Walt wouldn’t have offered any visitor a personal explanation; any one of his deputies or the desk sergeant could convey the procedures and practices well enough. But the woman sitting alone in a row of chairs, separated by a table holding People magazine and copies of Western Sheriffs’ Association, was not just any visitor.
“Since when don’t you video an interview?” Fiona said angrily.
“We are videoing the interview,” Walt said calmly. “It wouldn’t be approp-”
“Oh, bull.”
“-for you to be in the room.”
“It’s one in the morning.”
“It is.”
“You should do this tomorrow.”
“Let’s not get into this, okay? I’m doing what I have to do. Kira is here voluntarily.”
“So what? You think it’s a conspiracy?” she choked out. “Really, Walt!”
“Of all people, you’ve been around this enough to know the way it works.”
“You try not to judge,” she said.
“That’s right.”
“That’s a pile of crap.”
“It’s voluntary. Exploratory. You think I’m incapable of keeping an open mind?”
“I’m like her guardian or something. I need to be in there with her.”
“She’s not a minor.”
“You notified her parents?”
“That’s up to her. I don’t believe she has.”
“An attorney?”
This was a sticking point. A matter of investigative leverage. “She has not requested a lawyer, and there’s no reason she should. She has not been charged with anything. This is exploratory.”
“Walt,” she chided.
“I’m sorry you came all the way down here. I don’t mean to shut you out. Please know that.” He remained on his feet, avoiding the chairs. He did not want to get into this with her.
“You can’t conduct this interview without an attorney present. She doesn’t know any better. Why won’t you look at me? Look at me please.” He turned. “Oh, Jesus,” she said. “You’d actually do something like this?”
“Like what? It’s voluntary. It’s necessary.”
She stood and lowered her voice, taking his forearm in hand and squeezing. “You think you’re helping me somehow? Is that it? I can see it in your eyes.”
How was that possible? How could she nail his thoughts so perfectly? He wanted back behind the restricted door and into his world, but her grip only tightened.
“Listen to me,” she said in a tone he would have rather not heard. “If you put this on her, I will be forced to… I will not let her be charged with this.”
“She hasn’t been charged, Fiona. But this-the way you’re acting, isn’t helping anything. Let me do my job. I know what I’m doing.” He let that sit there a second.
“But maybe you’ve forgotten who you’re doing it to.”
“We have evidence-hard evidence-that has to be accounted for. For all your good intentions-and I believe in them-there’s a process. A procedure. We’re just at the start of that. She answers these questions honestly, she walks out of here for now. If an attorney gets into it, it will prejudice the interview. That’s when I get backed into a corner and things get tricky. Let’s not get there. Let’s avoid that.”
“You’re setting her up.”
“I am absolutely not setting her up!” He’d raised his voice. It reverberated against the high ceiling. The receptionist on the other side of the window kept her head down.
He lowered his voice to a hush. “Listen to me. I care for that girl, and I care about you. At some point you have to trust me. I happen to know what I’m doing.”
“She’s innocent.”
“Good. Then there is nothing to worry about.”
She started for the doors, turning to look back at him once and put an exclamation point onto her disgust. Then she reconsidered. “No,” she said. “I’m not going. I’m not giving you that. I’ll be right here. Waiting. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Suit yourself,” Walt said, heading back through the door that cloistered him.
He mumbled to himself as he strode down the hall toward the first interview room, where he would find Deputy Linda Chalmers behind the video camera. Truth was, there was nothing to operating the camera; he asked Fiona to do the recording as a way to slip her extra income and get a chance to see her. She had begun to seep into his work and his decision making in ways like this, and he saw it for what it was-trouble-while still feeling no desire to change it. He opened the door and looked at the young woman on the other side of the table, frightened, unsure. Deputy Blompier sat in the chair to the left, by the wall. Walt took the only other chair facing Kira.
“You okay?” he began. Something transformed in him the moment he took his chair. A voice in his head said “game on.” Establish a rapport. Mimic language. Control emotions. Manipulate.
The empty chair to her left, the chair intended for an attorney, called out to him. Was he supposed to charge her and fill that chair for her, to give up the slight advantage he held by her not being represented? Did that help anyone?
Kira held a fixed stare of bewilderment and fear. He reminded himself beguilement took on many faces, came in all sizes and ages. Whether or not she might attempt to play him, he couldn’t tell. Her dazed expression seemed real enough. But one learned in the narrow confines of these interview rooms to put away interpretation, to ignore the suspect’s beauty or the tattoos or the lack of language skills and to drill down. So he took a second to make himself comfortable in the chair, his decision made. He took a deep, calming breath and exhaled, placed his forearms onto the table, a man determined, his body language as practiced, as important, as each word, each inflection. He lived for such moments.
He glanced over his shoulder. Chalmers gave him a nod: tape was running.
“Do you want a glass of water or a Coke or anything?”
“I’m okay, thank you.”
“You understand why you’re here?”
She nodded. “To talk.”
“That’s right. Do you have any questions?”
“I don’t get it. Why me? What’d I do?”
“Why do you think you’re here?”
“That guy getting killed and all.”
“You’re referring to Martel Gale.”
“I guess.”
Walt opened a file folder and slid a photograph in front of her. He’d had two choices: an NFL photo, or the crime scene-half the guy’s face eaten off. It wasn’t out of the question that in certain interviews he would have chosen the crime scene photo, but not here. Not her.
“Have you ever seen this man before?”
She nodded.
“It’s important you answer aloud,” Walt said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Please describe the circumstances of the last time you saw him.”
“The only time I saw him, you mean.”
“The only time, then.”
“You were there,” she said. “It was the night of the Advocates dinner.”
Walt caught his breath but maintained his composure.
“I’d seen… She’d showed me… Never mind. I knew who he was, that’s all.”
Walt hesitated, facing a fork in the road. He knew who she was referring to. Some cases go cold. He felt obliged to pursue the identity of “she,” but understood not to. He was painfully aware of the camera aimed at the back of his head.
“You knew who he was,” he said, making it a statement.
“The football guy.”
“You follow pro football, do you?”
“Not exactly.”
“But you recognized a linebacker who’s been out of the league for several years. Can you explain that?”
“I knew who he was. I don’t remember how.” As her eyes lowered to the desk, and her shoulders caved forward, he thought even a first-year graduate student could identify the lie from her body language.
“Seeing him… Was that when you stopped for a second in your talk, your address, your speech? You’re right: I was there, and I remember your… interrupting yourself.”
“Might have been.”
“Seeing this man caused that kind of reaction? Why is that?” Why couldn’t he bring himself to just ask her the identity of the woman she’d referred to? Why did he insist on dancing around the edges?
“Roy Coats,” she said, naming the man who had brutally assaulted her a few years before. Walt winced at the mention of the man, his memory still holding on to the grainy webcam images of the violent sexual abuse this young woman had endured. His brain lacked the delete button he sometimes wished it had. “I don’t get exactly why. I don’t expect you to get it. But when that guy opened the doors back there and looked inside, it wasn’t him I saw, it was Roy Coats. That happens to me pretty much all the time. In Atkinson’s, out on the street. Can be anywhere. I just see him. He’s looking at me that way he looked at me. Like he knew what he was going to do to me, and me having no clue. Like that. Like people look when they know a secret you don’t. And it makes me physically sick. Like I’m going to puke. I want to scream. I want to scratch his eyes out. Castrate him. Kill him.” She looked up from what had looked like a trance.
Walt felt a jolt. Neither of them had wanted her to say that word.
“Not that I ever would,” she added quickly. “I didn’t mean it that way. Look: that was the only time I ever saw the guy. I’m telling the truth. That one time in the Limelight Room. I hadn’t seen him again until just now when you put his picture down here.” She reached out and touched the photograph. “That came out all wrong.”
Yes, it did, Walt thought. “Roy Coats,” Walt clarified. “You wanted to kill Roy Coats.”
“Exactly. But he’s dead. Look, I know that. Okay? I know he’s dead. But what your mind knows and the rest of you feels are two different things. And that particular time, I saw Roy Coats and all that stuff came back.”
“And that’s the only time you saw Martel Gale?”
“Yes.”
Walt pulled the photo back and returned it to the folder. The job turned sordid too often. At times like this he wondered: why him? Why law enforcement? Why expose yourself to this stuff? “Where do you live?”
“I’m staying, house-sitting at the moment, up at the Engletons’ place.”
“The residence of Leslie and Michael Engleton.”
“Yes.”
“In the main house or the guest cottage?”
“Fiona lives in the guest cottage. I’m house-sitting the main house.”
“Fiona Kenshaw. Our crime scene photographer.”
“Yes.”
“For how long have you been residing at the Engleton residence?”
“They’re on this trip. You know, for like the whole summer. I’ve been there… I don’t know… two months? Another month or so to go.”
“You and I have seen each other there,” Walt said.
“Yes.”
“You came after me with a baseball bat in your hand.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. There’s that guy in the woods around there. That guy you’re looking for. It was dark. I didn’t know it was you. You looking in the window and all. I thought you were a peeping Tom or something.”
Walt felt himself flush, an uncontrollable reaction.
“Tell me about the baseball bat.”
“I don’t know. It’s Michael’s, I guess. He has a bunch of them in the sports thing out in the garage. Fiona and I… we both put one by the door. You know. In case that guy came around.”
In fact, Walt did not know, had not heard. He didn’t recall seeing a bat by the door to Fiona’s cottage. Had there been one? Had it been moved? Had it been left in the rental car? Dangerous territory. He steered slightly away.
“What purpose did the bat serve?”
“You know? When you’re scared. Like that.”
“To strike an intruder.”
“Not that I ever have, or would. But, yeah, I guess. Closest I ever got was hitting you. And I didn’t do that. I can’t even kill spiders. I have to ask Fiona to do that. Call her over to the house. Nothing seems to bother her.”
Why did it have to keep coming back to Fiona?
“If a man like Martel Gale came onto the property unannounced and you saw him in the dark. A big guy. Huge guy. If he turned on you. If he scared you, any reaction on your part could be considered self-defense. Do you understand that?”
“I get what you’re saying, but that’s not what happened.”
“The thing about a voluntary interview… well, for one thing we’re recording all this on video, as you know. For another, none of us can take back what we say. It’s incredibly important that you tell the truth the first time. The very first time. That you stick to the truth, no matter how hard it may be to speak of it. The law… it isn’t black and white the way you might think. That’s not the way it actually works. We think of it that way: right and wrong. In practice, it works a lot differently. A guy comes onto your property uninvited, comes on there at a time there’s some guy vandalizing neighborhood properties, maybe late at night when it’s hard to see clearly. He surprises you and you defend yourself”-she was shaking her head violently side to side-“especially a person, any person, with a past that makes overreaction understandable. It’s all viewed differently. Each case is viewed differently.”
“That didn’t happen.”
“I’m just saying, you want to stick to the truth.”
“I am. I didn’t do that. It’s not like that. I saw him once at the Limelight Room. That was it. Only then.”
And a few minutes later, Fiona left the room without notice, Walt thought. He’d followed outside and had quizzed the kids working the valet parking. They’d all but identified the visitor as Martel Gale.
“We… my deputies… conducted a search of the Engleton residence. We found no baseball bat by the front door of the main residence,” Walt said. He left out that none had been found at the cottage either. “We located the ones in the sports cabinet, as you’ve mentioned. But nothing by the front door. Can you account for that bat’s whereabouts?”
“No idea.”
“Has it been missing?”
“No idea.”
“Why’s that?”
“I have no idea where I left it. That night I saw you? I don’t know what I did with it. I could have left it outside, for all I know. Anyway, it’s not like I was hanging around in the main part of the house. I’ve been in the safe room.”
“And why is that?”
She looked as if he’d slapped her.
“Did you leave the residence for a while?”
“I did.”
“In what vehicle?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“I’m afraid I have to ask you to answer the question.”
“The truck. I’m not supposed to drive the pickup truck. Okay? I get it. I blew it. But I drove the truck. I went over to Yellowstone like Fiona said. But the campgrounds were full, so I slept in the truck a couple of nights, and couldn’t stand it, and came back here.”
Like Fiona said. “You were in communication with Ms. Kenshaw during this absence?” He hated dragging her back into it. Could he find a way to just end it?
“No, I wasn’t.”
“But you just said-”
“She was bugging me. Okay? Leaving messages and stuff and, I don’t know, it was like my parents or something. I just wasn’t interested.”
The answer felt rehearsed. She’d expected that question long before the interview had begun. It knocked him back on his heels. How much of this had been rehearsed? How much had he missed because of his own interest in the outcome of the interview? Would he pick up things in replaying the tape?
“If you’re trying to get me to say something about Fiona, I’m not going to.”
Walt’s chest tightened. Could he instruct Chalmers to shut off the video? Could he call a break to the interview?
“What would I want you to say about Ms. Kenshaw?”
She locked eyes with him. “I’m not going to say it,” she said.
“Tell me about that night,” Walt said.
“What night?”
“Late the twelfth. Early morning the thirteenth.”
“Nothing. There’s nothing to tell.”
“Someone came onto the property-drove an SUV onto the property.” Speculation was part of any interrogation, but he knew he was on thin ice. “If you didn’t see him, as you’ve stated, you must have heard him. You could hear cars arrive, couldn’t you?”
“There’s a bell that rings. It’s one of those electronic eye things at the gate.”
This was new information for Walt.
“When a vehicle enters,” Walt said.
“Yeah. That’s how big the house is. You can’t hear squat in there. The gate’s like in a different zip code. Without the bell you’d probably never know someone was out there.”
“Late night the twelfth.”
“I told you: I didn’t see him.”
“But you heard a bell.”
“The bell rang a few different times. It wasn’t like I jumped up to see what was going on.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“So you were used to visitors late at night?” He realized what he’d said-what he’d asked-too late.
“I saw your car out there a couple of times. Your police car.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, glad that his face was off camera. He never had trouble thinking when in these rooms. An interview was supposed to sharpen his wits, engage him. The deeper he dug, the faster the sand poured back down in, burying him. He reminded himself he was not the one being interviewed. He reminded himself that he didn’t need to react to or explain anything. He was the one in charge.
“So you’re suggesting you did in fact look outside when you heard that tone.”
She looked stunned. “Maybe… I guess so.”
“You did or you didn’t look out that night? Late night the twelfth, maybe the early hours of the thirteenth?”
Her eyes told him the whole story: concealment, fear, an overwhelming sense of emotion.
A knock interrupted him. He could have screamed. He was never to be interrupted during an interview. He collected himself, nodded, and let Blompier open the door for him.
“Sheriff,” his receptionist said with urgency in her voice. “Peter Arian’s here.”
Arian, a young public defender who was recently winning far too many cases as far as Walt was concerned, could only be there for one reason. But Walt played along.
“So?”
“He says he’s representing Ms. Tulivich.”
Walt shut the door.
“Ms. Tulivich, did you contact a lawyer? We were not aware of-”
“No, I didn’t.”
Fiona! he realized. Anger competed with resignation. He felt the wind knocked out of him. Mindful of the video, he kept his cool. “You’ll excuse me for a moment. The interview will now pause,” he said for the sake of the video.
Sandbagged by a possible suspect. He thought he’d identified a seam to exploit, a way to let the system do his work for him. Fiona had just turned all that on its head.
“But if there’s a lawyer here-”
“It doesn’t work like that. I’ll be right back.”
Out in the hall, he told his deputy, “Show Ms. Kenshaw to Interview two, will you please.”
“Fiona?” the deputy clarified.
“Interview two,” Walt repeated. “Mr. Arian will see me in my office.”
“Yes, sir.”
He waited for the choreography to play out. Closing his office door, he met with Arian first.
“Sheriff, I’d like to see my client, if you don’t mind.”
“She’s not your client, Peter. She has not called for an attorney and you cannot solicit clients in this building. You know the rules.”
“It’s one a.m. and I’m here to see Kira Tulivich.”
“Take a seat at reception if you want, but you won’t see her until I’m done speaking with her.”
“Her guardian appointed me-”
“Kira Tulivich is not a minor, and you know it.”
“She’s been under the care and responsibility of-”
“Take it up with the courts if you want, counselor. But not here. Not tonight. She’s here voluntarily and she’s staying here voluntarily.”
Arian stood. “By tomorrow, it’s a different playing field, Sheriff. Shorter field for me. Longer for you. You might want to think about that. I don’t like getting out of bed at one in the morning. Affects my mood in the morning.”
“Take an Ambien. You’ll sleep like a baby.” Walt opened the office door. “Good night, counselor.”
He then joined Fiona in Interview 2. She looked smug and confident, but it was a fragile veneer.
“You’re pissed at me,” she said.
He stared her down, unflinchingly.
“I had to,” she said. “She’s entitled to representation.”
His eyes darted to the soundproof door, ensuring it was shut tightly. “Do you really think the right thing to do is to play me? The two of you? I take it you have an end game in mind. You mind cluing me in on what it is exactly?”
She glared back at him. “What’s that mean?”
“There’s a dead body in the hospital cooler and I need answers. You and Kira are right in the middle of this.”
“You think I killed him?”
“You’re protecting her. She’s protecting you. Do you actually think I can’t see that? Do you actually think you can keep this up? It’s a homicide, Fiona. It doesn’t get any more serious than this.”
She squinted. “I’m worried about you.”
He slapped the table. She jumped back.
“Homicide! I’m talking about the fire. I’m talking about a baseball bat from Michael Engleton’s collection. I’m talking about you and Kira doing this dance that’s growing really old and is not going to hold up. You want attorneys involved? You’d rather have Peter Arian handling this than me? Jesus!” He breathed deeply, trying to calm himself. “You two had better get in front of this. I had a plan-one you’ve just made a hell of a lot more complicated. I hope to hell you have one, because this thing is coming apart on you-on both of you.”
“You think I set that fire? Are you still playing like you didn’t do that for me? You want to talk? Talk.”
“Me?” he asked incredulously. “This is me we’re talking about.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you?”
He reached across the table and took her hand in his. “Now. Right here, right now. You look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t set that fire.”
“I didn’t set that fire.”
His mind raced. “No way,” he mumbled.
“I… told… you… I… didn’t.”
“Kira? Do you think she could have overheard us?”
“From inside that house? I don’t think so, Walt. You can’t hear anything from in there. It’s a fortress. And if she was in the safe room-a room I didn’t even know existed!-you really think so?”
“You should never have brought Peter Arian into this. You send him packing. I can work this out if you’d just let me.”
“Let you railroad Kira? I don’t think so.”
“‘Some cases go cold,’ ” he said back at her.
“What?”
“You said that to me.”
“Did I?”
His patience tested, he fought to stay in his chair. “Yes, you did. I’m attempting to bring charges against her. You have to stay out of this.”
“I will not stay out of it. I will not allow that. She’s been through-”
“This is my job. My world. Stay out of it.”
“Is that an order, Sheriff?” All life had gone out of her. She leaned away from him, nearly tipping over the chair.
“If I can’t push Arian off the base, if he gets to her, then my game plan is over. At that point, you two will need to get in front of this.” A mechanical silence hung between them-the eerie whisper of HVAC. “Terry Hogue’s the best criminal lawyer in town. You call Terry.”
“What plan,” she said. “You said you have a plan.”
“Had,” he corrected. “I said I had a plan. With Arian in the mix, the evidence is going to come out, and that’s coming back to bite her.”
But a worm started drilling through his head: the unidentified prints on the baseball bat; Fiona’s insistence she hadn’t set the fire; the probable height of Gale’s attacker. The bits and pieces began to come together in unexpected ways.
“The fire was not a lightning strike,” he said. “You don’t talk about something and two hours later it spontaneously combusts. Do you see how it plays out if it’s forced to play out? Kira goes off the rails at the Advocates dinner. She’s unstable. She takes after him like she almost did to me that night. Then she takes the truck and runs. Comes back and hides. Overhears us, and sets the fire. There is evidence to support most of this. My plan… Well, at least I had one. I hope you do.”
She was squinting and blinking and looked as if she was either going to cry or pass out.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I need a minute.” She sat there breathing deeply. He wasn’t sure what to do-an uncommon feeling in him. “I need to see Katherine. I need to talk to Katherine.”
“Who’s Katherine?”
“Katherine,” she said, as if that answered him. Standing from the chair, she hurried toward the interview room door.
“Don’t walk out on me,” he said.
She glanced over at him, turned, and was gone.