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Jacobi and Conklin were standing beside me at the window when her body hit the street below.
Chapter 90
LOUIE BERGIN HADN’T weathered his twenty-four hours in jail well. His clothes were rumpled, and his scabby, unshaven face made him look like he’d slept in an alley.
But there was rage in his eyes.
And now he had a lawyer.
Oscar Montana was a sharp-faced young turk from the public defender’s office. I’d met Montana before, liked him, and thought Bergin could do far worse.
“What’ve you got on my client?” Montana said, banging his bronze Halliburton briefcase on the table, then cracking open the locks.
“We searched Mr. Bergin’s apartment this morning,” Conklin said. “There was a beautiful young woman there. Your girlfriend, right, Louie? Name of Cherry Chu.”
“She had nothing to do with anything,” Louie muttered.
Louie’s voice was like the rumbling of a volcano, dangerous, barely containing his fury. Conklin only moved closer, pulling out a chair, sitting two feet from the suspect.
“No, huh?” Conklin said. “Well, we’re holding her anyway. I think she’s going to flip on you. In fact, she already has.”
Louie clenched his fists and shook his head defiantly.
“She’d never say anything against me.”
“She didn’t have to say anything. We’re holding her for defenestration,” said Conklin. “You know what that is, Louie?”
“For God’s sake,” Montana said. “What kind of sadist are you, Inspector?”
Louie looked incredulous. “You’re Homicide and you’re charging her for a sex crime?”
Conklin leaned back in his chair. “Defenestration is from the Latin meaning ‘out the window.’ Yeah, Louie. We tried to save her, but she jumped. We’re holding her at the morgue. Sorry for your loss.”
Louie bellowed, “Nooo.”
His body seemed to inflate, the cords of his neck standing out, his muscles swelling. Then, like Sampson pushing against the temple columns, Louie pressed his hands against the table and started to stand.
Conklin leaned on Bergin’s shoulder with both hands, forcing him back into the chair.
“Mr. Montana,” I said, “tell your client to behave or I’ll have him shackled.”
“Louie. Don’t let them bait you. Just listen.”
I was listening and watching, too.
Conklin was thinking fast, moving fast. A natural interrogator. And a brave cop.
I saw why Jacobi was proud of him. I was proud of him, too.
“We found out something a little unusual at the morgue,” said Conklin. “Tell you the truth, I was surprised when the ME told us. I mean, Cherry was such a knockout, Louie. Hard to believe.”
I was watching Louie’s face closely as Conklin snapped first one driver’s license, then another onto the table like playing cards.
The photos made a startling side-by-side comparison. Looking from one to the other, you could see it clearly. The same eyes, the same cheekbones. The same mouth.
Conklin kept going. “I had to see these two pictures together to believe it. Kenneth Guthrie. Cherry Chu. They’re one and the same person.
“I guess he was being Ken when you and he did the killings, right Louie? And when he was Cherry Chu, he was your girlfriend.
