by Kate Gable
"Yeah, that happened," he admits it on camera and suddenly I'm happy that we're doing this interview here.
I say a silent prayer that he doesn't ask for legal counsel and instead tries to talk himself out of this situation.
"Nick gave me his card to use. I had lent him the money and he was giving it back to me."
"Why would he give you his card if he was going to disappear?" I ask.
"I don't know. Maybe he didn't have a plan, but he said that I could charge $1200 to it."
"If he let you use his card, why did you get Kenny to withdraw the money?" I ask, leaning back, feeling like I'm playing chess and winning, waiting for him to make the wrong move after he has already made five.
"Well, I knew that you were looking for him, so I didn't want to just charge the money to his card, but I needed it back for all the wedding expenses."
"Yeah, that makes sense," Thomas says in a way that makes it obvious that it doesn't.
“So, where is he now?"
"Who?"
"Nick." Thomas leans over the table in an intimidating fashion and waits.
"I have no idea. That part's totally true."
"What part is not true?" Thomas narrows his eyes.
"Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the card. I just... I knew that you were looking for him."
"So you wanted to lead us on a wild goose chase trying to figure out who used the card?” I say, laying it all out on the table.
He nods but says nothing.
"If you know anything about Nick, you should tell us now. That would be the best way to protect him."
Danny shakes his head, swallows hard, looks down at the floor, and then back at me and Thomas.
He avoids my eyes and instead focuses on Thomas.
"I have no idea where Nick is now. I had no idea that he would do that."
"So you think that he did kill Janine?"
"I have no idea, but you did find her body there. So, in all likelihood, yes."
"If you're protecting him," I say, "it's going to be worse. You could be tried as an accessory."
He inhales quickly like taking in a gust of air, but then shakes his head, doubling down on his insistence that he has no idea where Nick is.
Neither of us believe him and I'm not so sure that he even believes himself, but for now, that's all that we can get out of him.
There's always that tension that if we push him too hard and it feels like he's being accused of something, then he'll ask for a lawyer.
We don't want that.
We want to press just hard enough to make him feel uncomfortable, to make some moves, maybe go home, make a call to his friend Nick, and tell him what happened.
That would be the ideal situation.
We let him go for now. We thank him for his time, shake his hand, and ask him to promise us to give us a call if he has any other information.
I leave him with the feeling like he has been helpful and that we believe what he's saying.
For now, that's good enough.
23
After interviewing Danny, Thomas and I step out and grab a cup of coffee. We're in the break room, a nondescript white kitchen with 70's style cabinets, a stainless steel refrigerator, and a Formica table top.
He opens the refrigerator, looks around, and then shuts it. If there's anything in there, it's labeled and therefore it doesn't belong to us.
I grab a bar from the vending machine.
I unwrap it and hold the porcelain mug of coffee that’s hot, but nevertheless, slightly old, between my palms.
I lean over and tell him, "I wish we had talked to him more about the fact that he knew Janine."
Thomas nods.
“He was dodging the question. It was a big discrepancy. He lied about knowing her and who knows what else that could lead to.”
"Listen, I get that as much as you do, but we're going to interview him again. We're going to push him on it, but I wanted to see what his reaction to Tuffin would be without him clamming up. I wanted him to feel like we're on his side."
He sits across from me, puts his face down in the coffee cup, and stares.
I'm not sure exactly where to go from here. I don't want to keep working with Thomas on this case and I need to figure out a way to get him off of it without telling Captain Medvil exactly why this isn’t working.
"I think we make a pretty good team," Thomas says, giving me a little wink.
A little bit of his shirt is open at the top and I see part of his extensive tribal shoulder tattoo peeking out. It’s unprofessional to show any of it at work and that's why he adjusts the fit of the collared shirt.
"No. I don't think we make a good team," I say, looking straight into his eyes. "I don't want any part of what I'm saying to be confusing or be misconstrued. I'm just working with you because you have been assigned, but this is my case. I can handle this on my own and I don't need your help."
"I'm not saying that you do," Thomas interrupts me. "Not at all. You're really competent and I know that you can do this all on your own. I'm just saying that isn't it nice to work on this like we used to back in the day?"
"No, it's not," I say without missing a beat.
"Oh, come on. Don't be like that," he jokes.
He's always been quite the smooth guy. He knows exactly what to say and how to say it.
That's why he's rarely wrong and even when he is in the wrong, he's not really the one doing anything improper, if you know what I mean.
I feel my jaw clench up and I realize that this is the last conversation that I want to be having right now.
It’s one thing to talk about the case, but it's another to entertain this whole situation that I got myself into.
"What happened to the court reporter?" I say, leaning back in the chair.
Perhaps the best way to get him to shut up and stop reminiscing about all the good times we had is to think about all the bad ones.
"Nothing. Nothing happened to her. She's still around."
"Oh, yeah? When’s the wedding?"
“We broke up."
This takes me by surprise.
“Really?"
"Yeah."
I should offer my condolences, but that would be too polite. We have been impolite for too long.
I caught him with her in bed. I moved out and we broke up, but our relationship was messed up long before he cheated on me.
It was then that I found out that she was pregnant.
I feel angry at myself by the fact that I heard rumors about the two of them and I believed everything that he had told me.
I get up to walk away.
I don't want to talk about this. It was hard enough to live through it.
“Look, I'm really sorry. I don't know if I've ever said that to you, but I am. I shouldn't have done any of-” Thomas says.
"You shouldn't have cheated on me or you shouldn't have lied?” I ask, unable to keep my composure.
The door to the kitchen creaks and my heart sinks. I’ve kept this a secret long enough, it would be monumentally stupid to expose myself now.
I walk out the other door and Thomas follows me, but I escape to Medvil’s office. After a short debrief, Medvil instructs us to talk to the computer tech guy.
"I'm not sure how much of an update it is," he says, "but he's got something to tell you."
I check my phone and see that I'm CC’d on the email string.
This isn't the right time to bring up getting Thomas off the case.
Medvil is busy and distracted, especially since there's recently been an officer-involved shooting and the commissioner is pissed.
It’s always unfortunate when an innocent bystander gets injured. In this case, the cop shot into the crowd, nicking him in the leg.
Medvil is pissed off. He has been fighting the commissioner to change certain practices of how things are done, but bureaucracy and police policies change slowly and the change has to come from the top. The captain has had numerous meeting
s with us to put in policies in place that would prevent future senseless shootings, but the commissioner is taking a hard line and nothing is going to change without it coming from the top.
"I can go talk to the tech by myself," I offer.
"No. I'd like to come," Thomas insists, knowing that we're going to have to walk all the way to the other side of the building and that's going to give us plenty of time to be alone.
I stop by my desk to grab my purse and excuse myself to go to the bathroom to gather my strength to put up with him for a little bit longer.
I give myself a brief pep talk. Thomas works in my department and that this situation has to be worked out one way or another because neither of us are leaving.
He meets me at the hallway with the same casual smile, the same ‘nothing bothers me’ attitude. He has the look of a guy who's always gotten everything he wanted in life and that's what attracted me to him in the first place.
He was one of the most serious relationships I’ve ever had and I actually saw myself marrying him.
On the way over to computer tech’s office, I bury my head in my phone and avoid Thomas as much as I can while walking right next to him.
He keeps trying to start a conversation, but I brush him off, texting and composing an email.
We enter a long underground hallway that's a shortcut to the other building and he pulls on my hand and gets me to stop.
"Can we talk?" His eyes flicker in the dark and shadows cast along his face.
"No," I say. "I have nothing to say to you."
"We never really discussed what happened with Marissa."
I don't even want to hear her name, I say silently to myself.
"There's nothing to say. I don't want to be with a cheater and I think I made that perfectly clear."
"You did and I know that," he mumbles, "but I want you back."
I laugh.
It sounds more like a cough stuck in the back of my throat.
I start to turn around to walk away, but he grabs my hand again, pulling me close, and presses his lips to mine.
I shove him and he slams into the wall.
24
"Don't you ever touch me again," I say, trying to make my body as big as possible.
"I'm sorry." He runs up to me. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that."
"Yes, you did. That's why you did it. You think it was romantic? Think you can just kiss me and everything will be fine?"
"No, I just thought the moment felt right."
"You don't know how to read moments," I say.
He nods.
That part is true, he doesn't.
"You got someone else pregnant when you were with me," I say, crossing my arms.
If he wants to talk about this, let’s talk about it.
He takes a step back.
"You cheated on me and you asked her to marry you. Then you told me that you didn't want to be with me anymore. I got over that. I'm over you. I'm not going to waste any more time having this conversation."
"I know, but what if I told you I made a mistake? What if I told you that I don't want to be with her anymore? Marissa doesn't make me happy the way that you did."
"I would tell you that you have no idea what you're talking about. I would tell you that it doesn't make sense."
"It does, of course it does. I want you. I want you back. I want to go back to how everything was."
"You can't. There are consequences for your actions."
"Please forgive me,” Thomas begs. His face falls and he reaches for me again.
"No."
I start to walk away, but he grabs my hand again. I brush him off.
"I miss you."
"What about that night?" I ask, anger rising within me.
His eyes narrow. He knows what I'm talking about.
"I should have called the cops on you,” I hiss.
He swallows hard and admits, "I didn't mean for that to happen."
"You don't mean for anything to happen, but stuff keeps happening anyway whenever you're around. I refuse to be part of that anymore.”
We stare at each other. I wait for him to say something else, to at least apologize for punching me in the stomach.
We were arguing just like this, then his eyes just flickered, something changed, and nothing was the same.
"Maybe you should have pressed charges," he says.
"You know how many people in this department would've taken your side? You know how far I'd be able to rise above this rank after that?”
He shrugs, but says nothing.
“I don't know why, but for some reason being hit as a woman is still considered to be your fault. Or perhaps maybe we should just get hit and not complain about it. I just hope that you didn't do that to Marissa."
"No, I didn't," he says. “She had a miscarriage at fifteen weeks.”
"I'm sorry."
He shrugs and says, "Things were going off in the wrong direction even before then."
I'm tired of this.
I don't want to talk.
I don't want to relive all of the mistakes that I've made. I'm just glad that our time together has come to an end and that I didn't waste years on that loser and God forbid have any children with him.
He follows behind me all the way to the computer tech’s office, who has a small place in the corner of the building across the way. Benjamin’s out, but Samson’s there.
I walk briskly ahead of Thomas, pushing him away with every step.
Samson is a small, diminutive guy who likes to make a lot of jokes that not many people understand.
I texted him earlier and he has everything open and ready on his laptop as soon as we arrive.
"Congratulations on your engagement," I say, giving Samson a hug.
“Oh, thank you. Expect an invitation. Both of you," he adds Thomas as a second thought.
I don't think that he would be invited if I hadn't brought it up and now I sort of wished that I hadn't.
"It's going to have an elfin theme, so wear a long dress and little elf ears if you can,” Samson spices and Thomas doesn’t even hide his cringe.
"Yes, of course.” I nod, having no idea where I would get that kind of costume.
"I'll send you some websites with some good cosplay outfits,” Sampson adds, reading my mind.
I always found it a little bit ironic that talking about the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars made you a geek but if you know all sorts of statistics about football, then you're just one of the cool guys.
Underneath his dress shirt, Samson has tattoos covering both arms. He wears thick glasses and has his long hair pulled up into a ponytail.
He's a little bit heavyset, but he recently started a workout regimen that he's posting about religiously on his social media.
What I like most about him is how confident he is in himself. I don't mean that as an insult. I love that he embraces everything that's a little bit weird about him. He's not embarrassed about anything.
Whenever I stand apart from others, I like to keep secrets. I don't want to share, like for instance, the fact that I like to read steam punk historical fiction books. It's silly, I guess, but what's wrong with having interests and what's wrong with being into things that are unusual?
"So, were you able to find anything interesting on Nick's or Janine's computers?" I ask after a little bit of small talk.
"They were friends, but from what I can tell from their texts and emails, which they shared a lot of those, they weren't romantic in the least."
"Not at all?"
“Nope. There's actually one email where Nick told her that he really appreciates her friendship and that he was sorry that he pulled away when she kissed him, but he's pursuing a celibate lifestyle to try and get his head more straight.”
Then he shows us Janine’s social media. Some pictures are pretty standard, but others are quite provocative if not bordering on explicit.
There are even a few in which she's almost completely nude, excep
t has her arms placed in just the right locations to cover herself up.
"Wow, so Nick didn't have an interest in hooking up with her. Why not?" Thomas asks, suddenly revoking back to his fraternity brother ways.
"They seem to be very close friends," Samson says, being as professional as possible.
Samson opens the email that he was referring to and I read the word ‘celibate’ and ‘alone’ followed by I promised myself that I'm not going to sleep with anyone for a year. Maybe then I'll actually be in a good headspace.
"Man, what is wrong with kids today?" Thomas says.
Samson and I both look at him.
"I've heard about this a lot. There's so many twenty-somethings who are just not having sex. Like, do they actually think their problems can be solved by avoiding sex?” Thomas scoffs.
Samson and I exchange looks.
"You know, not everybody thinks that all of their problems can be solved with intercourse," I say.
"That's not what I remember about you,” he says in a barely audible whisper when Samson is distracted.
I want to punch him in the mouth, but that would get me suspended, if not fired, and the right thing to do would be to file a report with human resources, stating that he said something to make it a hostile work environment.
The problem is that I work with a bunch of cops who make a lot of inappropriate jokes and it can be quite unsafe for me to start making these kind of reports.
25
The following morning, I meet with Sydney at her OBGYN appointment. I arrive early and she meets me in the parking lot. I walk up the stairs with her and even though she doesn't look pregnant everything suddenly feels different.
I don't want to burden her with what happened with Thomas, but she keeps asking because she saw the two of us together yesterday.
At first, I go over the highlights and then I splurge on the details. She’s the only one who knows the truth about our relationship and everything thing that happened.
She listens carefully and gives me a hug.
"I'm really sorry that he's such a creep," she says.
I want to say, I'm sorry that Patrick cheated on you, too. Some men are total pricks.
I want to point out the fact that I'm no longer with Thomas, but I don't want to make her feel bad.
