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"Route 316."
He still looked confused. "That's what this is about?"
Either the man was delivering an Oscar-worthy performance or he was completely clueless. "You witnessed a car accident four days ago on 316. A woman was hit by a car. You talked to my partner."
"I didn't leave that girl alone. The ambulance was there. I told that cop at the hospital everything I saw."
"You gave a false phone number and address."
"I was just—" He glanced around, and Will wondered if he was going to bolt again. "Get me out of here," Berman pleaded. "Just take me to the police station, okay? Take me to the station, give me my phone call, and we'll work all of this out."
Will turned him around, keeping a hand on his shoulder in case the man decided to try his luck again. Every step, Will could feel his temper getting more and more riled up. Berman was looking more and more like a pathetic, weaselly excuse for a human being. They had wasted the last two days looking for the asshole, and then the idiot had made Will chase him across half the neighborhood.
Berman turned around. "Why don't you take off these cuffs so I can—"
Will spun him back around so hard that he had to catch Berman before he fell flat on his face. The nearest neighbor was standing in her open front doorway, watching them. Like the other women, she didn't look exactly displeased to see the man being led away in handcuffs.
Will asked, "Do they hate you because you're gay? Or because you're sponging off your wife?"
Berman spun around again. "Where the fuck do you get off—"
Will pushed him back around so hard that this time he lost his balance. "It's ten o'clock and you're still in your pajamas." He marched Berman through the tall grass in his yard. "You don't have a lawnmower?"
"We can't afford a gardener."
"Where are your kids?"
"Day care." He tried to turn around again. "What business is this of yours?"
Will shoved him again, forcing him go up the driveway. He hated the guy for so many reasons, not least of which because he had a wife and kids who probably cared about him a great deal and he couldn't even cut the grass or wash the car for them.
Berman demanded, "Where are you taking me? I said take me to the police station."
Will kept quiet, shoving him up the driveway, yanking up his arms whenever he slowed or tried to turn around.
"If I'm under arrest, then you have to take me to jail."
They walked to the back of the house, Berman protesting the entire way. He was a man who was used to being listened to, and it seemed to irk him more to be ignored than to be pushed around, so Will kept silent as he shoved him toward the patio.
Will tried the back door, but it was locked. He looked at Berman, whose smug look seemed to indicate he thought he was getting the upper hand. The window the man had sneaked out had guillotined closed. He slid it back open, the cheap springs clanging.
Berman said, "Don't worry. I'll wait for you."
Will wondered where Nick Shelton was. He was probably in front of the house, thinking he was doing Will a favor by giving him time alone with the suspect.
"Right," Will muttered, loosening one side of the cuffs and clamping Berman to the barbecue grill. He lifted himself up and angled his body through the open window. Will found himself in the kitchen, which was decorated in a goose theme: geese on the wallpaper border, geese on the towels, geese on the carpet under the kitchen table.
He looked back out the window. Berman was there, smoothing down his pajamas like he was trying them on at Macy's.
Will did a quick check of the house, finding only what he expected: a children's room with bunkbeds, a large master and attached bath, kitchen, family room and a study with one book on the shelves. Will couldn't read the title, but he recognized Donald Trump's picture on the jacket and assumed it was a get-rich-quick scheme. Obviously, Jake Berman hadn't taken the man's advice. Though, considering Berman had lost his job and declared bankruptcy, maybe he had.
There was no basement, and the garage was empty but for three boxes that seemed to contain the contents of Jake Berman's old office: a stapler, a nice desk set, lots of papers with charts and graphs on them. Will opened the sliding glass door to the patio and found Berman sitting under the grill, his arm dangling over his head.
"You have no right to search my house."
"You were fleeing your residence. That's all the cause I needed."
Berman seemed to buy the explanation, which sounded reasonable even to Will's ears, though he knew it was highly illegal.
Will dragged around a chair from the table set and sat down. The air was still chilly, and the sweat he'd generated from chasing after Berman was drying in the cold.
"This isn't fair," Berman said. "I want your badge number and your name and—"
"You want the real one or you want me to make up something, like you did?"
Berman had the sense not to answer.
"Why did you run, Jake? Where were you going to go in your pajamas?"
"I didn't think that far," he grumbled. "I just don't want to deal with this right now. I've got a lot on my plate."
"You've got two choices here: either you tell me what happened that night or I take you to jail in your pajamas." To make the threat clear, Will added, "And I don't mean the Coweta Country Club. I'll stroll you straight into the Atlanta Pen, and I won't let you change." He pointed to Berman's chest, which was heaving up and down from panic and anger. The man obviously spent time on his body. He was cut, his abs well defined, his shoulders broad and muscled. "You'll find all those pull-ups at the gym didn't go to waste."
"Is that what this is about? You're some kind of homophobic jerk?"
"I don't care who you're blowing in the toilet." This much was true, though Will kept an edge to his voice to imply the opposite. Everybody had a button, and Berman's was his sexual orientation. At the moment, Will's seemed to be that the cheating prick chained to the Grillmaster 2000 was screwing around on his wife and expecting her to just suck it up and be a good spouse. The Oprah-esque irony was not lost on Will.
He said, "The guys down at the pen love it when new meat comes along."
"Fuck you."
"Oh, they will. They'll fuck you in places you didn't know could be fucked."
"Go to hell."
Will let him sulk for a few seconds, trying to get his own emotions under control. He concentrated on how much time they had pissed away looking for this pathetic idiot when they could've been following real clues. Will listed it out for him. "Resisting arrest, lying to the police, wasting police time, obstructing an investigation. You could get ten years for this, Jake, and that's if the judge likes you, which is doubtful considering you've got a record and you present like an arrogant asshole."
Berman seemed to finally realize that he was in trouble. "I've got kids." There was a pleading sound to his voice. "My sons."
"Yeah, I read about them in your arrest report when they picked you up at the Mall of Georgia."
Berman looked down at the concrete patio. "What do you want?"
