Fred began his small headshakes again. He opened his mouth to protest, but Tower raised his hand to cut him off.
“No, I’m going to answer your question, Fred. It’s important that you listen to me. See, at the same time we’ll have people collecting the blood, hair and skin cells from your house that will prove Amy was there, we’ll have another team doing the same thing at the van.”
“I thought that was burned up,” Fred said. Browning sensed a combination of worry and hope in his tone.
“Some of it was,” Tower said. “But parts of it didn’t get fully involved and blood plasma is very resistive to flame. I’m sure they’ll find something. It doesn’t matter, though. The VIN didn’t burn up. Do you know what the VIN is, Fred?”
Fred wiped his lip again and shook his head.
“It stands for Vehicle Identification Number,” Tower told him. “Every vehicle has one and they are all unique. The one on the van down by the river is the same one you bought from Brad Dexter.”
“He must be mistaken,” Fred said. “I don’t know anyone named-“
Tower held up the black and white faxed copy of Fred Henderson’s Colorado booking photo. “Funny then, isn’t it? How he was able to say this was the guy that bought the van from him?”
Fred’s whiteness deepened. He wiped away the sweat that was forming at his temples with shaking fingers.
“That was a long time ago,” he said.
“And you only did a year,” Tower said. “Was it easy time?”
Fred’s eyes narrowed. “There’s no easy time in prison.”
“Touche,” Tower conceded. “But back to answering your question about proving things. Do you know about Locard’s Law?”
Fred shook his head.
“Locard’s Law,” Tower said, “is the law of transfer. It forms the cornerstone of modern forensic investigation. It’s like Newton’s laws of physics. It’s that important.”
Fred didn’t answer, but listened intently.
“Locard’s Law simply states that whenever there is interaction at a crime scene, transfer occurs,” Tower explained. “Take a burglary, for instance. The law of transfer says that the burglar will bring something foreign with him to the scene of the burglary. During his activity, however brief, at the scene, he will leave something at the scene. And when he leaves the scene, he will take something from the scene with him. Make sense?”
Fred nodded reluctantly.
“Good,” Tower said, “because the messier the crime, the more transfer that occurs. For example, let’s say we find a body in the middle of a field in a plastic garbage bag. The body was obviously dumped there after the murder happened somewhere else. But the body left something behind where the murder occurred, and we’ll find it. And the body is going to have something from that murder scene still with it and when we find that, it’ll tie the body to the original scene of the crime. Most importantly, whoever did it will have left something on the body or the bag. We’ll find that, too.”
Tower leaned forward, bringing his face close to Fred’s.
“And then we’ll have our proof,” he whispered. “Because no one is perfect, Fred. Everyone makes mistakes. It might be a fingerprint on the garbage bag or some hair or skin that was shed and ended up on the body. But there’s always physical evidence. And that’s not even counting witnesses, all of whom saw just a little piece of the puzzle. You know, a nosy neighbor who watched the whole thing and thought someone was just dumping garbage and didn’t bother to call. A jogger heading across the T.J. Meenach Bridge who looked down to see someone running away from a burning van. Things like that.”
Fred’s lips trembled, but he said nothing. His small head shakes had slowly faded throughout Tower’s explanation and now his head only twitched slightly while he listened.
“So you see, Fred,” Tower said, “it isn’t a question of whether you took Amy any more. It isn’t a question whether or not she was killed. The only fact that we haven’t pulled from the evidence yet is whether it was you or if it was Nancy that killed her. And then the most important question-why?”
“We didn’t-”
Tower slammed his palm on the table again. “Don’t you fucking lie to me, Fred!”
“I-”
“Don’t you fucking lie! I just explained all this shit to you. Are you going to sit there and argue with science?”
Fred opened his mouth and closed it. He nodded.
Tower’s jaw fell open. “You son of a bitch.” He looked over at Browning, which was his cue. “Jesus Christ. Maybe he did do it. I thought for sure it was the grandmother.”
Browning winced, hoping that it looked convincing. “John-”
“Here’s our guy, Ray.” He pointed at Browning. “Here’s the fucking guy who-”
“Detective Tower,” Browning began.
“He’s our guy!” Tower slammed his fist on the interview table.
“Detective Tower!” Browning’s voice boomed.
Tower sat back quickly, his lips pressing together. “What?”
“I think you should leave.”
“What?!”
“I want you to leave the room. Now.”
There was a moment of tense silence. Then Tower shook his head incredulously. He pushed his chair abruptly back from the table.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered and strode out of the interview. He left the door open behind him.
Browning rose and closed the door. Then he sat back down and looked directly into Fred’s face. “I’m sorry about that. He’s very emotional.”
Fred nodded, relief obvious on his face. “I thought he was going to hit me.”
“Like I said, he’s emotional. He has three little girls and the middle one is Amy’s age. So you can see how a guy would get wrapped up.”
“I suppose.”
“The problem is, Fred, that even though he’s a little upset, he’s right.”
Fred was nodding along until Browning finished the sentence. Then he stopped in mid-nod and stared at Browning.
“He’s right,” Browning continued, “about all of the investigative science he described. And he’s right about this case. It’s no longer a matter of what happened, but a matter of why it happened. And that’s what I want to talk to you about.”
“I-”
“Fred, you don’t have to talk to me. You can have a lawyer if you want. You understand that?”
“Yeah, I-”
“But if we don’t get this out on the table right now, it isn’t going to be worth anything later on. Timing is everything.”
Fred paused. He licked his lips nervously. “What do you mean, timing is everything?”
“In the eyes of a judge or a jury, timing is everything. Did a guy tell the truth when he had the chance? Or did he wait until the very last moment, when all the evidence was analyzed and catalogued and it was a slam dunk anyway?” Browning steepled his fingers. “The truth is a powerful thing, Fred. And when a person chooses to tell the truth matters. It matters a lot.”
Fred sighed, but said nothing.
Browning went on, “Let me tell you what I think, Fred. I think you’re basically a good guy. I think you made some mistakes a long time ago and you paid your dues for that and you moved to River City for a fresh start. Am I right?”
“Yeah,” Fred said quietly.
“Everyone deserves a fresh start. And you’ve made the most of yours. You work, right? You pay your taxes. You got married and you built a life for yourself. Most people don’t make that much out of their second opportunity.”
Browning leaned forward slightly, maintaining eye contact with Fred. He kept his expression sympathetic, despite the fact that he was cringing inside. “That’s why I don’t think this was your master plan, Fred. I think that it was Nancy’s idea, Nancy’s plan, Nancy’s whole show.”
“There was no plan,” Fred whispered. “We didn’t-”
Browning ignored him and continued. “And I think you probably tried to talk her out of it, too. But she is a strong-willed woman, isn’t she, Fred?”