“All I’m saying is that maybe there’s something here that we aren’t seeing, Bill. You think about it. These two have a history and we don’t know what that history really is until we talk to her. That’s all I’m saying.”
Ernie was muttering under his breath that he was sure this asshole was connected to the deaths of the other women. Sensing that O’Hara was looking at him from the corner of his eye, Jamison said, “I’m just saying that we need to be sure we have all the pieces. It might be true that he did those other women, but if he did, then everything we do is going to come back at us if we don’t do this right.” Jamison didn’t feel the need to explain that a bad search or a bad interrogation would taint any evidence they got from it, including being able to use it in those other murder cases.
His words seemed to mollify O’Hara and Ernie but he could tell they didn’t share his concerns. It was best to move on.
“Ernie, when we get in, I want you to go to the hospital and keep an eye on Garrett. I need you to talk to her as soon as she calms down. Nobody else talks to her first. Understand? You get in there before any press. I need to know what happened here. Then you call me or Bill and fill us in. I’ve got to hear from her about what happened with St. Claire when she was younger. And I want the police reports from that case.”
“I need to change my shirt.”
Jamison shook his head. “Forget your shirt. Nobody’s going to stop a cop walking into that hospital with a bloody shirt. Straight to the hospital.”
Jamison turned back toward O’Hara, catching the needle on the speedometer hovering around seventy-five. “Bill, why are you driving so slowly?”
Chapter 12
Jamison and O’Hara stood in a darkened area adjacent to the interrogation room, watching St. Claire through the one-way glass. St. Claire hadn’t asked for a lawyer and Jamison wasn’t going to ask him if he had one. That would come soon enough but hopefully later—after they had a chance to get something out of him.
After he briefed the sheriff for the joint press conference that was now underway in front of the courthouse, Puccinelli walked in, gesturing to be filled in.
Jamison didn’t care about press conferences. They were for Gage and Bekin. Right now the man he was watching was more important to him than answering reporters’ questions because sooner or later he and St. Claire were going to cross paths in the most direct way possible, a courtroom.
St. Claire sat on a hard metal chair, his eyes riveted on the mirrored window behind which Jamison was standing. His face showed no fear; his body was as quiet as stone. Jamison felt rising anger as he detected on St. Claire’s otherwise impassive face a slight curling of his mouth at the edges, like an observer, detached, emotionless, as if he was engaged in something about which he had absolutely no personal feeling.
Jamison wanted a piece of this man’s flesh, to turn his arrogance into submission, but he knew his role was to wait. He told O’Hara and Pooch, “I’m just going to watch. You two work out how to do the questioning.”
They understood what Jamison meant. One man would take the lead and the other one would follow, like a dance where anticipation and reaction dictated the ebb and flow of movement. They had done this more times than they could recall. Jamison knew they remembered the moments when they caught the whiff of a suspect’s fear and resignation, when they saw the defiance begin to seep out of a man and puddle on the floor like the release of a bladder when panic took over.
Puccinelli entered the interrogation room first and silently removed the cuffs on St. Claire. It was an orchestrated entrance. A minute or two later, O’Hara followed. He was the man who had taken St. Claire down, and St. Claire would remember that it was O’Hara who hit him in the back and held him down, dominating him physically.
The session would start with O’Hara observing as Puccinelli sought to establish a rapport with St. Claire, and then O’Hara would step in like a razor slash. Good cop, bad cop. Although he could play either role, O’Hara preferred to be the hammer.
O’Hara watched St. Claire, sizing up how he was going to approach him, taking into account that smart people were almost always easier to break than stupid people. A smart person would try to think of an explanation that was exculpatory. All their lives their brains had given them an advantage but most didn’t realize that not talking was the smartest thing they could do.
That was the key for O’Hara; St. Claire was definitely a smart person. Keep him talking and lying and lying and talking, and then draw the inconsistency out of him piece by piece, like an artful seduction.
But there were times when the hard steel chair held soulless suspects with twisted minds—sociopaths and psychotics—who felt no guilt or remorse. These were the people who stripped interrogators of their most effective weapon, which, with most people, was a sense of guilt. But guilt only worked if you had a conscience. Sociopaths had no conscience and psychopaths had no reality except their own.
O’Hara wasn’t sure what kind of man he was looking at. He could feel his gut twisting as he watched, and the worst part about the sickening feeling in his stomach was his suspicion that St. Claire was enjoying the moment.
St. Claire shifted easily in the gray metal chair. Unlike most of the men and women who had previously sat in that same seat, he didn’t look down when the detectives entered. He didn’t blink rapidly. He didn’t initiate any words of protest or admission. He just waited, his face a dry mask.
“Mr. St. Claire?” Puccinelli began, keeping his voice neutral.
“Doctor St. Claire. I am a physician. I take it you are a detective?” The words were uttered with a precision of enunciation, each syllable clipped and clear.
St. Claire had deftly put Puccinelli on the defensive. Lines were being drawn and Pooch found himself answering a question instead of being the one asking it.
“Right—I’m Detective Puccinelli and this is Investigator O’Hara.”
St. Claire’s mouth drew up into a subtly bemused expression. “Yes, Mr. O’Hara and I have already met. Am I under arrest?” The passive voice and the detached tone of intellectual curiosity, clinical and removed, was unmistakable, as was the contempt it carried.
“Not exactly.”
St. Claire turned abruptly to O’Hara. He had quickly decided who was in charge. “Then am I free to leave?”
Puccinelli kept his voice low. “Not exactly.”
“Then what— exactly? If I’m not under arrest, then why crash through my door and put me in handcuffs? Why am I sitting here while your colleagues stare at me through that ridiculous mirrored glass over there?”
Puccinelli picked up his notebook, flicking open his pen. “We heard a woman screaming.” As soon as he said it, he realized how foolish it sounded.
“Ah, I see. You gentlemen were just driving by and you heard a woman screaming? Could it be that she was screaming because someone was crashing through the window?
“I do watch television, occasionally. Aren’t you gentlemen supposed to read me my rights? I do have rights, don’t I?” St. Claire leaned back and casually crossed his legs. “By the way, thank you for removing the handcuffs. I never realized how uncomfortable they were, but then I don’t have the experience with them that you gentlemen have.”
Sensing a brief moment of vulnerability O’Hara said, “My understanding is that you do have some experience.” He was rewarded with a small twitch at the side of St. Claire’s mouth and a flicker of irritation.
O’Hara moved closer and tried to reframe the questioning. “Dr. St. Claire? Your name is Alex?”
“My name is Alex. Are we friends now, Investigator O’Hara? What may I call you?”
O’Hara didn’t rise to the bait. “Perhaps it would be better if I simply called you Doctor. Let me explain a few things here. Elizabeth Garrett disappeared sometime late yesterday evening or early this morning. She never came home. Her parents were understandably worried.”
St. Claire’s head tilted back against the chair, a bemused
expression still planted on his face. “And I immediately came to mind?”
O’Hara managed to fight off his impulse to grab St. Claire by the throat and snapped. “You came to the mind of her parents.”
“I don’t think her parents ever liked me. We didn’t get off to a good start. I was hoping to work on that. But, Investigator O’Hara, you didn’t ask me in here to discuss old relationships or new ones, did you? Pleasant as this discussion is, if you have a question perhaps you should simply ask it?”
O’Hara responded evenly. “Before I ask any questions I think it’s only fair that you get an explanation for why you’re here.”
St. Claire’s eyes narrowed before answering. “I would prefer that you simply get to your questions and I will decide what I want to answer— if anything.” One corner of his mouth curved upward in unconcealed contempt.
There was no choice. O’Hara had to bring out his Miranda card. He stared at the words he knew by heart and began to read the liturgy of the law written by men who had never smelled the sweat of an interrogation room or seen slowly drying blood framing the outline of where a victim had lain.
When O’Hara was finished, he asked St. Claire if he understood his rights. St. Claire responded, “Do I understand? It seems simple enough. Yes, I understand.”
O’Hara paused before he uttered the key phrase, “Having these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to us now?”
It was like watching the inner works of a complicated timepiece as it manipulated the second hand tick by tick. “Well, perhaps an attorney would be best. What do you think, Investigator O’Hara? Do I need a lawyer?” St. Claire’s head cocked slightly to the side.
“Do you?” O’Hara replied. “That’s up to you. I can’t give that advice but I can tell you that without you speaking to us we will never know your side, and so our conclusions will not have the benefit of any explanation you might have. We will simply have to decide what to do without knowing whether there is another side.”
They were now even. St. Claire would have to decide whether to say anything more in an attempt to create ambiguity, or to accept the fact that silence might very well let the detectives draw an adverse conclusion from what they thought they knew.
St. Claire’s eyes moved from O’Hara to Puccinelli before focusing again on O’Hara. “Perhaps, Investigator O’Hara, I should consider consulting with an attorney. I think you’ve drawn a wrong conclusion, but I don’t believe anything I say will actually influence you, will it?”
“I won’t know until I hear what you’ve got to say.” O’Hara was under no obligation to repeat the question. He decided he would wait those few interminable seconds to see if he could squeeze anything further from St. Claire. It was a matter of waiting him out, and letting the silence create uncertainty.
Hundreds of men, and some women as well, had sat in that steel chair, and as amazing as it always seemed to O’Hara, most held out hope that if they said just the right thing, the detective might raise his hands, admit he had been mistaken, and throw open the door.
His face expressionless, St. Claire’s head again tilted back slightly. “Elizabeth and I have what some might call a complicated relationship,” he began. “She is not all that she might appear to others and certainly not to her parents. We share what might be called unusual interests. But I think that such things might not be easily understood except between the two of us.”
St. Claire allowed a slight smile. “I sense, Mr. O’Hara, that when you came to my home and said you wanted to ask about the effects of certain drugs, that you were simply engaging in pretense. You believe I took Elizabeth against her will, don’t you?” The blackness of St. Claire’s pupils glittered like obsidian.
With the hope of getting something useful, O’Hara decided to slightly shift the conversation. “We did want to ask you about the results of our toxicology tests on the three women that have been killed over the last several weeks. You participated in the autopsy of two of them with Dr. Gupta.”
“And what is it you wanted to know? Actually I was present for all three autopsies. Perhaps Dr. Gupta does not clearly recall, but it should be easily confirmed by his records. Do you really want to know what I think? Or is it that you’re trying, rather obviously I might add, to learn if I had something to do with those dreadful crimes?” St. Claire’s mouth locked into a thin line, slowly parting before uttering words. “Yes, Investigator O’Hara, I do know the effects of the drugs found in those women. I am an anesthesiologist. But I assure you there are many easier ways to kill people. If I were really inclined to do something like that, Investigator O’Hara, I know how to do that without anyone finding out—if I were so inclined.”
He glanced at the mirrored glass and then settled again on O’Hara. “I think, Investigator O’Hara, that you do not have my best interests at heart. I believe I would like to speak to an attorney before saying anything further. Do you have a recommendation?”
“I don’t make recommendations like that.” O’Hara shot him a long level look, and then he reached behind his back for the handcuffs, grabbed St. Claire by the arm, none too gently, and pulled him up. Sliding the doctor’s right arm behind his back, O’Hara snapped the cuff on the right wrist and then on the left, giving it an extra squeeze to get the last possible click of the ratchet. “Have a seat. We may be a while. Make yourself comfortable.”
Chapter 13
As he squeezed the last ratcheted click out of the handcuffs on St. Claire, O’Hara’s expression almost cut through the glass window of the interrogation room. Jamison knew that O’Hara didn’t like to lose, and he had just lost the first round. The hunted had mocked the hunter.
The ringing of his cell phone diverted Jamison’s attention.
While Jamison listened, Ernie explained that he was having problems controlling the situation at the hospital. “Her father’s mad as hell, Matt. He’s demanding to know if St. Claire had something to do with this, and every time St. Claire’s name gets mentioned the nurses turn around. It’s only a matter of time before the whispering starts and we won’t be able to keep a lid on who we have in custody. Did you get anything from St. Claire?”
“Bill didn’t get much. St. Claire decided he wanted a lawyer. He just screwed with us but he did say that there was a relationship between him and Garrett. What’d Garrett tell you?”
“She said that St. Claire kidnapped her at knifepoint but that she doesn’t remember much. She said she thinks she was drugged. I had them draw blood but the toxicology screens are going to take a while so we aren’t going to know right away. If he raped her, then she didn’t know it, but I had them do a rape kit anyway. She says she woke up on the bed where I found her.”
“Anything else? Anything that will tell us how he moved her?”
“She doesn’t know anything more except that she thought she was being stopped by a cop, and then St. Claire showed up at her car window. It’s hard to get much out of her right now with her parents hovering over her. The nurses have given her meds to calm her down, and a sedative.”
“Anything about what happened between the two of them in the past?”
“I asked about that, but she started to cry. I backed off.” Ernie hesitated. “Amigo, she’s pretty shaken up. This wasn’t the right time to ask questions about what happened between them in the past. I could be wrong but I don’t give a damn whether this guy’s a doctor. I think St. Claire’s a sadistic son of a bitch and we need to start looking at him for those three other murders. Doctors may be smart people, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a crazy switch somewhere in their brain.”
As Jamison hung up, the back door to the interrogation viewing room slammed open, hitting the wall as O’Hara stormed through the doorway. Puccinelli followed closely behind. From the tight-lipped expression on Pooch’s face he had already had the benefit of a tirade from O’Hara and the gist of it was still being uttered as O’Hara stormed in. “Fucking asshole. I will take him down if it’s the last thing I do on
earth.”
It wasn’t often that somebody caused O’Hara to lose control, but St. Claire had succeeded. Jamison said nothing while O’Hara vented. St. Claire may have enjoyed his game with O’Hara but he wouldn’t enjoy what happened when Willie Jefferson O’Hara got pissed. Unfortunately neither would anybody else until O’Hara finished with St. Claire.
He waited for a lull in O’Hara’s verbal eruption before speaking. “Bill, I got a call from Ernie. Garrett made a statement. Book St. Claire for kidnap and assault with a deadly weapon.”
O’Hara calmed down enough to consider what Jamison said. “Anything else?”
“I’m not ready to go for anything else.”
“He’s going to make bail.”
“Then he makes bail. Right now we’ve got to think this through.”
O’Hara glared at him. “And if he runs?”
“If he runs, then we can use it against him. That may be the best thing that could happen. Book him for kidnap and assault.” Jamison could feel the heat from the scowl on O’Hara’s face. “We’ll sort it out in the morning.”
“Look, Matt, this case is beginning to smell like those three murders.”
Jamison shook his head. “Maybe. After talking to Ernie, I think we need to be careful.”
“What did Ernie say?”
“Garrett said St. Claire kidnapped her.”
“But something’s bothering you. Is that it?” The scowl on O’Hara’s face deepened.
“I don’t know. There’s something, a feeling. I don’t know. This guy isn’t your run-of-the mill perp. We need to be careful. I’m sensing that he did the other murders, but maybe we’re missing something. Until we know, we play it out the way it looks.”
Fractured Justice Page 11
