The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(6)

“You know,” Taylor was saying to Stack, “we’re just not making the progress here I thought we would, Ronnie. You seemed so eager to cooperate, but you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

“Maybe I don’t know anything more than you know,” Stack said, pushing his limp blond hair back from his face.

Taylor shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve overestimated you. I think you want to help us out here,” Taylor said. “BB was your friend, after all.”

Stack’s eyes darted from side to side. “He wasn’t really my friend. I mean, I knew him, but . . .”

Taylor leaned forward a bit. Stack leaned back.

“Now, there you go, trying to distance yourself when we have witnesses who put you with BB shortly before his death,” Taylor said. “Now you’re suddenly telling me maybe you and BB weren’t such good friends after all when I know you’d been staying at his house. You have to know what this makes me think, Ronnie.”

Stack nibbled at a hangnail as he curled in on himself, turning into a human comma on the other side of the table, trying to make himself smaller and smaller, as if he thought he might eventually become so small Taylor would find him physically insignificant and let him disappear.

“It makes me think maybe we should be looking at you as a suspect instead of a possible witness.” Taylor’s voice was quiet and even, matter-of-fact. “Should we be looking at you that way, Ronnie?”

“N-no.” The twitch wiped his arm across his forehead. “It seems really hot in here. Aren’t you hot?”

“Me? No. I spent two years in Iraq fighting for your freedom in the ninth circle of hell. I know what hot is. It’s not hot in here. I mean, we’ve got the fan going and everything.”

Without another interview room available, they had had a janitor come in and clean Stack’s vomit off the floor, and then had brought in a little desk fan to blow on the wet carpet and dissipate the smell of puke and cleaning agents.

“Did you have some kind of beef with BB, Ronnie?”

“No!”

“Did he have some kind of beef with you? Maybe you pissed him off. Maybe he caught you stealing.”

“No!” Stack protested—too fervently. Like a guilty man. “I’m not like that. I’m a nice person. I’d do anything for anybody. I’d give you the shirt off my back,” he said, tugging at the collar of his dirty, puke-stained, olive-colored sweater. The color made him look like maybe he had a liver disease—or maybe he did have a liver disease. Fucking junkie.

“I’m always getting blamed for shit I didn’t do!” he whined.

“But isn’t it true you were mooching off BB for a long time?” Taylor asked in that calm, even voice that was somehow more unnerving than a shout. “You were sleeping on his couch, eating his food, taking advantage of his kindness.”

“It’s not like I didn’t help him,” Stack said indignantly. “I watched his dogs when he was out of town.”

“You watched his dogs while you were sleeping on his couch and smoking his dope and eating his food and helping yourself to the meth.”

“He owed me something for all I did.”

“You felt entitled,” Taylor said, nodding.

“I did all kinds of stuff for him,” Stack claimed.

“Like selling his dope and sticking the money in your pocket? How did he feel about that?”

“I never did that! He would have killed me!”

“So you did it only while he was out of town and you were looking after his dogs?” Taylor said. “Because you were entitled to that much.”

Stack shifted in his seat, agitated. “No! I told you. BB would’ve killed me.”

“So maybe you beat him to it.”

“I’m really hot,” Stack said, tugging again at the collar of his sweater.

“It’s probably just nerves,” Taylor said. “I mean, here you sit with a homicide detective telling you you might be a suspect in the death of your friend. Maybe I’m trying to visualize you sticking that knife into BB’s neck, shoving that blade down his throat, listening to him gurgle as he drowned in his own blood. Hell of a way to go, sucking that blood down in big gulps.”

Stack twisted and turned in his seat. He looked like he might puke again. Taylor rose from his chair, smoothing his tie down with one hand.

“I’d be nervous if I was in your place, too, Ronnie,” he said. “You’ve got a couple of drug busts on your sheet already. BB was a drug dealer. Most people won’t have to try too hard to stretch that story to fit. You know what I’m saying? I’ll guarantee a jury isn’t going to be interested in all your ‘poor, poor Ronnie’ sob stories.”

“Fuck you!” Stack spat the words at him.

Taylor ignored the insult. He hadn’t changed the tone or volume of his voice since the beginning of the interview. Pretty damned impressive, Kovac thought, though wild horses couldn’t have kicked that confession out of him.

“Tell you what, Ronnie,” Taylor said. “I’m going to step out for a moment to confer with Detective Kovac. I’ll tell you right now, he wants to hold you on this. He’s not as patient as I am. While I’m out, you try to refresh your memory for me. Otherwise, Kovac’s going to come down on you like Thor’s hammer. Trust me, you don’t want that to happen.”