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Seventy-third Precinct at half past the hour, accompanied by Detectives Vic Arena and Edward J. Bulger. Upon arriving, Currie was notified that George Whitmore Jr. had, “in so many words,” confessed to the Minnie Edmonds case. Upon notification he left, leaving Arena and Bulger in charge. As it turned out, while Ayala and DiPrima had managed to get a roundabout confession of murder out of George Whitmore Jr., they seemed unable to get him to locate the murder weapon. At first, Whitmore denied having a weapon and began retracting his confession.
    â€œGeorgie,” Ayala said smoothly, “the only chance you got of getting out of this room today is if you tell me what the hell kind of knife you used, and where the damn thing is.”
    â€œI don’t believe you,” George mumbled, gazing downward.
    â€œYou don’t believe me?” Ayala leaned back in his chair, throwing his hands in the air. He looked to his fellow officers, grinning broadly.
    â€œHe doesn’t believe me,” Ayala remarked to DiPrima, who looked up from his notes and shrugged his shoulders.
    â€œDo you believe me, DiPrima?”
    â€œYou’re an officer of the law. Of course, I believe you,” DiPrima answered, gazing at Whitmore.
    Ayala then asked Micelli if he believed him; to which, he nodded pleasantly. Ayala then turned back to George, hardening his expression.
    â€œSo, George, come on. Quit the games. Where’s the knife?”
    Whitmore began sputtering responses, but he was cut off by Ayala.
    â€œCome on Georgie, you can tell me. Tell me where the knife is.”
    The room grew silent again, but for the scribbling of DiPrima. Whitmore folded his hands over his eyes for a minute. He sniffled; his nose was runny from crying.
    â€œOkay,” he said finally. “Okay.”
    â€œOkay, what?” Ayala answered softly.
    â€œOkay, I’ll tell you whatever you want me to.”
    â€œYou tell us the truth, George.”
    â€œAnd you’ll let me go, right?”
    â€œAnd we’ll let you go.”
    George Whitmore Jr. went on to describe the weapon as a black-handled, all-metal knife with a picture of a panther on each side of the handle. Officer Micelli had such a knife in his locker, so he produced one and Whitmore said his knife was similar. But when pressed as to where it was, he repeatedly denied knowing. Instead, he told them he lost it.
    While they actually all got in a squad car and drove to the stairs of a tenement building on 178 Amboy Street, where George had slept that night, as well as to his girlfriend Beverly Payne’s house, no knife was ever discovered. The police were eventually convinced that Whitmore had left the knife in the Amboy Street stairway and someone had since taken it. While the argument over the knife continued to escalate, and accusations persisted in bombarding Whitmore, by afternoon the officers had decided that—knife or no knife—they would book George Whitmore Jr. in both the Alma Estrada attack and the Minnie Edmonds homicide.
    When Whitmore again inquired as to whether he could leave, the room grew eerily silent. Finally Detective Joe DiPrima glanced up from his notes and halfheartedly managed to say, “Not yet, kid. But maybe soon.”

CHAPTER 4
    D etective Edward Bulger had arrived at the precinct that Friday to deliver salary checks. On the squad room table was a copy of a paperback book that had been found in Whitmore’s jacket on that morning when he was initially searched. It was called The Tall Dark Man and was, ironically, a suspense novel based around a young girl who is involuntarily a witness to a murder. Detective Edward Bulger saw it and began skimming through the book. He leaned his back against the wall and rested the bottom of the book on a slight beer belly, which had formed in recent years. The result of old age, he reasoned. Bulger was a man who, at first glance, was very handsome, with a chiseled jaw and