Free Head Wounds by Chris Knopf

need to move to processing immediately,” she said.
    “I agree,” said Veckstrom. “Shouldn’t encourage violent behavior.”
    “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jackie asked.
    “Your client is well known to engage in brawls. Like the one with Robbie Milhouser the night of April fifth in front of a restaurant on Main Street in Southampton.”
    “You’re planning to characterize what your own police report describes as a man slipping on a curb, and then accidentally hitting his head on the front of a parked vehicle, as a brawl? Interesting.”
    “Witnesses claim otherwise.”
    “After the fact. No mention of it in the report. Revisionist history.”
    “You want us to believe that a former professional boxer threw not one single punch in the midst of a street fight?”
    “If you call that a street fight, better steer clear of the real thing,” I said.
    “Oh, experienced in that, are we?” asked Veckstrom. Before I could answer back, Jackie kicked me in the shins, right out where everyone could see.
    “What did I tell you?” she said.
    “He addressed me,” said Veckstrom to Ross, obviously for the record.
    “Don’t address him,” Jackie said to me. “Ross, we process right now or we start talking police misconduct.”
    “Go ahead,” said Veckstrom. “It’s not going to change the fact that Acquillo had motive, malice and means. Confirmed by forensics and eyewitnesses.”
    “The witnesses are the victim’s asshole buddies at a street fight that didn’t happen and one half-blind old lady,” said Jackie, warming to the taunt, “who thinks she saw somebody who looks like Sam running at
night.”
    “Twenty-twenty with her glasses on. Which in fact doesn’t matter. Your client has already admitted to jogging past the murder scene.”
    “But never at night,” said Jackie.
    “His memory could be faulty.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with my memory,” I told him. “For example, I remember hearing you’re an asshole.”
    Veckstrom smiled at me, but not endearingly.
    “We’ve stipulated that Sam runs on Bay Edge Drive,” said Jackie, reaching for my arm again, but missing. “But hadn’t been in the vicinity of the Milhouser project for at least a week.”
    “At least a week?” asked Veckstrom. “Do you mean seven days or five, or twenty? Or do you mean a single day?”
    Ross picked that moment to light up the cigarette I wasn’t allowed to have. Cheap psychological torture. So I spoke to him.
    “Somebody tell this dickhead that a week is seven days. At least a week means seven days, plus a couple more. How many’s up for grabs. I’ll let you pick a number.”
    This time Jackie got a good grip on the sleeve of my jacket and yanked me down the hall toward the room where you got photographed and fingerprinted and filled out forms. The administrative cops who handled this stuff were friendly and chatty, not unlike nurses who took your blood pressure or gave you a cup to piss in. We didn’t see Veckstrom after that, which I was glad for. Too hard a load on the Zen mantras of patience and forbearance.
    ——
    As the coffee from the diner soaked in I started to hear what Jackie was saying from the Grand Prix’s front passenger seat, which to be fair was pretty far away.
    Ross was in a patrol car escorting us to the arraignment at the Town courts in Southampton Village. I’d offered to bring out some of the same coffee for them as well, but they demurred. A wise choice.
    “My experience in criminal defense amounts to about a half dozen cases, only one of which had any substance,” said Jackie, referring to her defense of Roy Battiston, “but even I know sometimes police officers, especially hard-ons like Lionel Veckstrom, use overt antagonism as an investigative technique to provoke idiot suspects into incriminating themselves. Easy to do with a hothead whose lack of self-control likely got him in the situation in the first place. Wouldn’t work with everybody. Not your