by A B Whelan
“This isn’t an interrogation, only an interview, Mr. Campbell, which, by the way, hasn’t begun. When Bostick gets here, we’ll ask you a few questions, which I hope you answer.”
“I don’t have to answer your questions. I don’t have to say a word.”
“Are you asking for an attorney?”
Richard smashed his fist onto the table. “I already told you. I don’t need one!”
“You seem to know your rights well, Mr. Campbell. I heard you weren’t so confident the first time you had trouble with the law.”
Harmon must have touched a nerve, because Richard’s eyes flared up like black fire. “I had nothing to do with that poor girl’s murder. I was devastated to hear about her disappearance. I was a boy back then. Sometimes I think I may have somehow subconsciously started my company to honor her memory.”
Harmon leaned forward. “Interesting. Did you do it out of guilt?”
“We do excellent work at the foundation, Detective.”
“So, how’s your wife fit into that picture?”
“Why are you asking about my wife?”
“Do you love your wife, Mr. Campbell?”
“Of course I love my wife.”
“Isn’t she too boring for you, too mundane?”
Richard’s neck flexes. “What are you talking about? I love my wife.”
“Oh, I know. You’re the kind of man who loves all women, aren’t you, Mr. Campbell?”
Richard took off his jacket and hung it on his chair. He then sat down and flung his leg over his knee and pressed his lips together.
Harmon took his turn to stand up and lead. He removed a manila envelope from the top evidence box and pulled out its contents. He stared at a picture with narrowed eyes for a while before tossing it onto the table. The photo of a dead girl lying in mud on rotten leaves slid across the table and stopped sideways in front of Richard.
“You knew Skyler, right? She was a member of your cult, no? We found her two weeks ago, sexually assaulted, tortured, and killed.”
Richard stole a glance at the picture without picking it up. “I don’t run a cult, Detective. But yes, I knew her. She came to us for help.”
The next photo that landed on the table showed a closeup image of ligature marks on her wrists.
Not a muscle twitched on Richard’s face. “I heard what happened. She was a special girl. She didn’t deserve that.”
Harmon held up a third photo. “Her hands and feet were bound with rope. She was strangled. Repeatedly.” He set the photo right in front of Richard and pulled out another one. “Victim number two…and three.” He dropped the entire stack of photos on the table. “Emma Edwards, twenty years old. Stella Barrow, only seventeen. Harriet Wilding, nineteen years old. You want me to keep going?”
Richard pushed the photos away from him. “Why are you showing me these?”
Harmon’s hands landed on the table, and he leaned in. “You tell me, Mr. Campbell. Why do you think I’m showing you these photos?”
“I don’t know, but you need to stop. These pictures make me sick.”
Harmon stepped back to the evidence box and took out a notebook. He started flipping through the pages. “All the victims were raped, sodomized, and beaten for weeks. They were then strangled and dumped in dirty water, like trash.”
Richard jumped to his feet. “That’s enough! I don’t need to hear any more.”
Harmon slapped the notepad onto the table, took out a pack of gum from his pocket, and shoved a piece into his mouth. “What kind of animal do you think would do something like that?”
Richard seemed to be losing his patience. The strained neck, the clenched jaws and fists—all signs I recognized.
The female detective leaned closer to me. “Do you think he’ll break?”
I swallowed hard to steal time to find my voice. “I can tell he’s nervous. Will he break? I don’t know.”
“If he doesn’t confess today, we won’t have enough evidence to send the case to trial.”
I nodded, understanding that my chances of leaving the station a winner were very slim. I should have never let Ashley talk me into this madness.
The door to the interview room flew open, and a man in his late fifties burst inside, limping but determined.
“Remember me, son?” he said, shuffling to the table with the support of a crutch.
“Bostick?” Richard squinted at him, his spine stiff, his face pale. Witnessing Richard’s assertiveness shrink at the sight of the weary-looking yet attentive cop injected me with a dose of confidence.
Harmon retreated to the corner, denying Richard the assurance of his support, which Richard so desperately seemed to seek.
“Don’t look at him. He won’t help you now, son,” Bostick warned, using his over-six-foot-tall and at least two-hundred-fifty-pound body to force Richard back to his chair.
Richard leaned over and addressed Harmon standing in the shadows. “I’m not talking to this man. He tried to ruin my life.”
Bostick craned his neck with an odd expression, then slammed his crutch onto the table. “I did? You make me seem like a very powerful guy. And how did I do that, exactly?”
“You tried to make me admit to a murder I didn’t commit.”
“Oh, you did kill Caroline Taylor,” he said in a mocking voice. “I have no doubt about that. We just could never prove it.”
Richard must have felt power returning to him, because I noticed the side of his lips curve up. “Are you a psychic now?”
“Laugh as much as you want, but I’ll get you this time.”
“I don’t even know why I’m here.”
Pictures slipped out from the folder Bostick dropped in front of Richard. “Did you drug and sexually assault your wife without her knowledge?”
I noticed a pang of surprise twist in my husband’s face. “What? I’d never hurt my wife,” he said flatly, as if a flood of thoughts had made his brain shut down.
“That’s not what she says.” Bostick looked back at Harmon, jerking his head about like a madman.
Richard pressed his index finger into the folder. “My wife would never say such things about me. You’re lying.”
“She showed us the video, Dick. We all saw it.”
“What video?”
“We got him now,” whispered the female detective into my ear. I leaned closer to the screen to see the details of my husband’s face without commenting.
Bostick made a disappointed face. “You didn’t know that your wife was spying on you? That she installed spy cameras in your bedroom?”
I felt my stomach contract. It was Richard who installed the cameras, not me. Why was the detective lying? The cops in the room had asked for clarification, and I went above and beyond to convince them of the truth. As the room fell silent and people exchanged glances around me, I pictured doubt as a small worm wriggling its way into their brains.
“I don’t follow.” I heard Richard’s reply, and I quickly returned my gaze to the screen.
Bostick pushed the photos closer to Richard. “She knows you’re a killer. As do I. You killed these girls, and this time I’ll prove it.”
Richard kept his face stiff and blank. “If you had any proof of what you’re saying, I’d be arrested by now. Am I under arrest?”
Bostick winked. “Not yet.”
A silent agreement went down between the two detectives, and Bostick took Harmon’s spot in the corner while the local detective returned to his original chair.
“Let’s talk friend to friend here, okay, Richard? I saw the video your wife brought to the station. I saw how you took pleasure in tossing her unconscious body around, tying her up, sodomizing her.”
Richard didn’t let his guard down as he answered, “I don’t know what you think you saw, but whatever I do to my wife is always consensual—and private, for that matter.”
“It didn’t look consensual to me. An unconscious woman can’t consent. It’s the law, right?” He aimed his questio
n to his interrogating partner behind him, who responded by nodding his head vehemently.
“You don’t know a lot about women, do you?” Richard sneered.
“Enlighten me, then.”
“What do you want to hear?”
“What do you got?”
“Why do you think women love erotic books? You’re accusing me of rape? You only dream about doing the things I’ve done to my wife to a woman yourself. Women love it rough. They want a master. They want to submit.”
“So, you give them what they want by tying them up and forcing yourself inside of them?”
“No. I love my wife. My mission is to satisfy her, but I’m sure there is someone out there who’d want you to do the same to her.”
“So, you’re saying that women like to be taken roughly, abused, and tortured?”
“I didn’t say that. The reason that the top-selling books are mostly erotica, borderline porn, is because woman need an alpha male. Why women love to read about sexually assaulted women beats me! I have no control over our society. Olivia is the same way. She likes role-playing, and I’m determined to make my wife happy.”
“Oh, I understand. I even see your point here. But if your wife loves these so-called consensual games so much, why did she report you for rape?”
“Well, I’d like to find that out too. Once you let me go, I’ll see what my wife has to say about all this nonsense.”
Harmon started folding a piece of paper he ripped out of his notebook and leaned back casually, eyes on his hands, as if this wasn’t an interview but buddies talking. “Look, Richard, I know how you feel. I was married for seventeen years before my wife left me. I still remember how passionate the beginning was, all those crazy nights,” he mused, making me wonder what he was getting at.
Detective Harmon had a slightly swollen nose with a reddish tone, betraying the telltale signs of a drinker. I pictured him in a dim bar nursing cheap bourbon because that was all he could afford on a cop’s salary. Hunching over his glass, he’d let his thoughts wander to his wife, how angry she was going to be when she found out that he was at the bar after work again. The money he spent on drinks each month could have bought new football equipment for their son.
Dreading the inevitable fight at home didn’t hasten him home; rather, it kept him at the bar longer. And like every other alcoholic, he was never fully sober. His own body was a map of his secret. An upsetting event or an irritating moment could fill up those tiny capillaries on his face, neck, and chest with blood. Try as he might to deny the accusations, his tongue would slip, his words would slur. No wonder he got divorced.
It was a strange game these detectives were playing, but the people in the room with me seemed to approve, so I decided to give them some credit. I believed I could still win the game.
“Life has never been better,” Harmon kept talking. “You think you won the lottery. Then the sex dries up when the first kid is born, then the second, and third.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, Detective. You should do your research, because I don’t have children.”
“You may not, but it’s all the same. The romantic dinners turn into conversations about medical bills and money. You want those exciting feelings back, but they’re gone. You’ve had enough. You decide to spice up your sex life, but you have a modest wife and she isn’t into the kinky stuff. You don’t want to hurt her, so first you go out looking for young girls who have nothing left to lose, who will do anything they get paid to do. But you’re a good man, Richard, and you don’t want to cheat on your wife. Yet she leaves you with no option, because you have needs too. You take what you want without her knowledge because what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
“That’s a very interesting tale, Detective, but it’s not my story.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. We are men. It’s not your fault how you feel. We are wired differently than women. Somehow, whatever we have is never enough, is it? We always want more. We want to feel in control. To feel young again, to feel alive.”
“I love my wife. I’d never hurt her. So spare me this nonsense.”
“I know you didn’t mean to hurt her, and I’m sure you felt guilty after the first time you slipped the pills into her drink, but then those nights were making you a different man. You were in control. No expectations from your wife. No nagging. Only pure, raw sex in its most primal form. Skin on skin. She doesn’t yawn or ask you to hurry up because her TV show is about to start. You get her for as long as you want, and you can do whatever you want because she can’t roll her eyes at you, she can’t tell you to stop, she can’t get angry at you if you hurt her. But most of all, she doesn’t have to see what kind of animal you are.”
“I was the one who wanted to stop these games, but Olivia wouldn’t let me. She needed that kind of attention. I wanted to make her happy.”
“So you’re saying that she’s a freak? The weirdo who wanted her husband to drug her and sodomize her while she lay unconscious? Admit it, Richard, you wanted to own her, to make her your slave—depending only on you, all day and all night. You are the freak monster here, Richard. Tell me the truth! Come on! Tell me I’m right. It will feel great to finally tell the truth, to let it out. You want to feel good, Richard, don’t you?” Harmon yelled, grabbing him by the shoulders and talking to him inches from his face.
I watched the screen, holding my breath.
“Stop!” Richard slammed his fists onto the table and jumped out of chair so fast it flew backward and hit the floor. “You have this all wrong. I love my wife, and she loves me. We don’t have any children or a mortgage to worry about like you do. We are at liberty to do whatever makes us happy. We travel. We dine at fine restaurants. We don’t have to worry about corrupting young children’s minds with our crazy life. We’re free to do whatever we want.”
“Then why did your wife decide to bring to our attention her most personal and intimate secrets if she had no real reason to do so?”
“I don’t know! She was born and raised in poverty. Maybe she is after my money and I’ve been the fool. I’m the real victim here! Can’t you see? If she drags me to court, I’ll prove it to you.”
Ashley
MONDAY
The lock on the door clicks, and I wave at Peter to leave. He steps into the filthy, graffiti-covered elevator and looks back at me with pleading, worried eyes.
He is beautiful.
I should tell him that he is beautiful, that he is a good man, and that I was wrong for not giving him a chance. Maybe I will tell him all these things when this madness is behind us.
If that time ever comes.
He’s been helping me track down Olivia since she disappeared two weeks ago. He cancelled most of his appointments to free up time for me. He went up a notch in my book for that.
I signal him with my hand that I’ll call him later, and he releases the elevator door as it closes on him.
A thick flood of foul smell pours out of the slightly open apartment door. Olivia’s nearly unrecognizable face is wedged between the door and the frame.
I push my way inside before she can shut me out for good. Behind the moving door, a crate filled with groceries scrapes over the linoleum floor.
A deep pool of sadness burns in my chest as I step between a carton of milk and scattered bread crumbs in pursuit of Olivia, who is dragging herself in front of me.
I pinch my nostrils to block out the rotten smell, struggling to shake the feeling that I’m responsible for her predicament. She, like Skyler, didn’t want to go to the police and report the crimes committed against her. And just like Skyler, she listened to my advice. In less than a month, I led two people down a dead-end road with my stubbornness and righteousness. I gambled with their lives, and they paid the price for it.
The guilt will never leave me unless I fix this.
Guilt has been keeping me up all night.
Guilt pecks at me now, seeing Olivia’s deprived living conditions.
I feel sick.
“I love what you’ve done with the place,” I say, using every bit of will I have to appear nonjudgmental.
I pull her into my arms and hug her tightly, as if it were for the last time.
She sinks into my arms.
Tears press against my eyes.
I quickly look away and pick up the handful of laundry from the sofa and set it aside to free up space for me to sit.
I can’t look directly at Olivia because if I do, taking in her frail body and grayish-white skin, I wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears.
She props herself on the armrest of the sofa I’m sitting on and answers my questions about the case against Richard and her situation with only a few words. She shows no sign of shame for her appearance or her living conditions. That’s how I know she has given up.
I can’t lose her, too. I wouldn’t survive it.
Protectively, I loop an arm around her and hold her tight. I fear if I let go, she’ll slip away.
“During the preliminary hearing, Richard’s lawyer requested all charges to be dropped against him based on the DA’s lack of evidence, and the judge granted his motion,” she says, looking down at her chapped red hands. “Richard Campbell is no longer a person of interest in Skyler’s murder.”
She is a woman who has been stripped from her social stature, her wealth, her safety, and her dignity. To me, she looks like a lost child. I want to hold her tight and tell her that everything will be all right.
But we are not children. We live in an adult world, and I know now that everything will not be all right, and saying it won’t make it so.
“Was he at least charged with domestic rape?”
Under my arm, she shudders, and I beat myself up for not using more sensitive words.
“The DA decided to charge Richard for what he had done to me, but he said it was a very slim chance we would win. During the indictment, Richard’s lawyer turned the jurors against me in a heartbeat. They didn’t believe a word I said. This case will never go to trial.”
