He walked back through the squad room, his head swiveling as he took it all in, maybe the desk he used to sit at, the board where his cases used to be listed beside everyone else's, the person he had been in this room before that person went AWOL, ended up in the property room praying for the day when he could punch that clock for the last time, go someplace where no one remembered who he could have been.
Whitey turned to Sean. "Pope Marshall the Lost?"
* * *
THE LONGER HE SAT in the rickety chair in that cold room, the more Dave realized that what he'd thought was a hangover this morning had merely been the continuation of last night's drunk. The true hangover began to set in around noon, crawling through him like tight packs of termites, taking over his bloodstream and then his circulation, squeezing his heart and picking at his brain. His mouth dried up and sweat turned his hair damp, and he could smell himself suddenly as the alcohol began to leak through his pores. His legs and arms filled with mud. His chest ached. And a wash of the downs cascaded through his skull and settled behind his eyes.
He didn't feel brave anymore. He didn't feel strong. The clarity that just two hours ago had seemed as permanent as a scar left his body and took off out of the room and down the road, only to be replaced by a dread far worse than any he'd ever experienced. He felt certain he was going to die soon and die badly. Maybe he'd stroke out right here in this chair, slam the back of his head off the floor as his body shook with convulsions and his eyes leaked blood and he swallowed his tongue so deeply no one could pull it back out. Maybe a coronary, his heart already banging against the walls of his chest like a rat in a steel box. Maybe once they let him out of here, if they ever did, he'd step out on the street, hear a horn right beside him, and be flat on his back as the thick treads of a bus tire rolled up his cheekbone and kept rolling.
Where was Celeste? Did she even know he'd been picked up and taken down here? Did she even care? And what about Michael? Did he miss his father? The worst thing about being dead was that Celeste and Michael would move on. Oh, it might hurt them for a small amount of time, but they would endure and start new lives because that's what people did every day. It was only in movies that people pined for the dead, their lives freezing up like broken clocks. In real life, your death was mundane, a forgettable event to everyone but you.
Dave sometimes wondered if the dead looked down on the ones they'd left behind and wept to see how easily their loved ones were getting along without them. Like Stanley the Giant's kid, Eugene. Was he up there in the ether somewhere with his little bald head and white hospital johnny, looking down at his dad laughing in a bar, thinking, Hey, Dad, what about me? You remember me? I lived.
Michael would get a new dad, and maybe he'd be in college and he'd tell a girl about the father who'd taught him baseball, the one he barely remembered. It happened so long ago, he'd say. So long ago.
And Celeste was certainly attractive enough to get another man. She'd have to. Loneliness, she'd tell her friends. It just got to me. And he's a nice guy. He's good with Michael. And her friends would betray Dave's memory in a flash. They'd say, Good for you, honey. It's healthy. You have to get back on that bike and move ahead with your life.
And Dave would be up there with Eugene, the two of them looking down, calling out their love in voices none of the living could hear.
Jesus. Dave wanted to huddle in the corner and hug himself. He was falling apart. He knew if those cops came back in now, he'd crack. He'd tell them anything they wanted to know if they'd just show him a little warmth and get him another Sprite.
And then the door to the interrogation room opened up on Dave and his dread and his need for human warmth, and the trooper who entered in full uniform was young and looked strong and had those trooper eyes, the kind that managed to be impersonal and imperious at the same time.
"Mr. Boyle, if you could come with me now."
Dave stood up and went to the door, his hands trembling slightly as the alcohol continued to fight its way out of him.
"Where?" he asked.
"You'll be stepping into a lineup, Mr. Boyle. Someone wants to take a look at you."
* * *
TOMMY MOLDANADO wore jeans and a green T-shirt speckled with paint. There were specks of paint in his curly brown hair and teardrops of it on his tan work boots and chips of it on the frames of his thick glasses.
It was the glasses that worried Sean. Any witness who walked into court wearing glasses might as well have put a target sign on his chest for the defense attorney. And the juries, forget about it. Experts all in regard to eyeglasses and the law thanks to Matlock and The Practice, they watched the bespectacled take the stand the same way they watched drug dealers, blacks without ties, and jailhouse rats who'd cut a deal with the DA.
Moldanado pressed his nose up against the viewing room glass and looked in at the five men in the lineup. "I can't really tell with them looking head-on. Can they turn to the left?"
Whitey flicked the switch on the dais in front of him and spoke into the microphone. "All subjects turn to the left."
The five men shifted left.
Moldanado put his palms against the glass and squinted. "Number Two. It could be Number Two. Could you get him to step closer?"
"Number Two?" Sean said.
Moldanado looked back over his shoulder at him and nodded.
The second guy in the lineup was a narc named Scott Paisner, who normally worked Norfolk County.
"Number Two," Whitey said with a sigh. "Take two steps forward."
Scott Paisner was short, bearded, and round with a rapidly receding hairline. He looked about as much like Dave Boyle as Whitey did. He turned face-front and stepped up to the glass, and Moldanado said, "Yeah, yeah. That's the guy I saw."
"You sure?"
"Ninety-five percent," he said. "It was night, you know? There are no lights in that parking lot and, hey, I was buzzed. But otherwise I'm almost positive that's the guy I saw."
"You didn't mention a beard in your statement," Sean said.
"No, but I think now that, yeah, the guy had a beard maybe."
Whitey said, "No one else in that lineup looks like the guy?"
"Shit, no," he said. "They ain't even close. What're they? cops?"
Whitey lowered his head to the dais and whispered, "Why do I even do this fucking job?"
Moldanado looked at Sean. "What? What?"
Sean opened the door behind him. "Thanks for coming down, Mr. Moldanado. We'll be in touch."
"I did good, though, right? I mean, I helped."