I’m quiet. And now he’s sitting up, acting like someone who has confessed. I have to ask someone whether I can hold this statement against him. It’s on the record. But really, I couldn’t care less. We don’t go out of our way to bust marijuana users. On campus, we’d have to lock up half the student population. I’d estimate that half the professors have their own stashes. I’d naturally done my share of smoking at undergrad parties, but truthfully I didn’t like the way it made me feel, and hadn’t indulged for years.
“I’ll have to determine what to do with this information,” I say finally. But it rings true to me in a way the bookstore story hadn’t.. Much easier to see him scoring dope from a connection in some run-down student rental house. There are dozens of them downtown.
“Okay,” I say, and start doing the math. “Even if your sister can vouch for you from 7:45 on, and even if it would take you twenty-five minutes to get to Los Gatos, that still leaves fifty minutes unaccounted for during the critical period. In almost the exact location of the crime, from 6:30 to 7:20.”
He looks genuinely scared. “I didn’t kill John,” he says. “I have no reason to. You have to believe me.”
Oddly enough, I do. He strikes me as cowardly, but not violent. I’m quiet for a minute. Then I get up and turn off the video recorder. “That’ll be all for now,” I say, and dismiss him.
I sit in the chair he’s just vacated, still warm from his body, and sigh deeply. I don’t know what to think. But it’s the first crack in the seemingly impenetrable walls of this case.
36
MJ
THOMAS WAS SUMMONED TO THE police department yesterday. They didn’t say why. That worried me.
The thing is, Thomas doesn’t know how to stop talking. When he was brought into the principal’s office or police station as a boy on suspicion of something he hadn’t done, he often confessed to another crime he had committed. The police in Tennessee knew that, and exploited it shamelessly. He also ratted out his friends frequently. Not on purpose, but because he couldn’t stop blabbing.
What makes me the most anxious is that I won’t know by questioning Thomas what he actually said. He always considered himself at the top of his game during talks with authorities, sort of a sly verbal Robin Hood who hoodwinks them at every turn. So when I called him this morning and asked him how things went yesterday, he said “fine,” and believed it, too. Now I wait fearfully for the next call from that young detective. She projects the innocence of a fawn, but is quite sharp. Not much gets past her.
When I heard she’d called in Thomas I finally took her advice and hired a lawyer. I didn’t know how to go about it, so I just picked the firm with the biggest ad in the Yellow Pages. This is costing me four hundred dollars an hour. I’ve already spent more than a thousand because he needed time “getting up to speed,” and I told him my worries about Thomas going to the police alone. He asked if I wanted him to accompany Thomas, and I hesitated until I did the math. Given travel time, that would probably be another cool thousand dollars, so I said no. I need to conserve every penny I have for the mortgage.
Then the lawyer told me Thomas didn’t have to go in, unless they issued a subpoena, but that it’s best to cooperate as much as possible. “Unless he’s hiding anything, of course,” he said, as if casually, but he was probing, I could tell. “Thomas has nothing to hide,” I said, and hung up. Another hundred dollars wasted, as he bills in quarter-hour increments.
37
Samantha
“YOU CAN’T BOOK HIM, YOU can’t really touch him, without more evidence.”
This is Grady speaking. I told him about the parking ticket, and he watched the video of Thomas’s interview. We’re sitting in Susan’s office, conferring.
“I don’t think he did it. But he’s lying about something,” I say. “You can tell. Look at the way he shifts around. And every time he’s caught in a lie he makes up a new one. You can practically see him pulling these stories out of his ass.”
“What do you imagine he knows?” Grady asks.
“I dunno. Something.” I know that sounds weak.
Susan finally pipes up. She’s been keeping me on what she calls a tight leash, asking for daily updates, and encouraging me to make use of Grady’s expertise. “Sam, that’s not how it works. We don’t charge someone until we feel we have a good case. Otherwise, the DA’s office is just going to throw it out. All you have are suspicious circumstances and weak circumstantial evidence. I’m afraid you’ll have to keep digging.”
I’m frustrated. I turn to Grady. “What would be compelling enough evidence to bring this guy in?”
“Fingerprints at the scene.”
I shake my head.
“An eyewitness that places him at the Westin instead of only near it.” Grady says.
I shake my head again.
“There was a major conference getting started,” I say. “Registration was in the lobby, and a cocktail hour spilled out of the meeting rooms to take over the entire first floor of the hotel. No one saw anything. We’ve been going down the list of attendees and showing them pictures of MJ, Deborah, Thomas, even Helen, although supposedly she was four hundred miles away. Nothing. Everyone was half bombed and looking to get laid, not exactly a noticing mindset.”