit and swagger would work on her like it did helpless family members. Joe was a veteran criminal practitioner. He had seen both sides, and he knew cop psychology. She tried to adjust for that. She wasn’t acting like she was still on his side, trying to find the murderer of the woman he seemed to refer to only as Lois. Instead, she went at him as neutrally as she could muster. It boiled down to this:
We talked, you and me. We had a moment, even, while digging through your boxed-up childhood. But let’s not bullshit each other. I have a job to do. I’m focused on you now, and you know it. So one of two things happens. Either you crack and fold—start sobbing and tell me you snapped and murdered your ex-lover, maybe even your mother too—or you at least allow for the possibility. And then things start to unravel. Maybe you try to play crackerjack attorney and outfox me at my own game. I’ll see that, though, and take note of it.
The highest hope from the division on down was that Detective Xochitl Hernandez would close two major murder cases that day. She would break the drunken middle-aged lawyer suspect and reveal him to be some unhinged rage machine under his sad-sack exterior.
That had not happened.
Right. So why I am not more pissed off?
It was a fair question. Zochi was humble. She worked to live and not the other way around, but she had an ego like anyone else. If Joe was the guy, she would have loved to have broken him into confessing. She’d be more than the Queen of Brooklyn South for a few weeks, soaking up attaboys from inspectors and deputy chiefs. She might actually be in line for a promotion to first-grade detective—the very top—or at least to some plush assignment. In NYPD parlance, it was “the Door,” the case that took you to the next level. Today had not opened the Door, but she wasn’t entirely sure that was a bad thing.
Why? Because she wasn’t certain, not 100 percent, that Joe was the guy. It looked right, sure. She understood why everyone was so excited to nab Joe for both Lois and Holly. It wasn’t just a rush to close a case; it made sense. The vast majority of murders are committed by perpetrators who know their victims. In this case, two women with clear connections to Joe—and possible conflicts with him as well—were dead. Both women had their heads wrenched back, their necks broken. And, Joe could offer no alibi for either murder.
It’s just a matter of time, Gallagher had said, patting her on the back after Joe had finally gathered his belongings from the desk sergeant and scuttled off. We’ll scour his phone. We’ll look at a million fuckin’ cameras. We’ll nail him, Hernandez. You did good today.
Yeah, maybe.