anything—”
“You were gloved?” the black guy cut me off, like he just saw an opening and needed to move fast before it closed.
It was my turn to look disappointed. “That’s cold, Officer,” I said to him. “I thought we were going to play this straight.”
“Cheap shot,” the older guy said. A cop’s apology, sure, but I trusted it at least enough to see if I could get them to say the wrong thing.
So I baited the trap: “Something’s screwy here. Listen, I absolutely know you don’t have any of that stuff. You know why? Because I know it wasn’t me who did it.”
“Simple as that?”
“It’s the truth,” I said, dropping an even bigger hint. What I had in mind, it had to be their idea. It couldn’t come from me, or they wouldn’t trust it.
“Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right,” the older guy said. “Say we don’t have one single piece of physical evidence to tie you to the rape. That’d make it a tougher case in court, sure. But we’re still holding the ace.”
“I got picked out of a photo spread?”
“Got it in one,” he said. Smiled a little, too.
“I don’t know what to say about that,” I said, real quick—before they realized they’d told me something I didn’t know. I’d already been in a lineup, but I’d just been guessing about the mug-shot book.
So I kept going: “I mean, I’ve been in lineups where I was the only white guy on the stage, but this one was fair. Hell, a couple of those guys looked enough like me to be my twin brother.”
The black cop laughed. Not the first time he’d heard that one, I guessed. “Probably so,” he said. “Only thing is—”
“Yeah, I know. They were cops, right? And no cop ever did a rape.”
They looked at each other for a second—just a quick glance. I was walking pretty close to the edge of their line with that last one. They must have had some way of signaling each other. Or maybe they’d worked together so long they didn’t need to.
“But you didn’t ask for your phone call,” the black cop said. “Which means you think you’ve got a shot at getting us to buy your story.”
Yeah, I was right—he was smart, just like his partner. Maybe I would get that shot. “It’s no story,” I said, making sure I didn’t sound resentful.
“You know what would turn it for you, Caine?” the older one said. “An alibi. That would pretty much trump our ace.”
I’d been hoping for something else, but I rolled with the punch, and tried again. “For you, or for a jury?”
“For you,” he hit back. “You know there’s no point giving us a piece of cellophane—that’d just make it worse. But you give us a real alibi, we’ll check it out. Check it out deep. Turn it upside down and sideways. If there’s a hole in it, we’ll find it; trust me on that. But if you’re telling the truth—and, like I said, I kind of think you just might be—that’d be good for you.”
It’s not just the hard eight; now I’m down to my third throw, I thought. Why wouldn’t they just ask me to take a—?
The older cop broke into my thoughts. “Here’s the good part for you, Caine. It’s not only you who knows how good we’d check out your alibi—the DA knows it, too. Believe me, my partner and me tell them your alibi’s rock-solid, no way those Ivy League wimps are going to take a chance on messing up their conviction rate.”
“Hard enough to get them to prosecute good cases,” the black cop said. His mouth twisted when he said that. I took it for real, not a play. Probably watched some solid cases tossed out, and he hadn’t liked it much.
I remember thinking what a fucked-up mess things were. See, I believed those cops. Mostly because they weren’t telling me anything I didn’t know. Every pro on both sides of the line knows the DA’s Office’ll always deal away the courthouse on a sex crime. Specially if the woman was the wrong kind. Like a hooker, or slow in the head, or even dressed too sexy. Or maybe she had booze or drugs in her blood when they ran the tests.
The younger guy was right: the sex-crimes DAs were all about plea deals. Everybody knows they make the sweetest offers. But once they said “alibi,” I was cooked.
And when they dropped that