The Tracker

by John Hunt

  “And if I don’t want to talk anymore?”

  Owen said, “That’s your choice. That’s always been your choice but at this point, when we come back in here, I’m going to be doing most of the talking.”

  He didn’t want Taylor to stop talking but he had to keep a poker face even though his guts tightened at the thought. Sometimes being a good interviewer meant being a good actor. Interpreting what the other person wanted to hear and giving it to them without it being an inducement. Owen waited for the answer with his hand on his thigh to prevent his leg jiggling.

  Taylor inhaled and lifted his eyes to Owen. They were red and puffy. A postcard of despair. He nodded, “Alright. I could use the washroom. Will they un-cuff me?”

  Owen smiled, “Yeah. They’ll un-cuff you. There may be five or six officers in the stall with you but you’ll be un-cuffed.”

  “Great.”

  ***

  Owen un-cuffed Taylor. Four, not five, officers escorted Taylor him to the washroom. They considered six, like Owen suggested, but the washroom wasn’t big enough. Owen reclined in a chair, in Earl’s office, with his feet on the corner of Earl’s desk. Earl’s eyes flicked to the shoes, annoyance drawing a line between his eyes and said, “Get your feet off my desk. Jerk.”

  Owen smiled a worn-out smile and said, “Sure thing Sergeant.” He dropped his feet to the floor and said, “So, you watched it all, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “I’m no doctor, but my professional diagnosis is that he is bat-shit crazy.”

  “‘Bat-shit crazy is a professional term?”

  “Yes. I am a professional police officer. But who cares what I think. You were in there with him. What do you think?”

  Owen looked to the ceiling. A water stain marred the tile in the shape of a spider. He said, “For what it’s worth, he thinks he is telling the truth. There was no deceit that I could see. Not even a little bit. You know how like even when witnesses give you a statement you can tell they are leaving something out or outright lying about something? People who aren’t even in trouble?”

  “Yeah. Every cop deals with that.”

  “I get none of that from Taylor.”

  “I was correct then.”

  “About what?”

  “He is bat-shit crazy.”

  “Oh yeah. Only he’s the only one who doesn’t know it.”

  “If he really believes that story of his like you say, then he knows it. On some level.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So now what?”

  “I’m going to show him why his story is full of shit. And even if he clams up and screams for a lawyer it won’t matter. Not at this point.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because, like you said before, he placed himself at every murder scene. He never denied that. And besides, we have a little thing called evidence.”

  -19-

  The confrontation…

  When Owen entered the interview room, Taylor sat straighter and his eyes were clearer. Owen thought he was bracing himself, knowing something was up but not knowing what it could be because in his mind, it all happened like he said it did. Owen placed a large file on the desk, out of Taylor’s reach and sat. Taylor glanced at the file and flared his nostrils. He returned his gaze to Owen.

  Owen said, “Taylor, I want you to know I am going to have hard questions for you.”

  “I understand that.”

  “I’m only telling you that because I don’t want you to get mad at me. I have to ask you these questions. I would be negligent as a police officer if I didn’t. And it goes back to my primary purpose for this interview: I want to learn the truth. You’re in a unique position to tell it to me.”

  “Okay.”

  “We were able to track your movements very well over the past two days. Lots of tips and sightings came in once we knew who you were and we had to check them all out. I’m only telling you this because I want you to know that all the places you said you went we know you went to them through statements and video.”

  “Because I’m telling the truth.”

  “Yeah. About where you went, for the most part, you are telling the truth.”

  “The most part? What’s that mean?”

  “Okay. When you had the old woman’s car? Her name is Catherine Winters by the way, you forgot to mention you visited a Home Depot.”

  “What? That’s because I didn’t visit the Home Depot.”

  “But you did. We have video of it. Of you in the store buying interesting items.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t go to a Home Depot so that can’t be me on the video. Can’t be.”

  “Look, you’ve been truthful about everything else. Why won’t you admit to this? You did nothing wrong in the Home Depot. You paid for your purchases. You didn’t commit a crime in there. Only we don’t know what you did with the bag and items. They weren’t in Catherine’s car. Not in your hotel room or backpack. Not in the cab. Can’t find them.”

  “You can’t find them because it wasn’t me in the damn store buying anything. Could be someone who looks like me. I’m not the only fat guy in town here you know.”

  Owen could see Taylor either didn’t remember going to Home Depot or just wouldn’t admit it. That happened some times in interviews. They’d have a clear 1080p resolution video of the guy, with his name tag legible on his shirt front, stealing from his own employer and the guy would still deny it. Some people dig their heels in and that’s that. To Owen, this was one of those moments. Deciding to move on and maybe return to it later, he said, “Do you remember Rosie Hughes?”

  Taylor stiffened. His left handcuff clinked against the eyebolt.

  “Yes.”

  “After the man at Wal-Mart was killed, we did get video. It caught you running across the lot and away from the store. They have good video but it was night and hard to see. After the woman at the park was killed and we got a description of the guy leaving the scene who matched the guy in the video, we flooded the news with the video hoping someone could identify you. A couple of people gave us your name, your boss at work for one, and the other was Rosie. We had them both in for an interview. Rosie though, nice woman, told us something very interesting. Can you guess what that would be?”

  Taylor, straighter than a board in his seat, shook his head.

  “She told us you guys used to be best friends. Right from grade school all the way to high school until something happened. Something bad. She had a crush on you, you know?”

  Taylor blinked, “Rosie?”

  “Oh yeah. And she felt bad about what happened to you in high school. It was at a party, right? Felt real guilty about it because she thinks it had something to do with the past two days.”

  “That makes no sense whatsoever. High school? All of this has nothing to do with Rosie or high school. What does any of that have to do with this? A big fat fuck of nothing, that’s what!”

  Owen said, “I get that you’re emotional. I would be too. Remember I told you I’d have some hard questions.”

  “Yeah, but this! Trying to humiliate me on camera, with people watching! What happened then has nothing to do with now!”

  “Oh, but I think it does. Can I tell you why? Or do you already know?”

  “What are you talking about? How the hell would I know? Why are you doing this? You’re supposed to be the good guy!”

  “Do you want to know why I think so Taylor?”

  Taylor ran his right hand through his hair and inhaled th
rough his nose until he calmed. His eyes shone. He said, “Alright. If this is all part of it, tell me why you think why any of that shit they did to me back then has anything to do with now.”

  “Rosie told us in high school you liked a girl named Hannah. Is that right?”

  “C’mon man. Do we have to go through all that? I lived through it. I know what happened.”

  “I have to talk about it Taylor. I can see that it hurts you and I’m sorry for that. But it’s important and I can’t ignore it.”

  Taylor’s lips trembled. He eyed Owen as though he expected him to start beating him. He was afraid of Owen because of what he might say. That, more than anything, caused Owen to think maybe Taylor was playing him. As though Taylor didn’t think they’d find out about the past.

  He said, “Do you want to tell it or should I?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “This Hannah girl transferred to your school when grade eleven was ending, right?”

  “I don’t know for sure but that sounds right.”

  “The way Rosie tells it, Hannah, being the new girl and with no friends, spoke to you in English class. You were reading something, something she liked or had read. Rosie didn’t remember the book…”

  “To Kill a Mockingbird. That was the book.”

  “Okay. So she spoke to you and you even ate lunch together that first day. You, Rosie and Hannah. Only that didn’t last long. Hannah was a pretty girl and soon enough the most popular boy in school was eyeing her and all of a sudden, you were no longer someone she could be seen with. To her, you became invisible.”

  “No. That’s not true. She would still say hi to me in the halls. If no one else was around. She had never been mean to me. Indifferent? Maybe. But mean? No. It was her friends who were the assholes. I was never mad at her for that. I mean, look at me. She had every right to not want to be seen with me. I’m no woman’s dream. I wasn’t happy about it but I understood.”

  “Not until that night. She was mean to you that night wasn’t she?”

  Taylor put his chin to his chest.

  Owen said, “Rosie said Hannah invited you to a party. A senior party out at some guy’s barn? It was supposedly a big deal and Hannah invited you which made it an even bigger deal. Rosie wasn’t sure but did Hannah tell you she broke up with her boyfriend? To get you to go?”

  Taylor whispered into his chest, “What does that have to do with this? Can you please tell me that?”

  “I’m getting to that. I can imagine how you must have felt. A pretty girl like Hannah wanting to go out with you. Wanting to go out to a party, where all her friends would see you with her. You’d no longer be invisible right? You’d be somebody. But that was never her intention, was it?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “Yeah you do. She brought you there because her boyfriend wanted her to. He was getting tired of you mooning over his girl. Some fat loser giving his girlfriend, the prettiest girl in school, the hound dog eyes every time she passed. He needed to do something about it.”

  Taylor looked up when Owen said ‘fat loser’ and said, “Did Rosie say that? Did Rosie call me a fat loser?”

  “No. She wouldn’t have said that. You said that Taylor. You keep referring to yourself as fat and a loser. So this guy, Brad, got her to bring you to this party and his friends, Melissa and Jake were in on the little joke. I don’t think they intended for it to go as far as it did. Sometimes, things get out of control and it gets hard to pull it back. I bet Brad never expected you to hit him, to actually stand up for yourself. Guys like Brad don’t like their lessons to be interrupted and you hitting back? Defending yourself? That set him off. Rosie was never there so what she knew about that night she had heard from others. She tried to call you after, even came to your house a few times but you wouldn’t answer her. You avoided her at school and by the time high school was over, you never had to speak to her again.”

  “That’s because she knew. I didn’t talk to her because she knew and she didn’t tell me.”

  “She knew what?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. About any of it. You get it, yet? It has nothing to do with the Tracker so why are you even bringing it up? I don’t want to even think about it, okay?”

  “I understand. I really do. It’s harder to forget the things that hurt us if we are reminded of them by the mere sight of others. So I get why you wanted that distance. But Rosie missed you. She said so. Anyways, I’d rather you fill me in on what really happened because you were there.”

  “I told you I don’t want to talk about it!”

  “Okay. I’ll keep going then and if I mess up on a point or something, please feel free to correct me. Hannah picked you up in her dad’s car, just you and her, and she drove to the party. You get there and at first, it wasn’t so bad. You got some looks from people, wondering maybe what the hell you were doing there but since you were with Hannah, you got a pass. No one bothered you, no one questioned you really because to do so would be to question Hannah and no one questions the cool kids do they? You might have had a beer, smoked a joint or did whatever high school kids do when their parents aren’t looking. Then Brad showed up and did what the Brad’s of the world do: he tried to pick a fight. He must have called you all sorts of names, demeaned you in front of the whole crowd of kids watching. None of the kids stopped it did they?”

  Taylor, breathing hard said, “They laughed at me. They all laughed.”

  “And that made you mad, right? Of course it did. I’d be pissed especially because Hannah betrayed you. Brad was pushing you, he was asking for it and he knew it but like most bullies, he didn’t think you’d do anything about it. Because not only are bullies assholes, they tend to be cowards too. This time, he was wrong. You did do something. Something no one expected. You hit him back. And that wasn’t part of the plan. What happened then Taylor? Like I said, Rosie wasn’t there so she couldn’t give me a complete retelling. She could only tell me what she heard. What gossip had been floating around and like the broken telephone, I bet some things were exaggerated.”

  “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

  “I can’t. It’s very important to what went on.”

  Taylor’s face burned red. He said, “Why? Cause it shows that I can get mad? Sure I can get mad. Everyone can get mad sometimes. But I didn’t murder anyone!”

  “What happened Taylor? What did Brad do?”

  Taylor with a tight line of a mouth said, “I fucking hit him. And no, he didn’t expect that. Not from a loser like me. It was one of the most satisfying moments of my life but I would take it back in a second because what happened after turned into one of the worst moments. I hit him and he fell right on his ass. He had a beer in his hand, in one of those red cups? When he hit the ground, it splashed in his face. His mouth hung open, he was so surprised at me, man. If a unicorn galloped out of my ass at that moment, he wouldn’t have been more surprised. And then people laughed at him! Big ole Brad Brewster was getting laughed at. And that is what made him mad. That’s what really pissed him off. He was the guy who laughed at others. No one was supposed to laugh at him. And when he got mad, he shook with it and that’s when my courage left me and I wanted to hide, pull my fat skin around myself and vanish. He got up from the dirt and he took the time to roll up the sleeves on his shirt, casual like, as though he was getting ready to do some work. Getting ready to get dirty. And he did. He waded in and started hitting me. I had my arms up but he found all the spots where they weren’t. He split my lip in one punch and bloodied my nose with another. I couldn’t see, my eyes teared up immediately and I fell. Then he started kicking me. And then Jake started kicking me and the crowd that had been so loud before became quiet. I could
hear the thumps against my own body. I felt a rib give. A foot caught me right on the knee cap and I cried out and begged and blubbered for them to stop. They didn’t. It felt like it went on forever. All I remember seeing are a pair of Converse shoes and red Vans kicking up the dirt around me and sinking into me. And when it was over, Brad said ‘This is what losers get who eye my girl.’ Then something wet and warm splashed on my face. I knew what it was from the smell. He was pissing on me. He and Jake were pissing on me. It stung because it was going into all my cuts and I kept thinking, their piss is now inside me, in my blood and then I gagged, retched but only thick saliva came out. I heard someone say, ‘Jesus, Brad, enough’s enough man,’ and other people were agreeing with that voice. Brad told them to shut the fuck up but he and Jake zipped up and left me on the ground. Hannah and Melissa followed them. Hannah didn’t laugh at me but Melissa, she smirked. She was smiling. Greg Hands, helped me get up and he had me follow him to the house. He got me damp paper towels to wipe off what I could and he gave me a lift home. I cried in the car. I blubbered really. I couldn’t help myself. I got the feeling Greg regretted driving me home. It is kind of embarrassing to witness something like that I guess and even though he didn’t do anything to me, he saw what happened and someone else’s humiliation is hard to watch. So yeah, that happened. It’s something I’ve tried really hard to forget and for the life of me, I have no idea what that has to do with all this.” At the end of the narrative, Taylor lost whatever anger had accumulated. His head hung on his chest again and he looked like a man defeated.

  “I just want you to know Rosie was a good friend to you. And she missed not talking to you since that night. She said she called you and called you but you never answered. She went to your house and she knew you were home but you wouldn’t open the door. See, she felt bad about it all for two reasons: she liked you and had wanted to date you for a long time. The second reason, the reason she felt so guilty was she knew what was going to happen that night.”