I walk around to the other side and climb in. My ten-year-old Chevy isn’t exactly a limousine, but it beats the hell out of a prison transport bus.
“Your own personal copy,” I say, dropping a New York Post on his lap, the front-page headline NEW YORK OWES YOU AN APOLOGY—quoting the judge—with the text underneath, Officer’s Emotional Testimony Clears “Surfer Jesus” of Murder Charges.
Noah reads a little of the article, then exhales and gazes out the window. “I didn’t think your testimony was emotional,” he says. “I couldn’t tell how you felt.”
“That makes two of us.”
He looks over at me but doesn’t say anything. Pure heat radiates off him, the source of which I can’t place. Maybe anger, aggression, bottled-up rage. I kick on the air-conditioning. Must be the unseasonably warm March weather. That must be it. Yeah.
Not a word passes between us as I turn onto the Long Island Expressway. I focus on the road and flip through the radio channels; no kind of music seems right, so I go to talk radio, all about spring training for the Yankees and Mets. It’s been so warm in New York this March, I’m not sure the Yankees even needed to travel to Tampa to practice.
All the while, Noah says nothing, just stares at me. Once again, I turn the AC down—or up, whatever, I make it colder—and pull my shirt off my sticky chest. Something flutters through me, some sense of foreboding, danger, anxiety.
“You wanna stop staring at me?” I say.
“Are you gonna arrest me?”
I look over at him, his prison haircut—high and tight—accentuating his thick neck and shoulders, concealed previously by his long hair. The beard is gone, too, but he hasn’t shaved in a couple of days.
“You’re sweating,” he says.
“No, I’m not.”
“My mistake.” But he’s still turned toward me, as if, at any moment, he might lunge at me or something. That wouldn’t be a smart move for a guy who’s finally tasting freedom again. But maybe he likes doing that, living on the edge, pushing his luck. Or maybe he just wants to make me nervous.
We drive like that for a while. I turn up the radio, as if hearing the speculation over Mariano Rivera—will 2012 be his last year?—at a higher volume will somehow shield me from Noah’s stare.
As we’re driving through Queens, he breaks the silence.
“Do you expect me to thank you?”
“No,” I say. “I don’t need your gratitude.”
“Good. Because you don’t have it. You lied at the trial. You’re the reason I got locked up to begin with.”
I whip the car to the right, swerving across a lane of traffic, just making the exit for Little Neck Parkway. I find a small park by Horace Harding and pull the car over.
“Get out,” I say as I push the car door open. I walk into the park and wait for him to meet me there. He walks toward me briskly. For a moment, I think he’s not going to stop, that he’s going to knock right into me, or put his hands on my throat. He stops just short of me, close enough that I can see a tiny nick above his lip, that I can smell him, that prison smell of sweat and rage.
“Did you kill them?” I ask.
His eyes narrow and his head tilts slightly, like he doesn’t get the question.
“You have double jeopardy now,” I say. “No one can ever prosecute you again for Melanie and Zach. So now it’s just you and me. Did you kill them?”
He smiles, bemused. “You gotta be kidding.”
“You were framed, yes, but that doesn’t mean you’re innocent. Lang thought you were guilty. He just didn’t think he could prove it. You can frame a guilty—”
“No,” he spits. “I didn’t kill them.”
My heart banging against my chest, choking my throat, my hands balling into fists, I ask my next question. “What about my uncle?”
He shakes his head. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Tell me,” I say.
He regards me for a moment. He takes another step forward, leaning into me so close, it’s as if he’s about to make a pass at me. I hold my breath and steel myself.
“I … don’t think I have double jeopardy for that murder, now do I, Detective?”
“You might as well,” I say. “You’re a media darling. We’d look vindictive if we prosecuted you again. Sebastian Akers would sooner swallow his own tongue. So what’s it gonna be, cowboy?”
His nose almost touching mine, his breath on my face, his eyes searching mine, that heat radiating off him. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll answer your question.”
His face moves around mine, his razor stubble against my cheek, his lips touching my ear.
“I didn’t kill your uncle,” he whispers. He draws back, turns, and walks to the car.
45