Cole Perriman's Terminal Games (37 page)

11001
DEPOSITION

Lieutenant Michael Kelsey, director of Omaha Homicide, ushered Nolan into the police station. Still shivering slightly, Nolan brushed a cold, whitish substance off his shoulders as he walked along. He wasn’t sure if it was snow or sleet.

Not as cold as Chicago, anyway.
In fact, the temperature probably wasn’t much below freezing.

“Welcome to Omaha, Lieutenant,” Kelsey said. “How about a nasty cup of our vending machine-brewed coffee?”

“Please,” Nolan replied.

They stopped at the machine, and Nolan got himself a cup of black coffee. The hot paper cup sharply scalded his still icy fingers. He had to hold the rim of the cup delicately between his fingers, hoping not to drop it as Kelsey escorted him down a hallway. The linoleum floor was tracked with mud. Nolan guessed that the building was next to impossible to keep clean this time of year.

Kelsey was a tall, slender, dark-haired man who looked and dressed like a stereotypical cowboy, complete with a drawstring tie, a steer’s-head belt buckle, and leather boots. Nolan had noted Kelsey’s Midwestern drawl during their phone conversations, but he had guessed Kelsey to be quite a bit older—a grizzled relic of the prairie, as it were. But the Omaha detective looked young, maybe in his twenties—way too young to direct a homicide department in a city this size, at least in Nolan’s estimation.

Still, Kelsey had a confident air about him. He walked along at what appeared to be a leisurely rate, but his stride was so long that Nolan—not a short man, by any means—had to trot to keep up with him.

“I’d like to apologize on behalf of the good state of
Nebraska for all this shitty weather, Lieutenant,” Kelsey said in his amiable twang.

“No apology necessary,” Nolan replied.

“I wish I could’ve arranged for things to be a little warmer, but I just didn’t get the time. It takes a good couple of weeks to requisition nice weather in these parts—and even then, you’re lucky if the order comes through.”

“Maybe next time,” Nolan said.

“You should have been here a few days ago—about the time that jogger guy was killed. Why, we sure had a nice, dry warm spell then. I guess it got to be—oh, forty-five, forty-eight degrees. ’Course, coming from your parts, that must sound downright Arctic.”

At the end of the hallway, Kelsey opened the doorway to a conference room dominated by an enormous oval table. Three rather grim-looking people were seated inside. The fact that they had situated themselves as far away from each other as possible around the table suggested to Nolan that the gathering hadn’t exactly been cordial so far.

Kelsey introduced Nolan to each of
the people in turn. First came Melissa Finch, a prosecutor with the D.A.’s office. She had a long neck and brooding, beady eyes, and Nolan thought she looked more like a cormorant than a finch. Next came Claude Breckenridge, the suspect’s attorney. Claude was squat, chinless, and bald. And at the moment, he looked as mad as hell.

The last member of the group immediately piqued Nolan’s interest. This was Dr. Harvey Gusfield, a psychiatrist. Gusfield was affiliated with a local hospital, but did occasional forensics work for the Omaha police. Gusfield was forties-ish, clad in jeans, a sweatshirt, and a heavy corduroy jacket with patched elbows. He had a well-trimmed beard, and his longish, sandy hair was tied into an abbreviated ponytail. His legs were crossed on top of the table, and he was leaning back in his chair tearing a sheet of paper into slender strips, looking utterly bored. He certainly did not fit Nolan’s image of a mental health professional. Nolan wondered what Gusfield was doing here.

Nolan took a seat.

“I’m sure we all appreciate Lieutenant Grobowski braving our god-awful Nebraska weather to come here on such short notice,” Kelsey said, projecting his warm Midwestern hospitality.

Everybody else in the room maintained a sullen silence.

“Well,” Nolan said, starting to feel a little nervous at the stony welcome, “perhaps somebody could give me a little status report.”

“My client is innocent,” Mr. Breckenridge said sharply. “He’s been railroaded and intimidated into signing away his Fifth Amendment rights.”

“Your client is as guilty as hell,” retorted Ms. Finch. “And he’s using every sleazy trick in the book to escape a murder conviction.”

“Children, children,” Lieutenant Kelsey said, laughing softly. “Maybe I should do some filling in.” He turned toward Nolan. “Lieutenant Grobowski, as you already know, Myron Stalnaker was arrested yesterday for the murder of Howard Cronin. In many ways, Mr. Stalnaker has proven to be a model suspect—‘model’ in the sense of being impeccably behaved. He made no attempt to resist arrest. As a matter of fact, he was downright helpful when my boys showed up with the warrant. He showed them all the apparent paraphernalia of his crime—the priest’s outfit, the ski mask, and even the twenty-two caliber revolver. And when my boys brought him in for interrogation, he seemed awful upset about Howard Cronin’s death—downright remorseful, in fact.

“Trouble is,” Kelsey continued with a smile, “Mr. Stalnaker doesn’t seem to have any real recollection of actually having
killed
Howard Cronin. He admits to owning the gun, but he says he’s got no idea where the priest outfit and the ski mask came from. And he can’t account for his whereabouts or actions during the time of the murder. He claims it’s all a kind of haze.”

“Bullshit,” Ms. Finch murmured.

“Its not bullshit,” Mr. Breckenridge snapped. “How can he remember something he never did?”

“Well, if he didn’t commit the crime,” Ms. Finch responded pertly, “why does he feel
remorseful?”

“Now, now, Melissa, Claude,” Kelsey said pleasantly. “You’ll both have plenty of time to bitch and moan at each other during what I’m sure will be a long, drawn out, and expensive murder trial, and I know how much you both love to waste the taxpayers’ money. Right now, we’re just trying to give Lieutenant Grobowski the lay of
the land.”

Ms. Finch grunted. Mr. Breckenridge growled.

“Mr. Stalnaker spent last night in jail,” Kelsey explained to Nolan. “And this morning he said he wants to he hypnotized.”

“He wants to be
what?”
Nolan asked, startled.

“Hypnotized,” Kelsey repeated. “He wants to make a sort of informal deposition under hypnosis. He keeps saying that if he
did
kill somebody, he wants to know it himself—and he wants to make a statement to that effect. So that’s why we’ve brought in Dr. Gusfield, here.”

Nolan’s heart sank. He had expected to be able to take part in Stalnaker’s interrogation in his usual aggressive style.

“But does this mean that I won’t get a chance to ask him any questions at all?” Nolan sputtered.

“That remains to be seen,” Kelsey said.

Nolan could hardly believe his ears.

“With all due respect, Lieutenant Kelsey,” he said, “why did I make this trip out here if—”

“Lieutenant Grobowski, I apologize for these circumstances,” Kelsey replied. “But this situation didn’t exist until this morning. And from here on in, Dr. Gusfield calls the shots. If you want to interrogate the suspect, you’ll have to clear it with him.”

Dr. Gusfield kept tearing his sheet of paper into strips, as if oblivious to the fact that his name had even been mentioned. Nolan realized that he hadn’t yet heard Gusfield speak a single word.

Breckenridge slapped his hand against the table with noisy indignation. “I want to make sure I’m on the record as being entirely opposed to this idea,” he said. “I want it understood that my client has made this decision against the advice of counsel.”

“Claude, your objections are already in the record,” Kelsey said dryly. “In triplicate, I believe.”

“You and your hoodlums have half-hypnotized my client already,” Breckenridge continued. “You’ve already planted the suggestion that he’s committed a crime he had nothing to do with. Anyone can see he’s highly suggestible. Put him through any more hocus-pocus and he’ll admit to just about anything.”

“Claude, there’s no point in debating this issue,” Kelsey said. “Your client has signed a release, and he can’t unsign it now. He doesn’t even want to unsign it. Besides, it’s not going to be a sworn statement. I doubt if it’ll even be usable in court.”

Now Ms. Finch chimed in indignantly. “Well, it just so happens that
I’m
against this whole thing,” she said. “I’m not fooled by Claude’s theatrics. He wants his client to go through this crazy charade. It’s part of a cheap ploy to cop an insanity plea.”

“You bitch,” Claude snapped.

Nolan rolled his eyes.

Jesus, these two are worse than L.A. lawyers. So much for the Midwest being all mellow and civilized.

Kelsey was grinning broadly now. He looked as if he was used to this sort of thing—and might actually be enjoying it.

“If there’s one thing that warms my heart,” he said, “it’s when defense and prosecution cozily agree on something. The both of you think hypnosis is a lousy idea, so what’s your argument? Mr. Stalnaker’s going to get himself hypnotized, whether you like it or not. So let’s go down to the interrogation room and get on with it.”

Kelsey rose from his chair and strode out of the room. Everybody else followed single file, like a gaggle of baby geese. Nolan was starting to admire Kelsey’s style.

When they reached the interrogation room, only Dr. Gusfield actually went inside. Nolan, Kelsey, Breckenridge, and Finch all piled into an adjoining booth, behind a one-way mirror. Through the mirror, the four of them could see Dr. Gusfield and the suspect in the interrogation room without being seen themselves. A video camera was aimed through the glass, and a tape machine was running slowly.

It was rather crowded in the booth. It was hot, too, and poorly ventilated. During his career, Nolan had spent a lot of time in booths like this. Even so, he didn’t much like being cooped up with this pack of quarrelsome people. He was standing between Breckenridge and Finch, half-expecting them to scratch at each other’s eyes any second now.

Nolan gazed through the glass, studying the suspect. Myron Stalnaker was neither a pleasant- nor an unpleasant-looking man. He was plain, his face on the roundish side, his brown hair thinning slightly. He was wearing a gray vest and a white shirt. His clothes looked expensive, if rather conventional. He was probably in his late thirties. Nolan figured he was the kind of guy one might talk to every day for years and never manage to remember his name.

Gusfield sat down at the table across from Stalnaker. Gusfield smiled. It was the first sign of life Nolan had seen out of Gusfield since he had met him.

Nolan and his companions could hear both men’s voices through a small speaker in the booth.

“Myron Stalnaker, right?’ Dr. Gusfield inquired pleasantly.

“Yes,” said Stalnaker.

Gusfield reached across the table and shook Stalnaker’s hand. “My name’s Harvey Gusfield,” he said. “I’m a psychiatrist. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. Mr. Stalnaker.”

“The pleasure’s mine,” Stalnaker replied nervously but politely.

“May I call you Myron?”

“Of course.”

“And please call me Harvey.”

“Thanks. I will.”

A short pause followed. Then Gusfield said, “Listen, Myron, this is kind of awkward, but … this little session is being videotaped, as I’m sure you know, and this is supposed to be a deposition of sorts, and I’ve got to say a few rather formal things to make it—you know, kosher.”

“By all means,” Stalnaker said eagerly.

Gusfield looked at his watch. “Um, it’s Saturday, the twelfth of February, two-thirty
p.m
. I’m Harvey Gusfield and I’m talking to Myron Stalnaker and we are being observed by ... oh, hell, who all’s out there?”

Gusfield pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and began to read. “Lieutenant Michael Kelsey, Lieutenant Nolan Grobowski, Claude Breckenridge, and Melissa Finch.”

He wadded up the paper and stuffed it in his pocket.

“There,” Gusfield said with a grin. “That ought to do it. I hope I didn’t screw anything up.”

Stalnaker laughed a little.

“Now,” Gusfield said, folding his hands in front of him, “I understand that you’re deeply concerned about the killing of Howard Cronin.”

“Yes, very much so.”

“Why?”

“I feel like I … was involved in it somehow.”

“Do you think you actually committed the murder?”

“No. It was more like I was an accomplice. I’m sorry. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

Gusfield was silent for a moment. He looked at the table and began to draw little imaginary shapes on it with his forefinger.

“Myron,” Gusfield continued, “I’ve been told that you belong to a computer network called Insomnimania.”

“Yes.”

“And that you’re somehow involved with a cartoon character named Auggie.”

“That’s right.”

“Are you Auggie’s user? His operator?”

Stalnaker’s eyes shifted nervously. “I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” he said. “It’s more like Auggie uses me.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, if Auggie wants to go somewhere in the network, I sometimes move him around. If he wants to say something, I sometimes type in his words.”

“What do you mean, ‘sometimes’?”

“Well, other times, Auggie just appears to be doing these things on his own. Or maybe somebody else is moving him and typing for him. Anyway, his words don’t feel like my words, even when I
am
typing them. It feels like Auggie is actually saying them. Does that make me sound crazy?”

Gusfield chuckled softly.

“It makes you sound very creative, Myron,” Gusfield said. “Novelists say the same thing about their characters. They claim that their characters decide what to do or say, and all they do is write it down. Nobody calls Norman Mailer or Stephen King or Gore Vidal or Jackie Collins crazy, do they? Not on account of that, anyhow.”

Stalnaker smiled back at Gusfield.

“No, I guess they don’t,” Stalnaker said, seeming more and more relaxed.

While this conversation was going on, the occupants of the booth were growing increasingly agitated. The compression of bodies was rapidly raising the temperature in the already overheated chamber. The place was becoming quite suffocating.

“When’s he going to get down to business?” Breckenridge asked crankily.

“Give him time,” Kelsey said.

“I’ll give him five more minutes, and then I’m out of here,” Finch grumbled.

Nolan kept quiet, but he, too, was starting to feel more than a little impatient.

“Myron, I understand you want to be hypnotized,” Gusfield said.

“That’s right.”

“Are you sure you want to try this right now? I mean, you look awfully tired.”

“I
am
tired. You don’t get a lot of sleep in a jail cell.”