High Noon

that never gets old.”
    Arnie’s face darkened—anger, Phoebe thought, and more. Embarrassment.
    “It’s temporary.”
    “Oh yeah? You think your daddy’s going to get you back on the job?” Drumming the flats of his hands on his own belly, Sykes let out a hoot. “Pig’s eye, Arnie, and you know it. You’re done, broke the family chain. Some bitch cost me my badge, I’d sure as hell want payback. Why don’t you tell us where you were last night, Arnie? Where you were from ten to three in the morning?”
    “I told you. I was home, with my wife.”
    “Stupid to lie, don’t you think? Doesn’t show a bright light.” Sykes tapped his temple. “Especially when the wife’s not too happy with you to begin with.” Sykes pushed through the file in front of him. “Her statement says she doesn’t know when you got home, but you weren’t there when she went to bed at eleven.”
    “She’s wrong.” After a shrug, Arnie tipped his head back to study the ceiling. “I was down in the den, fell asleep watching TV.”
    “She locked up, Arnie. She did the walk-through before she went up to bed. If you were there, snoozing in front of the tube, where was your car?”
    “She didn’t see it. She’s pissed at me, sure. Just giving me a hard time.”
    “He’s lying,” Phoebe stated. “He’s lying about being home. And he’s nervous.”
    “She can’t place you on the day of the Johnson shooting either. Too bad.”
    “It was my day off, goddamn it.” Anger punched through the shaky nonchalance. “I was running errands. I had things to do.”
    “Yeah, things to do,” Liz agreed. “Like set yourself up in an apartment window and shoot an unarmed man, a surrendering teenager.”
    “Fuck that. Fuck this. Fuck you. I’m not getting screwed on this because that bitch Mac Namara wants more blood. She’s got you bowing and scraping and doing whatever she wants. I wanted to kill anybody, you can bet your ass it’d be her.”
    “Killing her ex in front of her, that’s a handy way to shove it in her face. Killing Johnson after she’d spent hours talking him down, that’s rubbing it in.” Sykes shot out his index finger like the barrel of a gun. “You’ve got a twenty-two pistol, Arnie. You shouldn’t have left the slug in that dumb rabbit.”
    “What? What rabbit? What the fuck are you talking about?”
    “He’s not lying about that.” Phoebe shook her head. “He doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”
    “Once we match the bullet and the gun, we’ll have ourselves stalking and harassment charges. Breaks your probation. You’ll do time. You’ll go inside. No way your daddy’s going to be able to dig you out this time.”
    “Leave my father out of this.”
    “You won’t,” Liz tossed back. “You’ll be calling Daddy for help any minute. We’ll match the bullets from the rabbit. Then there’s the dead snake, the dead rat. Upped it from the doll you mutilated and left for her. I’m betting you upped it from wildlife to Roy Squire.”
    “I don’t know anything about any damn dead rabbit.”
    “The doll,” Phoebe said quietly, even as Sykes narrowed his eyes.
    “You know something about the doll, don’t you? You got sweatier over the doll.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “Messed up the doll like you’d planned to mess up the lieutenant,” Sykes continued. “Rang her bell one night and left it outside her door. Then the dead rat, then right up to Roy Squire. Yeah, smells like pattern to me.”
    “That’s bullshit. Maybe I tossed a doll by her house, so what? That was weeks ago, and I haven’t gone near her place since. I haven’t gone near Mac Namara since…”
    “Since you beat her in the stairwell?” Sykes finished. “Since you put a fucking bag over her head and stripped her down? You don’t have any friends here, Arnie. Nobody wants to help you, so you keep lying. Makes me warm inside. You keep right on lying your way into a cage, and this time there’s going to be a hotshot on the other side. There’s a needle waiting for you, you sack of shit.”
    “You’re out of your goddamn mind.” Arnie was sheet white now, and running sweat. “I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t shoot any damn rabbit either.”
    “We got motive, means, opportunity. Yeah, keep lying, fuckhead. You know how the DA loves it when a coward killer whines and lies. He’ll go for the needle, no question.”
    “I didn’t know the son of a bitch. I haven’t