Velocity

procedure. What he wanted to ask Billy was more direct: Mr. Wiles, are you holding someone in your house under duress, and did she get free long enough to dial 911, and did you tear the phone out of her hand and hang up, hoping a connection had not been made?
    To ask the question more bluntly than he had done, Napolitino would first have had to inform Billy of his constitutional right to remain silent and to have an attorney present during questioning.
    Billy Wiles had become a suspect.
    They were on the brink. A precipice.
    Never had Billy’s mind calculated options and consequences so feverishly, aware that every second of hesitation made him appear guiltier.
    Fortunately, he did not have to counterfeit a flabbergasted expression. His jaw must have looked unhinged.
    Not trusting his ability to fake anger or even indignation with any conviction whatsoever, Billy instead played his genuine surprise: “Good Lord, you don’t think… You do think I… Good Lord. I’m the last guy I’d expect to be mistaken for Hannibal Lecter.”
    Napolitino said nothing.
    Neither did Sobieski.
    Their eyes were as steady as the axis of a spinning gyroscope.
    “Of course you’d have to consider the possibility,” Billy said. “I understand. I do. It’s all right. Go inside if you want. Have a look around.”
    “Mr. Wiles, are you inviting us to search your house for an intruder or others?”
    His fingertips resting on the cartridges in his pockets, his mind’s eye resting on the shadowy form of Cottle in the knee space of the desk…
    “Search it for anything,” he said affably, as if relieved to understand at last what was wanted of him. “Go ahead.”
    “Mr. Wiles, I am not asking to search your residence. You do see the situation?”
    “Sure. I know. It’s okay. Go to it.”
    If they were invited to enter, any evidence they found could be used in court. If instead they entered uninvited, without a warrant or without adequate reason to believe that someone inside might be in jeopardy, the court would throw out the same evidence.
    The sergeants would regard Billy’s cooperation, happily given, as highly suggestive of innocence.
    He felt relaxed enough to take his hands out of his pockets.
    If he was open, relaxed, sufficiently encouraging, they might decide that he had nothing to hide. They might go away without bothering to search the place.
    Napolitino glanced at Sobieski, and Sobieski nodded.
    “Mr. Wiles, since you would feel better if I did so, I’ll take a quick look through the house.”
    Sergeant Napolitino rounded the front of the patrol car and headed toward the porch steps, leaving Billy with Sobieski.
     
     
     

Chapter 30
     
    Guilt spills itself in fear of being spilt, someone had said, perhaps Shakespeare, perhaps O.I. Simpson. Billy couldn’t remember who had nailed that thought so well in words, but he realized the truth in the aphorism and felt it keenly now.
    At the house, Sergeant Napolitino climbed the front steps and crossed the porch, stepping over the pint bottle and whatever spilled whiskey had not yet evaporated.
    “Too Joe Friday,” Sobieski said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Vince. He’s too deadpan. He gives you those flat eyes, that cast-concrete face, but he’s not really the hardass you think.”
    By sharing Napolitino’s first name, Sobieski seemed to be taking Billy into his confidence.
    Astutely alert for deception and manipulation, Billy suspected that the sergeant was no more taking him into his confidence than a trapdoor spider would greet an in-falling beetle with gentleness and brotherhood.
    At the house, Vince Napolitino disappeared through the open front door.
    “Vince has still got too much of the academy in him,” Sobieski continued. “When he’s seasoned a little more, he won’t come on so strong.”
    “He’s just doing his job,” Billy said. “I understand that. No big deal.”
    Sobieski remained in the driveway because he still at least half suspected Billy of some crime. Otherwise the two deputies would have searched the house together. Sergeant Sobieski was here to grab Billy if he tried to run.
    “How’re you feeling?”
    “I’m all right,” Billy said. “I just feel stupid putting you to all this trouble.”
    “I meant your stomach,” Sobieski said.
    “I don’t know. Maybe I ate something that was off.”
    “Couldn’t have been Ben Vernon’s chili,” Sobieski said. “That stuff is so hot it cures just about any sickness known to