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“No problem.” Tomasetti signed his name and filled in the date, leaving off the part about his being with BCI, and shoved the clipboard back to the officer.
The man glanced at it, looked at Tomasetti, and then picked up the phone. “Have a seat,” he said, and motioned toward a row of waiting-room chairs that lined the opposite wall.
Tomasetti took the nearest chair, using the time to check his e-mail and voice mail—none of which were from Kate. Two minutes later, a buzzer sounded. He looked up to see his old academy mate, Stan McCaskill, standing at the door, looking at him as if he wasn’t quite sure who he was.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “John Tomasetti.”
“Hey, Stan.” Tomasetti rose and crossed to him, extended his hand. “It’s been a while.”
“Twenty years, give or take.” He opened the door wider, ushering Tomasetti inside. “What are you doing these days?”
“I’m with BCI.”
He nodded approvingly. “So what’s your business with Ki
“Cold case I’m about to close.” Tomasetti tapped the file at his side. “Just need to ask a few questions, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
They went through a windowless steel door, down a tiled hall, and then reached the cage, a glassed-in office where two corrections officers controlled the door locks and access to the interior of the jail. McCaskill set a blue form on the security transaction tray and shoved it toward the other man.
The man inside looked down at it and then gave Tomasetti a quick once-over. “You’ll need to check your firearm here.”
“Sure.” Once again, he placed his badge in the tray. Then he removed his weapon from his shoulder holster and set it in the tray as well.
The officer tore off a ticket and sent it back to him. The locks on the door across the room snicked open.
“Here we go.” McCaskill took him through it and motioned Tomasetti into a small interview room. “You need audio? Escort?”
Tomasetti shook his head. “Just Ki
“I’ll get him for you.”
The room was like a hundred other interview rooms Tomasetti had been in over the years. Twelve feet square. Gray walls. Windowless. Not even an observation window. Institutional tile floor. Air temp hovering somewhere around sixty-two degrees. Discomfort helped to thwart stonewalling. The table was four feet long and a couple of feet wide with an off-white Formica surface that was etched with scratches from lawyer’s briefcases. A single Fuck You was carved into the corner. Three cheap blue sled chairs covered with stain-resistant fabric that wasn’t that stain resistant surrounded the table.
There was a camera mounted in the corner, just below ceiling level. No glowing eye, but that didn’t mean someone didn’t have video ru
McCaskill didn’t keep him waiting. Tomasetti had barely settled in when the door opened and the corrections officer produced Ki
Tomasetti took the other man’s measure as he shuffled in. Orange prison jumpsuit. Off-brand sneakers. No chains or restraints. Tomasetti had met him a couple of times over the years, but if it hadn’t been for the name tag embroidered into the fabric, he would have been hard-pressed to recognize him. The inmate shuffling into the interview room looked nothing like the man who’d once owned a five-thousand-square-foot house in Edgewater. Three months in jail had taken a heavy toll. He’d dropped sixty pounds. His once-ta
Up until his arrest, Vince Ki
McCaskill gestured toward the chair on the opposite side of the table from where Tomasetti was sitting. “Ki
“Ten minutes max.”
The corrections officer pointed at a button that resembled a doorbell set into the wall. “Just hit the buzzer when you’re through, and we’ll come get him.”
“Thanks again.”
The door clicked shut. Without looking at Ki
“You don’t look like a fed,” Ki
“They treating you okay here at County?” Tomasetti asked the question without looking up.
“Fucking hacks. They treat all the inmates like shit. What’s it to you?”
“When’s your trial?” Tomasetti flipped a paper. “May?”
“June.”
He looked away from the file, made eye contact with Ki
Ki
“How did they get you, anyway?” he asked.
“Some fucking rat.” Ki
“Let’s just say I’m the bearer of interesting news.”
Ki
“You heard Joey Ferguson’s conviction was overturned, didn’t you?”
“I heard. Good for him. What does that have to do with me?”
“How do you think he managed that?”
“The Cleveland cops are a bunch of fuckups.”
For the span of a full minute, neither man spoke. The only sound came from the jiggle of Ki
“Official word is he got off on a technicality,” Tomasetti said. “But I heard Joey Ferguson walked because he turned over on you. He ratted you out. Fucked you over.” He leaned back in his chair and contemplated Ki
The other man said nothing. But Tomasetti didn’t miss the color that climbed up his neck or the way the muscles in his jaws quivered with tension. “Who the fuck are you? And why would you come in here and tell me that shit? You got some beef with Ferguson?”
Tomasetti closed the file and got to his feet. “Good luck with your trial.”
Ki
CHAPTER 21
Half an hour later, I’m standing twenty feet from the bank of a raging Painters Creek, watching a volunteer firefighter retrieve McCullough’s body from the water. Next to me, Skid slurps at an extra-large McDonald’s coffee, watching the scene as if he’s sitting cross-legged in front of the television watching an old episode of Jo