“Give me a break.” He snorted. “But how did you get those fingerprints again?”
“Purely voluntary. There had been a car broken into at the park.”
“That’s one thing you did right. My compliments. Get those boys in this afternoon. I’ll be right over. Our problems with this annoying case are nearly over. When they’re faced with hard evidence, they crumble like burnt toast.” He hung up with a perfunctory grunt.
Holly craned her head into the main office. Chipper was at one of the computers. She’d assigned him to looking into the sporadic radio connections on the southern island. In a crisis, communication lines were crucial, especially with only one coastal artery. A killer tsunami, well-documented in native oral history, could leave them as helpless as the Salish woman tossed into a tree. She fell from the branches and became a hunchback, but lived to tell a tale so amazing that it had survived without paper for three hundred years.
A mug of fragrant jasmine tea by his side, he was making notes, biting his lower lip in such concentration that he looked like a schoolboy. “Chipper,” she called. “We need you over at Edward Milne for a pickup. Tell them to send a counsellor if the parents can’t come. Whitehouse wants this done ASAP. And don’t let the boys sit together. Put one in the front.”
Holly gave serious thought to the way she had entrapped Billy, the specious reason for taking prints. But both boys had volunteered. If they had been innocent of that crime, why would they have refused? Did they play a role in Angie’s death? Within legal limitations, bringing out the truth was the goal. An officer without compassion was a danger, but too much empathy was an emotional straitjacket. She thought of Mrs. Jenkins and felt strangely disloyal.
The boys arrived at noon. Whitehouse took Billy first and Holly sat nearby, along with a mousy female counsellor who seemed more attentive to the condition of her cuticles than the unfolding scene. She wore designer jeans, plastic barrettes in her unnaturally russet hair, and a peasant blouse, giving her the appearance of a student who had stayed too long at the fair.
The shabby interview room was silent as Holly began the recording at Whitehouse’s nod. He didn’t open the window but let the heat build. Holly’s tie choked her as she fought the urge to adjust it. Sweating characters in search of an author. Opening with ponderous formalities, the Inspector stared down his long nose and used pauses like whips, watching Billy’s pupils enlarge as an open condom package was taken from a labelled brown paper bag and placed on the desk.
His eyes sought Holly’s, making her uncomfortable. “But I thought...you said—”
“We’re ready to start,” Whitehouse said. He turned to the counsellor, giving her a severe appraisal. “Ms Drew, is it? You understand that everything you hear in this office stays in this office.”
The woman cleared her throat and shifted in her chair. “My profession involves confidentiality.”
“Now, son,” Whitehouse said in a curiously avuncular tone. “You’ve said you were alone on the beach with Mike. This is not consistent with your prints on this piece of evidence.” He moved the package with a pair of tweezers, dangling it like an evil charm. “What were you both doing that night? This is your first and most important chance to tell me
your
side. We
know
what happened.” Holly looked at the Rorschach watermarks on the stippled ceiling. He was using such a hackneyed bluff, from Thirties black-and-white films to
The First 48.
Sometimes it worked. Career criminals “lawyered up”. Billy didn’t stand a chance.
Holly watched the numbers on the recorder roll. A muscle on Billy’s jaw twitched, but he said nothing. His oversized hands seemed frozen on the chair handles, until one finger began to tremble. Whitehouse narrowed his eyes like a veteran eagle toying with a rabbit. “Textbook case, Corporal. Wouldn’t you agree?” he said. “The failure to make eye contact is very suspicious.”
Billy inhaled deeply, flaring his nostrils. A pulse beat a frantic escape at the side of his neck. “I want to tell you the...the truth.”
“It’s about time, isn’t it? You should have done that from the beginning.” Whitehouse’s fist pounded the desk, then he folded his hands as if nothing had happened. Tensions rose and fell with the tides. From somewhere far away, a time-challenged rooster crowed.
Like a beaten dog, Billy shook his head and ran fingers through his heavy black hair. “I know, but it didn’t sound good.”
“We’ll be the judge of that. Go on. You’re making an honest start.”
“Not after the girl drownded...drowned. Who’s going to believe me now? Even if Mike was there.”
“Right, and he’s your buddy. What’s he going to say, other than to make you look as righteous as possible? I thought you said you were telling the truth. Smarten up.”
Righteous.
Holly winced at the Ebonics, or was it Mafiaspeak? “He wouldn’t lie for me. Not if I’d hurt someone.” His voice forced against breaking, the boy sounded wounded. Under heavy black lashes, he looked down at his patched jeans more as an embarrassment, not a minor fashion statement. A huffing sound from Whitehouse caught everyone’s attention.
Ms Drew’s eyes ricocheted back and forth as she sat rigid in her chair. A convenient prop, she knew little about why they had come together.
With a barely discernable motion from Whitehouse, Holly leaned forward, her voice soft and urgent. “So tell us, Billy, in your own words. What happened that night?”
Billy gave a long sigh, as if something deep inside ached. He tried to speak, but swallowed instead, then moistened his dry lips. “Could I have a glass of water, maybe?”
Whitehouse drummed his fingers. Holly went to the cooler, hitting the blue button and praying it wouldn’t stick and flood the floor. “Thanks, Miss, I mean Officer,” Billy said.
He finished in a few gulps, then held the glass in his large hands like a chalice. She wondered if it would break into a hundred pieces like in the movies, but he cradled it gently.
“It happened the same as I said before.”
Whitehouse leaned forward with a menacing snarl. “We’re not here to listen to that crap again. We know what happened. We only want you to explain it. I told you to—”
Holly spoke quietly, trying to establish an atmosphere of trust. “I think Billy has more to tell us, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He managed a sweet puppy-dog smile that girls would find appealing. Unlike many of his peers, his skin was clear and smooth, bronze with high cheek bones. “We had a fire on the beach. Mike was burning some sweetgrass, ’cause his mom’s been pretty sick. Like a ritual.”
“Sweetgrass. Not pot, then. Was alcohol involved?” Whitehouse’s slash of an eyebrow rose like an unfurling snail.
He shook his head. “No, ma’am, sir.” For seconds he sat silent. Outside, a heavy transport roared by. They cringed at the shrieking application of jake brakes, illegal in denser areas. Standing at rest in the corner, Chipper shot her a look as if asking whether to deal with it. She shook her head.
“Go on, boy,” Whitehouse said. “And remember, we’re not interested in small-time charges like trespassing on the damn beach or even smoking some dope. We want to know how this girl died.”
Billy put the empty glass on the table and straightened his shoulders, a man under construction. “She came up to us. About moonrise.”
Holly remembered the bike, abandoned on the path. “Walking?”
“Uh-huh.” He squeezed his eyes together. “And I...lied to you about something. I did know her. We’d seen each other at a couple of soccer games. Said hi. But we never hung out.”
“Don’t worry about that now. We’ll cover the fine points later,” Whitehouse said. His voice was speeding up, as if he smelled blood.
A quizzical look came over the boy’s handsome face. “There was something funny about her. She was walking all right, but she wasn’t herself. Maybe she’d been taking something, I don’t know.”
“Taking something? Like drugs?” Whitehouse asked, shooting a glance at Holly.
“I know she was an athlete. I can’t see how she would have done that, but things happened pretty fast.” He swiped a hand over his eyes with an ironic laugh. “Mike’s no dummy. He went off by himself for awhile.”
“By himself?” Billy gave a quick nod and dropped his gaze.
“I see. And then?” Whitehouse asked.
“Yeah, we had sex. She was really hot for it. I hardly had time to...well, you know.” He blinked in embarrassment. “No disrespect meant. I was like...what? She smiled at me last time I saw her at the July 1st fireworks. Gave me some gum. But she was with a big guy, another athlete like her. I didn’t think we’d ever—”
“How long were you intimate?”
He translated the niceties and cleared his throat. “Not long. Maybe ten minutes. Then she said she was going for a swim to...clear her head. I found Mike and we went to bed. We were due back to cut brush for my uncle, and he starts work at sun-up.”
Some enchanted evening, Holly thought. Premature ejaculation was common in young men. “And you didn’t follow her? Make sure she was safe?”
“She wasn’t staggering. She was talking slow, but she made sense. Anyways, wasn’t she a big time swimmer? The water was calm that night, no waves or anything. When she went off in the dark...” With a groan, he spread his hands in a gesture of uselessness. Perhaps he felt that his performance had disappointed her.
“And what about the meth? Did you give it to her?”
“What meth?” His tone rose three notes, and his face paled to a milky coffee. “I don’t do that stuff. Ask anyone.”
Whitehouse stood. “Meth, Billy boy. We have definitive tests. We know she took it. You’re the last person to see her.”
Billy’s face paled, and he was making an effort not to cry. It was as if he had been wading and now found himself over his head. “I don’t care how many times you ask. There...was...no... meth. I wouldn’t touch that shit.”
Whitehouse turned his back. “Stay around Port Renfrew. We’re not finished with you yet.” He gave a curt gesture towards the door.
“But don’t you believe...I mean I wouldn’t hurt...” He got up slowly, brows confused, addressing his comments to Holly. “I’ll take a poly...whatever you call it, a lie detector test. So will Mike. Isn’t that good e—”
“Put him in the car, Chipper, and stay with him,” Whitehouse said. The boys passed each other without speaking. Mike came in next. At first he stuck to the initial story, but his head hung low, and he squeezed his hands together. Any bravado he might have had vanished as Whitehouse slapped a folder on the desk, making the boy jump. “Billy told us everything about your night with Angie. Help yourself out by confirming it. It’s never too late to come clean.”
Suspicions crossed his face as if in betrayal. Mike’s self-control stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Honest.”
Whitehouse’s voice sharpened into a steely edge that sparked words. “He confessed that they had sex. The condom pack had his prints, for Christ’s sake. Don’t waste our time.”
Mike cleared his throat. A red flush came over his broad face. Unlike Billy, he had a blooming case of acne. “I don’t know. I left them alone.”
“All right. That’s better. And how was Angie acting?”
“Okay. Friendly. But I didn’t know her.” He squirmed in his chair. “Just to see around. At the A&W maybe. Who could forget a girl like that? She was a babe.”
“And when you got back?”
“She was walking along the beach like she was going for a swim. She waved, even. We turned in then. Billy didn’t say anything. He’s a quiet guy. Not much for words.”
Whitehouse added, “We know you gave her meth. She had it in her system.”
This time Mike jumped from the chair. “No way, man. We don’t use that shit. Billy never told you that. Never.” He dropped his eyes. “Sorry, sir.”
Whitehouse kept at him for another fifteen minutes, hammering the same questions every which way. Mike remained adamant that drugs had not been involved. Like Billy’s denials, his words rang true to Holly. And naming an exact time for turning in, as if he’d been waiting and checking his watch until Billy returned. It fit. What other scenarios did that leave?
“That’s enough, then. Have Ann transcribe the tapes, and get a statement for them to sign later. Take them back to school.”
After the detachment door closed, Whitehouse turned to her. “Good bluff, and it worked, but only so far. They’re the sole witnesses to what happened on the beach. They’ll both claim she walked off of her own free will. And who knows, maybe she did.”
Holly frowned and looked at her notes from an earlier telephone interview with a counsellor at Edward Milne. “I still don’t get the motivation for any harm. Those boys don’t have a record of violence. Billy is an honour student. It was opportunistic to take advantage of her, but—”
“Who wouldn’t?” He made a rude noise. “Are we living on the same planet? Was ‘Say no to sex’ mother’s best advice?”
Holly tried to keep her face neutral. She didn’t want anyone guessing at her nun-like existence. Three boyfriends in ten years. “At least he used a condom. Score one for sex ed, or health ed, whatever they call it. Both boys agreed that Angie was acting strangely. From what I’ve read, she should have felt the effects of meth a lot sooner. Why was she was able to ride that bike all the way to the beach?”
“Everyone’s different. And maybe she brought it with her.”
“From the profiles, first-time users wouldn’t take the risk of experimenting alone.”
“Anything else to suggest?” Whitehouse began packing up his papers, filing them neatly in an alligator attache case.
Holly folded her hands. Surely they hadn’t considered every possibility. “Of all the ways meth is taken, what would be the slowest to reach the nervous system?”
He pursed his broad lips, a slight cut at the edge from hasty shaving. “Ingestion, I guess. Passing through the digestive system takes longer than shooting up or snorting.”
Holly snapped her fingers. “So she could have taken it at the camp. Or had it given to her.”
“To get the best rush, she should have been smoking it. Does this all matter?”
“Billy strikes me as an honest guy. He offered to take a polygraph test.”