A look toward Dance, a smile.
Men …
“Would your husband have seen anything?”
“He’s on the road. Truck driver. Been away for three days. No, four.”
“All right then, ma’am. Thank you for your time.”
“Sure, Officer. Will there be a funeral or anything?”
“Couldn’t say. Good day to you.” Madigan was loping back toward the trailer but Dance turned the other way, followed the woman back to her trailer and her brood.
“Excuse me.”
“Uh-huh?”
“If I could ask a few more things?”
“I’m sorry. I really have to get back to the kids.”
“How many?”
“What?”
“Children?”
“Oh. Four.”
“I have two.”
Tabatha smiled. “I heard this, like, expression. Diminishing returns. I don’t exactly know what it means but I think of it having two kids sets the stage, you know? You can have ten more and it’s not a whole lot worser.”
“Diminishing returns” probably wasn’t what the woman meant but Dance grinned understandingly. “Two is fine for me.”
“But you work.”
The tiny sentence carried a lot. Then Tabatha said, “I really don’t know much else than what I told that man.” She looked at Dance’s trim figure, pressed jeans and her sunglasses, whose frames were the color of canned cranberry sauce.
A whole different world.
And I work.
“I left Sheryl and Annette watching the little one.”
The woman kept walking, fast for her bulky frame. She drew hard on the cigarette, then paused to crush it out carefully. Smokers did that in California, the land of brushfires.
“Just one or two questions.”
“If the baby starts crying—”
“I’ll help you change him.”
“Her.”
“What’s her name?”
“Caitlyn.”
“Pretty. Mine’s Maggie.”
Then they were at the screen door of her trailer. Tabatha peered through the dusty, rusted mesh. Dance couldn’t see much other than toys: plastic tricycles, castles, doll houses, pirate chests. The house was dim inside but exuded still heat. The TV was on. One of the last remaining soap operas.
Tabatha lifted an eyebrow.
“Just a few more details about Bobby.”
Dance was continuing the discussion with Tabatha because of an important rule in kinesic analysis: the volunteering principle. When someone answers a question, then immediately offers what he or she anticipates will be the next question, that person is often trying to deflect or diffuse a line of inquiry.
Dance had noted that Tabatha said she hadn’t seen anybody here last night—or this morning.
Why had she felt it important to mention that? It made no sense unless she was covering up something.
Dance removed her sunglasses.
“I really need to get in to the children.”
“Tabatha, what did you see this morning at Bobby’s trailer?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly.
Effective kinesic analysis of witnesses and suspects involves conversing with the individual for a long period of time—days or, ideally, weeks. Initially nothing is said about the crime at all; the interviewer asks questions and makes comments that relate to the subject’s life, all topics about which the truth is known. This establishes the suspect’s baseline behavior—how he or she speaks and acts when responding honestly. It’s then that the interviewer segues into inquiries about the crime and compares the subject’s behavior when answering those questions to the baseline. Any variation suggests stress and therefore possible deception.
However, even without establishing a baseline, there are a few mannerisms that suggest lying, at least to an experienced investigator like Kathryn Dance. Tabatha’s voice was now slightly higher in pitch than earlier—a sign of stress.
A glance toward Bobby’s trailer, in front of which Madigan and his deputies were staring back at Dance. She ignored them and said calmly, “It would be good for everybody if you could give us a little more information.”
Everybody …
You too.
At least she wasn’t a crier. Often at this stage, when Dance tipped witnesses or suspects into admitting they’d been lying, many women, and a surprising number of men, began to cry. It could take upward of an hour to convince them that they were not subhuman for being deceptive; they were simply scared or concerned about their families or had other reasons. Tabatha gave no reaction, other than a thoughtful furrowing of her thick eyebrows as she probably considered the risk to her children if she was honest.
Dance assessed she was on the borderline.
“We’ll make sure you’re looked out for. But this is pretty serious.”
A low voice, woman to woman, adult to adult. “You can say that. It’s easy to say that.”
“I give you my word.”
One mother to another.
A very long ten seconds passed. “There was somebody in the trailer this morning.”
“Could you describe them?”
“I couldn’t see the face. ’Causa the angle, you know. Just the body, chest and shoulders, through the window. Like a, you know, silhouette. Not even clothes. That’s all I could see. I swear.”
Often a deceptive flag, that last sentence can also mean exactly what it says, as Dance now believed. “Which window?”
“That one there, in the front?” She pointed. It was horizontal, two feet high, three wide.
“You came out for a smoke and saw this person?”
“I’m aiming to quit. I will. Worried about the weight, you know. That always happens when you quit smoking. I try. Don’t really want to gain any more pounds. Tony Senior’s commented on it. And he should talk. Mr. Budweiser.”
“What time?”
“Eleven, eleven-thirty.”
“Did you see a car? Or when the person left?”
“No.”
Then she noticed to her alarm that Madigan had given up shooting hate rays at her, had turned and was nearly to the front door of Bobby’s trailer.
“Thank you, Tabatha. Go be with your children.”