Idyll Threats

by Stephanie Gayle

  At 11:55 p.m., Mrs. Warren left the interview room. She looked bad. She asked one of the men if she could bring her son a blanket from home. He told her no, gently. Instead of arguing, she hiccupped softly, pressed her knuckles to her mouth, and hurried outside.

  At two minutes past midnight, Mr. Walsh, Luke’s lawyer, requested that I come in to hear a short statement by his client. Brows rose around the pen. “This might be it, boys,” I said.

  Billy said, “Go get him, Chief.” His hair was cowlicked and his uniform rumpled. All in all, he looked like the rest of us, but better rested. Wright extinguished his cigarette. “Good luck,” he said. Finnegan said he was going to put Revere on speed dial so that when we broke the case, he could call him right away. And gloat.

  “You’ll have to call his home number,” Billy said.

  Finnegan tapped his phone. “No problem,” he said.

  I brought two water cups into the room. Decided to let them fight over who got the beverages. The lawyer declined. Mrs. Johnson took quick, shallow sips from hers. Luke drained his in one go. “Want more?” I asked.

  His knee was still. His hands clasped together, on top of the table. “No, thank you.” This was a transformation. Was the lawyer responsible? Mr. Walsh sat a foot from his client.

  “I have something to say,” Luke said. His mother gripped her cup, and water rose over the rim, splashing her. She didn’t notice. He said, “I shot her. I killed her. Chris wasn’t there.” His voice was monotone, with no inflection at all.

  It was a confession. At last. There was just one problem. It was a lie. His tone, his posture. He hadn’t done it alone. Years of experience, intuition, and my funny vertebrae all argued that he was stringing me along.

  “Was anyone else with you?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  His eyes flicked to meet mine. He swallowed. Looked at his lawyer, who nodded a fraction. “Yes. I was alone.”

  “You weren’t. I have evidence that you weren’t.” Not that Mrs. Ashworth had seen the boys shoot Cecilia. But he didn’t know that. There were other things he didn’t know I knew. Like what he’d been doing before the shooting.

  “Chris was with me, at first,” he said. “We were going to shoot the gun at targets we’d brought. But Chris got worried the Wilkeses would notice he’d left their house. So he went back to Kevin’s. I was the only one there when she showed up.”

  I played along. Asked him questions. Where had he been, what had he been doing? Where had she approached from? Did she see him?

  He’d been standing, reloading the gun. She came from the eighth hole. Yes, she saw him. She yelled at him. He got scared and shot her.

  “Four times,” I said.

  His fingers unclasped. He tapped them on the table, as if playing piano. “Yes, four times.”

  “Why?”

  Mrs. Johnson took a shuddering breath and wiped a fuzzy tissue under her eyes. The lawyer remained mute. I revised my opinion. This guy was worse than pro bono. Luke looked down. Saw what his hands were up to and clasped them together. “I don’t know. I panicked, I guess.”

  “You guess? You guess?” My voice rose with each word. “You murder a young woman, toss the gun, and pretend it never happened. And when you tell me all about your amazing crime, all you can do is guess as to why you did it? No. Sorry, Luke. Try again.”

  “I was afraid she’d tell on me.” His hands came apart. That had a ring of truth to it.

  “Why?”

  “Because she saw me…with the gun. And I was afraid she’d call the cops.”

  His mother grabbed another tissue from her bag. It fell apart in her hands.

  “You two are going to let him do this?” I said, to Mr. Walsh and Mrs. Johnson. “Confess to a murder?”

  “What do you want from us!” she yelled. “He’s telling you what you want!”

  I planted my hands on the table. “No, he isn’t. What I want is the truth.” I slammed a hand against the table. It rocked to one side.

  The lawyer spoke up. “Chief Lynch, you may choose to disbelieve my client, but he’d like to make a formal statement.”

  I stepped back. “Fine. I’ll send someone in to take it.”

  “You won’t do it?” Mr. Walsh asked. He leaned forward in his chair.

  “I have better things to do than listen to lies. Since he’s fifteen, he’ll need to be transferred to a juvenile facility. But it’s nearly one a.m. They probably won’t take him until morning.” I walked to the door.

  “My client is fourteen,” he said.

  “What?” I spun around.

  Luke looked down.

  “You told me you were fifteen. The night I picked you up for trespassing.” He was in the same grade as Tiffany and Kevin. Jesus, had he skipped a grade? Talk about buying into someone’s dumb act. I’d bought front-row tickets.

  He raised his head and met my stare. “I’m gonna be fifteen in a few weeks.”

  “When?”

  “November seventeenth.”

  “November seventeenth is almost two months away.”

  He ducked his head.

  “You lied,” I said. “Why am I surprised?” I left without another word.

  In the pen, Wright looked up, his expression hopeful. “He confessed,” I said. Billy let out a war whoop and put his hand up, expecting me to slap his palm. I didn’t.

  “He’s lying. Story has more holes than a wheel of Swiss. Oh, and it turns out he’s fourteen.”

  “Shit,” Wright said. “Fourteen is a tough sell.”

  “Will you take his statement? His lawyer is insisting. Then see that he gets a cell as far from Chris Warren as possible. We’ll have to call Juvenile. See when they’ll take them.”

  “You’re keeping Chris?” Billy said. I didn’t like the way he said his name. As if he deserved better treatment.

  “We have evidence he was involved. I’m not letting him go. God knows where he’d fly off to if given the chance. His parents have money and resources.”

  Finnegan arrived with three large pizzas. “Mine has macaroni and cheese,” he said. Wright groaned. Once again, Finnegan had found a way to keep a whole pie to himself.

  “Luke confessed,” I said.

  Finnegan’s droopy face tightened with a smile. “All right!”

  “He’s lying.” I scratched my scalp. Sniffed my shirt. I smelled like the weights room.

  “You sure?” He wanted to believe we’d done it. Hell, I wanted to have done it. But we hadn’t. I hadn’t.

  “I’m going to nip home. Change clothes. I’ll see you in an hour.” I said.

  “You don’t want pizza?” He held up the pies.

  “No. Finnegan, have another go at Chris. If you get nowhere, put him in a cell. You have my home number in case anything breaks?” They nodded. “See you soon.”

  “Why does he think Luke’s lying?” Finnegan asked. I slowed my steps to hear the answer.

  Wright said, “He claims his story was inconsistent.”

  Finnegan said, “Chris is a shit, but I think the chief wants it to be him. He spent time with Luke this summer. Maybe he got too close.”

  Wright said, “He worked homicide twelve years. He can probably spot a liar faster than Billy can miss a layup.”

  So maybe I’d earned a little respect. Too bad it didn’t mean shit unless I could get one of those boys to tell the truth about what happened the night Cecilia North was killed.

  I removed my uniform and hung the pants and shirt on a bathroom hook. Maybe the steam from the shower would render them wearable. I had to return to the station soon. My mind went around like a revolving door. Why would Luke confess? It was possible he shot and killed her. But not alone. Chris was there. Or was he? His behavior. His footprints. His belt buckle. The Pop Rocks. No, he was guilty.

  I showered. Got dressed. Drank some orange juice. Listened to the hum of the fridge.

  A rap on my kitchen door made me jump. Who the hell was out
side this time of night? Expecting Billy or Finnegan, it took me a second to recognize the handsome man standing in the dim glow of my porch light. Damien Saunders.

  I opened the door. Two moths danced near his head.

  “Hi,” he said. “May I come in?”

  I said nothing, but held the door wide. I was glad I hadn’t turned more lights on. No need for him to see my peeling floor and avocado fridge in all their glory.

  “In the neighborhood?” I said, gesturing toward a chair.

  He looked around. I wished he wouldn’t. He sat.

  “Sort of. There was a three-car accident out by Tolland.”

  I nodded.

  “I realized you lived quite near, and so I thought I’d stop by.” After midnight. On the off chance I was accepting social calls. Huh. “Look, I saw your light on when I drove by, and I just wanted to apologize.”

  “For?” I asked.

  “For blowing up at you that night, and just…bringing my shit to your table. You didn’t deserve it.” His eyes were tired, but blazing blue. Beautiful.

  “Don’t sweat it,” I said. “I shouldn’t have blindsided you with my request, which reminds me.” I got up and went to the safe. Retrieved Elmore Fenworth’s list. Rummaged through my kitchen drawers until I found matches. “You’re not looking for a date, are you?” I asked, waving the papers.

  “Pardon?” he said.

  I showed him the list. Waited until his expression changed. Knew he’d seen his name. Knew what he was thinking. “Is that—?”

  “The name of every able-bodied gay man in the immediate area. You were included because of your profession.”

  I struck a match. Listened to the scrape and sizzle. And then held the wavering flame to the bottom of the list. Waited until it really caught and the names burned. Before it singed me, I dropped the papers. The remains floated down to the sink, char settling in a Rorschach pattern. Then I ran the tap until all that remained was black goo in my sink trap. I felt lighter.

  “Who made that?” He sounded scared. Even though he was out. He must’ve realized many of the men on that list, like me, were not.

  So I told him about Elmore Fenworth and the list, and he asked why I went looking for that information to begin with, so I had to explain about Mrs. Ashworth.

  “She had no idea what she almost witnessed,” I said.

  “So you’ve been looking for two gay men all this time.” He picked up a pen and rotated its bottom, withdrawing the ink tube. How very like Revere. “And you never told your team.”

  “I didn’t want to give them an excuse to re-create the Stonewall riots,” I said.

  “They’re that bad?” Here was the sympathy I’d been denied. By isolating myself.

  “They’re no worse than your average cops.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “We’ve got two suspects at the station now. Kids. It’s odd, because I wouldn’t have pegged either of them as on our team.”

  “Maybe they were experimenting? Just fooling around?”

  I opened the cabinet under the sink. Pulled out rubbing alcohol and some cotton swabs. I put a dishtowel on the scarred table and set my badge on it.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Rubbing alcohol gets the gunk out.” I unpinned my badge and dipped a swab in the alcohol.

  “You clean your badge?” I saw him fighting a smile. The smile was winning.

  “At home. If I did this at the station I’d be nicknamed ‘the cleaner’ for life. It helps me think.”

  “Cleaning helps you think?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes I do crunches instead.”

  He waved toward the floor. “Don’t let me stop you.”

  My smile was short-lived. I rubbed at the badge’s upper right corner. The swab turned gray. I set it down. Picked up a fresh one.

  “You know, my hiding things from my men. It hurt the case. If I hadn’t been hiding that I’m gay, I would’ve gotten to this point sooner. If I hadn’t been trying to protect gay male witnesses, I might’ve moved on that info faster.”

  “You’re not exactly a villain,” he said.

  “And not a hero either.”

  “You take things hard, don’t you?”

  I wanted to make light of what he said. Turn it into a dirty joke. But he was being kind. And maybe I wasn’t undeserving. “Sounds like something my father would say.”

  “Do your parents know?”

  I nodded. “They probably knew before I did.”

  “Are they…supportive?”

  I looked up from my half-cleaned badge. “Being gay is probably my best feature. They’re liberal, Catholics in name only. Academics. To them, my being gay gives them something to bitch about during tenure-track meetings. How their poor son is mistreated by the world.”

  He leaned forward in his chair. “You’re full of surprises.”

  I didn’t ask if they were nice ones. Didn’t want to risk it.

  “Hey, since I’m here, can I see your Eileen Gray table?” he asked.

  I winced. He’d see more of the house.

  “Try not to look at anything else, okay?” I said.

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.” I led him to the living room and flipped the switches.

  He didn’t keep his eyes on the table only. His mistake. “Spend a lot of time in that chair?” he said, looking at my recliner.

  “Perhaps.”

  “I think I can see your body imprint.” He walked toward it and I tugged on his shirtsleeve, pulling him back.

  “No touching the antiques,” I said.

  He laughed.

  “So is the table real?”

  He took a walk around it and peered at its underside. “Yes. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks. Let’s celebrate with a drink.”

  We returned to the kitchen. I gave him a beer. I didn’t have any spirits in the house. Then I sat down and continued cleaning my badge. “I just wish I knew why he was lying.”

  “Who?”

  So I told him about Luke, about everything. “Luke confessed, but I don’t believe him. He wasn’t telling the truth.”

  “Why would he lie?” He picked up a catalog from my pile of unsorted mail. Set it down. “To protect someone?”

  “That would be Chris in this scenario. Why?”

  He shrugged. “Love? Money?”

  “He doesn’t have any. Shit.” I set the badge down. “That’s it! Money.”

  “Really? He killed her for money?”

  “No.” I capped the alcohol bottle. Stood and tossed the swabs in the trash. “He’s taking the fall for money. He got himself a lawyer tonight. He told his mother he could afford it. Just after she got through telling me their house is being foreclosed on. I also found out he’s fourteen. Chris is sixteen.”

  “This isn’t getting much clearer,” he said.

  “I think Chris convinced Luke to take the rap. He told him he’d pay him and his lawyer fees if Luke claimed to be the lone shooter. Chris is sixteen. He can be tried as an adult. But Luke’s two years younger. He’ll probably do time in juvie. That’s a much easier stint. I bet Chris knows that.”

  “So Luke goes to juvie and Chris walks?”

  “I won’t let that happen.” I gave my badge a final wipe and put the cleaning supplies away.

  “How can you stop it?” he asked.

  “By having a little talk with Luke.”

  “Doesn’t he have to have a parent present?”

  “Yes. But I’m the police chief, remember?” I pinned my shining badge to my shirt.

  “Need to get to the station?” he said. He sounded disappointed. I tried not to let it go to my head. Or other regions of my body.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good luck,” he said.

  We walked outside. He studied my face. “You look really…happy,” he said, as if naming a foreign emotion.

  “I am. I cracked the case.”

  “You love being a cop, don’t
you?”

  “Yes.” I did. Always. Even when it was hard.

  “Good,” he said. “It’s good to find something you love.”

  I thought he was going to say something more, but he just walked to his car and waved at me before he got in and drove away.

  Luke Johnson slept on his cot. A thin, gray blanket was pulled to his neck. In the dimly lit six-by-eight cell, he looked troubled. His face puckered as he dreamed. I whistled, low and short. He moaned and turned to face the wall. We had a drunk next door, sleeping it off. But two cells down was Chris Warren. I couldn’t risk waking him. I whispered, “Luke!”

  He sat up. “What?” he said. “Who?”

  “Here.”

  He looked my way. His eyes shuttered. His face drooped. “Oh. You.”

  “Come on.” I opened the cell. He looked at it. “This is a limited-time offer.”

  He shuffled over, touched the bars, and dropped his hand. “Quiet,” I said. He followed me past the drunk. In the next cell, Chris snored, his blanket on the floor. Luke followed me to the end of the hall and through another door, into the central station. The night-shifters answered calls and played card games. Finnegan, on his way to the coffeepot, saw us. He raised a brow but said nothing as I led Luke to my office.

  I closed the door. “Sit.” I pointed to a chair. “Here.” I handed him a mug of cocoa I’d prepared. He was about to get the good-cop treatment.

  He rubbed his eyes. Sipped the cocoa. Seemed to like it. Took a larger swallow. “You’re not supposed to talk to me without my lawyer or mom present.”

  “True. Did you know that before you killed Cecilia North?”

  He scowled and set the mug down. “Who cares if I did or didn’t?” His knee jiggled.

  “Not me.” I sat. Rocked back and set my hands across my middle. “Because I know you didn’t kill her.”

  “Oh yeah?” He reached for the mug again.

  “Yeah. And I know why you’re claiming you did. And I’m here to tell you something, son. Whatever money Chris Warren promised you, you’re not getting it.”