Seaweed in the Soup (18 page)

“What's she going on about now?” Bernie asked me.

“Nothing much. English is her first language, she knows what you're saying.”

Bernie tucked his chin into his collar and stared at her through his bushy eyebrows. “A few days ago, Miss, you and another woman visited a house with a man called Raymond Cho, where you murdered him . . . ”

“Bullshit, that's a complete crock,” Maria said.

Continuing as if he'd never been interrupted, Bernie said, “It's a private house on Echo Bay. We know that you were there, because we have pictures and because you left fresh fingerprints all over the place. We found them in the kitchen, in the vestibule and in the lounge. Fingerprints don't lie.”

Maria stared down at the table.

Bernie gave her a few seconds to absorb that information. He went on, “Cho's body was taken to the Jubilee Hospital where it was autopsied. Samples of human tissue were found beneath Cho's fingernails. When you were strip-searched before your incarceration, Maria, deep unhealed scratches were noticed on your behind and on your lower back.”

Maria thought for a minute and then said, “All right. Ronnie likes his girls on top. He was a bit rough, though. Got carried away I guess. He ripped my ass with his nails when I was riding him, but I didn't notice it at the time. He did the same thing to Ruthie.”

Bernie had been looking half asleep during the previous few moments. The name
Ruthie
brought him wide awake.

He grinned satanically. “Yes, right. Maria. It's time for you to tell us a little more about Ruthie.”

Maria's hand flew to her mouth—a habit with her when taken unawares. “Did I say
Ruthie
?” she said unconvincingly. “I don't know what I was thinking of. It was a whatchamacallit. A slip of the tongue.”

“Baloney, you're not an infant and neither are we. Do yourself a favour. Tell us about your friend Ruthie.”

“Not without speaking to a lawyer first.”

Bernie sighed, because Maria proved adamant. He asked her many questions but, initially, he skirted around the details of the murder. Concealing from a suspect what is already known about a crime gives investigators an edge. After more of Maria's stonewalling, Bernie decided to jolt her a little. First, he leaned back until his chair was balanced on two legs. After gently rocking back and forth for a time, he said calmly, “Let me tell you something. When you and your girlfriend Ruthie arrived at Raymond Cho's house, he was alive. Now he's dead. Somebody first knocked him out with a club and then slit his throat.”

“A nice guy like him, why would anybody want him killed? What for?”

“That's what we're here to find out. We don't care who used the club. It's nothing personal with us. What we generally do in cases where there are two prime suspects, is we go easy on whoever co-operates first and gives us useful information.”

The corners of her mouth turned down. “Prime suspects? Who's a prime suspect?”

“You obviously are one. Your friend Ruthie is another.”

“And you are peddling horseshit.”

“You're a liar and an idiot,” Bernie yelled suddenly, standing up and leaning across the table with his weight on his arms, a ferociously intimidating look on his face. “I've a good mind to throw you back in that cell and let you rot in the dark. Raymond Cho's dead. He was murdered and you, you little twerp, you did it.”

“My God, my God, I can't believe this bullshit.”

“Bullshit? Horseshit? I'm telling you the truth. Raymond Cho is dead. He was murdered. You and your friend are prime suspects. We found the slavekiller that you clubbed him with.”

“Slavekiller? Clubbed?” Maria said, her lips trembling. “You're just trying to scare me, set me up.”

After glowering at her for half a minute, Bernie sat down again. He said with deliberate slowness, “One of our suspects is going to use her brains. If she's got a lick of sense, she's going to tell us how and why Raymond Cho died. She'll co-operate with us, because we are willing to make a deal. The suspect we make the deal with will get every consideration. The one stupid enough to keep her trap shut will be charged with murder. It'll be an open-and-shut case. Do you understand what I'm getting at? The one who is stupid enough to be uncooperative with the police will be charged with murder. She'll be taken before a judge and jury, and she will be found guilty. Guilty of murder. She will spend 25 years in prison before she becomes eligible to apply for parole. The chances are that she will never get parole. She will die in jail. It'll probably be a place like this one. It won't be any fun at all, I can assure you. How do you think a jury's going to react when the prosecutor tells them that your blood and skin was found under Cho's fingernails? Do you think that a jury will believe that you got those scratches playing games? Are you a halfwit? That evidence is proof positive that you killed him during a struggle that ended in his death! So who's going to talk? You, or Ruthie?”

Maria's expression of baffled innocence faded, and she broke into tears. Bernie didn't let up. After another half-hour of unsuccessful threats lies, and formulaic interrogation tricks, Bernie turned to me and said, “Okay, it's your turn.”

I pasted a neutral expression on my face and said softly, “Maria. Look at me, please.”

Still shocked into speechlessness after Bernie's rough handling, she bowed her head and looked at the table instead.

I said, “Maria Alfred. We are policemen trying to find out exactly how and why a man ended up dead in a house on Collins Lane. It's in everybody's interest that the truth comes out. You need to listen carefully to what we say. Do you understand the danger that you're in?”

Tears squeezed between Maria's eyelids and slid slowly down her cheeks. Until that moment, she had struck me as being someone who, instead of dealing with life's ugly realities, preferred to shut her mind to them.

I felt sorry for her, but was careful not to let my feelings show. I said sternly, “We think you can tell us how Mr. Cho was murdered, and by whom. You were either acting alone or in concert with your friend, Ruthie. Pay attention Maria, for God's sake. You've been locked up for a bit already. You've had a little taste of what jail can be like for a woman. Think of what you'll be giving up if you persist in this foolishness. You'll never get married, have children or put a pretty dress on. You'll never go out dancing with boys. It doesn't have to be that way,” I continued, as tears ran unimpeded down her face and dripped onto the table. “You can either go to jail or you can go back home. Marry a nice man and live a normal life. It's your decision.”

“I don't know nothing about no murder, honest.”

“You must know something. All of the evidence points that way.”

“It was my friend must have done it, Ruth's the one you want,” Maria sobbed. “We were just having fun. I didn't do nothing to hurt nobody.”

“Ruth who?”

“Ruth Claypole.”

“Good girl,” Bernie said. “That's the spirit, now you are using your head. Just tell us what happened in your own words.”

“Screw you!” Maria screamed, her eyes burning with hatred. “Get the hell outta here, I won't say another word with you in the room, you shit-eating bastard.”

Shaking his head, Bernie said in a kindlier tone, “Forget it, Maria. It's my job to be here.”

As if alone with me, whispering, Maria said, “The three of us was just partying, fooling around. I only went along for the ride.”

“What is your relationship with Ruthie?”

“We went to school together,” Maria said reluctantly. “We been best friends all our lives. She must have killed him.”

“Did you and Ruth Claypole grow up on Quanterelle Island?”

“That's for me to know and you to find out.”

“Finding out shouldn't be too difficult. Did you see your friend kill Mr. Cho?”

“No!” Maria replied furiously. “We was all in the lounge room of Ronnie's house, having drinks. It was a living room sort of, but that's what Ronnie called it, a lounge room. We was all three of us pretty loaded. Ronnie had big stash of reefers. We smoked a couple. He offered us blow, but my friend and me have seen too many people get burned. We don't touch nothing except the odd reefer and especially not blow. I must have been pretty drunk to do the things I done in them dirty pictures. Jesus. Then I left Ruth and Raymond to it and I went upstairs and back to the lounge room. You know what Raymond and my friend were doing in his bed. I don't have to tell you what it was they was doing. I was left on my own for a while, so I looked around the house for a bit. Later on I walked along the beach to try and clear my head. I'd had a little too much to drink and that. When I got back from my walk, Ruth was taking a shower. I figured Raymond was having a snooze. Raymond had told Ruth that he wanted to screw us both again, a threesome, I don't know where he got the energy. Cialis I think, maybe rhinoceros horns, who the hell knows what them guys take. Jesus. But we decided to clear out before he woke up. We found the keys for his Beemer and tried to start it, only it wouldn't go. It had some kind of anti-theft gadget. We didn't know how it worked. We couldn't figure it out. There was no phone in the house either, to call for a taxi, so we was forced to walk.”

Bernie had been sitting motionless, studying her. He said brusquely, “How long have you been acquainted with Ronnie Chew alias Raymond Cho?”

Rage came into her eyes. “Fuck off! You can fuck right off!” she screamed. “I ain't fucking talking to you.”

I gave her a few moments to calm herself. “Please answer CDI Tapp's question.”

Panting with rage, she said, “What question was that again?”

“How long have you known Ronnie?”

“Ronnie? We didn't know him at all, we just ran into him in a club.”

“What's the name of this club?”

“Nanaimo's.”

“Excellent, you're doing well. So, you met him in Nanaimo's?”

Maria nodded. “It was a Saturday night. Me and my friend we were in this club. Me and my girlfriend Ruth. It was full of Japs, Chinks and ragheads. All of them drunk and throwing money around. We didn't know nobody there till this guy Ronnie, he invites us to sit at his table and have a drink with him. We didn't argue. He ordered a bottle of fancy red wine for us. We'd hardly had a taste of it before trouble starts. Ronnie was drinking brandy shooters and he was half pissed. Everybody had been having a ball. Singing and dancing and that. Next thing a fight starts. Guys are losing it and going crazy. Glass is breaking. People are screaming and hiding under tables. I ran for the door, everybody's panicking and screaming. In the rush, me and Ruth got separated. I guess the next thing I remember I'm outside on the street trying to flag down a taxi, because cops is showing up already. Then, before I could bag a taxi, Ruth shows up along with Ronnie. His car is parked down there somewhere. He had a nice car, a Beemer; he took us to his car. We got in and he took off like a goddamn jackrabbit. Ronnie was so scared, he was trembling. He said guys was out to kill him. He was a target he said. At the time, I thought he was just, you know, pretending. Showing off like, trying to make us think he was a big shot. We didn't care.

“Ronnie acted like he had money. He invited us to go with him to a party. He'd been half-drunk before, but now he was sober and he was scared. Shit-scared. He kept telling us that guys was out to get him, but I swear we thought he was bulling us. A party sounded okay though. Next thing we know, we're in the Beemer on the road. We went along for the ride. Ronnie calmed down a bit, but he asked us not to leave him on his own. He needed company, he said. He said he'd give us presents if we kept him company because he was rich, loaded. So we stayed with him.

“When we got to Ronnie's house, we found out it wasn't going to be no real party. Just the three of us in this house. I never seen nothing like it in my life. It was a palace, not a house.” Maria's voice trailed away.

“You're doing fine, Maria. Keep talking, tell us what went down.”

“No goddamn way. I've said enough.”

“You'll have to tell us sometime,” I persisted. “They'll keep you locked up until you do.”

“I won't tell you nothing.”

“Where is Ruth?”

“I won't tell you nothing about her! Ask her yourself. You won't get no help from me.”

“You and Ruth have been friends for a long time?”

“All our lives. We went to school together.”

“Which school would that be?”

After thinking the question over, Maria said reluctantly, “That'd be Surge Narrows School.”

“That's better,” I said. “Use your head, Maria, and come clean about the rest of it. Basically, we think you're a nice girl. We know you didn't kill Cho out of pure maliciousness. You had the means and the opportun-ity, but what was your motive for killing him?
Why
did you do it? Did somebody tell you to do it? If so, tell us who this person is. Tell us now, it'll be very much to your advantage when you're taken before a judge and jury. So to repeat. Why? Tell us
why
you killed Ronnie Chew, alias Raymond Cho?”

“What are you talking about? I'm telling you. I told you already. I don't know nothing about no killing.”

“You told me that three people were in the house. You, Ruth Claypole, and Mr. Cho. Do you seriously expect us to believe that you didn't know that Mr. Cho had been murdered?”

“I don't know nothing about it. The last time I seen him he was alive, for chrissakes!”

Bernie stepped in and said in a soothing voice, “That's all right, take it easy. You've been very good. It's just . . . Try to see it from our point of view. There are three people in a house. A person dies and one of the people with him pretends she knows nothing about it?”