To Play the Fool

by Laurie R. King

  “So you’re saying you do this as some kind of religious exercise?” Hawkin asked bluntly. Kate couldn’t decide if he was acting stupid to draw Sawyer out or because he was irritated.

  “I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but ignorance.”

  “Then I guess I must be burning in sin,” snapped Hawkin, “because I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  Sawyer sat back again with his fingers across his stomach and eyed Hawkin for some time, his head to one side, before making the stern pronouncement, “A living dog is better than a dead lion.” Kate glanced at him sharply and saw a sparkle of mischief in the back of his eyes. He looked sideways at her and lowered one eyelid a fraction. Hawkin did not see the gesture, but he was staring at the man with suspicion.

  “What does that mean?” he demanded.

  “He who blesses his neighbor in a loud voice, rising early in the morning, will be counted as cursing.”

  “Look, Mr. Sawyer—”

  “Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.”

  “Mr. Sawyer—”

  “He who walks with wise men becomes wise, but the companion of fools will come to harm.”

  Hawkin stood up abruptly, his face dark. “All right, take him back to the cells—” he began, but he was drowned out by Sawyer’s sudden loud stream of words.

  “A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of fools,” he asserted. “Like a thorn that goes into the hand of a drunkard, is a proverb in the mouth of fools. Like snow in summer or rain at the harvest, honor is not fit for a fool. A man without—”

  The door closed behind Al Hawkin, and Sawyer, on his feet now, stood tensely for a moment, then relaxed and smiled at Kate as if the two of them had just shared a clever joke. “A man without self-control,” he said slyly, “is like a city broken into and left with no walls.” He sat down again.

  Kate did not smile back at him. “Why do you antagonize people? Al Hawkin’s a good man. Why make an enemy of him?”

  Sawyer shrugged. “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes. A fool speaks his whole mind.”

  “That’s exactly what we’re trying to get you to do, David. Your whole mind, not just the games.”

  “It is a happy talent to know how to play.”

  She leaned forward, her arms flat on the table. “Do you really take death so lightly?”

  “Remember, we all must die.”

  “And you honestly think that justifies murder? You?” she said pointedly. “Think that?”

  The ghostly presence of Kyle Roberts visited the room, and on the other side stood his innocent victims: Kate saw in the worn face across the table that Sawyer felt them there. He finally broke her gaze, and his throat worked before he answered.

  “What greater pain could mortals have than this: to see their children dead before their eyes?”

  “You know, I’d have thought that would make you more willing to help us, not less.” He did not answer. “All we want is for you to talk to us. No games, just talk.” Still nothing; but she had not expected a response. Time to end it. “You’re tired, David. Think about it for a while, see if you don’t change your mind. We’ll continue this discussion later.”

  Kate stood up, went to the door, and looked on as the guard prepared to take Sawyer back to his cell. The prisoner paused in the doorway, with the guard’s hand on his elbow, and looked down at Kate.

  “I well believe thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know. And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.” He turned and allowed himself to be led away. She went back into the interrogation room and turned off the tape recorder, then took out the tape and carried it downstairs, where she slid it into the other machine that stood on Hawkin’s desk and waited while he ran the tape back a short way and listened. Erasmus ranted; the door slammed; Kate’s voice reproved their suspect; he answered her. When the tape clicked, Hawkin switched the machine off.

  “Well done. That’s just what I had in mind. We’ll let him stew today. I’ll lead another session tomorrow morning, and then you can take over. Stop by and hold his hand for a few minutes before you go home today, okay?”

  “If you say so.”

  “I want him softened up. The DA’ll have him sent off for psychiatric evaluation the first part of the week. If we keep him longer than that and then they decide he really is nuts, we’re risking a harassment charge.”

  “Is it really necessary, the evaluation?”

  “For Christ sake, Martinelli, the DA couldn’t possibly take it to trial without. You heard him in there. He was raving. It may be an act, but after forty-eight hours in custody, it isn’t likely to be drugs or booze.”

  “I don’t know, Al. He makes a weird kind of sense.”

  “Weird’s the word for it.”

  “I mean it. I think I’ll make a copy of that tape, if you don’t mind.”

  “Studying it for secret meanings?”

  “I thought I might have it translated.”

  Twenty-One

  But after all, this man was a man.

  On Sunday afternoon, Kate assembled her team of translators. They met at the house on Russian Hill to avoid the problem of transporting Lee’s wheelchair up and down stairs. At two o’clock, Kate left the house and drove across a rain-lashed San Francisco to fetch Professor Whitlaw, and when they returned, they found Dean Gardner already ensconced in front of the fire in the living room.

  On her trip out, Kate had stopped to photocopy the transcripts of the first two interviews, both the abortive one from Friday morning and the longer but even less productive Saturday session. The one from Sunday morning had not yet been transcribed, but she had the tapes from all three.

  Coffee and tea and the preliminary rituals were dispensed and then Kate handed out Friday’s interview. The rain on the windows sounded loud as Lee, the dean, and the professor all dove into the pages with the quick concentration of people who live by the written word, all three with pencil in hand. Kate followed more slowly behind them. She had two pages yet to go when the two academics and then Lee began to discuss what they had read, but since she knew how the story ended, she allowed her stapled sheaf to fall shut.

  “I should make a couple of comments about what you’ve read. First, Inspector Hawkin’s abrasiveness was more or less deliberate, and certainly he played it up when Sawyer responded to it. In the first two sessions, the idea was to make me look like a paragon of understanding; for some reason Erasmus—Sawyer—had already responded to me, and there was a degree of rapport before his arrest.”

  “Good heavens,” said the professor. “Do you mean to tell me that isn’t just an invention of the television police dramas? There is even a name for the technique, isn’t there?”

  “Good cop, bad cop,” suggested the dean.

  “That’s right.”

  “We use it a lot,” answered Kate, “though it’s not as simple as it sounds. Perpetrators—the accused—are human beings, and most of them want to be told that they’re not really all that bad. Sympathy is a much more effective tool, whether you’re in an interrogation or in a street confrontation, than swagger and threat. All we did was exaggerate an existing situation to emphasize the contrast and make me appear, frankly, on his side.”

  “And was David taken in by this little play, Inspector?”

  “Professor Whitlaw, your friend David is a tired, confused seventy-two-year-old man who has been living in a carefully constructed dream for the last ten years. I think he is partially aware that he is being gently manipulated, and I think he is allowing it.

  “I want to be up front about this. What I’m looking for is a way of making David Sawyer talk. I could tell you it’s for his own good; I could even tell you I want to help acquit him of the charges because I don’t think he’s guilty, but I’m not going to bullshit you. I don’t know if he did it or not. I think he would be capable of hitting out in a moment of great ange
r; I think most people are. I do not believe it was premeditated, and, in fact, I think the charge will be reduced next week.

  “So. What I’m saying is this: Yes, I’m a cop, and yes, it is my job to compile evidence against your friend. There may be things you don’t want to tell me, and there are sure to be things I’m not going to tell you. Are those ground rules acceptable?”

  Professor Whitlaw looked determined and nodded, Dean Gardner looked devious and reached for the Saturday transcript, and Lee—Lee was looking at Kate as if she’d never seen her before.

  “Hey,” said Kate with a shrug. “It’s what I do.”

  Lee let out a surprised cough of laughter and shook her head. Kate handed her the transcript.

  Kate did not bother to read along, as the session was clear enough in her memory. Instead, she went into the kitchen to make another pot of coffee and put on the kettle for Professor Whitlaw’s tea, and as she stood and waited, her eyes went out of focus and she thought about what she had just told them.

  A great deal of any police officer’s time is spent on the thin line that divides right from wrong. Representatives of Good, cops spend most of their life in the company of Bad, if not Evil, and often find more to talk about with the people they arrest than with their own neighbors. In a fair world, ends do not justify means; to a cop, they have to.

  She had gone to see Erasmus on Friday before she left, as Hawkin had asked. She found him sitting on the bunk in his cell, his eyes closed and his lips moving in a murmur of prayer or recitation. His head came around at the sound of her approach and he watched her come in, his eyes neither welcoming nor antagonistic, simply waiting. She sat down on the bunk next to him.

  “Hello, Erasmus. David. Are you comfortable?” She laughed at the sweep of his eyes. “Yeah, I know, stupid question. What I meant was, can I bring you anything?”

  “O, thou fairest among women!” he said in wan humor.

  “I don’t know about that. Something to eat tomorrow? Jail food isn’t the greatest.”

  “The bread of adversity and the water of affliction.”

  “I hope it’s not quite that bad.”

  “The abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep,” he said in a gentle refusal of her offer.

  “I wasn’t offering rich abundance, but I might stretch to a cheese sandwich and some fruit.”

  His eyes lighted up at the last word, though he did not say anything.

  “Nothing else?”

  He hesitated, then said, “I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here.”

  “Your books? From your backpack. Yes, I’ll have them brought to you. Writing materials? Another blanket?”

  He smiled a refusal, then his right hand came up and nestled into his neck, his index finger stroking his beard. He cocked his eyebrow at her. “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me,” he suggested.

  “Um, your staff? I’m sorry, I don’t think I could get that approved.” Even if I could get the laboratory to hurry up with it, she thought.

  He shrugged a bit wistfully. “Naked came I into the world, and naked shall I return. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

  She hesitated and then risked a joke. “I don’t think even Inspector Hawkin himself thinks he’s God.”

  His smile was warmly appreciative, but somehow she got the uncomfortable feeling that she’d given something away. She stood up, and he rose with her.

  “I’ll see if I can get your books released tonight, and I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”

  He surprised her by putting up a finger to stop her, then bent down to look into her face. “Be strong, and of good courage,” he told her. “Be not afraid.” And when she could find no answer to that, he merely touched her shoulder and, sitting back down on the too-short bunk, said, “I will lay me down to sleep, and take my rest.”

  That last little episode was what she had had in mind when she said that David Sawyer was cooperating with his seduction. He knew what she was doing, and moreover he knew what it was doing to her.

  No, she did not like cozying up to that old man in order to pry him loose from his secure rest; she was honest enough with herself to admit that she felt dirty using his affection against him. Feeling dirty was, of course, an occupational hazard, and so far it had never kept her from doing her job.

  But all in all, she would much rather play bad cop.

  The readers in the living room were coming back to life and the coffee had finished dripping, so she moved back out to be hostess for a few minutes. When the cups were full and hot, she paused, the tape of the Sunday session in her hand.

  “Al Hawkin was not there this morning. This was partly technique but mostly because he had other commitments.” (As if Al would allow previous commitments to stand in the way of an important interrogation session unless it was toward a greater goal, Kate thought to herself.) “I conducted the interview” (stick with that less-loaded term) “and another sat in—and only sat in. I don’t think she said a word the whole time, except for saying Hello when I introduced her to Erasmus. Sorry—Sawyer.”

  “His nom de folie does seem to fit him better than the workaday David Sawyer,” agreed Dean Gardner.

  Kate slipped the cassette into the player and sat down with a cup of coffee. Her own voice came on, sounding stifled and foreign as it always did, with the formalities, then explaining to the prisoner Hawkin’s absence and Officer Macauley’s presence. After that the interview began.

  The recording, on more than one cassette, ran for nearly three hours, and there was even more silence on it than Kate remembered. Long stretches of silence. Many questions were unanswered, or perhaps unanswerable; at other times, remarks were offered that seemed to have nothing to do with Kate’s questions—even at the time, Kate had thought that the pronouncements seemed plucked out of thin air. Hawkin, on the telephone afterward, had been greatly encouraged: There had been no antagonism, and he had interpreted Sawyer’s mute periods as the first signs of stress, the lapse of confidence that would open him up. Kate was not sure of that. She had been in the room with Sawyer and she had witnessed no lack of confidence. If anything, he seemed to be reconciling himself to his surroundings. When he came into the room, he stood easily in himself, he submitted to the handcuff rituals without noticing them, and he was beginning to look with interest at his jailers and fellow prisoners. Last night, the guards had told Kate, he had sung to the other inmates and read from his book of poetry. It had been, she was informed, the calmest Saturday night in a long time.

  No, Kate did not think Erasmus was building up to a revelation; she was afraid he might be settling down to a new home.

  Had the tape recorder been voice-activated, the tape they were listening to might have run under two hours. As it was, by the time it ended, Kate was laying out plates and forks and the cold salads Jon had left for them. They helped themselves and carried their plates and glasses back to the sofas and the fireplace. Kate shoveled a few bites down and then opened her notebook.

  “Now,” she began, “there are two reasons I’ve asked you to help me with this. The first, as I mentioned, is that one of you might have an idea about how we can get David Sawyer to talk to me about the murdered man. The other is to help me decipher what he’s already told us. It would take me years to track down the references and meanings you probably know instantly.”

  “I don’t know about Professor Whitlaw,” began the dean.

  “Eve, please,” murmured the professor.

  “Eve, then. But it would take me hours to figure out sources for most of the quotes Erasmus uses.”

  “I don’t think we need all of them. How about if we concentrate on the ones that don’t seem to have much bearing on the question that we’re asking at the time.”

  “What do you hope to gain?” the professor asked doubtfully.

  “I won’t know unless I find it. You see, in an investigation like this we may ask a hundred use
less questions for every one that turns out to be of importance. The hope is that a thread end may appear in the process.”

  “The method is not precisely scientific,” said Professor Whitlaw, sounding disapproving.

  “That side of it is not. It’s an art rather than a science,” Kate stated, hoping she sounded confident rather than apologetic. The dean and the professor seemed satisfied, though the therapist lowered her gaze to her plate and did not respond.

  “For example. Dean Gardner, when—”