“A witness?” said Aimee. “Really?” She gave the word just enough spin to suggest that she found this possibility about as believable as a rumor that the Tooth Fairy had been nabbed with a bag of teeth. “Who’s the witness?”
Hansen didn’t move, but Conlough shifted almost imperceptibly in his chair. No witness. The tip-off was anonymous, in which case it came from Merrick. It didn’t help my situation, though. I knew from their questions about the ammunition that Merrick had used my gun to kill Demarcian and had probably left evidence at the scene. Was it just a bullet or a shell casing, or had he left the gun as well? If he had, then my prints, not his, would be all over it.
“I got to put some harm your way, just to be sure that you got your days filled without worrying about me.”
“We can’t say right now,” said Hansen. “And I hate to sound like a bad movie, but we’re supposed to be asking the questions.”
Aimee shrugged. “Ask away. First of all, though, I’d like you to get a doctor in here. I want the bruises on my client’s side photographed. You’ll see that they contain marks that look like the impact of a fist. A doctor will be able to say how recent they are. He has also recently lost skin from his lips due to the removal of the tape from his mouth. We’ll want those injuries photographed too. I’d also like to get blood and urine samples taken to confirm the presence of above-average levels of trichloromethane in my client’s bloodstream.”
She fired these demands out like bullets. Conlough seemed to take the full force of them.
“Trichlo-what?” he asked, looking to Hansen for help.
“Chloroform,” explained Hansen. He didn’t appear ruffled. “You could just have said chloroform,” he added to Aimee.
“I could, but it wouldn’t have sounded half as impressive. We’ll wait for the doctor to arrive, then you can start asking your questions.”
The two detectives left without saying anything further. After an hour had passed, during which Aimee and I sat in silence, a doctor arrived from the Maine Medical Center in Scarborough. He escorted me to the men’s room, and there I gave a urine sample, and he took some blood from my arm. When he was done, he examined the bruising on my side. Aimee entered with a digital camera and took photographs of the bruises and the cuts to my lips. When she was done, we were escorted back to the interrogation room, where Conlough and Hansen were already waiting for us.
We went through most of the earlier questions again. Each time, I waited for Aimee to indicate that it was safe to answer before I opened my mouth. When it got to the subject of the ammunition, though, she raised her pen.
“My client has already told you that Mr. Merrick stole his weapon.”
“We want to be certain that the ammunition matches,” said Hansen.
“Really?” asked Aimee, and there it was again, that sweetened skepticism, like a lemon coated in castor sugar. “Why?”
Hansen didn’t answer. Neither did Conlough.
“You don’t have the gun, do you, detectives?” said Aimee. “You don’t have a witness either. All you have, at a guess, are a discarded shell casing, and probably the bullet itself. Am I right?”
Hansen tried to stare her down, but eventually gave up. Conlough was staring at his fingernails.
“Am I right?” Aimee said again.
Hansen nodded. He looked like a chastened schoolchild.
As I had guessed, it was a nice touch. Merrick had left the same kind of evidence at the scene that at one point might have been used to convict him. No court would now convict on that basis alone, but Merrick had still succeeded in muddying the waters.
“We can get a warrant,” said Hansen.
“Do that,” said Aimee.
“No.”
Aimee glared at me. Hansen and Conlough both looked up.
“You won’t need a warrant.”
“What are you-” began Aimee, but I stopped her by placing my hand on her arm.
“I’ll hand over the ammunition. Match away. He took my gun and used it to kill Demarcian, then left the casing and made the call so you’d come knocking on my door. It’s his idea of a joke. Merrick was facing a murder trial in Virginia on the basis of a bullet match and nothing more, but the case fell apart when the FBI started making panicked noises about the reliability of the tests. Even without that, the case probably wouldn’t have held up. Merrick did it to cause me trouble, and that’s all.”
“And why would be do that?” asked Conlough.
“You know the answer. You interviewed him in this room. His daughter disappeared while he was in jail. He wants to find out what happened to her. He felt I was getting in his way.”
“Why didn’t he just kill you?” asked Hansen. He sounded like he could have forgiven Merrick the impulse.
“It wouldn’t have been right, not in his eyes. He has a code, of sorts.”
“Not enough of a code to stop him from putting a bullet through Ricky Demarcian’s head, assuming you’re telling the truth,” said Hansen.
“Why would I want to kill Demarcian?” I asked. “I never even heard of him until this morning.”
Again, Conlough and Hansen exchanged glances. After a few seconds, Hansen let out a deep breath and made a “go ahead” gesture with his right hand. He already seemed on the verge of giving up. His earlier confidence was dissipating. The bruising, the tests to confirm the traces of chloroform, all had rattled him. Secretly, too, I think he knew I was telling the truth. He just didn’t want to believe it. It would have given him some pleasure to lock me up. I offended his sense of order. Still, however much he disliked me, he was enough of a by-the-book cop not to want to rig the evidence only to have the case explode in his face the first time it went before a judge.
“Demarcian’s trailer was packed to the gills with computer equipment,” said Conlough. “We think he had ties to organized crime in Boston. Seems like he took care of some escort Web sites.”
“For the Italians?”
Conlough shook his head. “Russians.”
“Not good people.”
“Nope. We heard talk that it wasn’t just older escorts either.”
“Kids?”
Conlough looked to Hansen again, but Hansen had retreated into a studied silence.
“Like I said, it was talk, but there was no evidence. Without evidence, we couldn’t get a warrant. We were working on it, trying to find a way onto Demarcian’s list, but it was slow.”
“Looks like your problem is solved,” I said.
“You sure you never heard of Demarcian?” asked Hansen. “He sounds like the kind of guy you’d have no problem shooting in the head.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t be the first time that gun of yours made a hole in someone. You might just have felt that Demarcian was a deserving cause.”
I felt Aimee’s hand touch my leg gently under the table, warning me not to be drawn out by Hansen.