Free Stray Bullets by Robert Rotenberg

use?”
    “Use? Use for what?”
    “Information. Cut a deal. Right now you’re trapped. And Dewey’sGod knows where. But trust me, last night while you were having some happy time with one of your girlfriends, he was changing his fucking clothes and taking a long hot shower. Once they find that GSR on you, it’s all over.”
    St. Clair jumped out of the chair and paced around her in a wide circle that gradually narrowed, as if he were a dog looking for a place to lie down. He came to a stop, his back to her. “I don’t rat, man, I told you.”
    “This is murder.” She believed Greene when he said the camera was turned off, but still she was whispering. More like hissing, she thought. “Not some stupid break-and-enter. Twenty-five years.”
    “So what?” St. Clair lowered his voice, echoing her. “Dewey was in the pen for three years. He’s connected now. I won’t last five days if I rat him out.”
    “It’s your call,” she said.
    “I just made it.”
    He sat on the chair across from her. All she could do was stare at him. I knew he was telling the truth . That’s what the nanny’s daughter had said about St. Clair when he saved her from being raped by Dewey Booth.
    “Greene’s going to interview you,” Parish said. “I can’t be in the room. He’s going to feed you all sorts of reasons to talk to him.”
    “Such as?”
    “Who knows. They have a witness. They already found Dewey and he’s ratted you out.”
    “No fucking way that’s going to happen.”
    Parish squeezed her fists in frustration. “I’m not saying it happened. They’re allowed to tell you any fairy tale they want to trick you into talking. Where’s that letter I gave you in the car?”
    He reached into his back pocket. “Here.”
    She took it and tossed it on the floor beside his chair.
    “Why’d you do that?” he asked.
    “Because for the GSR test they’re going to bag your hands. You won’t be able to reach it.”
    “Smart.”
    “Hah. I wish I had some duct tape.”
    “What, you want to tie me up?”
    “No,” she said. “Seal your lips. Look, when I say ‘nothing’ I mean absolutely nothing.”
    “Fine.”
    “Okay, practice time. Pretend I’m Greene.”
    She stood up, went to the door, and walked back to the chair beside him. “Hi, Larkin.” She pointed to the camera in the corner. “I turned the video back on, that okay with you?”
    “No problem,” he said.
    Parish smacked him on the arm. Hard.
    “What?” he said.
    “I said say nothing, that means nada. Zip. Tape it up. Not a word. Got it?”
    He bit down on his lip.
    “I said: ‘Got it?’”
    He shook his head.
    “Don’t even do that. I want you to do nothing.”

13
    Daniel Kennicott sat beside Ari Greene and watched Larkin St. Clair on a monitor. They’d turn the camera back on once his lawyer had left. He stood on a bedsheet—there to collect any GSR flakes that dropped off his clothes and body—and stripped off his clothes. Two male forensic officers were at his side, and they gave him fresh underwear, an orange jumpsuit, and paper slippers, then put bags over both of his hands and taped them around his wrists.
    After Greene and Kennicott were done interviewing St. Clair, the same officers would come back in, remove the bags, and test his hands for GSR. This could have been done before they talked to him, but Greene thought St. Clair would feel more vulnerable with his hands bound up.
    The forensic officers packed up their gear and left the room, closing the door behind them. Kennicott got up to go back inside.
    Greene didn’t budge. “He can wait for a while,” he said.
    Kennicott sat back down. St. Clair fidgeted like crazy. Shook his head, rocked back and forth, and finally got up and walked in a tight circle. Sometimes he reached back behind his head in search of his shorn-off long hair, the bags over his hands causing him even more frustration.
    Greene’s eyes were riveted to the screen, and they watched together in silence