Rook sat himself up. “I’m fine, thanks for asking.”
“Nice work slowing him down like that. Is that how you rolled in Chechnya?”
“The guy jumped me after I tripped.” He pointed under his foot to a bag from the museum store. “On that.” Rook opened it up and pulled out an art glass paperweight of a planet. “Check it out. I tripped on Uranus.”
When Heat and Rook entered the Interrogation Room, the prisoner snapped upright at the table the way fourth-?graders do when the principal walks in. Rook took the side chair. Nikki Heat tossed a file on the table but stayed on her feet. “Stand up,” she said. And Barry Gable did. The detective walked a circle around him, enjoying his nervousness. She bent low to examine his blue jeans for any rips that could match the fabric shard the killer had left on the railing. “What did you do here?”
Gable arched himself to look at the scuff she was pointing to on the back of his leg. “I dunno. Maybe I scraped them on the Dumpster. These are brand-?new,” he added, as if that might put him in a more favorable light.
“We’re going to want your pants.” The guy started to unhitch them right there, and she said, “Not now. After. Sit down.” He complied, and she eased into the seat opposite, all casual, all in charge. “You want to tell us why you attacked Kimberly Starr?”
“Ask her,” he said, trying to sound tough but shooting nervous looks at himself in the mirror, a giveaway to her he had never sat in Interrogation before.
“I’m asking you, Barry,” said Heat.
“It’s personal.”
“It is to me. Battery like that against a woman? I can get very personal about that. You want to see how personal?”
Rook chimed in, “Plus you assaulted me.”
“Hey, you were chasing me. How did I know what you were going to pull? I can tell a mile away you’re not a cop.”
Heat kind of liked that. She arched an eyebrow at Rook and he sat back to stew. She turned back to Gable. “Not your first assault, I see, is it, Barry?” She made a show of opening the file. There weren’t many pages in it, but her theater made him more uneasy, so she made the most of it. “Two thousand six scrape with a bouncer in SoHo; 2008, you pushed a guy who caught you keying the side of his Mercedes.”
“Those were all misdemeanors.”
“Those were all assaults.”
“I lose it sometimes.” He forced a John Candy chuckle. “Guess I should stay out of the bars.”
“And maybe spend more time at the gym,” said Rook.
Heat gave him a cool-?it glance. Barry had turned to the mirror again and adjusted his shirt around his gut. Heat closed the file and said, “Can you tell us your whereabouts this afternoon, say around one to two P.M.?”
“I want my lawyer.”
“Sure. Would you like to wait for him here or down in the Zoo Lockup?” It was an empty threat that only worked on newbies, and Gable’s eyes widened. Underneath the hard-?ass face she fixed on him, Heat was loving how easily he caved. Gotta love the Zoo Lockup. Works every time.
“I was at the Beacon, you know, the Beacon Hotel on Broadway?”
“You do know we will check your alibi. Is there anyone who saw you and can vouch for you?”
“I was alone in my room. Maybe somebody at the front desk in the morning.”
“That hedge fund you operate pays for a mighty nice address on East 52nd. Why book a hotel?”
“Come on, are you going to make me say this?” He stared at his own pleading eyes in the mirror then nodded to himself. “I go there a couple times a week. To meet somebody. You know.”
“For sex?” asked Rook.
“Jeez, yeah, sex is part of it. It goes deeper than that.”
“And what happened today?” asked Heat.
“She didn’t show.”
“Bad for you, Barry. She could be your alibi. Does she have a name?”
“Yeah. Kimberly Starr.”