“It’s in there,” he said with a gesture to the confession. “I said she was buying a ticket at the machine near the parking lot. And it’s rained a lot since then.” He gave her a satisfied look as if he had seen through an attempt to trip him up.
Over the next hour, Heat tried to knock him off his declaration either by misstating things he’d written or by rapid-firing questions about details out of order, knowing that most liars adhere to sequence as their means of sounding credible. He nimbly adjusted to everything she threw at him, and Nikki pictured Irons behind the glass, gloating. Spooner had just finished describing the front of her building in Gramercy Park when she said, “We have more to talk about, but I’m going to get something to drink. You thirsty, Hank?”
“Well, sure,” he said with that smile nearing adoration.
As she passed through Observation One, Irons rose from a chair. “What’s going on? Aren’t you satisfied yet?” She just smiled and stepped out the hallway door, so he turned to Raley and Ochoa. “She always like this?”
“Always,” said Roach.
Hank Spooner perked up again when Heat returned a few minutes later with two cans of soda. She popped the tops, took a sip of hers, and set the other in front of him. He just stared at it. “Something wrong?” she asked.
“Do you have anything else?”
“Sorry Hank, this isn’t McDonald’s. What wrong with it?”
“Nothing, unless you’re trying to kill me.” He slid the orange Pellegrino as far away as he could reach. “I told you. I have a bad citrus allergy. One sip of that, and I’m in the hospital or dead.”
“Oh, sorry. Wasn’t thinking. I love them. Keep my own stash in the fridge here.” She picked up his can and her own and walked toward the door.
“You’re good,” he said. When she turned and gave him a puzzled look, he continued, “The orange soda. You were just testing to see if I was lying about my citrus allergy.” He gave her a wink. “Nice one.”
“Busted,” she said.
When she entered the Observation Room again, Irons said, “Well, are you satisfied he’s our killer?”
“No.”
“How can you not be? His story’s solid as a rock.”
“So what? Like I said, it’s a story anybody could have put together from public knowledge.”
“But like I said, the man confessed.”
“Sure, because he’s got some sort of fame psychosis or stalker agenda he’s working out and I’m the lucky object of his desire. Leave that to the shrinks. He’s lying, and I can prove it.”
“How? He answered all your questions.”
“True, but there’s one hold back on this case that didn’t get leaked. And it’s my own. Whoever killed my mother took a can of soda from our fridge right afterward and gulped it down.” She held up the orange San Pellegrinos. “It was one of these. Sixteen percent real citrus juice.” As it registered on Irons and he turned to gawk at Spooner through the glass, she said, “You can book Allergy Hank on whatever you want, but my mom’s murder? Forget it.”
Captain Irons stood gaping through the ob window at his prize suspect when she left.
Detectives Raley and Ochoa were at their desks when Heat came back into the Squad Room, and she corralled them to the back hallway, out of earshot of the rest of the bull pen, and closed the door. “Sorry to go all Deep Throat, but I need this handled with discretion.”
“Want me to get Sharon Hinesburg so she can join us?” said Ochoa.
“Do,” she said. “And let me put Tam Svejda from the Ledger on my speaker phone.” After they had a good laugh, Heat opened up the accordion file of bank documents her father had given her. The two detectives’ faces sobered as Nikki briefed them on the account her mother held in secret from her dad. “I can’t go into the significance of it, but I need someone I can absolutely trust to quietly—but thoroughly—trace its activity. Especially in November 1999.”
“Done,” said Raley, taking the documents from her.
“And if he blabs,” said his partner, “I’ll cap his ass.”