The Question of the Felonious Friend (13 page)

Fifteen

“I shot Richard. I
shot him with the gun.”

Tyler Clayton looked agitated.

Arms swinging widely at his sides, he paced the conference room at the Somerset police department headquarters. He was awaiting transfer to Somerset County jail in Somerville, approximately sixteen minutes by car. If the public defender assigned to him was not able to convince the judge in the case that Tyler was not a flight risk or a danger, he would be sent there within the hour, according to Sgt. Thomas Pendleton, who had been at the desk when we had arrived.

Mason and especially Sandy were particularly concerned about this possibility, given Tyler's level of social interaction and his anxiety at dealing with anything outside his routine. I agreed they were correct to be worried—this type of situation would be Tyler's worst nightmare. Naïve, frightened, and barely verbal, he would be terrorized and victimized at even a minimum-security prison, which New Jersey county jails are not.

They had received the news of Tyler's confession through Mason's cellular phone while they were in his sport utility vehicle on the way to Questions Answered, or, Sandy said, they would have gone directly to the Somerset police and cancelled our meeting.

“We can't leave him in the hands of a public defender,” Mason said. “I'm calling the guy from TV.”

Ms. Washburn winced. “T. Harrington Swain?” she asked. “Do you know any attorneys at all?”

Sandy scowled. “Not
criminal
lawyers,” she said. “Divorce lawyers, sure. But a murder charge? What do we look like?” I did not understand how Sandy and Mason's appearance would indicate their previous level of criminal activity, but this did not seem the time to ask.

“I can make some calls,” Ms. Washburn offered.

“There's no time.” Mason seemed firm in his stance. “We'll call the guy from TV once we're in the car. I want a lawyer in Tyler's corner before we get to the cops.”

There was a great deal of disagreement, but we took two vehicles to the police station. I was not interested in testing Mason's driving skills for the first time when he was upset and trying to hire an attorney for his brother via the cell phone in his car. Even with hands-free operation, studies have shown that having a conversation, particularly one on the telephone, while driving leads to increased risk of a vehicular accident. Ms. Washburn and I followed in her Kia Spectra.

“How will we get in to see Tyler?” Ms. Washburn asked. “You and I are not family and we are not part of his defense team. He doesn't even have a defense team yet.”

“Police are not always completely rigid on the rules of visitation,” I told her. “We can only hope the people in Somerset will see the kind of character Tyler has, that he is not a typical offender, and let anyone who might be helpful in to talk to him.”

“Do you think Tyler will want to talk to us?” she said.

“I'll be surprised if he is talking at all, despite what Sandy told us.”

Sergeant Pendleton did indeed allow the four of us into the conference room to see Tyler, whose hands were not cuffed. He continued to pace the area in front of the conference table where Ms. Washburn, Mason, Sandy, and I had gathered to confront him.

I was the only one seated.

“I shot Richard,” Tyler said. “I shot him. I took the gun and I shot him.”

“Why?” Mason asked him, his voice gentle as if attempting to modulate Tyler's mood. “Why did you shoot him?”

“I shot Richard,” Tyler repeated. “I took the gun and shot him.” His gaze seemed fixed on his sister Sandy.

“The sergeant told us that's all he's been saying,” Sandy said. “He hasn't given a reason. He hasn't told them anything about how it happened. He just says he shot this guy and he repeats it no matter what you say to him.”

This was probably not going to be an especially useful interrogation if that was the case. “Tyler,” I said, “why did you paint the security cameras?”

Tyler stopped pacing and looked at me. His eyes bored into mine like he was trying to find the answer to my question inside my head. He held my gaze for what I believed to be an uncomfortable moment.

“I shot Richard,” he said again. “I shot him.” He resumed his pacing.

I looked at Ms. Washburn, who appeared very concerned. Oddly, I found myself wondering about her possible reconciliation with her estranged husband rather than Tyler's predicament or Mason's question.

“Tyler,” Sandy said, touching her brother on his arm, “tell us what happened.”

That seemed counterproductive. Tyler simply stared at her. “I shot Richard.” Tyler believed he had already explained exactly what had occurred.

“How many times did you fire?” I asked more loudly.

Sandy gave me a look that was not friendly.

Again, my question seemed to stump Tyler; he stopped his movement and looked this time at the ceiling. He did not repeat his new mantra, instead reverting to his previous sound of, “Nnnnnnnnnnn … ”

Sandy flung her hands into the air. “Well
that's
a step backwards!” she exclaimed. “Will you leave so we can get to the bottom of this?”

“If you ask me to do so, I will go outside,” I told her. “But I have been getting more useful reactions from Tyler than you have. I am beginning to believe he did not shoot Richard Handy at all.”

Sandy opened her mouth to answer but had no time before the conference door opened and a man whose face was vaguely familiar entered the room. He scanned the gathered group with his eyes in less than one second and immediately began barking orders at us.

“Everybody out of the room,” said T. Harrington Swain. “I'm here to consult with my client and I don't want anyone coloring his answers.”

“I shot Richard,” Tyler said. “I took the gun and shot him.”

“Let's not broadcast that, son,” Swain said to his client. “We have enough of an uphill battle without you giving the other side ammunition against us.”

“Mr. Swain!” Sandy sounded offended. But the same words were coming from Mason at the same moment, and if my ear was hearing it accurately, his voice seemed considerably more pleased to see the lawyer. He stood up and offered his hand.

“I'm Mason Clayton,” he said. “We spoke on the phone.” This seemed information Swain would have already known, but Mason's insistence on telling it to Swain did not seem ill advised. The lawyer smiled and nodded in his direction, then took his hand and shook it.

“M
r. Clayton,” he said, “thank you for calling me. I can see why you did.”

“I shot Richard,” Tyler insisted. “I shot him.”

“You might want to stop saying that, Tyler.” Swain looked at his client, who continued to pace, then back at Mason by way of Sandy. “What's wrong with him, exactly?”

I did not care for the terminology Swain used in reference to Tyler, but I was not aware of the protocol the Clayton family had for dealing with such issues, so I did not object. In fact, the presence of Ms. Washburn and me had not even been acknowledged yet.

“He has a form of autism,” Sandy told the attorney. “He usually does better than this, though.”

Swain nodded. “All right.” He ignored Tyler's continued pacing, arms constantly in motion, then trained his gaze first on me, then on Ms. Washburn, whom he seemed to find more interesting. He spoke to her. “And who are you? What is your role here?”

I wanted to introduce myself and my associate, but the more professional thing was to listen as Ms. Washburn said, “I'm Janet Washburn. My boss Samuel Hoenig and I were hired by Mason to answer a question.” She gestured toward me at the mention of my name.

Swain did not turn in my direction. “And what was that question?” he asked.

Normally it is the policy at Questions Answered not to discuss our clients or their areas of interest with anyone outside the research project. But in this case, Swain's role fell into a gray area; he was involved, although not necessarily in answering the question but in dealing with its consequences—and after all, he had spoken again to Ms. Washburn and not to me.

“Who killed Richard Handy?” she informed him.

“Uh-huh. And what answer did you find?”

This time I felt it was necessary, as the proprietor of Questions Answered, to speak for my company. “We have not yet gathered enough information to answer the question definitively.”

Swain nodded curtly and then turned toward Mason and Sandy. “I need you all to leave the room, please. Your presence here is going to make it that much more difficult to get complete truth from my client.”

Sandy's eyes narrowed. “
We're
your client,” she said. “We're paying the bill. So I think maybe we'll stay in the room while you question him.”

“Sandy,” Mason admonished.

“No. I don't like the way this guy waltzes in here and tells us what to do. I'll sit here quietly away from Tyler and see how the magician does his job, okay?” She sat down in the chair farthest from Tyler, who was paying no attention to the drama before him and continued to pace, quietly repeating his admission of guilt more to himself than to anyone else in the room.

Swain looked at her, appeared to consider the situation, and nodded. “Very well. But these two should leave.” He gestured toward Ms. Washburn and me.

“Mr. Swain … ” Ms. Washburn began.

I stood. It was time for me to begin exercise anyway. I considered the dimensions of the room, decided they could not be calculated accurately, and said, “That's fine. It is doubtful you will be able to persuade Tyler to say anything other than that he shot Richard Handy and he used the gun, which is not useful information and is likely not the truth. But our continued presence here will not contribute anything of use to Tyler's defense and we have other avenues to pursue in order to complete our task.” I started toward the door.

“Samuel,” Ms. Washburn said.

“Yes, thank you, Ms. Washburn, I did forget.” I proffered my hand to Swain and said, “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Samuel Hoenig, proprietor of Questions Answered.” He took my hand probably more out of habit than thought. I shook his once, let go, and continued to the door.

Ms. Washburn followed, not saying anything else other than good-byes to the other three in the room. I did not see the need, although I am aware that is the social custom. We left the police station and headed toward Ms. Washburn's car.

I will admit, however, that on the way out I turned to Mason and said, “It is a good thing that we had separate cars, isn't it?”

He did not answer.

Sixteen

“Richard Handy's parents are
divorced,” Ms. Washburn said. “His father is in Arizona, and his mother remarried and moved to Delaware. As far as I can tell, neither of them had been in touch with their son for at least a year.”

She was driving us toward the home of Dorothy Brewer, a woman who had been part of Richard's Swords and Sorcerers group, according to the aunt she had called just after we'd left the police department. The aunt, whose name was Audrey Seldin, was not close but was the only relative dealing with Richard's funeral. She did not have time to see us, she said. Perhaps in three days, which I thought would be after the question was answered. But Ms. Washburn took Audrey's contact information and stored it in her cellular phone.

“How did you find out about his parents and locate his aunt?” I asked. “You didn't seem to know this before we went inside.”

“I flirted a little with the officer who was in charge of the records.”

That struck me hard because the admission was so unexpected. I stammered a bit and said, “Ms. Washburn, you are a married woman, at least for the time being.”

She laughed. “It was just a little flirting, Samuel. I wasn't going to
do
anything about it. You really do need to get a better sense of this sort of thing.”

I had recovered sufficiently, although far from completely, to ask, “When?”

“When do you need to get a better sense?”

“No. When did you … flirt with the officer?”

“You went in first to see Tyler when Mason and Sandy were walking in. I hung back a little bit because I could see how the guy behind the desk was looking at me and I figured I could use it.” She did not look at me, but I must have made a sound that indicated my stunned condition. “We needed some help, Samuel. It wasn't a big deal, believe me.”

It is true that I do not understand the practice of flirting. It falls into a nebulous territory between mild notice and romantic interest that does not fully make sense. Either a person has some intent or he does not; the blend that is both and neither is very confusing for someone like me. My mother has often intimated that she believes I have some romantic interest in Ms. Washburn, although I do not believe that to be the case. Still, there must be some behavior I exhibit which gives Mother the mistaken impression. I do not see it myself.

“Is it crossing a line to ask how Simon would feel about you doing something like that for your job?” I asked.

Ms. Washburn's crooked smile faded a bit. “That's not relevant,” she said.

We did not speak again until we arrived at the home of Dorothy Brewer in a suburban area of Bound Brook, a town on the eastern end of Somerset County, not a long drive from where Richard Handy had lived in Franklin Township. The house was modest, likely a product of the 1980s, and exhibited no frills. It was clean and carefully maintained.

Dorothy told us she was twenty-one years old, although she could have passed for a high school girl. She was small, perhaps five-foot-one, wearing no makeup and sporting eyeglasses she seemed ashamed of, as she removed them as soon as Ms. Washburn and I entered the kitchen, where she asked us to sit on barstools next to a pass through. “The living room is where my folks entertain,” she said. “I was just making myself a smoothie. You guys want anything?”

Ms. Washburn, probably cognizant of my rising anxiety level, said, “Could you hold up for a moment? We'd like to ask you a few questions, and it's best if you're not distracted because we need your best answers.”

But Dorothy waved a hand. “Oh, don't worry,” she said. “I can do both things at once. Fire away.”

Ms. Washburn stole a glance in my direction. My face must have appeared grim, but I nodded slightly. “Fine,” Ms. Washburn told Dorothy. “Tell us how you knew Richard Handy.”

“I played S and S with him.” Dorothy poured yogurt into a blender pitcher. She reached into a bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter next to the blender and pulled out a banana, which she started to peel. I wanted to turn away, but I could not bring myself to do so. “That's really all I know.”

“How did the group organize itself?” I asked. Dorothy used a knife to cut the banana into slices directly into the blender. My stomach began to churn, and it was very unlikely this would be the end of the exercise. “How does a group of people decide to play a game like this together, assuming you never knew each other before you began?”

Dorothy scooped up some blueberries with her bare hand and literally tossed them into the mixture. I took a deep breath. I prefer to see foods separated, and the idea of these myriad textures being forced together was extremely disturbing. I did my best to focus on the questioning. But Dorothy, in creating her beverage, was not helping, taking time to think of how to answer my question, which I had considered simple.

“We met through the Painted Panel,” she said, as if that explained anything.

“The Painted Panel?” Ms. Washburn asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Into the blender went seven strawberries Dorothy removed from a plastic bag she found in her freezer, a few steps from the counter. She had not even removed the leaves at the top of each fruit. “It's a comic book store in Somerville that runs some games. That's where we used to play, on Wednesday nights.”

Dorothy put the top on the blender receptacle and positioned it on the rotators, about to set the machine in motion. “Before you do that,” I asked, “can you tell us about the dynamics of the group?”

“Sure, but I can do this at the same time,” she said. And I actually felt nauseated as she reached for the button on the keypad.

“It's the noise,” Ms. Washburn interjected. “Just hang on until we can get your answers. You know, I'm recording this for later and we won't be able to hear you.” She pointed to her cellular phone, perhaps intimating that it was the recording device. I was as grateful to Ms. Washburn as I have ever been.

“Oh, sure,” Dorothy said. “See, there was a flyer up on the wall at the Painted Panel about seven, eight months ago saying they were starting a game and you should sign up if you were interested, and I was, so I did. The three guys did too, and we started a couple of weeks later. Richard was just a player, not the SM.”

I recalled that the sword master was the player who actually concocted the storylines and created challenges for the players. Perhaps that was an area to explore. “Who was the SM?” I asked.

“Becky Tanenbaum. She likes telling everybody what to do.” She turned back toward the blender. “You guys sure you don't want any?”

“Just one more thing,” I said, my voice perhaps sounding a bit more urgent than I intended. Getting out of here before Dorothy pulverized all those ingredients seemed terribly important at the moment.

I'd had the desired effect; Dorothy turned away from the blender and back toward Ms. Washburn and me. “What's that?” she asked.

I gestured to Ms. Washburn, who produced the Tenduline in its plastic sandwich bag from her purse. She held it out toward Dorothy. “Do you know what this is?” she asked.

“Sure. It's an S and S dice.” No one seemed interested in getting the word right except me. “So what?”

“Take a closer look,” I suggested.

Dorothy leaned in a bit and reached for the bag. “Don't touch, please,” Ms. Washburn said. “This might turn out to be evidence.”

“In Richard getting shot?” Dorothy was not, apparently, the most quick-minded of women.

“Yes,” I said. “Please look at it carefully, but don't touch.”

Dorothy's eyes grew wide and she nodded. She looked at the die in Ms. Washburn's hand. “Oh, it's a Tenduline,” she said, her voice with a tiny shudder. “They're cursed, you know. Where'd you get it?”

“We found it near where Richard was lying,” Ms. Washburn said. “You've never seen it before?”

“No, and I hope I never see one again. Somebody dies whenever—oh my god. You mean you found that right by Richard when he was dead?” Ms. Washburn nodded. “So the curse is true! Get that thing out of here!”

“We just want to understand,” I told her. I would have been perfectly happy to leave at that moment just to avoid the sight of the smoothie Dorothy was about to concoct. “That wasn't Richard's die?”

“Of course Richard died! Now take that thing and go!”

“No,” Ms. Washburn said, “that's not what—”

But it was too late. Dorothy turned and violently pressed a button on the blender. My eyes couldn't avoid the hideous vision of the fruit and yogurt merging into something that was not smooth and not really a drink, so it was misnamed and deceiving in its function. I felt my neck start to tremble.

“Let's go,” I said to Ms. Washburn.

“But—”

“It's fine.” I put a hand up to my right eye and turned to the left, where the front door was located. “Thank you, Ms. Brewer!”

“Samuel,” Ms. Washburn said, but I was already halfway to the door.

It did no good. I couldn't erase the image of that smoothie and it kept me awake far past my normal bedtime for the next three nights.

“Could the Tenduline be Tyler's?” Ms. Washburn asked.

We had spent the ride back to Questions Answered debating my somewhat hasty exit from Dorothy Brewer's home, but I believed that Dorothy had been clear the die was not Richard Handy's, as she had played Swords and Sorcerers with him regularly and had never seen the item before. Ms. Washburn was careful to call Dorothy when we returned to the office, but the young woman did not answer her call, intentionally or not.

“At this moment, all we suspect is that it was not Richard Handy's,” I said, finishing an exercise session and sitting at my desk. I had a bottle of spring water from the vending machine, but Ms. Washburn had said she did not want a diet soda. “It is possible that it belongs to Tyler, and it is possible it belongs to the person who killed Richard. It is equally possible, as when Richard answered my question about being Tyler's friend, that Dorothy was simply mistaken.”

“Richard Handy was mistaken about whether or not he was Tyler's friend?” Ms. Washburn asked.

I suspect Mother would say I was “pouting.” “You know what I meant.”

“How do you know for sure that Tyler didn't shoot Richard?” Ms. Washburn asked. “Tyler insists he did.”

“Tyler continued to repeat his assertion that he had shot Richard no matter what was being said in the room. But when I asked him specific questions about the crime, he stopped saying he had shot Richard and simply stared. He didn't know the answers.”

“That's not much,” Ms. Washburn suggested.

“Perhaps not, but it convinces me. Besides, I do not believe Tyler, in a fit of rage over our answer to his question, immediately created a plan to blind the security cameras in the Quik N EZ and stole Mason's gun to shoot his supposed friend,” I answered. I began a search on my computer for recent reports of large contraband recovery operations in the Somerset County area. There were no promising results immediately. It did not help that I wasn't sure exactly what I was searching for. “You'll recall that when Tyler left our office, he was adamant in his insistence that Richard was indeed his friend, and that he would prove it to us. What would have changed his view on that subject?”

A Somerset County investigator had taken credit for the recovery of three kilos of cocaine two months earlier, but had then been charged with possession and intent to distribute, indicating he had pretended to find his own supply when it was obvious the authorities were closing in. That was not the contraband I needed.

“It makes sense, but it's all circumstantial,” Ms. Washburn pointed out. “It won't stand up in a court of law.”

I shrugged, a gesture I had been taught by a classmate in ninth grade. “That is not our problem. We are attempting to answer Mason's question, not to provide a definitive defense for Tyler.”

Ms. Washburn snapped her fingers. “That reminds me,” she said, and reached for the office phone on her desk. She dialed a number (although the word
dialed
has not really been apropos for decades) and waited a moment. “Mason? This is Janet Washburn from Questions Answered. No, we just wanted to meet with one of Richard Handy's friends. What did Mr. Swain—oh? Well, that's good, isn't it? Yes. I'm glad to hear it.”

I searched for contraband grocery items. An initial trial turned up nothing of note. There were some bananas missing in Princeton.

“One question, if it's okay,” Ms. Washburn said into the phone. “Tyler's S and S group. Do you have any contact? You were going to bring the laptop computer and then … Yes. Okay, good.” She immediately grabbed a pencil off her desk and jotted something down on the blotter I'd insisted she use if she was intent on placing cold cans of diet soda on the desk surface. Ms. Washburn takes notes on the blotter and changes it whenever the blotter is filled. “Great. Yes, thank you.” She said good-bye to Mason Clayton—whom I assumed was the person she had called—and replaced the receiver on the phone cradle.

I was scanning my search engine on the seventh page of hits regarding stolen grocery shipments and finding nothing yet that met my criteria. “What did Mason say?” I asked Ms. Washburn.

“Mr. Swain managed to get Tyler out of jail for the time being. He arranged with a bail bondsman for Mason and Sandy, and he argued in a hearing that Tyler's confession, because he wasn't saying anything else, was a symptom of his ASD and therefore was not to be taken as a reliable statement.” Ms. Washburn absently chewed on the eraser of the pencil, and I averted my gaze. It's not as bad as watching someone make a smoothie, but it isn't my favorite sight, either.

“I would advise Mason to check and make sure there isn't some prearrangement between Swain and the bondsman,” I said. “The interest rates charged, even when the client is not a flight risk, as Tyler is not, can be exorbitant. I hope the Claytons got at least two bids on the bail.”