Two men entered the small room, an older man with a gut that hung over his belt, and a tall thin one in a suit. Neither was the cop from last night, and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. He’d turned out to be all right. He’d made me walk in a straight line, and when it was apparent I was sober, we’d talked about my plans to join the force while he’d jumped the truck’s battery.
“Morning, Mr. Sutter,” said the burly man in uniform. “I’m Officer Vermont, and this is my colleague, Detective Krout.”
I shook both their hands. “I’ll be honest,” I said, “I don’t know why I’m here.”
“We’ll get to that,” he said. “Need anything before we start? Water? Coffee?”
“Sure.” What I wanted most was a cigarette. My head hurt all over from lack of sleep and now this. The bracelet felt like no more than a hair on my wrist, but I hadn’t forgotten it was there. This was a special circumstance, though. I’d quit tomorrow. “Any chance of me getting a smoke?”
Vermont laughed as Krout stood at a table against the wall, separating paper cups by a coffee urn. “This isn’t a TV show, son. But nice try.”
The gray, concrete room, lit by a single lamp, did look a little like a set. Not to mention short-and-fat and tall-and-skinny would’ve made a fine pair for a primetime courtroom comedy. I kept it to myself. I respected the police. They might have the wrong guy, but they were just doing their jobs.
Krout set three waters and coffees on the table. My mouth had gone tacky from my cravings, so I went for water.
“Do you have any guesses?” Krout asked. It was the first thing he’d said.
I swallowed my water in one gulp and set the cup down. “About?”
“Why you’re here.”
“Gary relayed what you told him.” Gary had convinced the cops to wait at the gate for me, their presence upsetting the kids. “There was some kind of robbery last night?”
“A house in town, nice, upstanding folks,” Vermont said. “We just have a few routine questions for you, but it’s our duty to go over your rights.”
I sipped coffee as he read my Miranda rights. I had nothing to worry about, and the longer the process went on, the more this became a thing. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve. “I’m good. We can continue.”
“For the record, please state your name, age, and occupation.”
“Manning Raymond Sutter. Age twenty-three. Camp counselor, construction worker, and anything else that pays the bills.”
“Where are you based?”
“Long Beach, California.”
The detective made notes in his folder. “Did you grow up there?”
“No. Pasadena.”
“Have any family in California?”
“My mom’s still in Pasadena I think.”
“What about your dad?”
I wiped my temple, my hairline getting hot. “I’m not sure. Last I heard, he was in Pelican Bay, but that was a while ago.”
Krout looked up at that. “Penitentiary? What for?”
Having a dad in prison probably didn’t look so good. Fucking me over from afar, no surprise there. “Assault.”
“I see.” Detective Krout’s pen continued to scrawl across the page. “Tell us about your evening.”
I blew out a breath. It was simply, really. At least, what they’d know of it. “I was at camp most of the night. We ran out of alcohol, so since I was the only sober one, I was volunteered to do a run. I went into town, got some, and went back to the campsite.”
“What time did you leave?”
“I’d say just before ten.”
“And you went right back after you got the alcohol?” Krout asked. “Because that’s not what we heard.”
That caught me off guard, that they’d heard anything. I swallowed to buy myself a second, then remembered the officer from last night. Of course they knew I didn’t go straight back. I’d been with one of their own. “Yeah. No. I had some car trouble so it took a little longer.”
“Nobody seems to know what time you returned. According to one source, you said you’d be right back, but by the time your peers went to sleep at one in the morning, you still hadn’t returned. We figure, being generous, it’s half an hour into town and half an hour back. If you left just after ten, you should’ve been back well before midnight.”
“Like I said, I had car trouble. It wasn’t my truck, believe me, that hunk of metal had its problems. You can go take a look. Better yet, ask your officer.”
Both men’s eyebrows dropped. “What officer?”
Were they fucking with me? There was no way they didn’t already know. How else had they pegged me as a suspect? “I forget his last name. He found me on the side of the road, made sure I wasn’t drinking and driving, then gave me a jump.”
Krout sat back in his seat with a sigh. “I didn’t see any record of it.”
I shrugged. “Maybe because there was nothing to say. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.” I had the urge to swallow again, but I worried they’d read into that. I resisted and ended up coughing. “Can I get some water?”
Vermont and Krout exchanged a look. “Was Anderson on duty last night?” Krout asked him.
“Don’t know off the top of my head, but he’s most likely sleeping right now.” He turned to me. “We’ll be sure to talk to Officer Anderson. What was the truck you were driving?”