I saw from Horner’s rap sheet there had been two counts filed against him. “There was somebody else, too.”
Horner nodded. “Yeah. A woman. She was always buying lattes and leaving the cups on the bookshelves. She left stains everywhere — didn’t care.”
“What did you do?”
I saw what could have passed for a slight smile touch Horner’s lips. “I went into his house and moved everything around. I didn’t take nothing, just moved everything so he had to find it and put it back, just like he did to me.”
“And the woman?”
“I stored up a week’s worth of empty coffee cups and put ’em all over her house.”
I almost laughed, but didn’t — Horner was watching me.
“Bet you went through her underwear drawer while you were in the house — didn’t you, Michael?”
“No. I don’t do stuff like that.”
“Of course you do. I would have gone through her underwear drawer.”
Horner uncrossed his legs completely and turned to look at me. Bingo.
“You would have?”
“Sure.” With only two exceptions, there is nothing in the rules saying an interrogator can’t lie to a suspect. You can’t tell a suspect you’ll cut him a deal with the judge, and you can’t tell him how much better he’ll feel when he gets rid of the burden of his guilt by confessing. Any other lie is fair game.
The quickest way to get a suspect to confess is to present him with what he believes is a socially acceptable manner to explain his behavior. A woman was asking to be raped because of what she was wearing. Five-year-olds can be sexually precocious. An interrogator doesn’t believe the justifications, but if a suspect believes you will judge him less harshly because of such an excuse, he will confess more readily.
If Horner thought I was an understanding kindred spirit, he’d spill his guts. I wouldn’t have gone through the woman’s underwear drawer, but I might have left dirty coffee cups all over her house.
“You told the truth when the officers arrested you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good, Michael, because I need you to tell me the truth.”
Horner turned his face away from me, but his body remained open.
“Michael?”
“What?”
“I need you to tell me the truth.”
I waited.
“About what?” Horner asked eventually. He was stalling. He knew the answer. Guilt builds inside a guilty suspect like a geyser ready to explode. The more a suspect tries not to think about the truth, the more the truth forces its way to the forefront of his consciousness, and the harder it becomes not to talk about it.
I waited. Horner waited.
A minute passed before I said, “About Alexis,” as if there had been no pause.
“She was nice,” Horner said.
“Tell me about her.”
Horner’s face turned toward me again. “She came here from Houston. She worked in a Starbucks there. Her dad lives here with her stepmom. He promised her a job in his insurance firm, but it didn’t work out.”
He was tapering his story down, but I wanted to keep him talking. “Why didn’t it work out?”
Horner shrugged. “She said her dad moved offices. The new office came with a secretary that a bunch of the people shared. Her salary came out of the rent. He didn’t need Alexis anymore.”
“Tough break.”
Horner only nodded. I needed him verbal. “What did she do?” I asked.
Horner gave another shrug. “She came to work at the bookstore making coffee.”
A heck of a career — barista for hire.
“Was she mad at her dad?”
“What do you think?”
Oh, oh. Hostility.
“I think she had every right to be mad. And I think you took out her trash to try and make her feel better.” I paused. “Right?” Come on, keep answering questions. We’re getting there.
“Yeah. She said she was going to fix her dad for screwing her over.”
“Bet you wanted to help her.”
“No. I’m not good at stuff like that.”
The truth of that statement rang through my body with perfect pitch.
I waited. I don’t know why, I just knew it was the right moment to wait.
A minute passed. Another minute passed.
A tear rolled down Horner’s cheek.
“You know Alexis is dead, don’t you, Michael?” My voice was quiet, soothing. I formed my questions now so they would only require a one-word answer.
Horner provided that one glorious word for me.
“Yes,” he said.
“You killed her, didn’t you, Michael?”
Horner’s eyes widened — bad acting. “No. I found her when I took out the trash. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. I just left her there.” The statement was untrue, but the tears were real.
I sat back in my chair. I didn’t go in for the histrionics. I rarely raise my voice. I never, never hit a suspect. Remember, the tape is rolling. Verbal battering, physical assault, intimidation, they’re all Sixth Amendment violations. Not only will you lose a suspect’s confession in court, you’ll also lose your job, and, these days, your freedom.
“Michael, God doesn’t like it when you lie. It upsets me when you lie. I’d rather you not tell me anything than lie to me. Do you understand?”
Tears were flowing faster now. “Yes.”
There was the soft bong of a bell outside the interrogation room. It was a signal to me. Horner didn’t even hear it. Nobody would interrupt an interrogation, but if they had important information for me they sounded the bell. I responded only if I felt it appropriate.
Michael was primed, but I needed a trigger to push him over the edge. I’d risk the break to see what they had.
I stood. “You sit here and think about the truth, Michael. When I come back, we’ll talk about the truth. I know you want to tell me, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
I opened the door and slid out. Nick Baxter, one of the homicide dicks on the case, was waiting for me. He’d just returned from serving the search warrant at Horner’s house.
“Cracked him yet, Ferryman?” Baxter’s nose was clearly out of joint.
I chose to ignore the intonation. “What do you have?”
“We found the victim’s bra in his closet.” He thrust a stack of photos at me. “These were under the scrote’s bed.”
I flipped through the stack. They were photos of Alexis, clearly taken without her knowing. There were some Horner had even managed to take in the bookstore’s women’s restroom. And there were some taken through the window of Alexis’s bedroom.
Horner wasn’t anything special — just your standard neighborhood stalker who finally slipped off his track. He’d drawn the usual juvenile sexual crudities across the photos. I sighed. Guilty, guilty, guilty. I felt weighed down. More than ever, I wanted this done — wanted to walk away, never ask another question again. Can there be such a thing as too much truth?
I took the photos back into the interrogation room with me.
I moved over to stand next to Michael, my body achingly close to touching him.
He looked up at me. I could see the truth cut into every line of his features.
I let the photos dribble out of my hand onto the table. Each one fell like a guillotine blade chopping the head off a lie.
“Tell me the truth, Michael.”
“You won’t believe me.”
“I will believe you, Michael. I know the truth already. I just want you to tell me. You killed Alexis, didn’t you?”
“No.”
That was not the answer I wanted. That was not the truth.
“What happened, Michael? Did you try to kiss her? Did she catch you taking photos? Did she make you mad like those customers?”