Novotny grabbed her arm before she could follow Muñoz into interview room A. “What’s that tall dick doing here?”
She faced him. “He’s with me.”
“He’s not one of us.”
“No, but I can trust him. He doesn’t go rogue.” She yanked her arm free.
“Fuck you, Codella.”
“Not in a million years, Novotny.” She went in and closed the door in his face.
Brandon was slumped in a straight-backed chair, and he didn’t look at her. A navy knit cap was on his head. His cheeks were red from the cold. He jiggled his legs like a small boy who needs the bathroom. “Do you want something to drink?” she asked. “Something hot?”
“I’m fine.” He shook his head. “I just don’t like police stations, okay? Let’s just get this over with.”
Codella and Muñoz sat across from him. “So you’ve been to police stations before?” she asked.
“Once or twice.”
Codella remembered what Hodges had said: Your background checks won’t turn up any criminal records on our employees. “When have you been to a police station?”
“When I was a kid.”
“What took you there?”
“I don’t see how that’s important,” he said.
“Why don’t you let us decide that?”
He glanced from her to Muñoz and back. “My father beat me up. Okay? I had to give a statement.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
“That must have been difficult for you.” As soon as she said it, she realized she was projecting her own emotions onto him. She was the one who’d found it difficult to tell a police officer the truth about a murderous father and a physically abusive mother.
“It wasn’t so bad,” Brandon said. “He was a fucking bastard.”
Codella studied him again. Outwardly he looked so vulnerable, but he was tough, too, it occurred to her now. There was really no telling what he was capable of, and it would be wrong to underestimate him. “Do you know why I asked Detective Muñoz to bring you here?”
“I suppose you plan to blame Lucy’s death on me, right?”
“When we spoke this morning, Brandon, you didn’t tell me everything.”
He fiddled with the zipper of his green parka. “What do you mean?”
“You told me you were at Baiba’s apartment yesterday during the day. You didn’t tell me that you went back there at night.”
Brandon stopped playing with the zipper. He didn’t move or speak.
“Someone matching your description entered Baiba’s building last night at eight o’clock. That person went in behind a couple that lives in the building. They gave a detailed description, Brandon. They described you.”
She watched his face closely. It remained impassive.
“What do you have to say?” she asked.
He shrugged. “So I went back. So what?”
“Why did you go there?”
“Because—” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
“Try me.”
“You brought me all the way up here for this?”
Codella glanced at Muñoz. Either Brandon didn’t know Baiba was dead or he was pretending not to.
“I left her apartment around two thirty,” he said. “I went to Park Manor. When I got there, I found out you’d been over there asking questions. I got scared. So I left. I went to a diner and started thinking about Baiba and Merchant and how Baiba gave me three thousand dollars a week ago. I got thinking that maybe she set me up—like I told you—that she used me to kill Lucy so she could be with Merchant. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to look her in the eyes and ask her some questions.” He paused.
“And did you ask her those questions?”
“No. She wasn’t home. So I left.”
Codella leaned in to him. “Brandon, Baiba is dead.”
She and Muñoz watched his reaction. At first just his brow furrowed. Then his head started to shake slowly. His eyes narrowed as if he were confused. And then he started to cry. “No,” he whispered. “No.”
“I’m afraid it’s true,” said Codella.
“How?” Tears streaked his face now. Were they tears of sorrow or the tears of someone guilty and repentant?
“We’re waiting for forensics.”
“And you think I did it?”
“Put yourself in my position, Brandon. You didn’t tell me the truth.”
“How can you say that? You didn’t ask me about last night. I didn’t think it mattered. I omitted one little piece of information. I never lied to you. I’ve been more truthful than anyone else has been about the things that matter!” He folded his arms on the table and buried his face in them. And now he was sobbing openly.
Codella silently signaled for Muñoz to step out of the room. When he was gone, she reached across the table and laid her hand on Brandon’s arm. “Were you in love with Baiba?” she asked very softly.
His hands tightened into fists, but he didn’t lift his head. “She was my friend. That’s all. Or I thought she was my friend.”
Codella kept her hand on his arm. “Were you in love with her, Brandon?”
He jerked his arm away, pushed out his chair, and knocked it over as he stood. “Quit asking me that!”
Codella pressed on. “You loved her. You were in love with her.”
“No!” he said, but the protest sounded hollow. She knew she was right. And she knew that she needed to act just like the detective who’d interviewed her the night her father murdered Joanie Carlucci twenty-six years ago. She hadn’t wanted to admit anything, either, and he’d known that. In the end, he’d had to say all the terrible truths she didn’t want to acknowledge. Just shake your head if I’m right. He picked up the bat. He hit the woman with the bat. He hit her many times.
Now Codella said all the things Brandon couldn’t bring himself to say. “Baiba disappointed you deeply yesterday when she told you about Merchant. She broke your heart, didn’t she?”
He kicked the toppled-over chair with his left foot. “Stop!”
“She broke your heart. Admit it. It’s not a crime.”
He punched his fist into the plaster wall and let out a loud angry cry of pain that wasn’t purely physical. She stood and went around the table and put her hand on his shoulder. He turned from her and pressed his forehead against the wall.
“You knew she’d never want you the way she wanted him. She wanted things that you couldn’t give her, didn’t she?”
His head shot up. “I wouldn’t want to give her those things. I would never mistreat her like he did. I would never tie her up or hit her or choke her like he did.”
“You were angry. You felt betrayed.”
He didn’t speak.
“Did you kill her, Brandon?”
He whipped his body around to face her. “No!” And there was nothing hollow about that denial.