“No, no.”
“You took her bra, Michael. I know you did. It was in your closet. Don’t lie to me.”
“Yes, I took her bra, but she was already dead.”
“I know she was dead before you took the bra, Michael. You took it after you killed her. You needed something to remember her by, she was your friend.”
“She was nice to me.”
I sat down, reaching out to put my hand on Michael’s shoulder. We were in this together, he and I. This was always the hardest part. Suspect gave you a part of themselves when they gave you the truth. You owned them at that point. They belong to you, but their truth becomes your responsibility and you have to give them a part of yourself in order to fulfill that responsibility.
“Michael, don’t do this to yourself. Don’t disappoint me. I know you know the truth. I know the truth. Truth is even better if it’s shared.”
“She said she was going to get her father. She said she had files. He was taking people’s money but not paying their insurance stuff.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stroked the back of Michael’s neck.
“She was going to tell.”
“I know she was, Michael. She was going to tell about you.” With my other hand, I gently separated the photos Michael had taken through Alexis’s window. I moved them over in front of Michael. “She was going to tell about the photos, wasn’t she, Michael. I know you were ashamed. I would have been, as well. It wasn’t nice, was it, Michael?”
“No.” He was blubbering slightly. We were oh so very close. I could feel the truth building. A little more and we’d go over the edge together. I just needed the first admission, the first break in the dam.
“You killed her, didn’t you, Michael?”
My hand was on his shoulder now. I rocked it softly back and forth, making his head begin to nod in the affirmative. The audiotape turned silently in another room, the hidden mike picking up every word, but not my soft movements of encouragement.
“Tell me the truth, Michael. It’s easy once it’s out. Don’t cut us with lies.”
I was leaning forward now, one hand on Michael’s thigh, one hand rubbing his back. “Tell me the truth, Michael,” I whispered. “You killed Alexis, didn’t you?”
There was a pause as silent tears fell — then, “Yes.”
The truth. It was setting me free.
The interrogation room door opened. I looked up, angry. Baxter saw me comforting Michael. He smirked as if he’d caught two kids making love in the back of a car.
“Captain wants you.”
“Get out,” I said flatly.
“Now,” Baxter said, but he closed the door.
I rubbed Michael’s back again.
“It’s okay. Thank you for telling me the truth.”
“What will happen? Will I go to jail?”
“Yes,” I said. He had earned the truth.
“I don’t want to go to jail.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and in some way I was.
I got to my feet. “I’ll be back,” I said, and left the room. I closed the door behind me, twisting the lock on the outside.
I walked down a short hallway and entered the main squad room. I saw Baxter and his partner standing by their desks. Captain Griffon was with them. He spotted me and signaled me over.
“Thanks for coming out, Ferryman — appreciate your efforts, but we’ve had a break in the case.”
“I know. You found the bra and the photos at Horner’s house.”
“No, not that,” Griffon said. “The victim’s stepmother just called in. Daddy committed suicide last night. Stepmom woke up and found him in his car in the garage with the engine still running — carbon monoxide poisoning.”
My heart began to thump around in my chest like a bat trying to escape a cage.
“Suicide?” I could barely choke out the word. Michael had said she was going to tell. It had been the truth, but...
“Yeah. He left a note confessing to getting furious with his daughter because she had some files of his showing he wasn’t paying his customers’ insurance premiums. They fought, he strangled her, didn’t know he was killing her until too late. Went home and did himself.”
I turned and ran — ran back to the interrogation room, fumbled to twist the lock, twisted the door handle, and tried to push the door open.
It didn’t move.
I put my shoulder to it and shoved. The heavy weight pressing back against my efforts put the strength of panic into me.
“Horner! Horner! Don’t do this!” I knew at that moment yelling was fruitless.
Baxter put his shoulder on the door next to me, both of us pushing against the dead weight on the other side. The door gradually opened enough for me to slide through, tearing my shirt as I did so.
Horner was on the floor, his too-long belt attached to the door handle at one end, cutting deeply into his neck at the other. His face was a mottled purple.
Baxter forced his way through the door. I was just standing there.
“Move!” he said, pushing me roughly aside. He struggled to get Horner clear of the door, but the length of the belt, which had been just long enough for Horner to strangle himself, made moving the body awkward.
Baxter pulled out a pocket knife, using its dull blade to saw desperately through the taut belt. The cheap leather finally parted, dropping Horner’s head to the floor with a sickening plop. Baxter tore the ligature free from Horner’s throat and began mouth-to-mouth.
I just stood, staring. I knew truth — or once thought I did — and now truth told me it was far too late.
Horner had told me the truth. His truth. But I had turned it into my truth.
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
White Pigs
by Joseph Monninger
Joseph Monninger is a teacher of creative writing at Plymouth College in New Hampshire and the author of eight books, most of them fiction. His most recent publication is A Barn in New England, from Chronicle Books, an account of how he restored a barn in a rural section of his state. Mr. Monninger has appeared in EQMM before, most recently in the June 2000 issue.
I heard the pigs oinking as Wally brought the lobster boat to dock. They made a lot of noise, like sea gulls getting strangled. Wally shook his head as he tossed me the line.
“He fed the marijuana to one of the pigs, Detective Poulchuck,” Wally said to me. “They watched him from the Coast Guard cutter. He fed the pot to one of them.”
“Smart guy,” I said.
“No evidence, no arrest.”
“The pot’s still in the pig.”
“Yeah, but which one?” Wally asked. “It’s a needle-in-a-haystack kind of thing.”
He stepped aside. Down on the deck, in holding pens, twenty pigs stared at me. White pigs, I thought. They looked kind of sweet. I had heard about using pigs before. Guys took shipments off the New Hampshire or Maine coast, fed the pigs the pot in baggies, then sent the pigs on a produce truck to wherever they had a market. Then they killed the pigs, probably smoked a joint, and ate a good pork dinner.
“You want to kill twenty pigs?” Wally asked. “We’ll have a hell of a pig roast.”
“Use the meat to raise money for the Benevolent Association?”
“Something like that.”
Wally was my deputy. He smiled. He liked being out on boats. He grew up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I grew up in Plymouth, New Hampshire, a mountain town. I didn’t particularly care for lobster boats. But I liked pigs. I climbed on board. The pigs were identical. One after another, pig after pig, all white, all with curly eyelashes. I thought about Clarence Maines, an old pig farmer I knew. He’d know how to get the pot out.