The Stranger You Seek

24





The air-conditioning system had been out for a couple of hours when we arrived at City Hall East. The third floor was as torrid as a restaurant kitchen. Rauser used his investigative skills to uncover a stand-up oscillating fan in a broom closet a couple of floors down and hauled it up before anyone else could grab it. It was metal and rusty and squeaked with each full rotation, and it rustled the notes Rauser had anchored with an ashtray in the observation room where I waited with Rauser and Detectives Andy Balaki and Brit Williams behind the one-way mirrored glass. Rauser didn’t want fans in the interrogation rooms. He liked it hot in there and wasn’t above turning on the heat in the summer just so no one got too comfortable.

We were using Observation Room 3. The center section of a wall had been converted to a one-way mirror, but apart from this addition, it looked like most of the scruffy old offices in the building. A row of windows along the back side let in light and looked out onto North Avenue. The walls were queasy green with a moldy green trim. The paint chipped off if you so much as brushed against it. We had three monitors on a long table if we chose to watch the interview that way. Video was also available in the detective cubes, where they had a choice of observing room 1, 2, or 3. Rauser was pacing around, anxious for Charlie to be brought in.

“Where’s our world-famous profiler?” Detective Brit Williams asked, reaching for his coffee cup.

“Trying to find a place to park his white horse,” Balaki said with a smirk.

“He’s supposed to be here.” Rauser looked at his watch and shot me a look. “But he hasn’t been feeling that great.”

“Well, I’m okay if he just stays in his nice hotel room, ’cause if a*sholes could fly, Dobbs would be a seven-sixty-seven,” Williams shot back, fighting with the old roll-out windows as he talked. The windows were winning. “How long these suckers been closed, anyway? A hundred years?” His white dress shirt clung to his back. He pressed on the windows, tapped the edges, ran his hands along them, tried to force the crank to turn. His fingers found a massive patch of sticky cobwebs in the corner of one of the windows and he cursed aloud, tried to find somewhere to wipe them off.

“Hey, Einstein,” Balaki said. “That thing down there looks like an elbow, it’s a lock. You gotta lift it before they’ll open.”

Williams swore again, lifted the lock, turned the crank, and the window separated into three sections and opened out toward the street. A hot wind rushed in and Atlanta’s chemical air filled our sinuses. My eyes burned. Down on North Avenue, the sun and the heat on a sea of automobiles creeping through the midday traffic made the street shimmer like water. It looked fake.

Balaki came over with his hands shoved in his pockets, stood there a moment watching the scene with me. “See the dialysis clinic across the street? Saw a guy out there yesterday peeing in the parking lot. Something about that ain’t right. You know?”

Having opened all the windows along the west wall, Brit Williams pulled a chair to the table and sat down facing the glass. Sweat glistened on his very dark black skin. He had rolled up his shirtsleeves and opened his collar, which was as dressed-down as I had ever seen him. He put a legal pad in front of him and slid a pen from his shirt pocket, clicked it with his thumb a few times.

Rauser kept pacing.

The interrogation room door opened and Charlie was escorted in by a uniformed officer. Balaki and I went back to our seats. An enormous bruise blossomed around Charlie’s right eye. Medical tape still crisscrossed his nose.

“Dang.” Balaki’s South Georgia drawl made it sound like Da-ang. “Kicked the shit out of him, didn’t you, Street?”

Charlie’s crooked half smile was back. And so were the odd way he cocked his head, the knees that turned in just slightly, all the things that made it register instantly that something wasn’t right with Charlie. This was the Charlie I’d grown accustomed to, and had even grown to love. If he was acting right now, if he’d been acting these last couple of years, he was very good.

Charlie had been arrested at six-fifteen that morning. Cops had banged on his door, read the charges, assault with intent to commit rape. Then they read him Miranda and hauled him off. Rauser wanted to make sure this happened very early. He didn’t want Charlie well rested. Charlie’s attorney, Ricky Stickler, had argued at the arraignment that Charlie posed no flight risk, did not even have a driver’s license or credit card, and that he was under a doctor’s care. An assistant DA had counterargued that Charlie had a history of violence against women and was also a person of interest in other crimes and should be bound over, but the judge said there was neither sufficient evidence nor probable cause to hold the suspect in custody, that old closed cases from other states were inadmissible, and as long as Charlie had absolutely no contact with the alleged victim—me—he would consider bail. If Charlie agreed to questioning, bail would be set at fifty thousand dollars.

Ricky Stickler swaggered into the interrogation room and sat down next to Charlie, patted his hand. “You’ll be out of here in no time, Charlie. Paperwork is being taken care of now.”

Next to me, Williams folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, nodded toward the one-way mirror and Charlie’s lawyer. “Big-money law firm. Pricey group for a bicycle courier.”

We watched the two men on the other side of the glass for a few minutes. Stickler loosened his tie, took off his jacket. The hot room was having its effect. His pale blue shirt was damp and rumpled when the jacket came off.

Rauser checked his watch, pressed some numbers into his phone, and waited. “Where the hell is our new superstar? Bastard’s not even answering his phone. Williams, you come with me. We’re not waiting.” He tucked in his shirttail and grinned. “How do I look?”

“Real purdy, Lieutenant,” Balaki said, and they all chuckled. Cop humor. I didn’t always get it.

I watched Williams stroll into the interrogation room, then Rauser. The room was stark, just a table, four chairs, a couple of old HVAC registers on the walls. No windows. Rauser took a chair across from Ricky Stickler and Charlie and dropped a manila folder on the table. Williams sat at the end of the table.

“Sorry about the heat, guys. Old buildings, you know? How ’bout some water or something?” Rauser waited for the answer, which came from Stickler and was “No, thank you,” then looked at Charlie for a moment, gave a gentle smile. I saw the lines gathering at the corners of his eyes. “Charlie, my man, what the heck happened? You fall off your bike or something? You’re beat up pretty bad, buddy.”

“I know you’re mad,” Charlie told Rauser. The familiar slur was back. Very subtle, like someone with a glass of wine too many in them. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I love her. I didn’t mean it.”

Rauser picked up the folder and appeared to read it. “Says here you’ve done something like this three times before, Charlie. Did you mean it then?”

“Lieutenant,” Stickler piped up. He was a nice-looking guy, thirties, strawberry-blond hair. “My client has already been evaluated numerous times. We have brain scans showing the damage from way back. He takes about twenty anti-psych drugs. He went off his meds. He’s not an aggressive guy. Are you, Charlie?”

Charlie shook his head. “Nope. I’m a nice guy.”

“You get real mad sometimes, Charlie? Just want to rip something up, really tear into somebody?” Rauser pressed.

“Don’t answer that,” Stickler ordered.

“Yeah,” Charlie said, really drawing the word out—Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. “I do get real mad.”

“Shit,” Balaki muttered. He had taken the chair next to me that Williams vacated. “He’s not showing any defensiveness at all. I do get real mad. Be hard to make a jury believe he’s okay to stand trial.”

“You ever kill anybody, Charlie?” Rauser asked.

“No, sir, Mr. Man.” Charlie shook his head violently.

“Oh, so you’re sayin’ you’re just into rape?”

Stickler held up a hand, raised his voice. “Don’t answer that. Lieutenant—”

Williams interrupted, speaking for the first time. “Your client is a person of interest in a homicide investigation, Counselor, and we had an agreement. You should advise him to answer or we will just pick him up again tomorrow and the next day and the next day until we have clarification. You get it?”

“Let’s talk about some dates,” Rauser said to Stickler. “If your client has a credible alibi, well, then we got no problem.”

Stickler’s color crawled all the way up his neck and flushed his cheeks. Wet patches were showing under his arms. “You have got to be kidding! Charlie? Charlie wouldn’t recognize his own ass if you handed it to him. Of course he doesn’t have an alibi. He can’t remember what he had for breakfast, can you, Charlie?”

“I didn’t get any breakfast,” Charlie said. “I’m hungry.”

Rauser looked down at his notes. “Charlie, you kind of made everyone believe you were living off the church, didn’t you? You implied they were supplying housing for you, then I find out you’re living in a fancy condo up by Inman Park.”

“It’s not against the law to be protective of a fortune,” Stickler said. “Charlie inherited quite a lot of money when his parents were killed. He has to be cautious. We’ve lectured him on this. Our firm handles the trust.”

“So how about this sob story about the wife and kids leaving you and all that?” Rauser shook his head. “Not true. You filed for divorce, Charlie. I’ve got the papers right here. And you had to be hunted down and served by the court before you would pay support. See why I’m wondering about you, Charlie? Sometimes you act like a dumb shit and other times you’re just a mean bastard.”

“Well, since I can’t find a question in there, I think we’re done here,” Stickler said, and looked at Charlie. “Come on, Charlie. It’s too hot in here anyway.”

“Yeah, it’s hot as a damn f*ck in here,” Charlie said, and let loose the laugh we’d all come to know. “Neil likes it when I say f*ck. I like Neil. Do you like Neil, Mr. Man?” He started to rise.

Rauser’s arm shot across the table and he grabbed Charlie’s wrist. “All that money and you’re pedaling around town in a courier uniform.”

“Work is an essential aspect of his ongoing recovery,” the attorney said. “These people have to have some sense of self-worth, Lieutenant.”

“Save it,” Rauser told Stickler. He hadn’t let go of Charlie. He was staring into his eyes. “That gets you in, doesn’t it, Charlie? That why Elicia Richardson and Lei Koto and the others opened the door for you? You delivering a package? You looking hot like you need some water?”

“I don’t know those people,” Charlie answered. He tried to withdraw his arm, but Rauser’s grip must have been like a vise.

“Poor Charlie at the door with a package, looks so hot and thirsty.”

“Lieutenant Rauser, release my client.”

Rauser stood. He leaned across the table, very close to Charlie’s face. “I hear you’re pretty good with a knife, Charlie. I need to see your knife.”

“Can you put him at the scene?” Stickler demanded. “That’s what I thought.” He pulled his jacket off the back of the chair and put his card on the table. “You have more questions, you call me, Lieutenant. Let’s go, Charlie.”

“That went well,” I muttered.

Balaki said, “Lieu just wanted to rattle his cage a little and see what he does next.”

But Rauser wasn’t done yet. As Stickler and Charlie prepared to leave the interrogation room, Rauser stepped in front of Charlie. He said very calmly, “I’m gonna get a warrant for that fancy town house and we’re taking it apart down to the pipes. I dare you to dump some evidence. You’re done, Ramsey. Just a matter of time.”

Then he stalked out of the interrogation room.

“No confession?” Balaki said with a grin when Rauser and Williams joined us.

“Uh-unh,” Rauser growled. “Be more likely Nancy Pelosi will come in here and give us a lap dance.”

“Yeah, baby,” Balaki said, and pumped his neck. “Now we talking.”

We all looked at him. A moment of awkward silence followed, then Rauser said, “We gotta cover this guy twenty-four/seven and we gotta do it in two shifts. Pull Velazquez and Bevins in.”

Groans came from the two detectives. It meant twelve-hour shifts doing excruciatingly boring work. They were used to long hours. It’s the sitting and the waiting that makes cops nuts.

“We’ll take the first shift at dusk, okay?” Balaki said. “Give us time to kiss our wives and get a thermos of coffee.”

Rauser reached for the observation room door, then turned and looked at me. “What the hell happened to Dobbs anyway? Where is he?”

“Count your blessings,” I said.