VC04 - Jury Double Read Free Page A

coffee might.”
    Mickey sipped. “I’ve been served worse in the White House.”
    Cardozo angled the desk lamp. “Why don’t you sit right there in that chair.” He placed the camcorder on the desk and sighted Williams through the viewfinder. “Is it Mickey or Michael?”
    “It’s always been Mickey.”
    Cardozo pressed record and enunciated into the microphone. “Mickey Williams, interviewed by Lieutenant Vincent Cardozo, four forty-five P.M. , September eighth.” He clicked on the power in his desktop computer, a Model-T Macintosh that you couldn’t have sold for scrap. “Mickey, before we review the events that happened this weekend, do you want to have a lawyer present?”
    “Is that required?”
    “No, but you’re entitled to one.”
    Mickey shrugged. “Why bother?”
    Cardozo had an itching sense that this was all falling into his lap a little too easily: the killer waits at the crime scene to give himself up; comes voluntarily to the precinct; gives up the right to a lawyer as though he were saying “no thanks” to a second helping of french fries.
    “Would you do me a favor? Speak slowly and clearly.”
    Mickey obliged. It was almost a verbatim repeat of the statement he’d given at the crime scene, only this time every monotone syllable was on tape. He described murdering two defenseless senior citizens with all the emotion of a weatherman reading the forecast off a TelePrompTer.
    When he’d finished, he shifted back in his seat, sighing as though it had been a long, tiring day. The chair beneath him creaked ominously but held. “How’d I do?”
    “Just fine.”
    There was a knock at the door.
    “Come in,” Cardozo shouted.
    Detective Ellie Siegel, dark-haired and brown-eyed, stepped into the cubicle. A cool, fresh breeze seemed to pass through the room.
    “Would either of you guys like some apricot juice?” She held a thermos and two paper cups. Over the past several years she had insinuated herself into the position of chief nudge in Cardozo’s life. Since he was a widower, she made it a point to worry about his nutrition, and she was always offering to share homemade yogurts and juices. Cardozo found her mothering sort of sweet—so long as there were no witnesses.
    “It’ll zing your blood sugar,” she said.
    “Sure.” Mickey Williams stretched out a hand.
    “I’ll pass,” Cardozo said. “Ellie, Mickey Williams. Mickey, Detective Siegel.”
    Mickey Williams raised his eyes shyly. Liquid, dark brown eyes floated in a suddenly sheepish face.
    Ellie leaned over the computer keyboard, cleared Cardozo’s file, and entered the code for the FBI’s national crime stats. She angled the monitor away from Mickey, but he was sipping juice and watching his pigeon and he didn’t seem to notice.
    The computer bubbled and hiccuped, and in a moment the twenty-year criminal record of Williams, Michael Armitage, Jr., glowed from the screen.
    Cardozo scanned eight charges of sexual misconduct, mostly with young girls; two confinements to prison, and one to a mental hospital. The rape and attempted mutilation of a twelve-year-old Korean orphan had resulted in a judge’s paroling Mickey to a “fellowship community” directed by a man named Corey Lyle. There were several drunk-driving charges.
    Cardozo frowned. “Mickey, would you excuse us just a moment?”
    “Sure thing.”
    Cardozo cleared the screen and motioned Ellie into the squad room. He closed the door. “Corey Lyle—that’s the cult leader who supposedly ordered the White Plains bombing because Internal Revenue was harassing him?”
    She nodded. “And the government’s been trying to indict him for seven years.”
    He took a small morocco-leather address book from an evidence bag in his jacket. “I found this in Amalia Briar’s bedroom.” He turned to the page where the name Corey L. and a phone number had been block-printed and underlined.
    “Be careful, Vince. This case could turn out to be a carton of