The Unquiet

Chapter XXV

They kept me in the interrogation room at Scarborough P.D. headquarters while we waited for Aimee Price to arrive, and once again I felt myself following in Merrick’s footsteps. Hansen had wanted to take me to Gray, but Wallace MacArthur, who had come in when he heard that I was being questioned, lobbied on my behalf. I could hear him through the door vouching for me, urging Hansen to hold off the big dogs for a while. I was inexpressibly grateful to him, not so much for saving me an unpleasant trip to Gray with Hansen, but for being willing to step up to the plate when he must have had his own doubts.

Nothing had changed in the room since Merrick had occupied this seat. Even the childish doodles on the whiteboard were the same. I wasn’t cuffed, and Conlough had given me a cup of coffee and a stale doughnut. My head still hurt, but I was gradually waking up to the fact that I had probably said too much back in the house. I still didn’t know what Merrick had done, but I was pretty certain that someone was dead because of it. In the meantime, I realized that I had effectively admitted my gun had been used in the commission of a crime. If Hansen decided to play hardball and charge me, I could find myself behind bars with little hope of making bail. At the very least, he could hold me for days, leaving Merrick to wreak havoc with the Smith 10.

After an hour alone with my thoughts, the door of the interrogation room opened, and Aimee Price was admitted. She was wearing a black skirt and jacket, and a white blouse. Her briefcase was shiny and made of expensive leather. She looked all business. I, by contrast, looked terrible, and she told me so.

“Do you have any idea what’s happening?” I asked.

“All I know is that they’re investigating a shooting. One fatality. Male. Clearly, they think you may be able to help them with some details.”

“Like how I shot him.”

“Bet you’re glad you held on to my card now,” she said.

“I think it brought me bad luck.”

“You want to tell me how much?”

I went through everything with her, from Merrick ’s arrival at the house to Ronson putting me in the back of the cruiser. I left nothing out, apart from the voices. Aimee didn’t need to hear about that.

“How dumb are you?” she said when I was done. “Children know better than to answer a cop’s questions without a lawyer being present.”

“I was tired. My head was hurting.” I realized how pathetic I sounded.

“Dummy. Don’t say another word, not unless you get the nod from me.”

She went back to the door and knocked to indicate that the cops could enter. Conlough came in, followed by Hansen. They took seats across from us. I wondered how many people were crowded around the computer monitor outside, listening to the questions and answers being relayed from the room, watching four figures dance around one another without moving.

Aimee held up a hand.

“You need to tell us what this is about first,” she said.

Conlough looked to Hansen.

“A man named Ricky Demarcian died last night. He was shot in the head over at a trailer park named Tranquility Pines. We have a witness who says that a Mustang matching the one owned by your client was seen driving away from the scene. He even gave us the tag number.”

I could imagine what was happening at Tranquility Pines as we spoke. The state CID’s crime scene unit would be there, along with the white truck of Scarborough ’s own evidence technician, its rear doors personalized with blowups of his thumbprints. He was regarded as one of the best evidence techs in the state, a painfully meticulous man, and it was unlikely that the state guys would discourage him from working alongside their own people. The red-and-white mobile command center, used in conjunction with the fire department, would also be present. There would be bystanders, rubberneckers, potential witnesses being interviewed, trucks from the various local network affiliates, a whole circus converging on one little trailer in one sorry trailer park. They would take casts at the scene, hoping to match the treads to the tires on my Mustang. They wouldn’t find any matches, but it wouldn’t matter. They could argue that the car might have been parked on the road, away from the dirt. Absence of a link to my car wouldn’t prove my i

“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.