A Good Month for Murder

by Del Quentin Wilber

  “We’re pretty sure there was an assault or a sexual assault,” says Deere. “She was kind of beat up—cuts on her legs and stuff. I believe her.”

  Straughan clasps his hands and places them on his desk. “But he does three rapes, right? So why does he do a fourth and start killing?”

  Deere doesn’t respond. The major has raised a good question: why didn’t Upshaw try to silence his other victims—why just Denise?

  “That’s the leap here,” Straughan says, “that he rapes her and returns five days later to kill her. Why?”

  “She was all over Facebook talking about it,” Deere replies.

  “He might have been worried she called police,” says Crowell. “She reported it.”

  “She cut him up,” says Bergstrom. “Revenge.”

  The major goes quiet for a moment.

  “Maybe,” he finally says.

  The room grows hushed, all eyes on Straughan.

  “You track his phone?” the major asks, his eyes back on the ceiling.

  “It was shut off at the time of the murder,” says Deere.

  “You have any prints at the murder scene?”

  “No,” says Deere.

  “What physical evidence do you have?”

  “Shell casings.”

  Straughan’s questions make plain what Deere has understood from the beginning: to successfully pin Amber Stanley’s death on Upshaw, the detective must get a confession.

  “Well, it sounds like you have a very good rape case,” Straughan says as the briefing concludes. “Good luck with the murder.”

  * * *

  AT 8:30 P.M., DEERE and Crowell bring David Upshaw through the back door of police headquarters into the Criminal Investigation Division. His hands are cuffed behind his back and his ankles are shackled, but even so their new suspect has an athletic bounce to his step. He is wearing the jail’s inmate uniform: orange pants, an orange shirt, and white basketball shoes.

  Escorting Upshaw down a long hallway, the detectives pass the door to the Homicide Unit and turn right into the Sex Assault Unit. Upshaw has been here before, and Deere and Crowell don’t want him to know they are from homicide—not yet. After removing his handcuffs, they lock him in the first interview room to the left. Deere switches on the audiovisual recording system before he and Crowell head back to their desks to review their notes and prepare for the interrogation.

  As he takes a seat, Deere scans the squad room, which has been hopping all day. Detectives on M-10, including Billy Watts and Ben Brown, have been trying to identify three armed gunmen who stormed into a house in Capitol Heights that morning and robbed a mother and son. As the masked men fled the house, they were fired upon by police. No one was injured in the incident, but homicide is required to investigate all such shootings—to the vocal frustration of Watts and Brown, who feel they have much better things to do, like solve a double homicide.

  Deere looks to his left, down the last row of work stations, and studies Bunce and Hamlin. Both are working intently at their computers. Bunce is banging his keyboard with his thick fingers, digging into databases in the hopes of learning more about Upshaw. With large headphones over her ears, Hamlin is listening to recordings of Upshaw’s jail calls, all between him and his mother.

  Deere asks the two detectives what they’ve come up with so far. Bunce says he’s found reports linking Upshaw to a series of burglaries and an armed robbery several years ago that apparently landed him in juvenile detention. Hamlin says that Upshaw’s calls from prison reveal little beyond the routine frustrations of jail life. She also reports that Upshaw seems careful and does not discuss his alleged crimes over the phone. Bunce and Hamlin agree that Upshaw seems like a loner, a description that fits with the sex-offense detectives’ assessment of him. This will undoubtedly make the squad’s job harder: they are not likely to find friends or associates to dime Upshaw out.

  Deere turns to his own computer and loads a file containing Denise’s Facebook account; the previous fall he obtained the file from the California-based company through a court order. Looking for Upshaw’s name or any content that may have come from him, Deere begins scrolling through six hundred pages of postings, musings, messages, photos, and links. He gives up after fifteen minutes, concluding that Denise and Upshaw hadn’t communicated over the popular social-media platform.

  During a final pass through the data, Deere stops at an array of twenty-five Kama Sutra positions Denise posted to her page in April. He tilts his head to the right, to the left, trying to find the best angle to appreciate the sexual contortions. His movements attract the attention of Crowell, who wheels over in his chair.

  Crowell examines the screen for a few moments. “I like number eight!” he says.

  “I’ve definitely done that one,” says Deere.

  “I’ve done every single one on that list,” brags Crowell, leaning closer to Deere’s monitor and pointing at one of the graphics. “I like that one: the wheelbarrow.”

  “That looks like a lot of work,” says Deere.

  They both break into raucous laughter. Crowell stands, stretches his arms toward the ceiling, and heads for the men’s room and a smoke break. A moment later, Deere follows him, and soon the two detectives are standing outside the back door, smoking one cigarette after another and plotting strategy. They agree that at first they’ll go easy on Upshaw, in an effort to convince him that they are on his side and are merely seeking to clear up rape allegations from an unstable prostitute. Once they get him to confirm that he raped Denise, the hard work will begin: somehow, they’ll have to persuade Upshaw to confess that on August 22 he went to her house, kicked in the door, and shot Amber Stanley. Crowell proposes that they lie to Upshaw about having discovered his DNA in the house, and Deere agrees that it’s probably a good idea.

  Deere suggests that they use the good cop, bad cop routine when it’s time to bear down. Though Deere doesn’t say so, it’s clear that Crowell will be the one who gets in Upshaw’s face. It’s their usual approach in such sessions, and Deere has so much faith in Crowell’s abilities that he’s willing to yield control over the interrogation at critical moments.

  As he puffs away on his second cigarette, Deere acknowledges that his emotions are a jumble—he’s nervous, apprehensive, optimistic. He says he wishes they could have waited a day to bring Upshaw in, so they could have done more research and gotten some rest before beginning the interrogation. But he also notes that he and Crowell have done their best work under pressure, and he finishes by expressing a rare note of confidence. “We can break him,” he says.

  “We will,” says Crowell.

  Deere flicks his cigarette butt to the ground. He motions to his partner, and they head through the door.

  * * *

  THE DETECTIVES SLIDE into the SAU’s Interview Room 6 at 9:25 p.m. and find Upshaw seated at the wooden table, which has been pushed into the far right corner. Sitting with his left elbow next to the wall, he has buried his face in the crook of his right arm. The felony nap, Deere thinks. But which felony?

  Deere scoots his chair next to Upshaw’s right side, taking a position so close to the twenty-year-old that his left knee nearly touches the suspect’s right knee. Crowell takes a seat to Deere’s right, facing Upshaw from the far end of the table.

  Deere unclips his smartphone from his belt, checks the time, and jots, “21:27 CID/SAU” in his notebook.

  “Spell your last name for me,” Deere says to the back of Upshaw’s head, which remains buried in his elbow. Upshaw sits up a little and answers the question; the detective then asks for more background information: the spelling of Upshaw’s first name, his date of birth. Deere leans closer, trying to engage Upshaw’s eyes, but the man stares vacantly at the room’s gray wall.

  Deere asks Upshaw where his mother lives.

  “Man, you ask a lot of questions,” Upshaw says.

  Deere pauses for a moment before saying, “We are just getting started.”

  Upshaw’s fa
ce is stone, his eyes wide and empty. No fear, no loathing, no apprehension, just irritation at being asked to repeat the same information he’s already given to other detectives.

  “I know what you are incarcerated for now, and I have nothing to do with that,” Deere tells the suspect. “I want to talk to you about something new, something different. We just want to straighten it out. Your name came up in something, kind of along the same lines of what you are charged with now.”

  Deere chooses this moment to introduce himself as “Officer Deere,” hoping the title has a softer edge than his real one. Upshaw nods, and Deere takes him through the “Advice of Rights” form, a written version of the Miranda warning.

  After the suspect consents to be interviewed, Deere explains why they’re in the box. “We got a report of a sexual assault, all right? Back in August.”

  Upshaw looks at him steadily, his face a blank.

  “I know you have other charges,” says Deere, his right arm perched casually on the table. “This is a different one. This one is more like, uh … The girl making the claim is—well, the story doesn’t seem right.”

  Deere tells Upshaw that the victim was a prostitute; the clear implication is that her word cannot be trusted. “Does this sound familiar to you?” the detective asks. “I’m giving you a chance to explain.”

  “Who is this person?” says Upshaw.

  “A girl that hangs out in Mitchellville Plaza,” Deere says, naming the shopping center near Amber Stanley’s home. He is being vague, providing just enough detail to let the suspect know he’s in their crosshairs but not enough to scare him. The detective also doesn’t want to feed him information.

  Deere asks Upshaw if he has ever spent time at the shopping center, and the suspect mumbles that, yes, he has occasionally visited Mitchellville Plaza.

  “Who in that area have you ever had sex with?” Deere asks. “The stuff we have is indisputable. There is no question that something sexual happened. But just because something sexual happened doesn’t mean it’s a crime.”

  Upshaw mutters, “Uh-huh,” and goes no further beyond saying that he is “not recollecting.” A minute later, however, he admits to having had sex with a woman near the plaza and provides a brief description of her.

  It’s immediately clear to Deere that the woman is not Denise.

  “I want you to be more forthright in what you are saying to me,” the detective tells Upshaw, explaining that if the girl is a prostitute, there’s no basis for a real complaint. “But if she’s not, and you deny it, then there is going to be an issue. Do you follow what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah,” says Upshaw.

  Hoping to provoke the suspect, Deere describes Denise as a “chick who wore fucking shorty shorts and no bra and walked around with fishnet shirts on and shit like that, and wigs, high-heeled shoes.”

  When Upshaw doesn’t respond, Deere studies the man and decides to give him another way out: how could he resist such a woman? “You banging her out, well, that could happen to anybody,” Deere says casually.

  This tactic works, and Upshaw eventually admits that he had sex with a girl who told him her name was Candy. After hearing Upshaw’s description of the girl, Deere feels confident that Candy and Denise are one and the same. Upshaw says he met Candy after he spotted her getting off a bus near another shopping center about a mile and a half west of Mitchellville Plaza. She gave him a fifteen-dollar blow job behind some nearby town houses.

  “A fifteen-dollar blow job?” Deere says, pretending to ponder the price point. “Was it any good?”

  “It was all right,” Upshaw replies.

  “The evidence shows it was more than just oral,” Deere says. “That is no big deal, but I don’t want you to half-step it. Sex is sex. Pussy sex is sex.”

  For nearly another hour, Deere and Crowell push and cadge, digressing into questions about Upshaw’s life before returning to the sexual assault. Finally the suspect relents, confirming that he had intercourse with Candy. After the blow job, Upshaw says, he and Candy walked to Mitchellville Plaza and then negotiated sex for nineteen dollars; he had only twenty dollars left and had to purchase a one-dollar condom at a gas station. Under prodding from Crowell, Upshaw provides specifics of the sex act. After finishing, the suspect says, he refused to pay Candy the nineteen dollars.

  “Was she mad?” Deere asks.

  “She threw a little fit,” he says. “I wasn’t going to argue with her. She said, ‘It’s fucked up. You are a broke-ass nigga.’”

  Upshaw shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, I am. So I just left.”

  Deere decides that this is a good moment to confirm that Candy is Denise, so he slides a photograph of the foster sister across the table.

  “Is this who you’re talking about?” Deere asks.

  “Yeah.”

  Crowell asks the suspect to stand and remove his orange shirt to see if he displays any injuries from stab wounds. Upshaw complies, turning around as the detectives inspect his torso. Deere notes that he has a couple of scars on his back that appear to be a few months old and could be the result of knife wounds. Deere thinks that one or both of the scars could have resulted from his struggle with Denise.

  “How did you get that scar right there?” Crowell asks, pointing to a mark on Upshaw’s lower back. “It looks like you were cut.”

  “Don’t know,” Upshaw says.

  For the next twenty minutes, the detectives push Upshaw to reconstruct what happened after he had sex with Denise and argued with her about money. They appeal to his better nature, to logic, to anger; they “call bullshit” on his evasions in a more or less friendly way. Finally Upshaw admits that his back may have been scraped while he was having sex with Denise on the ground. He also says he walked her back to her neighborhood and admits that he stood on a street corner and watched Denise head down her street toward what he assumes was her house. He even says he watched her walk up her driveway, and he appears to correct Crowell when the detective intentionally places the house in the wrong place on a hand-drawn map.

  Still going easy on their suspect, the detectives press Upshaw gently until they sense resistance. They back off and try another route, then another. Just after midnight, they declare that it’s time for a break.

  * * *

  SMOKING CIGARETTES IN the old evidence bay thirty minutes later, the detectives agree that when they resume the interrogation, Crowell should squeeze Upshaw, allowing Deere to study the suspect and jump in if he spots an opening. They dissect Upshaw’s probable lies and truths. Though their suspect hasn’t admitted it, both detectives are certain he raped Denise. More likely than not, he knew where she lived—and that is the key point, the one they must nail down. After finishing their cigarettes, they check on Upshaw through the peephole and on the video monitor. Spread out across two chairs, he seems to be dozing, so Deere decides to wait a bit before continuing.

  By 2:30 a.m., the situation has changed. Upshaw is now pacing around the box, his orange shirt pulled over his head, arms crossed on his chest. For a moment he stops and stands as still as a statue; then he yells, “Hey, Police!” and “Hey, Detectives! Investigators! Mr. Officers!”

  He pounds on the thick door and then looks straight into the video camera in the corner of the interview room. “This nigger is going to get thirty years to life, locked up. Fuck it,” he shouts.

  Deere knows it is time. Upshaw is fully cooked; if he is going to confess, he will do it now.

  Deere and Crowell reenter the box at 2:43 a.m. Crowell apologizes for the long wait, saying they were just trying to figure a few things out. Deere retakes his seat next to Upshaw; Crowell sits at the opposite end of the table. Hoping to boost Upshaw’s energy, Deere gives his suspect some gummy worms, which he devours.

  At first Deere leads the interrogation, asking Upshaw about friends and associates, women he may have had sex with. Deere is relaxed, nearly lethargic—deliberately, he establishes the calm before the storm.

  When the moment
seems right, Crowell launches into a spiel about the importance of DNA. He then tells Upshaw that his blood was found on Denise’s shirt; boldy fabricating, Crowell also says that his DNA was discovered in her house. The detectives focus on these two points for a good thirty minutes, repeatedly asking their suspect to explain them.

  Upshaw says the blood probably came off his back while he and Denise were having sex. But he denies ever having been in her house, and he will not budge.

  “Your DNA is in the house,” Crowell says, his voice rising. “The only way your DNA is in that house is if you are in that house.”

  “I was not in her house,” Upshaw says again.

  Deere looks hard at his suspect: he feels reasonably sure that Upshaw isn’t telling the truth, but he’s not 100 percent certain.

  “Evidence doesn’t lie,” Crowell says, leaning across the table and staring hard at Upshaw. “Evidence doesn’t discriminate. Evidence doesn’t know anything about you. It is what it is. The reason people lie is because they are afraid of what the consequence might be or they are afraid of the truth.”

  “I’m not,” Upshaw says calmly.

  “You should be,” Crowell says, a hard edge in his voice.

  “The only thing you should be afraid of,” Deere says, “is sitting there denying stuff that we know is right, okay? That only makes you look worse because it makes you look smaller.”

  “David, you are making this way harder than it needs to be,” says Crowell.

  “Way harder,” agrees Deere.

  “Saying my DNA is in her house is crazy,” Upshaw says.

  “Let’s start small,” Deere says. “How did you get bleeding?”

  Upshaw says he must have been scratched on his arms and back. The detectives again inspect his back. The scars are not the result of scratches—they clearly come from a cutting.

  “How did those happen?” Crowell asks. “If she stabbed you, let’s make her accountable for it.”

  Upshaw leans back in his chair. He takes a deep breath, and Deere is sure he is about to concede this point.