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“So, why don’t you answer our questions?” Paige asked. “You work the boardwalk, right?”
She saw him hesitate. There was always a chance that he would clam up completely. If so, things would be difficult. They currently had nothing tying him to the murders directly, only the hints provided by the fact that he had stabbed at least one person and that he had already been convicted of mugging people on the boardwalk.
Maybe they could get his knife tested for traces of the victims’ DNA or to test whether it matched the patterns of the wounds on their bodies. That might tie him to the crimes more concretely, but still, Paige suspected that the more they could get out of him now, the better.
“Yes, all right, I work the boardwalk. There are a lot of easy marks out there.”
“Artistic types?” Paige said.
She saw Fabiano hesitate. “I guess.”
“Have you ever seen any of these people?” She pulled up pictures of the victims so far, starting with one of Aiden Martlet. Paige watched Fabiano’s face as she did so, knowing that he had every incentive to lie and wanting to catch him out if he did.
Paige saw a reaction immediately. “You know him, don’t you?” she said.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Your face did. You know him.”
“You’d better start talking,” Christopher said. “We’re going to go through everything you own, test it for DNA. We’re going to look for any connection to any of the victims. If we find something that you haven’t told us about, you’re going down for murder.”
There was no give in his voice as he said that.
“I . . . I thought about robbing him, ok? He always parked next to the boardwalk, walked there after work. I figured I could get him in between, but he was too quick for me the time I tried.”
“Where were you two days ago between ten pm and two am?” Christopher demanded. “Yesterday between ten and midnight? Today between three and five?”
“I don’t know,” Fabiano said. “How am I meant to know that? I was probably high.”
“You need to do better than that,” Paige said.
“Wait, earlier today? I was . . . I was in a bar. Wesley’s bar, off the boardwalk. They’ll vouch for me there.”
Paige looked over to Christopher. That was something they needed to check, an alibi that might be easy to either confirm or break. Either way, they needed to go to that bar.
***
The bar was on the boardwalk, looking like it had been there for decades to Paige. The paint on the outside was peeling slightly, with posters there in layers, one atop another until excavating through the levels of it.
Inside, a collection of round tables dotted the floor and stained-glass lampshades covered the lights above. Since they were well into the evening now, there were plenty of patrons around the room, some clustered together into leather backed booths, some up at the bar.
The main bar was long and oak, with a single bartender behind it. He was in his fifties, wearing a plaid shirt with an apron over it. He was balding and wore round, rimless glasses.
Paige and Christopher had to push their way through the crowd at the bar to get to him. That wasn’t easy. It seemed like a popular bar. Paige found herself wondering about that. Even if Fabiano had been here, was it possible that he’d slipped out without being seen?
They made it to the bar, and just from the way the barkeeper sized them up, it was obvious that he’d worked out that they were law enforcement.
“What can I do for you, officers?” he asked.
“Agents,” Christopher corrected him, showing his badge. “Do you know a guy called Fabiano?”
Paige showed a picture of Fabiano to him on her phone.
“What did he do now?” the barkeep asked, wiping down a glass as he did it.
“That’s what we’re trying to establish,” Christopher said. “We already caught him in the middle of trying to rob someone.”
“Stupid bastard,” the barkeep said. He sounded a little disappointed as if he’d been hoping for better.
