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“Are you familiar with a Bermudian man named Joel Cameron?”
“Y-yes. I am. Why?”
“May I ask how are you acquainted?”
“He’s my father.”
Chris could see David was getting scared. He didn’t think he’d ever seen David fear anything.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Constable Lindstrom said with that same hateful calmness, like they didn’t feel; like they weren’t fully human. “But Joel Cameron has met with foul play.”
“Foul—you mean he’s dead?” David’s normally strong voice broke. He glanced at Chris with confusion and mounting fear. “I don’t understand, I just saw him yesterday…”
“When did you see him, sir?”
Chris wasn’t surprised when the constable pulled out a notebook and began jotting things down. It was such a cop thing.
“Yesterday Chris and I went to meet him at his house in Devonshire Parish. We just flew in the day before—”
“Flew in from where?”
“The States, my parent’s place in New Hampshire, to be exact.”
“But I thought Mr. Cameron was your father.”
“My stepfather and my mother live in New Hampshire.” He glanced at Chris again. The skin around his mouth wrinkled and worry lines deepened around his eyes. “We live in Los Angeles.”
“He’s an LAPD homicide detective,” Chris interjected, wanting to put this island bobby in his place. The constable seemed duly unimpressed.
“Are you here on business, sir?
“No.” David grew more and more uneasy. “I—we came to meet my father.”
The constable wrote something. “You hadn’t met him before
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this?”
“I didn’t know he existed,” David muttered. This perked the constable right up. Chris wished David had kept silent. Something he didn’t like was running through the cop’s head, but then cops always thought the worst of everyone. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.
“I’m going to have to ask you to come to the station with me, sir.”
“The station? I don’t understand…”
“I’m afraid, Mr. Cameron, your father, was murdered last night around eleven o’clock, just east of here, near Convict Bay.
There are some questions we need to ask you.” The constable looked at Chris, dismissing him just as quickly. He indicated the patrol car. “Please, sir.”
Tuesday, 5:45pm Aunt Nea’s, Nea’s Alley, St. George’s Parish,
Bermuda
David didn’t know how many times he had done this during the course of an investigation. Whether the person being investigated was a suspect or just someone who might have information, there was always the awkward request which rarely went over well. No one wanted to be questioned by the police in the cop’s own territory. It left the civilian at a distinct disadvantage, which was the idea, of course. Confused, unstable people often gave things away that could be used later to contradict them when they tried to change their story.
David now understood that reluctance all too well. Stiffly, he nodded and advanced on the small cruiser. He glanced back once at Chris, who couldn’t hide his fear, and murmured, “It’s okay, Chris. Let me take care of this, and I’ll be right back.”
Chris didn’t look convinced, but he nodded anyway. What else could he do? The last thing David wanted was for Chris to do something harebrained and end up joining David at the police station.
Great way to start a vacation.
To David’s surprise, Lindstrom didn’t take him to the St. George’s substation. Instead they made the long trip into Hamilton and parked in front of a large white building on Parliament Street. Lindstrom led David inside. Familiar smells and sounds: the constant ring of telephones, the smell of stale sweat and testosterone lingered in the heavy air. Somewhere an air conditioner labored and a tepid breeze washed the stink across David’s face. He realized he was sweating. That never looked good to a cop. He wished he could wipe his face.
“This way,” Lindstrom said. David followed and found
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himself in a small room with a table and two scarred chairs that wasn’t made any bigger by the presence of a two-way window.
“You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so,”
Lindstrom said. “Anything you do say will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence.”
That sounded suspiciously like Lindstrom was reading him his rights. The guy was clearly a rookie. No seasoned cop would read anyone their rights until they were arrested. His heart jolted.
“Am I being formally charged?” David demanded even before the door closed on them. He didn’t wait for an answer.
“What happened to my father?”
Lindstrom indicated one of the chairs. He sat in the other, across from him. Knowing he wouldn’t get any answers unless he followed directions, David took the offered chair across the table. He leaned over the table, hands clasped in front of him.
“What happened?”
“Let’s start with your full name, address and occupation,”
Lindstrom said, pen poised over a large yellow legal pad.
David looked around. No recording device he could see, but it didn’t mean the conversation wasn’t being taped. He’d always claimed that honesty was the best way to deal with officials, but he found it easier and easier to understand why suspects lied. But he wasn’t a suspect, right? He would never have harmed his own father. So David told him.
“David Eric Laine, that’s Laine with an ‘e.’” He gave the address he shared with Chris, leaving that tidbit out. No telling what the Bermudian police would think of a gay cop. Probably not much more than the LAPD thought of them. “I’m a homicide detective, level two, for the LAPD, deployed out of the Northeast Community Police Station.”
Lindstrom scribbled away. Without looking up, he asked,
“Exactly what time did you arrive on the island?”
“Sunday morning—”
“And where are you staying?”
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“Aunt Nea’s, on Nea’s Alley, in St. George’s. Where you picked me up.” A little bit of a dig.
“How long do you intend your stay to last?”
“We’re booked for two weeks.”
“At which point you would return where? To New Hampshire or Los Angeles?”
“Uh, L.A. is my home. We’d be flying back there.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
David had deliberately avoided mentioning Chris. He didn’t want his husband dragged into this, though he knew it was unlikely the police would overlook their relationship. Everything became relevant in a police investigation.
His only thought was to minimize the impact. He knew Lindstrom wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
And he still didn’t know what this was all about. Just what did they think had happened?
“Who were you traveling with, Mr. Laine?”
“My partner, Christopher Bellamere.”
“Your partner? You mean your LAPD partner?”
“No.” David met Lindstrom’s gaze and said, “My domestic partner.”
He’d give the guy credit. He didn’t flinch. He just wrote it all down in his notepad. “And exactly what brought you to Bermuda?”
“I came to meet my father.” David knew better than to give out too much information. Too many suspects hung themselves with their own motor mouth. But with no charges being bandied about David figured it was too early to bring in a lawyer. It didn’t help that he didn’t have a clue how the Bermudian legal system worked.
“You mentioned that before. Can you elaborate?” Lindstrom asked. “What do you mean ‘meet him’? Was this your first meeting? You said something about not even knowing about
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your father. Could you explain that, please?”
David knew he had to tell the whole story. It would come out anyway, if the local police were determined enough. He folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in the chair, squarely meeting Lindstrom’s gaze.
“Up until about two weeks ago, I thought my father was dead. It’s what my mother told me, years ago. I was raised by my stepfather, who adopted me when I was only a few years old.”
“Who told you your father was dead?”
“My mother,” David ground out. “With my grandmother’s help.” Reluctantly he added, “And my stepfather. They were all involved with the lie.”
Lindstrom leaned forward, his pen hovering over his pad.
“Did anyone ever tell you why this subterfuge occurred?”
“Their excuse was they were protecting me.”
“But you don’t believe that?”
All David wanted to do was leave. He hated answering such personal questions for this total stranger. He knew Lindstrom was forming his own impressions of him, and he doubted they were positive. Cops tended to look on humanity with a jaundiced eye.
“How long have you been a police officer?”
“Nineteen years.”
“A very long time. Do you enjoy it?”
“I have…” David said edgily. Enjoy wasn’t exactly the right word, not when you were dealing with the ugliest side of human nature. But there was a definite satisfaction in solving a puzzle and delivering justice to the ones who couldn’t seek it for themselves. He had to wonder what this young constable knew about that aspect. He looked green enough to be a wet-behind-the-ears rookie. And how much real crime did a place like Bermuda even get? Clueless. “It’s a decent job.” Then he blurted,
“What happened to my father?”
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Lindstrom studied his notes again, as though he hadn’t already memorized every word. “Tell me again what happened yesterday when you met your father.”
He should be used to this. Cops never answered questions, they only asked them. He recounted the previous day, the initial meeting, the trip out to the Dockyards and their arrival back at Joel’s. He left out Chris’s extravagant purchase or the jeering youths in the car. He did recount how Joel’s other sons had shown up, but not the ugly words that were exchanged.
Like most cops, Lindstrom had a strong instinct for lies and mistruths and things left out. From the skeptical look on his face, he knew David wasn’t being completely honest, but before he could challenge David, there was a knock at the door. Lindstrom opened it to reveal an older, white police officer, whose gaze quickly scanned the room, skimming over David, then returning to Lindstrom. He had three bars on his black jacket, unlike Lindstrom, who had none.
“Thank you, constable. I’ll take over from here. Leave your notes.”
The new man took the seat Lindstrom vacated and scanned the notepad in front of him.
“Mr. Laine? My name is Detective Sergeant Stewart MacClellan. I understand you’re an LAPD detective.”
“That’s true.”
MacClellan then asked David all the questions he had already answered. Another standard operating procedure. Always ask the questions again and again, word the questions a different way, put them in a different order, all geared to try and trip the guilty up. A good interviewer could wring confessions out of even the most recalcitrant suspect just by twisting them around so they contradicted their first set of lies. Sometimes they even wrung them out of the innocent.
David repeated his answers, refusing to show the impatience boiling through him, wishing they’d get to the point.
“Did you see your father after yesterday afternoon?”
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David hesitated. He knew eventually they would talk to Chris and if he said anything that contradicted David’s statement, the shit would really fly. It might even get Chris into trouble.
“Yes,” he said. “He called me last night and wanted to meet.”
“And did you?”
David nodded and braced for the next question.
“What time did you meet?”
“It was just after ten when I left Aunt Nea’s,” David said.
“Joel wanted to meet down in King’s Square, since he knew I wasn’t driving. Instead of picking me up, he said. It was simpler. I got the impression he didn’t tell his family where he was going…
But once we met up he wanted to walk—I assumed it was to get more privacy.”
“Why would that be, detective?”
Good question. “I think some of his family was giving him a hard time.”
“About what? About you?”
“Yes.”
“What time did you leave him?” MacClellan scratched more notes. “What did you talk about?”
“Nothing much. Cricket,” David allowed.
“Kind of late to be out talking about nothing but cricket, especially if he was doing it behind his family’s back. He called you, you say, there must have been something he thought was important.”
“I guess he changed his mind.”
Easy to tell MacClellan didn’t believe him. But David was damned if he was going to air his family’s dirty laundry to this officious prick. “What time did you leave Mr. Cameron?”
“I don’t recall, about an hour later, I guess.”
“Be more specific, Mr. Laine,” MacClellan asked. “What time did you leave your father?”
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“Are you accusing me of something, Sergeant?”
MacClellan studied a second piece of paper. This one was a computer printout. He raised cool blue eyes to stare at David.
“Should I be, Detective?”
“No,” David said. “When I left my father, he was fine. And no, I didn’t see anyone else around the area at the time. What exactly happened to my father?”
“He was attacked and badly beaten. It appears he tried to drag himself away from the wharf, perhaps to his vehicle, which we found this morning, the door still unlocked. Someone returned later and when they discovered him still alive, took a knife to him. Our initial tests confirm it was probably a fish-gutting knife.
Whoever it was, moved him into the brush beside the road. He wasn’t found until well after sunrise.”
David felt sick. “And you think I had something to do with this?”
“Did you?”
“No!” David squeezed his hands into fists. Sweat popped out on his forehead; he hoped MacClellan didn’t notice but knew he had. It was the first thing he would have looked for in an interrogation. Stress signs that indicated your interrogation was drawing blood. “Where’s your DNA evidence? Your trace—”