"But it was an intimate relationship, which makes it relevant to the investigation."

"Who says it was intimate?"

"You were seen having a fight with her outside the health club and I'm sure it wasn't over a parking space."

"Ah, the smoking gun. Yeah, we had a fight. I wanted her to quit the pole and she refused."

A student couple approached them hand in hand, and Steve let them pass until they were out of earshot. "And that caused you to break up?"

"Yeah. I didn't like her stripping. She claimed she was saving for school and didn't care about the sex stuff, said it was like doing aerobics with her clothes off. Except I didn't see it that way. They make a lot of coin, but there're a lot better jobs than playing dick-tease to a bunch of losers."

"So it was her decision to split."

"That makes no difference, but that's what the parking lot scene was all about."

Steve nodded, trying to read Neil's face, waiting for that giveaway tic to hang hopes on.

"She also didn't want to move from one relationship into another. So now you know what you need to know."

They came to an intersection in the walkway and Neil led them left toward the water where the grass grew to a high thick wall of green. In the distance barely visible through the trees loomed the Greek pillars of the MFA, looking like an ancient temple. Only a few people were out because rain was in the forecast and thunder rumbled in the distance.

"Witnesses say she slapped you and you grabbed her and pushed her against a car."

Neil stopped again. "Fuck!" He pulled the stirrer from his mouth and tossed it away. "Yeah, okay. It was an emotional moment and we got a little physical. So what?"

Steve felt the press of his piece against the small of his back. "Did you kill her?"

Neil's face was plumped to the bursting point. "No, I did not."

Steve nodded. "I had to ask."

"Yeah, and now you know."

Steve had been waiting for that deciding moment, that giveaway declaration or micro-expression, but the promise had receded. And he began to wonder who it was he was interrogating, Neil or himself. "Were you in love with her?"

"Are you asking as Steve or Lieutenant Detective Markarian?"

"Both."

"What the fuck difference does it make? Yeah, I was pretty hooked." His eyes began to tear up and he looked away.

Steve had seen Neil emotional only once before-when his daughter was in trouble. He had also seen him put on Oscar-winning performances during interrogations. So he didn't know if this was real or performance-if he was tearing up because he loved Terry Farina or because he had killed her. They circled back toward the bridge. "How long did you see her?"

"A few months. After Ellen died, I let myself go, gained thirty pounds. I finally kicked myself in the ass because I didn't want to die and leave Lily a ward of the state. So I joined Kingsbury, where I met her."

"And this led to that and you started going out."

"Something like that. She asked if I would help get rid of the asshole living with her. She wanted to end it and he wouldn't go. So I paid him a visit. After that we went out a few times."

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"Maybe two months ago."

"How come her girlfriend Katie didn't know about you?"

"I don't know." Then he stopped. "This has turned into an interrogation and I don't like it."

"And I don't like what you did to Pendergast. I told you I didn't think he was our man, and you pulled him in and ate him up."

"Because he's a sexual predator with a track record."

"A sexual predator doesn't kill without sex or mutilation."

"Because he killed her before it got to that."

They had returned to the bridge. Neil reached into his pocket and removed a tin of aspirin and swallowed two. Below a bull goose flared his chest and beat his wings to drive away other males. There was a lot of honking and Neil threw a few stones, sending the group into flight.

"Fucking things are just flying shit machines. Look at the mess."

"I checked the video again and I'm concerned prosecutors are going to see what I saw."

"What's that?"

"A coercive interrogation that's more personal than professional. That you arrested him for having sex with her."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"All that stuff about did she initiate the making out, did she rub your bulge, did she go down on you, how she was nothing but a little slut...."

"I'm getting a little tired of you playing Sigmund Freud with me."

"Maybe so, but it doesn't take Sigmund Freud to wonder if you tried to pin the rap on Pendergast because you killed her yourself."

Neil's hands were on the rail, but in his head Steve saw the explosive attack on Pendergast and rehearsed his moves if Neil went for a weapon.

"I told you the truth."

"You also told me you hadn't seen her in four months, now it's two months. How do I know you didn't arrest him to cover your own crime?"

Neil glared at Steve. "And how do I know you didn't kill her, huh? You knew her from Northeastern. Your room was right next to hers, 215 Shillman Hall."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I used to pick her up from class. She said you two met during breaks and had coffee. For all I know you could have been going at it hot and heavy. Plus you like redheads."

"Where the hell you get that?"

"One, I heard you say that. Two, your old friend."

"What old friend?"

"Sylvia Nevins. That picture from last year's Christmas party in the staff room. The redheaded broad with your arm around."

He glared at Steve with the same gotcha eyes he had given Pendergast. "So you conclude that I killed Terry Farina because I had coffee with a redhead?"

"That and because you've got all the answers. You seem to know everything before anybody else, including twenty-five-year C.S.S. vets. You that smart or have you got information the rest of us don't? The more I think about it, you could have gone up there yourself and done it."

Yeah, I could have.

"In fact, where exactly were you that night?"

"Home watching the game." The words slid out as if oiled. Except he couldn't recall a moment of being home or the game. Everything he knew about the Sox win he had read in the Sunday Boston Globe.

"Maybe we should do an internal investigation of you, Lieutenant."

And in a voice straining for nonchalance, Steve said, "Be my guest."

Neil looked at him and bobbed his head. He made a dry smirking humph. "So now what?"

"We go to Reardon."

48.

Steve had briefed the captain on the phone as they headed back to headquarters. When they arrived, Reardon's face was a terracotta mask. He looked at Neil across the desk from him. "Were you lovers?"

"Is this a formal interrogation, Captain?"

"No more than Pendergast's was."

Neil made a face to say he didn't like the comment. "We were close."

"And you never told anybody."

In Neil's defense Steve said, "At the crime scene he said that he knew her from the health club."

"There's a fucking mile between casual acquaintance and an intimate relationship with a homicide victim. What the hell were you thinking? You kept us in the dark on a critical piece of information."

"I didn't want to go public," Neil said. "Maybe I was wrong."

"Maybe? This suppression of information is sufficient to disqualify you from the case."

"Give me a break," Neil said.

"I'm giving you a break. You could be fired from the force."

Neil's face hardened. He looked to Steve, but said nothing.

"You're suspended from the case permanently and from your current load for the next two weeks, but we'll call it a leave of absence. When you return you'll still have your other cases."

"With or without pay?"

"Because it's an infraction, with. And let me suggest that you work on your interrogation tactics. You were out of control with Pendergast."

"Okay."

A long moment passed. Then Neil asked, "Am I a suspect?"

"At the moment, you're a person of interest and we'll want a full statement from you. I'll see you in your office in fifteen."

Neil got up, and in silence Steve watched him walk to the door. As soon as the door closed Reardon shot a look at Steve. "Do you think he did it?"

Crosscurrents ripped through Steve.

"And how do I know you didn't kill her, huh?"

"I don't know."

Reardon nodded. "What was his relationship with her?"

"It started off as trainer and client then became more." Steve measured his words. "I think he got serious about her. But I think he's still conflicted, still unresolved in his feelings. He never approved of her stripping, but he feels bad that he made her feel sleazy about it."

"So maybe he was narrating how he killed her himself-all the sexual taunting, feeding him motives, attacking him with the stocking. Like he was reenacting his own crime."

Steve's next words could set in motion the investigation of his own partner- "In fact, where exactly were you that night?"

-or himself.

What Reardon had speculated was the unthinkable: a veteran homicide cop implicated in a high-buzz murder case. Exactly what he did not need on top of all the shrill press about the murder rate and police incompetence.

At the same time Steve was speculating on hideous Monty Hall options: Facing three doors, Bunky, and behind one is the killer, behind the others, scapegoats. The host tells you it's door number one, which is Earl Pendergast. Door number two is Neil. Door number three is good ole Stevie McHyde. For too many reasons Pendergast doesn't feel right. Door number two: Neil killing his old girlfriend? Think about it and the pieces begin to snap together like magnets. He wasn't on duty that day but agreed to take over for Hogan. He's first to the crime scene and convinces the techs it's accidental asphyxia. Stomps all over evidence. As soon as Pendergast's name surfaced, he's first to peg him as the bad guy. Never went to the ball game. No alibi. Lied about his relationship with the vic. Had a stockingful of motives. Gets a twofer: spurned jealous lover kills the bad girl and scapegoats the competition-poor geeky, creepy English prof.

(But tell me this: are we lining up circumstances to fit a conclusion in lieu of opening door number three?) (And are we ye old pot calling ye old kettle black? That maybe you and Terry were lovers and you dispatched her to rid yourself of the guilt for having an affair that you conveniently burned out of your memory banks?) Like she said, blame the victim. That and maybe get back at Dana through her look-alike.

"It's also possible," Steve said, "that we're seeing a good cop trying to squeeze a confession out of a guy he thinks killed his girlfriend."

"What does your gut tell you?"

"My gut tells me nothing."

"Well, we've got nothing connecting him to the crime scene."

"And no documented history of his lying, false arrests, or giving misleading evidence in court."