“Are you the man? Are you the Mastermind, Brian? You kill all those people?”
He didn’t answer me, so I hit him hard in the stomach. He doubled up, his face tight with pain.
Betsey had come up to the two of us by now. So had a couple of other agents. They just watched; they understood what this was about. They wanted it to happen, too.
“Balls of your feet.” I gave Macdougall a fight tip. “You’re still fighting back on your heels.”
He mumbled something. I couldn’t make it out. Didn’t much care what he had to say. I hit him in the stomach again. “See? Kill the body,” I told him. “I teach my kids the same thing.”
I threw another uppercut into his stomach. He wasn’t flabby, and the punch felt good, like hitting a heavy bag. Then a sharp uppercut right on the tip of Macdougall’s chin. He went down hard on the lawn. He stayed there. He was out.
I stood over him, panting a little, sweating some. “Brian Macdougall. I asked you a question. Are you the Mastermind?”
Chapter 89
THE NEXT TWO DAYS were draining and wildly frustrating. The five detectives were being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center at Foley Square. It was a secure place where mob informants and crooked policemen were sometimes kept for their own safety.
I interviewed each of the detectives, starting with the youngest, Vincent O’Malley, and ending up with Brian Macdougall, who appeared to be the leader. One after the other, the detectives denied any involvement in the MetroHartford kidnapping.
Hours after my initial interview with Brian Macdougall, he asked to see me again.
When the shackled detective was brought into the interrogation room at Foley Square, I had a feeling that something had changed. I could see it in his face.
Macdougall was visibly upset when he spoke: “It’s different than I’d thought it would be. In jail. Sitting here on the wrong side of the table. It’s more a defensive game, you know. You try and hit the ball back over the net.”
“You want anything?” I asked him. “Cold drink?”
“Cigarette?”
I called for cigarettes to be brought into the interrogation room. Someone popped in with a pack of Marlboros, then immediately left. Macdougall lit up and he puffed luxuriously, as if smoking a Marlboro were the greatest pleasure the world had to offer. Maybe it seemed like it now.
I watched his eyes drift in and out of focus. He was obviously bright, thoughtful. The Mastermind? I waited patiently to hear what he wanted from me. He wanted something.
“I’ve seen a lot of detectives do this,” he said, then he blew out a cloud of smoke. “You know how to listen. You don’t make mistakes.”
There was a brief silence. We both had all the time in the world. “What do you want from us?” I finally asked.
“Right question, Detective. I’ll get to that soon. Y’know, I was a decent enough cop in the beginning,” he said. “It’s when those first ideals go that you have to be careful.”
“I’ll try to remember,” I said, smiling faintly, trying not to condescend.
“What keeps you going?” Macdougall asked. He seemed interested in my answer. Maybe I amused him. More likely, he was playing with me, though. That was okay for now.
I looked into his eyes and I saw emptiness, maybe even remorse. “I don’t want to disappoint my family, or myself. It’s just the way I’m built. Maybe I don’t have much of an imagination.”
Smoke drifted through his fingers. “You asked me what I wanted? It was the right question. I always act out of self-interest, always have.” He sighed out loud. “All right, let me tell you what I’m looking for.”
I knew enough to listen, not talk.
“First of all, nobody got hurt from MetroHartford. We’ve never hurt anybody on any of our jobs.”
“What about the Buccieris? James Bartlett? Ms. Collins?” I asked.
Macdougall shook his head. “I didn’t do those jobs. You know I didn’t do them. I know you know.”
He was right; at least I didn’t believe they had done the earlier jobs. The style was different for those. Plus, the detectives’ attendance logs showed they had worked on several of the days when robberies took place. “Okay. So where do we go from here? You also know that we want to get the person who set up the jobs. That’s what we care about now.”
“I know that. So here’s my offer. It’ll be hard for everybody to swallow, but it’s nonnegotiable. I want the best deal that I ever saw as a cop. That means witness protection inside a country club like Greenhaven. I’m out in ten years maximum time. I’ve seen that same deal on counts of murder one. I know what can be done and what can’t be.”