The one on the right was young and slender, with long, ice-blonde hair. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt with a Port City Community College logo on it. The girl sat motionless, in apparent shock, staring, her face a mask.
A uniformed cop, who was first at the scene, stood behind them taking notes on a pad.
“This is Louise Harris,” he said, pointing to the woman in the middle. “She owns the house. And this is her daughter, Laura.” He gestured to the young girl. Then he nodded to the woman on the left. “That’s Pamela Schultz. She’s renting a room.”
I approached them. “Who wants to tell me about it?” I asked.
Pamela Schultz threw her head back and blew out smoke, then stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray. “He was hurting Laura so I hit him,” she said, matter-of-factly, like she was giving me the weather report.
Louise Harris looked up from her hands. Her eyes were red, swollen, her face puffy. “Don’t try to protect me, Pam,” she said. “I did it.”
Now the younger woman, Laura, turned her face toward me, slowly, robot-like. “They’re both lying,” she said softly, and then announced, as if ending a game of Clue. “I killed Travis Wykert in the living room with the trophy.”
It was 4:35 in the afternoon when we got back to the Public Safety Building — a big, modern, red-brick affair we shared with the Fire Department.
We were faced with a unique problem: usually it was hard enough getting one confession; now we had three.
The women had each been Mirandized; all three declined an attorney.
I waited with Frank in the interrogation room.
“Because the suspects are female,” I said to him, “we might do better if I take the lead. But jump in when you want to.”
He nodded.
“But no good cop, bad cop crap,” I warned.
“Got ya.”
The interrogation room door opened and Pamela Schultz was brought in. I nodded toward a chair. She sat, sullenly, legs crossed, one hand resting casually on the table.
“I called your probation officer in Colorado,” I said. “She said she couldn’t understand why you left friends and a good-paying job to come here.”
“I had permission,” the woman shrugged. “Maybe I just wanted to do something different.”
“Like work at McDonald’s?”
She looked away.
“What’s your relationship with Louise Harris?” Frank asked.
She looked over at him. “I’m renting a room from her,” she said.
Frank smirked.
Pamela’s eyes narrowed. “We’re not lovers, if that’s what you’re getting at... God, you men are all alike.”
Then she looked at me. “And you’re just as bad... I can tell what you’re thinking.”
No, she couldn’t — but I let it go.
“How well did you know Travis Wykert?” I asked.
“I’ve never met him before today,” she said. Then she leaned forward, spreading the fingers of the hand that lay on the table. “Look — I’ve already given you people a confession. What more do you want? That creep was beating on Laura so I stopped him. If you ask me, I did the world a favor.”
I leaned in. “Then why are both Louise Harris and her daughter taking credit for your good deed?”
“How the hell should I know!” she said. “I mean, do you really think either of them could have done it? Louise is afraid of her own shadow, and Laura was obviously under the spell of that sadistic bastard.”
“So you stepped in,” Frank said.
“I’ve done it before.”
I looked at Frank; he raised his eyebrows.
I walked around the table and stood next to Pamela Schultz, placing a hand on the back of her chair. “And paid twenty long years for it,” I said, putting compassion into my voice. “But it doesn’t hardly seem right,” I continued, “considering how that man abused you.”
Her body stiffened.
“Back then,” I said, moving closer, “rights for abused women weren’t in fashion.” I whispered in her ear, “Today you would have walked.”
A look of agony passed over her face, then sudden rage.
“I told you I killed the bastard,” she snapped back. “Now quit wasting my damn time!”
“If you did kill him,” I said, “you’ll be doing plenty.”
“Plenty of what?” she smirked.
“Time.”
Louise Harris sat fidgeting, a bundle of twitches and tics. I couldn’t make up my mind whether to come on strong and watch her dissolve into a puddle of protoplasm, or take a more humane approach.
I chose the latter.
“Just relax,” I said to her, reassuringly. “That’s right, take some deep breaths. Now, I want to know exactly what happened this morning.”
She sighed. “It was about eleven,” she said, her voice quavering. “Pam — she’s renting a room from me — and I were in the kitchen having coffee when I heard the front door bang open. Somehow, instinctively, I knew it was him, and I was frightened for Laura...”
“Why?”
“He’s hit her before. A few weeks ago she came home with a black eye. Said she’d run into something. But I knew who did it. I told her I was going to call the police... but she said she wouldn’t cooperate.”
Louise Harris looked at me with sad, swollen eyes. “Do you know what it’s like to have to sit by and watch your child throw her life away?” she asked. “Ever since her father walked out on us five years ago, it’s like she wants every man in her life to treat her badly.”
Mrs. Harris buried her head in her hands and sobbed.
I took some Kleenex from a box on the table and handed it to her. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
I waited for her to compose herself.
“Getting back to this morning,” I said, “where was Laura when Travis Wykert entered the house?”
“Laura was in the living room, reading,” Louise said. “By the time I ran out of the kitchen, that man had her cornered in front of the fireplace. He was shouting at her, slapping her.”
“What was he shouting?” Frank asked.
Louise looked at Frank, then turned her head, avoiding his gaze. “I... don’t remember,” she said haltingly. “Obscenities. Things...”
“Then what?” I asked.
“Pamela — she was standing next to me — tried to pull him off Laura, but he threw Pam onto the davenport. That’s when I picked up the trophy and...”
She lowered her head, crying softly into the tissue.
“Come now, Mrs. Harris,” I scoffed gently, “you don’t have the stomach to commit murder, now, do you? Stop covering up for Pamela Schultz. The most she’d get is manslaughter.”
Louise Harris looked up angrily. “May I ask you something?”
I nodded.
“Do you have any children?”
I nodded again.
“Then you can understand how a parent feels when their child is in danger... you would give your life for that child, you would do anything... even kill.”
The woman was right.
“And I hated that man!” Louise Harris said viciously. “I wanted him out of Laura’s life!”
I looked down at her. “I’m afraid you’ve got that wrong, Mrs. Harris.”
“How’s that?”
“He isn’t out of her life yet.”
“I’d been seeing Travis for about six months,” said Laura. She seemed composed, but her eyes were haunted. “Could I please have a glass of water?”
I looked at Frank, who left the room.
“I know what people thought of him,” Laura said, “but I saw something different: a frightened, abused little boy. His father beat him. I guess I thought I could help him — which was a laugh, considering what my own father did to me...”