At least the FDCs didn’t smell like the local jails. Though as bad as decades of accreted sweat and urine could be, the federal devotion to unlimited ammonia and bleach was only a marginal improvement.
She pulled the second chair away from the table and sat. Schrader’s chair was bolted to the floor and his ankles were manacled to it. You own the room, they’d taught her. Make sure the subject feels it.
She made him wait for a moment—you never know what a prisoner might say. But Schrader offered nothing. He just sat there, watching her, his expression perplexed. The orange jumpsuit, which could make the hard cases look even harder, on Schrader was more like a clown costume. And the missing hairpiece—a constant in the society magazine photos, but confiscated upon his arrest—was worse. Without it, he looked older. Exhausted. Exposed.
“Surprised to see me?” Diaz said.
He did look surprised, but not in the way she’d expected. He shook his head. “My lawyer told you. I’m not going to plead. And where is she, anyway? Isn’t she supposed to be here if you’re talking to me?”
She had hoped he wouldn’t ask. A request for a lawyer turned a gray-area conversation into something black-letter inadmissible. Well, there was no one else in the room. Not even any cameras. And besides, she hadn’t come for a confession. She just needed to confront him. Stare him down.
“We already have you on child trafficking,” she said. “Racketeering. Sex with underage girls, at least some of whom were drugged when they were assaulted. So why not add conspiracy to commit murder? I guess you figured you had nothing to lose.”
“What?”
He really did look surprised. And worried. But not in that Shit, they’re on to me way she’d learned to spot. This was something else.
“Come on, Andrew. Six people are dead in Freeway Park. Six people who were waiting for me. You going to tell me you didn’t know anything about that?”
He shook his head, his mouth hanging open. Shit, she thought. He really doesn’t know.
He didn’t just look surprised, though. He looked . . . scared.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“You really think murdering me is going to get you out of here? I just gave an interview at Freeway Park in front of a battalion of television reporters. It’s going to be nonstop speculation about what happened in the park and your potential involvement. You had some support before, I’ll admit it. Your money. Your connections. But I’m untouchable now, do you understand that? Got any ideas for what that means for you?”
Did he lose some color at that? Yes, he did. Good.
“I didn’t do anything,” he whined. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know anything about this.”
It sounded like some sort of self-comfort mantra. She sensed an opening and decided to press it.
“You know what happened at New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center on the night Epstein died? Two out of three cameras malfunctioned. The third was pointed in the wrong direction. What video they did have was subsequently accidentally deleted. Oh, and two guards forgot to check on the prisoner the entire night. What do you make of all that?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You want to know what all the beefed-up video outside your cell and the rotating guard checks cost the state? You want to know how many of the higher-ups have pressured me to get rid of it all because they say it’s too expensive and you’re not worth it?”
Framed as a question, it wasn’t a lie. But the truth was, no one had pressured her. The precautions were coming from FDC management as much as they were from Diaz.
The room was cool, but beads of sweat had sprung out on Schrader’s scalp. “I didn’t do anything,” he said again. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. They know that. They know that.”