The Unquiet-CP-6 (38 page)

Nothing had changed in the room since Merrick had occupied this seat. Even the childish doodles on the whiteboard were the same. I wasn’t cuffed, and Conlough had given me a cup of coffee and a stale doughnut. My head still hurt, but I was gradually waking up to the fact that I had probably said too much back in the house. I still didn’t know what Merrick had done, but I was pretty certain that someone was dead because of it. In the meantime, I realized that I had effectively admitted my gun had been used in the commission of a crime. If Hansen decided to play hardball and charge me, I could find myself behind bars with little hope of making bail. At the very least, he could hold me for days, leaving Merrick to wreak havoc with the Smith 10. After an hour alone with my thoughts, the door of the interrogation room opened, and Aimee Price was admitted. She was wearing a black skirt and jacket, and a white blouse. Her briefcase was shiny and made of expensive leather. She looked all business. I, by contrast, looked terrible, and she told me so.

“Do you have any idea what’s happening?” I asked.

“All I know is that they’re investigating a shooting. One fatality. Male. Clearly, they think you may be able to help them with some details.”

“Like how I shot him.”

“Bet you’re glad you held on to my card now,” she said.

“I think it brought me bad luck.”

“You want to tell me how much?”

I went through everything with her, from Merrick’s arrival at the house to Ronson putting me in the back of the cruiser. I left nothing out, apart from the voices. Aimee didn’t need to hear about that.

“How dumb are you?” she said when I was done. “Children know better than to answer a cop’s questions without a lawyer being present.”

“I was tired. My head was hurting.” I realized how pathetic I sounded.

“Dummy. Don’t say another word, not unless you get the nod from me.”

She went back to the door and knocked to indicate that the cops could enter. Conlough came in, followed by Hansen. They took seats across from us. I wondered how many people were crowded around the computer monitor outside, listening to the questions and answers being relayed from the room, watching four figures dance around one another without moving. Aimee held up a hand.

“You need to tell us what this is about first,” she said.

Conlough looked to Hansen.

“A man named Ricky Demarcian died last night. He was shot in the head over at a trailer park named Tranquility Pines. We have a witness who says that a Mustang matching the one owned by your client was seen driving away from the scene. He even gave us the tag number.”

I could imagine what was happening at Tranquility Pines as we spoke. The state CID’s crime scene unit would be there, along with the white truck of Scarborough’s own evidence technician, its rear doors personalized with blowups of his thumbprints. He was regarded as one of the best evidence techs in the state, a painfully meticulous man, and it was unlikely that the state guys would discourage him from working alongside their own people. The red-and-white mobile command center, used in conjunction with the fire department, would also be present. There would be bystanders, rubberneckers, potential witnesses being interviewed, trucks from the various local network affiliates, a whole circus converging on one little trailer in one sorry trailer park. They would take casts at the scene, hoping to match the treads to the tires on my Mustang. They wouldn’t find any matches, but it wouldn’t matter. They could argue that the car might have been parked on the road, away from the dirt. Absence of a link to my car wouldn’t prove my innocence. Meanwhile, Hansen had probably set in motion the processes necessary to secure a warrant to search my home, including my garage, if he didn’t already have one. He would want the car, and the gun. In the absence of the latter, he would settle for the box of Cor-Bon ammunition.

“A witness?” said Aimee. “Really?” She gave the word just enough spin to suggest that she found this possibility about as believable as a rumor that the Tooth Fairy had been nabbed with a bag of teeth. “Who’s the witness?”

Hansen didn’t move, but Conlough shifted almost imperceptibly in his chair. No witness. The tip-off was anonymous, in which case it came from Merrick. It didn’t help my situation, though. I knew from their questions about the ammunition that Merrick had used my gun to kill Demarcian and had probably left evidence at the scene. Was it just a bullet or a shell casing, or had he left the gun as well? If he had, then my prints, not his, would be all over it.

“I got to put some harm your way, just to be sure that you got your days filled without worrying about me.”

“We can’t say right now,” said Hansen. “And I hate to sound like a bad movie, but we’re supposed to be asking the questions.”

Aimee shrugged. “Ask away. First of all, though, I’d like you to get a doctor in here. I want the bruises on my client’s side photographed. You’ll see that they contain marks that look like the impact of a fist. A doctor will be able to say how recent they are. He has also recently lost skin from his lips due to the removal of the tape from his mouth. We’ll want those injuries photographed too. I’d also like to get blood and urine samples taken to confirm the presence of above-average levels of trichloromethane in my client’s bloodstream.”

She fired these demands out like bullets. Conlough seemed to take the full force of them.

“Trichlo-what?” he asked, looking to Hansen for help.

“Chloroform,” explained Hansen. He didn’t appear ruffled. “You could just have said chloroform,” he added to Aimee.

“I could, but it wouldn’t have sounded half as impressive. We’ll wait for the doctor to arrive, then you can start asking your questions.”

The two detectives left without saying anything further. After an hour had passed, during which Aimee and I sat in silence, a doctor arrived from the Maine Medical Center in Scarborough. He escorted me to the men’s room, and there I gave a urine sample, and he took some blood from my arm. When he was done, he examined the bruising on my side. Aimee entered with a digital camera and took photographs of the bruises and the cuts to my lips. When she was done, we were escorted back to the interrogation room, where Conlough and Hansen were already waiting for us.

We went through most of the earlier questions again. Each time, I waited for Aimee to indicate that it was safe to answer before I opened my mouth. When it got to the subject of the ammunition, though, she raised her pen.

“My client has already told you that Mr. Merrick stole his weapon.”

“We want to be certain that the ammunition matches,” said Hansen.

“Really?” asked Aimee, and there it was again, that sweetened skepticism, like a lemon coated in castor sugar. “Why?”

Hansen didn’t answer. Neither did Conlough.

“You don’t have the gun, do you, detectives?” said Aimee. “You don’t have a witness either. All you have, at a guess, are a discarded shell casing, and probably the bullet itself. Am I right?”

Hansen tried to stare her down, but eventually gave up. Conlough was staring at his fingernails.

“Am I right?” Aimee said again.

Hansen nodded. He looked like a chastened schoolchild.

As I had guessed, it was a nice touch. Merrick had left the same kind of evidence at the scene that at one point might have been used to convict him. No court would now convict on that basis alone, but Merrick had still succeeded in muddying the waters.

“We can get a warrant,” said Hansen.

“Do that,” said Aimee.

“No.”

Aimee glared at me. Hansen and Conlough both looked up.

“You won’t need a warrant.”

“What are you—” began Aimee, but I stopped her by placing my hand on her arm.

“I’ll hand over the ammunition. Match away. He took my gun and used it to kill Demarcian, then left the casing and made the call so you’d come knocking on my door. It’s his idea of a joke. Merrick was facing a murder trial in Virginia on the basis of a bullet match and nothing more, but the case fell apart when the FBI started making panicked noises about the reliability of the tests. Even without that, the case probably wouldn’t have held up. Merrick did it to cause me trouble, and that’s all.”

“And why would be do that?” asked Conlough.

“You know the answer. You interviewed him in this room. His daughter disappeared while he was in jail. He wants to find out what happened to her. He felt I was getting in his way.”

“Why didn’t he just kill you?” asked Hansen. He sounded like he could have forgiven Merrick the impulse.

“It wouldn’t have been right, not in his eyes. He has a code, of sorts.”

“Not enough of a code to stop him from putting a bullet through Ricky Demarcian’s head, assuming you’re telling the truth,” said Hansen.

“Why would I want to kill Demarcian?” I asked. “I never even heard of him until this morning.”

Again, Conlough and Hansen exchanged glances. After a few seconds, Hansen let out a deep breath and made a “go ahead” gesture with his right hand. He already seemed on the verge of giving up. His earlier confidence was dissipating. The bruising, the tests to confirm the traces of chloroform, all had rattled him. Secretly, too, I think he knew I was telling the truth. He just didn’t want to believe it. It would have given him some pleasure to lock me up. I offended his sense of order. Still, however much he disliked me, he was enough of a by-the-book cop not to want to rig the evidence only to have the case explode in his face the first time it went before a judge.

“Demarcian’s trailer was packed to the gills with computer equipment,” said Conlough. “We think he had ties to organized crime in Boston. Seems like he took care of some escort Web sites.”

“For the Italians?”

Conlough shook his head. “Russians.”

“Not good people.”

“Nope. We heard talk that it wasn’t just older escorts either.”

“Kids?”

Conlough looked to Hansen again, but Hansen had retreated into a studied silence.

“Like I said, it was talk, but there was no evidence. Without evidence, we couldn’t get a warrant. We were working on it, trying to find a way onto Demarcian’s list, but it was slow.”

“Looks like your problem is solved,” I said.

“You sure you never heard of Demarcian?” asked Hansen. “He sounds like the kind of guy you’d have no problem shooting in the head.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t be the first time that gun of yours made a hole in someone. You might just have felt that Demarcian was a deserving cause.”

I felt Aimee’s hand touch my leg gently under the table, warning me not to be drawn out by Hansen.

“You want to charge me with something, go ahead,” I said. “Otherwise, you’re just using up good air.” I turned my attention back to Conlough. “Was the gunshot the only injury to Demarcian?”

Conlough didn’t answer. He couldn’t, I supposed, without giving away what little evidence they still had against me. I kept going.

“If Merrick tortured him first, then it could be that Demarcian told him something he could use before he died.”

“What would Demarcian know?” asked Conlough. The tone of the interview had altered. Perhaps Conlough hadn’t been convinced of my involvement right from the start, but now we had moved from an interrogation situation to two men thinking aloud. Unfortunately, Hansen didn’t care much for the new direction. He muttered something that sounded like “bullshit.”

Even though Hansen was ostensibly in charge, Conlough glanced at him in warning, but the remains of the fire that had been lit in Hansen still glowed, and he wasn’t about to extinguish it unless he had no other choice. He gave it one last try.

“It’s bullshit,” he repeated. “It’s your gun. It’s your car the witness saw leaving the scene. It’s your finger—”

“Hey!” Conlough interrupted him. He stood and walked to the door, indicating that Hansen should follow him. Hansen threw back his chair and went. The door closed behind them.

“Not a fan of yours?” said Aimee.

“I’ve never met him properly before today. The state cops don’t care much for me as a rule, but he has a terminal beef.”

“I may have to juice up my rates. Nobody seems to like you.”

“Occupational hazard. How are we doing?”

“Okay, I think, apart from your inability to keep your mouth shut. Let’s assume Merrick used your gun to kill Demarcian. Let’s assume also that he made the call about your car. All they have is ballistic evidence, and no direct connection to you apart from the box of shells. It’s not enough to charge you with anything, not until they get a ballistics match, or a print from the casing. Even then, I can’t see the AG’s Office going ahead unless the cops come up with more evidence linking you to the scene. They won’t have trouble getting a warrant to search your home for the box of ammunition, so you may be right just to hand it over. If things turn bad, it might help us with a judge if you’ve cooperated from the start. If they have the gun, though, then we could find ourselves with real difficulties.”

“Why would I leave my gun at the scene?”

“You know they won’t think that way. If it’s enough to hold you, then they’ll use it. We’ll wait and see. If they have the gun, they’ll spring it on us soon enough. My guess, though, from watching you and Detective Conlough bond over the table, is that the gun went with Merrick.”

She tapped her pen on the table.

“Conlough doesn’t seem to like Hansen much either.”

“Conlough’s okay, but I don’t think he’d put it past me to kill someone like Demarcian either. He just figures I’d do a better job of covering my tracks if I did kill him.”

“And you’d have waited until he had a gun in his hand,” added Aimee. “Jesus, it’s like the Wild West.”

The minutes ticked by. Fifteen. Twenty. Thirty.

Aimee checked her watch. “What the hell are they doing out there?”

She was about to get up and find out what was going on when I heard a peculiar, yet familiar, sound. It was a dog barking. It sounded a lot like Walter.

“I think that’s my dog,” I said.

“They brought your dog in? As what, a witness?”

The door of the interrogation room opened and Conlough entered. He looked almost relieved.