Hollow Man

by Mark Pryor

“What about him?”

  “I need to know what to do. How to help him.”

  I looked at her. Her face was serious, that alabaster skin seemed to shimmer in the sun, and the openness in her eyes made me want to kiss her, hold her, help her. I sometimes wondered if my condition was absolute, if there was perhaps a continuum of psychopathy so that I could find in myself the occasional glimmer of humanity that might allow me to truly connect with another person. It wasn't something I wondered about often, just because I didn't really believe it was likely. But in rare moments like this, when I felt (or thought I felt) something more than physical sensations, I really did imagine it possible.

  “I don't know what to tell you,” I said. “He's in good hands with probation—they have all kinds of services set up. Drug treatment, gang awareness, family counseling if you want it.”

  “That's not enough,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

  “I'm a prosecutor. I don't fix people, I just…” I struggled to boil down my role in the juvenile system. It wasn't to convict and punish, not like in adult court. “I prove up the case so the probation department can go to work. Treatment in the community…if that doesn't work, a residential treatment facility somewhere. I'm just the intake guy, basically.”

  She tilted her head and looked at me, like she was waiting for me to understand. It came slowly, like a tide creeping up a beach, and she waited patiently while I made the connections. I thought back to when she'd sought me out, always exhibiting a remoteness and calculation that made me wonder if she was like me. I'd understood at some level, even at the start, that she was looking to use me, and that was another count against, or for, her, another reason to think maybe she wasn't an empath. Even at my work, she'd showed up and played the sad sister to get me to help her little brother, manipulated me because she knew I'd do it, understood my compulsive and reckless nature. Exploited me the way I exploited others. And she knew I'd do it because she knew what I was, had recognized that in me. As she gazed at me with those lovely brown eyes, eyes so full of light and life, eyes so different from mine, I realized that she'd recognized me for what I was because she'd lived with the same curse, lived with it day in and day out, and had done for the last twelve years.

  She wasn't the psychopath, her little brother was. Bobby, the hollow boy soon to be a hollow man.

  The fact that she was there, asking for my help, confirmed it. She loved him despite his affliction. She cared enough to target and seduce me. She wanted to save him, and she would do whatever she could, and no sociopath has ever been that unselfish.

  “There's no cure,” I said. “I'm sorry, but there's nothing that you, I, or the system can do to change what he is.”

  “There has to be,” she said.

  “I'm sorry. He has to decide for himself what he wants to be, how he wants to deal with it.”

  “How did you decide?”

  “I didn't, not initially. My parents sent me away to boarding schools, places remote enough that I couldn't do much harm.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I smiled. “When you're in a small group in the middle of nowhere, it's hard to get away with bad things.”

  “I can't send him to boarding school,” she said.

  “I know. He'll have to figure it out for himself somehow. Maturity is his friend, so the issue is how much damage he'll do before he matures.”

  “At the rate he's going…a lot.” She paused, then asked, “He knows, right? I mean, you knew at some point?”

  “Yeah, when I was about his age I suppose.” I wanted to tell her, to explain, but this was weird. I'd never talked to anyone about it, never been open. Not because I was mortally opposed to the idea but because the situation had never arisen like this. The few people who'd suspected or said something saw my condition as a bad thing, a danger to them. Fair enough, too—it wasn't like I had a secret Santa Claus inside me itching to get out. But there, with her, it was a gift. A blessing. Something that she wanted to know about, not so she could judge or avoid me but because she wanted just to understand. And telling her, well, that gave me a little power over her, maybe just influence; but nonetheless it was a bridge between us, not a chasm. “It's not a sudden realization,” I said. “You just know you're different, not sensitive like other people. You see people having emotions that you don't have and it makes you wonder.”

  “Makes you take advantage,” she said. “He does that all the time, even with me. Does he…does he love me?”

  “Not in the way you love him. He's not unfeeling toward you, but it's hard to describe.”

  “What if he saw a therapist?”

  “Then he'd manipulate the therapist unless he saw an expert, someone who knows about this stuff.”

  “And then he'd get a formal diagnosis, and his life would be ruined.”

  “I don't think they diagnose psychopaths before the age of eighteen.”

  “Were you diagnosed?”

  “I was. My parents never gave up hope I could be cured, so they spent a lot of money on me. Including a first-class ticket to America. Idiots.”

  “See, I don't want Bobby talking about me that way.”

  I smiled again. “Then don't be an idiot.”

  We both looked up as a slicktop police car pulled into the parking lot and stopped with a screech of brakes, its nose pointed at us. The first person out of the car was Megan Ledsome, and two large, plain-clothes cops stepped out behind her.

  “Dominic, stand up, please.”

  “What's going on?” I asked.

  “You need to come with us.”

  “‘Please’ would go a long way.”

  She didn't smile, and I suddenly got that this was serious. “No jokes, Dominic. We got some new information on our capital-murder case. Information that means you're coming downtown with me. Now.”

  Time stopped. I felt people watching me, the guys in the taco truck, the cops, and, of course, her. I stood, slowly, and moved away from the picnic table. I looked at Detective Ledsome and let a measure of bemusement drift into my eyes.

  “I don't understand,” I said. “You're joking, right?” But I didn't know her well enough for practical jokes.

  “No. We really do need to talk.”

  I felt a hand take mine, and I looked down into those soft, brown eyes and saw fear. “It's fine, don't worry,” I said.

  “Capital murder?” she whispered.

  “I promise,” my voice was warm, unconcerned, “everything's fine. It's an investigation I'm helping them with.” I turned to Ledsome. “Okay. So let's talk, we can go over—”

  “Not here. The police station.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Our little talk needs to be on tape.”

  “Why?”

  “For the record. So when the prosecutor handling the case gets the file, everything is aboveboard and by the book. Same as we do for all witnesses and suspects.”

  “Which one am I?”

  She didn't respond, just walked to the passenger side of her car and opened the door. “You can ride up front with me,” Ledsome said.

  I let go of the comforting hand that was gripping me and walked toward the car. I got in without saying anything, and Ledsome slammed the door a little too hard once I was in. As a reminder of my situation, the car rocked when the two burly detectives climbed into the backseat. Ledsome slid behind the wheel and locked the doors. She waited for me to buckle up before she put on her own seat belt.

  As we bumped out of the parking lot, I looked at her profile and decided how I was going to play this. “Look, Megan, I didn't want to make a scene back there, frighten my girlfriend, but what the fuck is going on? You're acting like I'm a fucking suspect and I don't appreciate it.”

  “Your girlfriend, huh?”

  “Seriously, I want to know what's going on.”

  Her voice softened and she glanced over as she spoke. “I know. But hang tight until we get to the station. I really do have to do this by the book, have the
video camera capture everything.”

  “Fine, but tell me one thing. Do you seriously think I had anything to do with this?”

  “That, Dominic, is what we're going to talk about.”

  When an innocent man is accused of a crime, his first reaction is outrage. If that doesn't work, he calms down and tries to explain why it's all a mistake. If the accusations persist, and graduate to chats at the police station, he starts to worry that maybe a series of unfortunate coincidences points to his guilt, and that he may not be able to make the cops understand that they are, in fact, just coincidences.

  When a guilty man is accused of a crime, he often confesses. A combination of guilty conscience and a sense of inevitability, especially if he's in a police car, come together to crush any resistance and bring forth a confession. Alternatively, a guilty man will lawyer up, demonstrating that he's been through the system enough to know he can't trust his own mouth and won't help himself by talking. Sometimes, a guilty man will try to lie his way out of trouble, getting increasingly nervous and more fidgety the more his lies don't stick. The police are used to this, and if he keeps lying he'll be caught out and, eventually, confess.

  When someone like me is accused of a crime, whether he's guilty or innocent, he'll lie. But he won't get nervous, and, because he's been lying his whole life, chances are they'll be good lies and they'll stick. This depends on the sociopath being smart, of course, there's always that caveat. Stupid men tell stupid lies, there's no way around that. But smart or not, a sociopath has no guilty conscience to provoke a confession.

  So I sat there quietly for the ride, waiting to see what they had. I wasn't under arrest, which was a pretty damn good start, and despite the serious faces and muscular cops literally breathing down my neck, I knew I was free to leave. I couldn't do that, though, because if they thought I knew something and declined to help them, I'd be fired in a heartbeat. And if they knew that I knew something, they'd probably arrest me on the spot if I refused to cooperate. At the very least, they'd have me suspended without pay, which would be great for guitar practice, less great for paying the rent.

  At the police station, Ledsome took me into one of the small interview rooms that I'd seen a thousand times on video tape. It smelled of stale body odor and some form of cheap cleaning solvent. She acted like she was used to the smell, didn't even wrinkle her nose. There were four of these rooms and each one had a camera high in the corner, and it was from that perspective I'd watched and listened to dozens and dozens of interviews with suspects and witnesses. Mostly suspects.

  “I need to go to the control room and turn the camera on,” she said. “Need anything? Coffee? Water?”

  “No.” I sat at the small, round table. “I'm fine.”

  “Be right back.” The door swung closed with a whoosh, locking itself automatically. I'd been told this was an intentional design feature so the cops didn't have to manually lock the door when they left the room. That, the theory went, would undermine their attempts to play nice guy, appear all trusting and understanding.

  She was gone a long time, but I'd expected that. Another one of their little tricks to soften up their suspect, if that's what I was. I checked my watch and realized I hadn't told anyone at work I'd be out.

  Then I wondered if they already knew.

  Ledsome came back after twenty minutes with a can of Diet Coke and a note pad. She sat opposite me and made a big show of settling in, which is tough for a petite lady. She gave the date and time aloud, looking at her watch, and said our names clearly for the camera. Then she said, “Dominic, I want to confirm that you are here voluntarily and know that you are in no way obligated to speak with me, and that you are free to leave at any time.”

  “Apart from the locked door, you mean.”

  That seemed to fluster her a little because she shouldn't have let it close on me before. Doing so meant I was detained against my will, which undermined this new statement that I was free to leave. And, as I knew and she might have been figuring out, if she ever wanted to use my statement against me, that could be a problem.

  “I apologize for that,” she said, “I didn't mean to close the door. You are free to leave now, if you like.”

  “No, it's fine. Although the door is closed again.”

  “Thank you. We appreciate your cooperation, and the door is closed purely for privacy. I can open it for you at any time.” She looked up at me when I didn't respond. “Right, then, shall we start?”

  “I'm just wondering if we should begin by letting people at my office know I'm here.”

  “No, actually. We'd rather not.”

  “You don't want anyone to know I'm here?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I am really not understanding any of this.”

  “Dominic, I'm going to level with you. And the chances are, you're going to be mad at me and that's fine. But please remember that we have two dead people, two families who lost loved ones, and all I'm trying to do is get the guys who killed them.”

  “And sometimes you have to fuck with people to do that.”

  She cocked her head. “Yes, something like that. Just out of interest, how do you know I'm fucking with you?”

  Wishful thinking. “Because you don't interview a suspect and start with an apology for making them mad. You do that to a witness you've lied to about something.”

  “Very astute.” She took a deep breath. “I'll start with the minor deception and explain why after. First, no need to tell your boss you're here; she knows.”

  “Maureen?”

  “Yes. In fact, I had her switch out with you yesterday, for the raid on Otto Bland's house, on purpose.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wanted you there when we arrested him. I wanted to see your reaction, and his reaction.” She grimaced. “I guess I got to see yours, after all.”

  “Go on.”

  “That call, the phone tip about the gun. It wasn't just the location of the gun that we got. The caller gave us a make, model, and license plate for the car that drove out of the trailer park minutes after the shooting.”

  “It wasn't my car.”

  “No, it wasn't. It was your roommate's.” She was staring at me intently, watching for any and every reaction. Just like she must have been doing at Otto's.

  I let my mouth fall open, but snapped it shut when I thought maybe I was overdoing it. “You're fucking kidding me. Tristan?”

  “Tristan Bell.”

  “That's not possible. It's…it's ridiculous.” I looked up quickly. “Unless you mean someone stole his car…but he'd have said something to me.”

  “No one stole his car. He also fits the vague description we got from the caller.”

  “Who's the caller? Can he ID him in a lineup?”

  “We don't know who it is. A woman. She called from a gas-station pay phone not far from the trailer park, so that backs up her claim that she lives there.”

  “You sure she wasn't involved?” I asked. “I mean, she's giving you a shitload of information. The gun, the license plate, the description.”

  “I guess it's possible, but if she's involved, why give us the gun?”

  “Good point.”

  “Plus, she sounded scared, which also fits the way things go out there.”

  “Snitches get stitches, and all that.”

  “Right.”

  “So why the games with me?” She didn't respond, just stared until it sank in. “You thought I was involved, didn't you?”

  “Not really. I mean, no. For one thing, the caller said there was only one person in the car.”

  Thank God for nighttime and poor people who can't afford glasses. “Then why give me the runaround?”

  “This is a capital-murder case, Dom. We had to be sure.”

  “And are you?”

  “Yes. We checked with your neighbor, and he gave you an alibi.”

  I frowned. “I didn't see my neighbor that night.”

  She smirked. “No, and he di
dn't see you. But he heard you. You and your girlfriend.” She turned her face so the video camera wouldn't catch the wink she gave me. “And she seems so demure and sweet.”

  I liked the way this conversation was going, so I let the humor out of the bag. “Yeah, well, it's always the quiet ones, Detective. You seem jolly quiet yourself.”

  “We'll need a statement from your girlfriend confirming she was with you, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Without the sound effects.” She suppressed a smile and cleared her throat. “Anyway, I need to know if you saw Mr. Bell that evening. If you saw him in the apartment, or if you noticed him leaving.”

  “I didn't. No, none of that. I was in my room the whole evening.”

  “So you can't say he was there, and you can't say he wasn't.”

  “Correct.”

  “Do you have any information about Bell that might help us? Has he been flashing cash or anything?”

  “I don't think so, no. Nothing like that.”

  “Think about it and let me know if something occurs to you.”

  “Sure.”

  She sat very still for a moment, her eyes on her pad, like she was wondering what to say next. “There's one other thing.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, and I'm hesitant to tell you, but I kinda have to. Again, let me finish before you say anything.”

  “I'm intrigued.”

  “How well do you know Bell?”

  “Not very. He keeps to himself and we don't hang out together or anything. Now I'm in juvie, I rarely see him at work as he's usually downtown.”

  “He may not be the mild-mannered computer geek you think.” I raised an eyebrow and she continued. “We took a little look-see on his work computer. It's county property, so we didn't need a warrant or anything, and we saw he'd been on your computer.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, a couple of times. Looks like he connected remotely, which made tracking his activity harder, but from what we can see, he was searching that trailer park on your computer. And then deleted the searches.”

  “On my computer?”

  “Yes. Dominic, we have reason to think that he killed those two men with Otto Bland as part of a robbery. And now he's trying to frame you.”