David looked to Nick, who nodded tightly.
David’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. “What did you say to her?”
“I don’t remember very much. She had a very sweet voice.”
“Sit down now, Terry,” said Nick. “Take the seat across from David. “How about a cigarette and a cup of coffee?”
Neemal shuffled over, cuffs and sneakers flapping quietly on the floor. He slid into the metal chair opposite David. Nick took the seat to David’s left. Lobdell stayed in his corner out of sight.
David kept his eyes on Terry Neemal’s face. The images just below his line of sight wavered up into his awareness like bodies in a lake. Beyond them waited the tan eyes. A flame flickered into David’s view and smoke rose from Neemal’s cigarette.
“I was already in when she got there,” said Neemal. “That night. Inside the packinghouse. Looking for some matches I lost.”
“How did you lose matches in the packinghouse?” asked Nick.
“I lit a fire inside a few days before. I got cold. I left the matches there.”
David saw that Neemal was now staring at the coal of his cigarette.
“A book of paper matches, Terry?” asked Nick. “Or a box of wooden ones?”
“Paper.”
“Plain, or some design or company name on the cover?” asked Nick.
David saw Neemal’s brow furrow. Big thought lines across his forehead. He looked at the coal again, then brought the cigarette to his mouth and drew. “Pep Boys. Manny, Moe, and Jack.”
Lobdell cleared his throat. Nick glanced back at his partner.
“Did you locate them again in the packinghouse, Terry?” asked David.
Neemal shook his head. “No. I did not. But I will say…that was when the girl came in.”
“Janelle?” asked David.
“Janelle Vonn,” said Neemal. “Vonn.”
“Then what happened?” asked David.
“She said, ‘Hello, how are you?’ I said I was fine and what a lovely evening it was. After that, I remember nothing.”
“If you don’t remember killing her, maybe you didn’t,” said David.
“Maybe you’re just making up a bunch of shit and wasting our time,” said Lobdell. Lobdell came around to the right of David. Stood behind the last open chair.
“Oh, I definitely did it,” said Neemal.
“Did you chop off her head before or after she was dead?” asked Nick.
“She was still alive.”
“What color was the handle of the machete you used to chop off her head?” asked Nick.
“Black.”
“How come you tossed the machete outside?” asked Lobdell.
“Well, obviously,” said Neemal, stubbing out his cigarette, “so you wouldn’t find it.”
“But we did. Where did you get it?” asked Nick. “The machete?”
“Sav-On.”
“Terry,” said Lobdell. “Are you ready to sign a confession?”
Neemal looked at David again. Took a deep breath. “Yes. I am.”
“I’ll write one up,” said Lobdell. “You can read it and sign it and it will prove what Nick’s other brother wrote about us in the paper this morning was shit.”
“I didn’t agree with that article,” said Neemal. “I think Nick is an excellent detective.”
“See?” said Lobdell, smiling. “Just ask Wolfman.”
David felt half disgusted and half mystified by the proceedings. Man’s law was not his area. But he felt obligated to speak. “Is he competent to sign a confession?” he asked.
No one answered.
Lobdell straddled the bolted chair and huffed down into it. Pulled a pen and a notebook out of his coat pocket. Clicked the ballpoint with a meaty thumb, looked at Neemal with open disgust, and started writing.
David watched the pen wiggle above the notepad, heard the rapid scratch of point on paper.
Nick stood. David saw the darkness in his eyes, the bags under them. Nick glanced at him, then circled the table.
“Do you understand what it means to sign a confession?” asked Nick.
“I’m sane and I do,” said Neemal.
“The confession is going to say that you murdered Janelle Vonn in the packinghouse on October first of this year. It says you will cooperate with us by giving us details and information.”
David couldn’t let this moment go unprotested, either. “But if he’s willing to sign a confession right now, then what’s the hurry? Why can’t you get the details and information first?”
“That’s not how it works, Rev,” said Lobdell. “With all respect, you got your church confessions, then you got your legal confessions. They’re different. Here, Nick. This is ready for Mr. Neemal to sign. He can use my pen. Then you can keep it for your grandkids or something-first murder confession you ever got, the actual pen. Terry, read this over and ask any questions you got. Then sign the bottom.”
Neemal took a deep breath. Arranged the notepad precisely. Read slowly and with apparent concentration.
Then he hung his head and began to cry.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t kill her. I did what I said I did. About the…well, you remember, Nick. But I didn’t kill her.”
“You saw the black skirt and the boots when you went back that second time, though,” said Nick.
Neemal nodded.
David had no idea what this “second time” was all about. Neemal had never said anything about it to him.
“And you didn’t find the Pep Boys matches because they were already in your pocket,” said Nick.
“That’s true.” He sniffled.
“You used them to light the newspapers on fire before you masturbated.”
David’s stomach dropped. What kind of a man was this? And how could Nick understand him so thoroughly?
“Yes,” said Neemal.
“And you tossed the matches into the fire for an extra little burst.”
“I did do that, yes,” he said quietly.
“Because fire helps you climax.” Nick sighed.
David’s imagination supplied an image of the Wolfman Neemal masturbating over Janelle’s headless body as the newspapers burst into flames. An atrocious moment. David felt preyed upon by his own mind.
Neemal nodded again. He was no longer crying. But still looking down at the table. “So I can’t sign. I thought I could. I thought about it. I wanted to.”
“Why?” asked David.
“For the reporters. Then I could just kind of stay here and…you know, just stay here and have people write articles about me. But if I sign that they’ll put me in the gas chamber.”
David couldn’t formulate a meaningful reply.
“You disappoint me, Wolfie,” said Lobdell. “I thought you might have had the presence of mind to pull off that murder. Had my money on you for a few days. I figured the crazy shit was just an act. But it isn’t.”
Lobdell walked to the door and rapped on it. A deputy let him out.
In the silence David watched Neemal as he stared down at the table. “Sorry, Nick. Guess I’ll only get to stay in here a while longer.”
“Looks that way, Terry.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t confess. I…thought I could go through with it. Thought it would be best for everybody.”
“I understand,” said Nick.
Though David wasn’t sure at all that he did.
“Thanks for your help, David,” said Nick.
“I helped no one.”
“I believed your God would forgive me,” said Neemal. “It wasn’t that, Reverend. You did your part.”
David didn’t know what to say. This was like being trapped behind the looking glass. He couldn’t wait to get outside and into some real air. Into a faintly logical world. He smelled dinner wafting in from the mess hall, which sickened him slightly.
“I’m hungry,” Neemal said. “I want to go back to my cell and eat and get rested up for the Register. I got an interview tomorrow at nine.”
He stood and sighed and put his hands behind his back for Nick and the cuffs.