by Harry Glum
—I´m a police detective. What is there that´s so horrible that you´ve got to tell us?
The man let go a kind of howl that died down slowly before he was able to answer. It seemed that he needed to gather strength to be able to do so.
—I think... I think that my son killed that student. It´s horrible. I think my son is a murderer and I´m here to tell on him.
XII
Karen and Gordon spent the rest of the evening with James Stone, a man that seemed to have caved in and broken in pieces while he was telling them that his son Aaron had been diagnosed with a mental illness a couple of years back. He himself was a widower that had to live a meager existence on a modest pension and trying to educate a child that was always cold and introverted. This last news had not surprised him, but it did finish breaking him down.
—He had quit school. He had always had a hard time there. However, his attitude worsened, and one of my best friends, and I would say the only one I´ve got told me I should take him to the doctor. They accepted to grant me his custody, since while he is under medication he isn´t much danger to anyone... However, I can´t always get him to take his pills, you know what I mean.
Karen listened to the man attentively. She wasn´t able to determine his age exactly. Maybe he was some sixty years old, but he seemed to be much older. She was moved by the pain he expressed through his words and his gestures.
—How have you reached the conclusion that your son killed the girl?
—He himself told me a couple of days ago. He also gave me this —he murmured, as he placed a gun wrapped in a handkerchief on the table.
—Hell! —exclaimed Gordon, while he was pushing away the gun trying to avoid contaminating this evidence with his own fingerprints.
—How... How the devil has this gun gotten into this room? —asked Philips, puzzled.
—It´s my fault. I have skipped all protocol and I have brought him here without being searched nor has he gone through the metal detectors —answered Stevens, as he lightly pounded on his temples with both hands.
James Stone hadn´t stopped sobbing, unaware of the looks the agent and detective were offering each other, a kind of wordless communication closing a pact of silence over what had happened.
—Okay —continued Karen—, your son gave you this gun; but to think that he is a murderer is a totally different matter...
—You don´t understand. Aaron is twenty years old, which is the same age as all those boys that study at the university. We live in the suburbs, near Black Hawk Park. Many days he borrows my car without my permission and he goes to the campus. Normally, the only thing he does is take walks on its sidewalks for hours, as if he were just another student. That is what he would like to be, a normal boy.
—¿So what?
—Since that girl has been missing he has been very disturbed, and much more since the news got out that they had found her dead. I didn´t consider it very significant, since all of us were confused and frightened. However, as time passed, one idea was becoming stronger in my mind: if it had been Aaron?
—And he himself finally confessed it to you.
—Not exactly. A couple of days ago I mustered up all the courage I could and I asked him. He broke down and cried and said yes, he had done it. Afterward he gave me the gun, and I saw that it was a 22 caliber which was the same that had shot that student. I really didn´t know what to do until today. Today I told myself that I had to come and report it, and that it was the best for Aaron, for me and for everyone´s security —whispered Mr. Stone while he stifled another sob.
Gordon, still a little uneasy for having committed such a childish error and which would have such unpredictable consequences, contemplated the gun. They had gone from having no evidence to having two 22 caliber pistols to be analyzed. Luckily the bullet that had killed Sarah had been lodged in her brain and miraculously had not suffered hardly any damage; therefore it wouldn´t be hard for the people from ballistics to determine which of the two had been used to commit the crime.
—You´ll have to sign your declaration, ¿do you understand me?
The man nodded, as if he no longer had any strength to keep talking. He had done his duty, however painful it had been.
—Do you know where your son is now? —asked Karen very tactfully.
—Maybe at home, maybe taking a walk around Black Hawk Park with his hands in his pockets...
Stevens and Philips left Mr. Stone accompanied by an agent, and they went to prepare paperwork for the gun to be analyzed, and get an order for a search and arrest warrant against a person by the name of Aaron Stone.
—What do you think, Gordon?
—I don´t know Karen. I don´t have the slightest idea. I need to get everything in order —answered the detective, who was still going over the idea that he may not be up to what Sarah Brown needed from him—. Hell, didn´t people think that Cedar Falls was a dreamlike ideal place?
XIII
That very night, Aaron Stone had to sleep in a prison cell. It wasn´t hard to find him, and a police patrol found him just as his father had suggested, at the extreme north end of the Black Hawk Park, next to the banks of the Little Cedar River. He seemed to be disoriented and confused. They decided that it was better to do the questioning the next day accompanied by a specialist.
In the morning, the police department ballistics report for the first gun arrived. This was for the one found in the trees. Negative. It was not the gun Sarah Brown had been shot with. It was a severe blow in a way. On the other hand, it reaffirmed the possibility that the real killer was already behind bars.
When Stevens arrived at the interrogation room, the suspect and a psychologist were already waiting for him. The latter, in principle did not have to participate, but it was considered necessary for him to accompany the detective. Mr. Stone had not demanded the presence of an attorney and had decided to attend the interrogation from the other side of the glass window along with Karen and Ron.
Gordon sat down and reviewed the declaration signed by the boy´s father, even though he almost had it memorized. Later, he spent a few minutes observing before firing the first question. He was a young dark haired thin young man with shifty eyes that were full of nervous ticks, that the detective didn´t know whether they had been with him for years, or were a product of nervousness...
—Hi Aaron, I´m detective Gordon Stevens, from the sheriff´s office. I imagine that you know the motive that we have brought you here...
—Yes, I know. I killed that girl, the student.
Stevens couldn´t help leaning back slightly, until he felt the hard back of his chair. He knew that he had to go on with the interrogation, and that he had to wait on ballistics tests and that intuition is only a part of the job... however, immediately after listening to the youth he had the impression, almost certainty that he was not his man. That is, that this person had not killed not even a flea in his life.
—Alright. Why did you do it?
—I don´t know. I imagine that it was in a rage. I go to the campus often to take a walk and nobody pays any attention to me. It´s not the first time I feel like killing a student.
Gordon acted like he was taking Aaron´s words very seriously and he made like he were looking for a record as if he had privileged information in his reports with data that could reveal all the truth without the need of his opening his mouth.
—Had you ever killed anyone before?
Stone sat there as if he were petrified. His bulging eyes that were constantly scouring the entire room without rest rested on the detective. He was surprised and a little scared.
—I be... I believe not. I can´t remember.
The psychologist said nothing, but gave Stevens a Little kick under the table.
—How did you kidnap her?
—It was very easy. I´m thin but strong. All I had to do was cover her mouth so that she couldn´t scream, and I later put her into my father´s car.
—Have you washed the car?
—What? No, no I haven´t washed the car. Why is that important?
Gordon´s initial impression was being confirmed. He knew that he wasn´t conducting the interrogation in the correct manner, and he knew perfectly that he was asking the questions as if he already had the answers ahead of time. He pulled out a photograph of Sarah´s cadaver, and placed it in front of Stone. The young man could not avoid looking away from the crude and terrifying snapshot immediately.
—Where did you get the gun?
—I bought it from a guy in Allison months ago. We made the deal through the internet. I needed a gun. I wanted to have a gun.
—What did you do with Sarah from Thursday morning until you shot her in the head?
Aaron began to tremble. He began to shake at the feet as if he was about to have an epileptic seizure at any moment.
—I can´t remember. Everything is confusing —he stuttered—. I only remember that I killed her and I left her there where you found her.
Stevens couldn´t stand it any more, and he sat up. He didn´t bother to say goodbye to the suspect, nor the psychologist, and went to look for Karen and Ron, who were in a contiguous room with Mr. Stone.
—This baby is making us lose our time! I´ll bet an arm and a leg that he is making it all up!
—Gordon, please! —exclaimed Karen, pointing discretely at the youth´s father.
—I´m sorry. I´m actually giving you some good news.
—Alright, it´s better to wait on the ballistics report —mumbled Ron, trying to restore some tranquility and sanity—. We are also going to have to keep your station wagon, Mr. Stone, in order to analyze it.
James Stone, who no longer knew what to think, just nodded slightly. A part of him wanted to believe the detective blindly, to grasp hope that all of this had just been a bad nightmare, but another part of himself had serious doubts that his son were not telling them the truth.
—You´d better come with me —said Karen, taking Mr. Stone from the room and beaming her colleague Stevens a reproachful look.
—What the hell is wrong with you, Gordon? —asked Davies, at the first moment they were alone.
—Have you really not seen it? Do I really have to explain it to you?
—It´s not my business to be telling you this, but you should never assume anything. Aside from that, you have just placed the investigation at risk, and you know that perfectly well.
—The hell with it!
Suddenly Ron´s Smartphone vibrated in his jacket. The investigator answered the call and listened to the agitated voice of one of the department´s youngest agents on the other end of the line.
—Ron, you´ve got to come urgently.
—What´s the matter? You talk like you´ve just seen a ghost.
The young agent took a few seconds to answer. Surely the analogy had suddenly knocked him out and he needed to get his breath back before he could talk.
—I´m at Tom Campbell´s house. I´m with the cadaver right now.
XIV
The medical coroner judged on an unofficial basis that Tom Campbell, University of Northern Iowa security guard had been dead some three days when the police had finally found him at his house sitting in front of a folding table covered with news clippings where there were reports of Sarah´s murder and the scant progress made by investigators up to that moment.
His colleagues and the administrative staff at the university had missed him, and finally two agents had gone to the guard´s home. It seemed that he had committed suicide taking a lot of sleeping pills with a great deal of alcohol, because they found a couple of empty pill bottles at his house and a bottle of vodka that was half drunk. The autopsy determined the definite cause of death.
When Stevens and Davies got to the house, it was already cordoned off and at least four agents were proceeding with the first search. Tom Campbell´s dead body was in a horrific state, and all his skin was bruised, and one could deduce that the natural process of decomposition had very much set in.
—What have you found so far? — Ron asked the young agent that had phoned him from the house to ask him to get over there as soon as possible.
—This guy was very strange. Really strange. I don´t know how in the world he ever got the job as a security guard.
—Explain yourself, please.
The agent held out several books and DVDs. Most of them had to do with murder or autolysis, but there were some on torture or kidnapping. They were bloodcurdling.
—Hell, you don´t really know anybody until you get into their shack —mumbled Davies, while he held out these things to Stevens.
—But that´s not the worst. There´s more, much more. Follow me.
They got to a room that was almost completely covered with press potos about Sarah Brown. Almost all of them were the same image: a young smiling girl with an angel like face. There were also more clippings that described how the investigation was advancing, and the most surprising. a copy of the official report on the autopsy carried out on the student. It seemed that the guard had jotted down his own reflections on it with a pen.
—¡Heck, how the devil did the guy get a copy of the autopsy report! —exclaimed Gordon, kicking the doorframe.
—Oh Lord, it´ll be better for me to go out and get some fresh air —said the young agent, trying to be as polite as possible—, because you still haven´t seen the worst.
—What? Is there still more?
The agent guided them to a kind of trap door that led to a kind of attic on the top of the house. They had to climb up the wobbly rungs of the wooden folding ladder one by one since it was uncomfortable and narrow. The attic was a tiny and smelly room, just barely lit by a tiny window that had its pane caked with filth and with a very low ceiling that didn´t allow one to stand up.
—How disgusting! This guy makes me want to puke. Hell, I didn´t know him too much, but I thought he was a decent person —mumbled Ron, as if he were talking to himself out loud.
—Now, I want you to see this. I was not able to vomit when I discovered it.
The young agent lit up a corner of the room with her flashlight, He had built a sort of prison cell there with wire and wooden posts reinforced with sheet metal. A small door that looked like it was for a child was the only way to get in and out, and it was fixed by several thick padlocks. The floor was a mixture of straw, defecation and disgusting stains from who knows where.
—What the hell is this! —exclaimed Davies, grabbing his head with his hands, and thinking that his capacity of amazement had just broken all known records.
—A cage, Ron. A damn cage to keep a young girl kidnapped and to be able to do whatever you want to with her —replied Stevens, with a voice charged with irony and disgust.
XV
During the next two days, several agents spent time reviewing the guard´s records, and they discovered, to their amazement, that he had tried to enter the police force on numerous occasions in several different states. Normally all of this seemed to go well, but all of these attempts had come across the same obstacle: the psychological evaluation. The result had always been negative, and therefore always invalidated him as a possible agent. Finally, Tom Campbell had resigned himself to be a security guard, which was something that didn´t require such strict testing and that also allowed him in a way, to be a protector and keeper of the law.
They also discovered that it hadn´t been the first time he had been obsessed with a case, since at least on five occasions he had tried to cooperate with different county sheriff´s offices where he lived in order to clear up some or other murder. This fact from the start had provoked alarm at the police department, but they soon saw that all those cases were already solved, and that Campbell had had nothing to do with them. However, in criminalist matters it was well known that on numerous occasions the subject guilty of homicide tried to get involved in the investigation, faking cooperation: sometimes only to be informed on the progress of the investigation, and others, simply to block police work and to put t
he police agents off track.
Stevens felt euphoria for the first time since Sarah Brown´s body had been found. He felt strength to participate in all the meetings and talked excitedly with anybody that could provide the latest information on Tom Campbell. He knew that they had it. The autopsy on the cadaver had confirmed the initial hypothesis: suicide due to overdose of sleeping pills. Surely this guy had not been able to put up with the pressure, and according to his own investigation he had seen that they would catch up with him sooner or later. A sweet death, sitting at home was much better than facing a trial, and surely a life sentence to prison full of inmates anxious to take out their frustrations on a miserable creature like him that had murdered an innocent young girl that had all of her life before her. Even prisons have their own moral and ethic code that is put into practice according to unwritten rules that are applied unfalteringly.
In the meanwhile, the Cedar Falls police department received the ballistics report for the gun that Aaron Stone had supposedly used to kill Sarah Brown. Negative. It not only did not match the bullet in the victim´s cranium, but that gun had not been fired for at least a year. There was no trace of Sarah´s presence in Mr. Stone´s station wagon that was what his son according to him had used to kidnap her. There were no hairs, nor blood, nor any trace of her DNA. This suspect was discarded. What had been a severe blow for some of the agents had been a confirmation for Gordon that through evidence his intuition had not failed.
A week after the appearance of Tom Campbell´s cadaver in his house, Philips and Stevens were making an all out effort in the operations center due to their efforts to try to order documents and testimonies that turned him into the ideal suspect. Unfortunately, they still didn´t have any solid proof.
—It had to be him, Karen. All we need is to fit in another couple of the pieces of the puzzle and his macabre face will eventually appear to us.
The agent beamed back a twisted smile to her colleague. She wasn´t too sure about it. What´s more, as each day passed by, doubts seemed to attack her with more force. She just couldn´t manage to see that damn puzzle that Gordon seemed to think was so evident.
