The Breakthrough (16 page)

“Thanks for behaving yourself, Mr. Mannock,” Jack said as he helped DeWayne out of the backseat in the underground garage at the 11th.

Mannock looked wary to Boone, who assumed the man was both struggling to adjust to the low light and keeping an eye out for shenanigans from Keller. He was still quiet when they reached the elevator, Keller on his left, Boone on his right. When it opened, Mannock mince-stepped aboard, careful to avoid the door.

“Can I talk now?” DeWayne said. “’Cause I—”

“I wouldn’t,” Boone said, nodding toward Jack as if the last thing he wanted to do was get that man riled. DeWayne shook his head and puffed out his cheeks.

Boone himself was in crisis mode. It was all he could do to keep from slamming Mannock against the wall of the elevator and demanding to know where Max was. If he was sure of anything, though, it was that DeWayne did not likely know. Who in their right mind would trust a scumbag like him with that kind of information?

Still, Boone imagined holding the cold muzzle of his Beretta against Mannock’s temple and demanding to know how he slept at night, knowing he had put his own offspring in danger. Up till now, Boone had assumed Mannock had never even seen Max. But somebody had been staking out the boy and Haeley and even Florence. And it hadn’t been that long since Boone himself had accosted DeWayne in the cul-de-sac in front of his own house and endured the cockamamie reason Mannock had used for wanting to talk with Haeley.

DeWayne was uncuffed and taken to be fingerprinted. “How many times you guys gotta do this?” he said. “I mean, I been fingerprinted a half-dozen times, at least in Indiana. I’m not in your system?”

“Didja hear that, Chief Drake?” Keller said. “This upstanding citizen has an idea how we can improve our efficiency.”

“Impressive, Chief Keller. Maybe we should give him a form he can put in our suggestion box.”

“Just tired of gettin’ ink all over me.”

“Well, then, welcome to the twenty-first century, DeWayne,” Keller said, sidling close to Mannock. “Guess you Hoosiers haven’t caught up, but here we scan. No ink.” At first it appeared DeWayne was trying to stare Jack down, but when Keller leaned close and said, “Boo!” the prisoner flinched.

“I’m kinda scared of this guy, Chief Drake,” Keller said. “Aren’t you?”

“Shaking, Chief Keller.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, taking Mannock by the arm. “Tough customer. Think we ought to cuff him again for transport to interrogation?”

“Nah, let’s take our chances.”

“Yeah, and hope he tries something.”

As they led DeWayne into the interview room upstairs, Boone and Jack were met by 11th District Commander Heathcliff Jones, who had always reminded Boone of Fletcher Galloway. Not all commanders dressed in uniform every day, but Jones did. A big man with a deep voice, he always looked the part.

“Everybody’s in place,” he said. “Detective Johnson is on his way. We’ll watch from out here, and sound and video are rolling. Drake, we’re all here for you, man.”

Boone appreciated that, but it went without saying. The brotherhood under the blue had each other’s backs, as the cliché went. Anytime one suffered, the others were there. But all Boone wanted to hear just then was that someone had a solid lead. Something. Anything.

Boone was too antsy to sit, so he stationed himself standing in a corner, thinking it would put him behind Mannock.

But DeWayne had to know he was on stage, that this case was a big deal to the 11th. He also must have felt safe, knowing that Chief Keller was being watched as closely as he was. DeWayne quickly lost his mousy tentativeness, immediately strode to the chair usually reserved for the interrogator, flipped it around, and straddled it as he sat, facing Boone and resting his elbows on the table.

“That’s my chair,” Keller said. “You’re over there.”

Mannock sighed as if disgusted, rose slowly, and sauntered to the other side of the table. When he started to flip that chair around, Keller said, “Just leave it the way it is. This is my house, not yours.”

Mannock lifted the chair and let it bang on the floor, then flopped into it and slouched, arms folded, his back to Boone.

“You’re gonna give me attitude, really?” Jack said, leaning over the chair Mannock had left and resting his palms on the table, putting himself face to face with DeWayne. “Sit up and act like you care about what’s going to happen to you, because I know you do.”

“You don’t know what I care about,” Mannock said.

“Well, there’s truth in that,” Keller said. “You don’t seem to care about much, not even your own progeny.”

“My own what?”

“Your own kid, DeWayne. You may not be a dad, but biologically you’re a father.”

“What, you and Drake gonna play good cop, bad cop with me now? Like I haven’t been through this before?”

“You worry only about me, Mannock,” Jack said. “I’m your good and bad cop rolled into one today. State your full name for the record, please.”

“DeWayne William Mannock.”

“And will you stipulate that your rights have been read to you, that you understand them, and that you’re choosing to waive them for this interview?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, what?”

“Yeah on all three of those.”

“Just so we’re crystal clear. You acknowledge that you have the right to an attorney and to have that attorney present while you are being questioned, and that if you can’t afford one—

“I said yeah! Can we get on with this?”

Jack straightened up and looked into the two-way mirror. “We’re rolling and you got all that?”

A red light appeared above a squawk box near the ceiling, and Boone heard a staticky woman’s voice: “Yes.” That had to be Ronette, the attractive young uniform in charge of audiovisual at the 11th.

Boone wondered how stupid Mannock could be. Any lawyer would be able to see within sixty seconds that he was into this thing up to his neck and his only prayer was to trade a little of what he knew for a modicum of consideration. But no . . .

“All the way here, you were dying to tell your side of this, DeWayne,” Jack said, finally sitting. “Here’s your chance.”

“Yeah, and now I’m hungry. I didn’t have breakfast.”

“You think this is a restaurant?”

“You want me to talk, give me something to eat.”

“I thought
you
wanted to talk. You’re not going to like what I’ve got to say.”

“You got nothing to say,” Mannock said, “because you got nothing on me.”

“
Nothing
that connects you to this case, DeWayne?”

“Well, I didn’t kidnap anybody, and you can’t prove I did, so you gotta let me go.”

“You really need me to walk you through this? You introduced a friend to a former coworker. You borrowed a car from that coworker for that friend. That friend used that car and was the last person seen with a child now missing and unaccounted for. That makes you an accessory to kidnapping, and depending on where that child is taken and what happens to him, your prospects can only get worse. Do I need to go on? Should we go straight to central booking? Or would you like to plead your case now?”

“Not on an empty stomach.”

“You’re seriously going to clam up without food?”

Mannock nodded. “I could do worse, you know. I could lawyer up.”

“I gave you half a dozen chances to do that.
Now
you want to?”

“I want to eat.”

“We haven’t got much. What do you want?”

“I’m easy. A sandwich?”

“I’ve had them out of the machines here, DeWayne. I wouldn’t want one.”

“You might if you were hungry.”

Keller turned to the mirror again. “Somebody get Einstein a sandwich.”

Through the squawk box, Ronette said, “Vendor hasn’t been in for a week. The ones still in there are old.”

Mannock shrugged.

“Bring one anyway!” Keller said.

“And a Coke!” Mannock said.

“Sure you don’t want a glass of wine?”

Mannock sat defiantly, as if he had won. When the food and drink were delivered, Keller slid them across the table. DeWayne took his time opening the sandwich and smelling it. From where Boone stood it looked hard and stale, and it took Mannock a while to chew. But if he didn’t like it, he didn’t let on. When he was finished with the sandwich, he finally popped open the Coke, guzzled half of it in one gulp, then belched.

“Your turn,” Keller said.

“I got nothin’ to say.”

“Really. So you just want to sit in County for who knows how long, then be tried as an accessory to kidnapping, and wind up in Stateville or, worse, a federal pen?”

“Won’t happen. I know the law.”

“Do you? Then tell me what’s gonna keep you out of prison?”

“Lack of evidence.”

“DeWayne, you’re not much of a criminal, but you’re a worse lawyer. Your former coworker will testify he lent your friend the car and that you even paid him a security deposit. Two hundred ring a bell? Your friend was seen in the car with the child. The car was abandoned and still hasn’t been returned to the lender. And it just so happens that the kidnapped child is your biological son.”

“Circumstantial, or whatever they call it.”

“You’re willing to bet your freedom on a word you don’t even understand?”

“I know enough to know that all I did was be like a, what do you call it . . . broker, I guess. My friend wanted to borrow a car. My other friend had one to loan. I put them together. What happened after that is not on me. I didn’t have nothin’ to do with any kidnapping.”

“We’ve recorded conversations between you and the kidnapper, talking about the car, talking about the kid.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“You don’t have to. The prosecutor will refresh your memory when the recordings are played at your trial.”

“Trial for what?”

“We’re not going down this road again, DeWayne. You don’t have to play stupid with me, because I’m already convinced.”

A knock came at the door and Detective Antoine Johnson leaned in. “Chief Keller, a word.”

Keller left and Mannock turned to face Boone. “So, what do y’all want from me besides what I told you? You’ve got no evidence that ties me to any of this. I’m innocent—just tried to help a friend. What that friend did is on him. Right?”

Antoine Johnson briefed Jack Keller on the phone Kevin Kenleigh had sent to Michigan.

Jack shook his head. “He’s a dandy. Any leads on his whereabouts?”

“Nothing.”

“We’ll find him soon enough,” Jack said. “I’m looking forward to collaring that guy.”

“He’s got a record in DuPage County. When he was a teenager he got students to pay him to take their college entrance exams. Phonied up IDs, got C students big numbers on their ACTs and SATs. That’s become a big thing now, but he was a pioneer.”

“He may be the smartest one in this little hole-in-the-wall gang,” Jack said, “but he’s in over his head.”

“Think Mannock’s gonna crack, Chief?”

Jack shrugged and peered through the window at DeWayne and Boone.

Boone had intended to leave the interrogation alone and let Keller handle it, but he couldn’t resist. “DeWayne, you need to do yourself a favor here. When Chief Keller gets back, you’d better tell him everything you know. We’ve got you with an unexplained pile of cash, conversations with people connected with a kidn—”

“I won the lottery, man!”

“Will you stop? You know how easy that was to rule out? We know where you got your sack of cash.”

For the first time, Mannock looked beat, at least on that point. “Well, that money had nothing to do with this.”

“Then what were you trying to pitch Shane Loggyn on? You told him you were paid to be a finder. What was it you found, DeWayne?”

“I should have said I was a pointer, not a finder. I’m like a bird dog. Bird dogs don’t really find. They point.”

“You pointed at what?”

“I’m done talking.”

Keller returned, and Boone could tell from Jack’s look that he had been listening in and was content to let them keep going.

“If you’re done talking,” Boone said, “there’s nothing more we can do for you.”

“Nothing
more
? What have you done for me now?”

“Given you a chance to tell your side. But you’ve failed, DeWayne. You could have helped yourself. You know the penalty for being an accessory to kidnapping? It’s the same as if you’d kidnapped Max yourself. And you rarely hear of a kidnapper getting anything less than life.”

“I didn’t touch anybody, so that doesn’t—I’m not—you can’t . . .”

“Life in prison, DeWayne.”

“That’ll never happen.”

“It’s as good as done,” Boone said.

“It
is
done,” Keller said, and Mannock twisted back to face him.

“Cops in Michigan just picked up Johnnie Bertalay, and he’s singing like a canary.”

“No kidding?” Boone said, strolling toward the door. “Guess we’re done here. What’d he do, blame it on DeWayne?”

“All of it,” Jack said, his hand on the doorknob. “You had your chance, Mannock.”

“Wait! What’re you talking about?”

“You begged us to hear you out, and then you gave us nothing. We’re getting all we needed from Johnnie. Some friend.”

“He’s not my friend! I hardly know him. I saw him only a few times.
He
did it! It’s all on him!”