The Weight Read Online Free Page B

little motion for me to put my face close. He wrote something on his yellow pad. I looked: NEVER VOUCHERED is what it said, in tiny letters.
    I moved my lips real slow, so I could say what I wanted without making a sound: “The piece?”
    “It’s not anywhere in all this,” he said, running his pen over what he’d shown me. He really worked at it, crosshatching the words into a black blob, but he made it seem like he didn’t realize what he was doing. “Of course, it doesn’t
have
to be. Like I said, I haven’t filed any motions—they gave me all this without me even asking. And now I think I see why.”
    “It’s a card they’re holding back?”
    “No. Listen.” He leaned toward me again; I did the same toward him. He spoke so soft I could barely hear him: “The rape, it wasn’t gunpoint; the guy put a—”
    “Shut. The. Fuck.
Up!”
I said. Just moving my lips like before, not making a sound. But he heard me. Heard me good.
    “What’s your problem?” he said, backing off. “I’m just trying to—”
    “Yeah, I know. But right now I could walk in and pass any polygraph they got. Sure, the operator’s going to tell me I failed, see if that gets me to confess. But
they’ll
see I’m not lying. That’s why I talked to the cops for so long after they picked me up. I figured, sooner or later, they’d ask me, since I was innocent and all, would I mind taking the test? I had the surprise all ready for them, but they never took the bait.”
    “That wouldn’t be admissible—”
    “I know. But it’s
something
, right? They started with the registered sex offenders. Stupid fucks: every joint’s got plenty of rape artists who pleaded to burglary, so there’s all kinds of sex fiends who wouldn’t even be on that list. I figure, if she stopped when they got to my picture, they probably didn’t show her any
more
pictures.”
    He nodded.
    “Then, when I went in the lineup, she was looking for the guy who matched the picture, see?”
    “Right. And that’s exactly what we’ll be saying. But why don’t you—?”
    “It’s not much, but it’s
something
. If you start telling me the details, that’ll mess up the test … if they ever decide to give me one. I don’t know how the girl was raped because I didn’t rape her.”
    He leaned forward. “Straight up?”
    “Hey, the cops already
know
I’m not the guy. At least the last two detectives I talked to, they know.”
    “If they know …”
    “They know because they know something else. I mean, I was
doing
something else when that girl got raped.”
    “Ah.”
    “Yeah. My alibi buys me as much time as a rape would. In
this
state, probably more.”
    He raised an eyebrow, asking me a question. This guy knew there’s things you don’t say out loud, even when you’re talking to a lawyer.
    “Not that,” I said, drawing my finger across my throat, putting distance between myself and any homicides that might have gone down during what the cops call the “critical period” when they’re investigating a murder. Probably their idea of a joke.
    “So …?”
    “So this: if they show the girl more pictures, she might change her mind. Except for this”—I touched the scar that ran down from my forehead through my right eyebrow—“the only thing that stands out is that I’m a big white guy with two different-colored eyes. The guy who actually did the rape, he’s done a lot of them.”
    “How could you know that?”
    “How come she never saw his eyes? How come they don’t have a single damn drop or fiber or hair or—?”
    “A pro, you’re saying?”
    “There’s no such thing as a pro rapist. A pro works for money.”
    “No offense,” he said, giving me a weird look. Like what did
I
have to be offended about? He was slick about the law maybe, and he could talk some of our talk, but now he was working without a map. He couldn’t know I
wanted
people to say, “Sugar’s a real pro.” Some people, I mean. But this guy wouldn’t