Page 33 of Carved

The pliers close around his ring fingernail. I don't pull yet, just apply enough pressure to make my intentions clear."Detective Jenkins. I watched through your living room window. I saw you drag her upstairs. I heard the sounds of violence, of things breaking. I heard her crying."

"She was being disrespectful—"

I yank. Hard. The fingernail tears free with a wet sound that makes him scream despite his best efforts to stay quiet. Blood wells from the exposed nail bed, and I can see tears of pain leaking from the corners of his eyes.

"The truth, Detective. What did you do to your sixteen-year-old daughter last night?"

"I…I grabbed her. Shook her a little. Maybe pushed her into the wall." The words come out in a rush now, pain breaking down his defenses. "She was lying to me, being defiant. Someone has to teach her respect."

"And upstairs? In her room?"

"I threw some things around. Broke a lamp. She was crying, being dramatic like always." He's breathing in short, sharp gasps. "I might have…I might have hit her. Once or twice."

"Might have?"

"I hit her! Okay? I fucking hit her!" The admission tears out of him like something physical. "She was mouthing off, acting like she's better than me, and I lost my temper. So what? She's my kid. It's none of your fucking business."

I lean back in my chair, studying his face. The defensive anger, the complete lack of remorse, the way he's already rebuilding his justifications even as he confesses. This is who Harry Jenkins really is underneath the badge and the uniform and the community respect. This is the monster his daughter has lived with for sixteen years.

"Try to buy me off," I say suddenly.

"What?"

"You're a corrupt cop, Detective. We both know it. Try to buy me off. Offer me money, information, whatever currency you think might save your life."

His eyes dart around the kitchen, mind racing through possibilities. "I've got money. Cash savings, plus I know where other cops keep their off-the-books income. I could make you rich."

"How much?"

"Fifty thousand. Maybe more if you give me time to liquidate some investments."

I pick up the knife again, test its edge with my thumb. "Not enough."

"Information, then. I know which cops are dirty, which judges can be bought. I know about evidence that's been buried, cases that have been fixed. You could own this city."

"Still not enough."

Panic creeping into his voice now: "What do you want? Name it. Anything."

I lean forward, close enough that he can see his own reflection in my eyes. "I want the truth, Detective. All of it. About your wife's death. About what you've done to Delilah. About every single sin you've committed behind that badge."

His face goes pale. "I don't know what you mean about my wife—"

The knife slides between his ribs, just deep enough to part muscle, not deep enough to puncture anything vital. He screams, the sound raw and desperate.

"The only currency that matters now is truth, Detective. And we're going to extract every last bit of it before this night is over."

I settle back in my chair, surgical tools arranged on the table like instruments in an operating theater. The tape recorder continues its steady documentation, red light unwavering.

Twenty-six minutes and counting.

We have all the time in the world.

***

The truth comes in pieces, like flesh carved from bone. Each revelation costs Jenkins something—blood, pain, another fragment of the facade he's spent decades building. By the forty-minute mark, I've extracted enough to fill a prosecutor's wet dreams and a daughter's nightmares.

"Tell me about Sarah," I say, cleaning blood from the pliers with methodical precision. Jenkins has been crying for the last ten minutes, not from pain but from the slow disintegration of his carefully constructed self-image. "Your wife. How did she really die?"