Page 143 of Dark Romeo

For a few terse moments, Roman and Espo glared at each other, an unspoken battle of wills raging between them. At any moment either of them, or both, might lunge over the table and punch the other.

Roman gave Espo a smile that bordered on a smirk before spreading his hands on the table, palms up.

“Palms down,” Espo said, his eyes still fixed on Roman.

Roman hesitated for just a second, then turned his hands over.

My heart sank. His knuckles were scabbed over, bruised up as if he’d hit someone. He had. He’d hit Eddie several times the night he saved me.

Espo glanced up to the camera above his head, the red light still on, as if to make a point that we now had Roman’s injuries on record.

“How did you get those cuts on your knuckles?” Espo nodded to Roman’s hands.

Roman didn’t flinch. He didn’t even take his hands off the desk, he just stared at his knuckles as if he were admiring them. “I got into an altercation with a man who was assaulting my girl.”

“When was this?”

“Two nights ago, three… I don’t keep track of these things.”

“And you sure it wasn’t this guy you hit?” Espo tapped the picture of a very dead Eddie.

Roman let out a long sigh. He picked up the picture, making a show of studying it. I could almost see his mind working. What did we know? What evidence did we have?

If he’d only called me back, I could have warned him. Instead, we had him in a corner.

Roman dropped the picture on the desk. “I’m sure, detective.”

“Really? ’Cause I think you beat the shit out of this guy.” Espo stabbed the picture with his finger. “Eddie Sanchez. Look again.”

Roman leaned back in his chair, cool as anything. “Do you have any evidence linking my wounds to this man’s wounds?”

Espinoza shuffled in his seat. “No.”

“I see.”

Espo leaned in, his chair scraping against the ground. “Someone had the foresight to pour bleach over his wounds, destroying whatever DNA evidence there might have been.”

Roman gave Espinoza a smug look. “Really? How clever.”

Espo glared back. The tension in the room was strung as tight as a tennis racket. “What was the name of the man you assaulted?”

“I didn’t assault anyone. I was protecting my girlfriend.”

“Fine, what was the name of the man you were protecting your girlfriend from?”

“I didn’t get it.”

“You didn’t get it?”

“I didn’t exactly stop to chat. I was too busy teaching him some manners.”

“Bruising on your knuckles shows you must have hit this man several times.”

“He was a poor learner. I had to teach him several times.”

“What a coincidence, a body turns up that had been hit several times before he was killed.”

“There seem to be a lot of people around the place who deserve that kind of thing.”

---