Heard a rap on the glass behind me that made me turn. “Hey, Joe.” Kabe’s muffled greeting came from the sally port to the interrogation area. Jess walked him on in through the security door.
Had to just grin at his voice. The tone kinda said he weren’t happy to be here but, even if he didn’t want to admit it, he might be glad to see me all the same. Given everything we had going recently, I’d hang on to any little thread of hope I could. “You got it?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “My uncle, T, brought it in, then he went over to the cafe.”
“Here. I ain’t your butler.” Jess handed me over a soft-sided rifle case. Then he jerked head towards Kabe. “Made me carry the darn thing in. Didn’t even want to touch it.”
I unzipped the side and pulled the rifle on out of the leather case and gave Kabe a sideways stare. “Why didn’t you just bring it on down?” Cupping the stock in my left hand, I pushed down on the loading gate with my ring finger and caught the rounds in my right hand. Did it until it the tube was empty. Then I cycled it once to make sure a round wasn’t in the chamber. Took me all of three seconds to make sure the rifle was unloaded. “Didn’t need to haul T down the mountain or make Jess step-n-fetch.”
“Hello?” Kabe snorted and rolled his eyes. “Probation.” He pointed to his own chest and added, “Felon. Not about to be even touching the damn thing.” Then he added a shudder. “I don’t even like being here. Reminds me too much of a couple years I’d just rather forget.”
The sheriff snorted up half a laugh at Kabe’s attitude as he pointed at the weapon in my hand. “What you got there, Joe?”
It was obvious I had a rifle, but I kinda knew what my boss fished for. “Lever action Marlin .30-.30.” Inspected it as I talked, “Seen it at T’s place. Austin emailed me a picture of him with the rifle he lost in case we found it up on Mount Dutton.” Deep blued metal, dark butt cap on a scarred walnut stock with a factory mounted scope…wasn’t an exact match, but good enough for government work. “Recalled T’s and they got all the same scope, finish and such on ‘em.”
“Didn’t want it for Trey?” I think my boss figured why I’d asked Kabe to bring in the Marlin.
Shook my head. “That boy’s cold.” I figured I couldn’t raise the hairs on the back of his neck if I dropped ice down his shirt. “There ain’t much that could rattle him.” Sorta swung the barrel in the direction of the room holding the other boy. “Cooper. Cooper’s going to react.”
Kabe stared at me like he done thought I lost my mind. “You’re going to tell him that’s Austin’s gun?”
In response, Jess and Sheriff Simple rolled their eyes, I just grinned. “Ain’t gonna
tell
him nothing.” Fished out the evidence tag I’d stuck in my back pocket. “I’m going to imply a lot.” Then I tied the tag to the trigger guard.
“Ah.” Kabe propped his butt and the heels of his palms against the ledge of the viewing window between the sally port and us. “Wouldn’t like a gun that’s been outdoors for a month be all rusted or some shit?”
“Probably.” Actually, it’d be filthy as all get out. I shrugged. “It’s not like he knows what we’ve been doing with it between then and now.”
“So you think he’s stupid enough to fall for it.” That was the sheriff’s question.
“Naw.” I picked up my file again and sandwiched it in between my fingers and the forestock of the rifle. “I don’t think Cooper’s stupid at all. Boy’s not one for schooling, but he ain’t dumb.” Then I stepped over to the door interview room where Cooper still paced. “What I think he is, is guilty as all sin. And this,” I patted the rifle with my free hand, “it’s like putting ice down someone’s back. He’s gonna be pretty sure it ain’t the gun…but he ain’t gonna be a hundred percent sure.” Felt my grin go a little bit mean, cain’t say that I didn’t sometimes enjoy messing in someone’s head…least if it got a suspect to turn. “And that little bit of maybe is gonna nibble on the back of his mind.” Then I took a deep breath and headed in to shake up Cooper.
Cooper froze in place the moment I walked in. Stood there for a bit as the door closed behind me. Let him get a feel for how big I was and how small the room was with both of us in it. Plus, the rifle in my hand, with that little piece of paper dangling from the trigger guard, well, there weren’t enough space in the place for it. “Well, hello, Cooper. How you getting along?” I grinned, big and wide, and set that rifle right in between us. Kept my hand on the forestock as I settled down into my seat and waited. “Sit yourself on down.” As he eased into the other seat, Cooper’s eyes did just what I expected; followed that rifle like it was a snake about to bite him. In a manner of speaking, it likely was. “So, you been thinking about anything you want to talk to me about?”
“Ah.” He swallowed hard.
See, now I knew Cooper’d already been read his rights—I did it when I’d brought him in. I could just jump right in and swim. I rapped my knuckles on the barrel of the rifle and made it rattle against the table. “No matter how many times I watch those, you know, crime scene shows on TV,” sorta did a slow shake of my head, like I really was floored, “it amazes me what they can do with science these days.”
Cooper’s face went a little gray. “Like what?” I could have snapped his words like a rubber band, his voice had gone so tight.
“Lots of things.” Consciously, but trying to look like I weren’t thinking on it, I touched the rifle where folks would normally put their hands and cheek to fire it. “You know, with fingerprints and DNA and all that stuff.” Then, like I’d caught myself giving away something, I kinda straightened up and moved my hands off the weapon. “Never had much of a head for science though. I just know what they tell me.”
The table started to rattle a bit. Figured it was from Cooper’s knee doing a mile-a-minute jig against it. “What have they been telling you?”
“All sorts of things.” As if the thought suddenly occurred to me, I rolled my eyes. “Oh, you know, you’ll be happy to hear that Chris is okay.”
“Chris?” Another level of color dropped out of the boy’s skin.
“Yeah, he’s living down in Cedar City these days.” Let that thought hang heavy between us for a bit. “Had a talk with him about things.” I rocked back in my chair, crossed my arms over my chest and stared down the bridge of my nose at Cooper. My expression and my tone went grim. “Boy had a lot to say.”
Cooper tried to put up a brave front and stare me down, but his eyes kept drifting back to the rifle. “Oh.”
I’d snared him, now it was time to pull the noose tight. “Trey and I had a nice chat as well.”
“About what?”
“About Lane.” I took it slow. “About what Chris saw.” Gave my words time to sink in as I talked. “See I tracked Chris down just after Christmas and he told me all about the fight y’all had, and the rifle.” The trick to playing someone is to tell them what you know and imply that you know a heck of a lot more than those little bits. “How you tossed it out the window and where.” Then sometimes, you had to throw in a bit of fibbing. “Trey, well, he’s saying a lot of things, about you, how it was all your idea and everything. I’m fair certain he’s gonna lay it all on you, but I know…” Actually, I figured that weren’t a lie. Trey came across as the type of fellow who’d throw a friend under the bus if it saved his own skin. “I know you ain’t that kinda man.” Figured also that Cooper knew that about Trey as well. I offered him his way out, “So why don’t you tell me your side of the story. You ain’t the sorta fella who would decide to leave his friend’s body up out there for the coyotes and crows and not feel bad about it all.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sounded like he knew all about what I was talking about.
“Let me start it out for you.” I leaned in and folded my hands on the table. “You all found Austin up there. See, I talked to him too. Austin I mean.” Now I gave him his second out. “And things, well, they just got out of control, didn’t they?”
Cooper sagged into himself. “Yeah.”
“So why don’t you tell me what happened.” I smiled, all friendly like. “Give me your story so I know your side of things.”
“Shit.” Cooper propped his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. “Damn, it all just went wrong.”
I prodded. “What went wrong?”
“Everything.” That came out all mumbled through his fingers. “Nobody meant to do nothing.”
“I understand that.” Gave him a little sympathy so’s to keep Cooper talking.
Now Cooper rocked back, stared up at the ceiling and huffed out, “Trey got pissed. He got like he does.” A world of loss blew across his face. “Like my dad does when he’s all wound up. We didn’t mean to do nothing. I didn’t do nothing.”
I leaned in. Spoke soft. “What’d you not mean to do, Cooper?”
“None of it.”
Hated repeating myself. “So what happened up there?” Somehow I had to pull what I needed out of Cooper.
“It was all just a mess.” The boy darn near sobbed it out. “Nobody meant for nothing to happen.” He spent a fair moment just rubbing his face with his palms, then he dropped his hands and maintained, “It just went all wrong.”
“What went wrong?” I tried to keep the frustration out of my tone.
“Everything.” I gave it maybe a minute before Cooper completely broke down. “All of it.”
I don’t know how many more rounds of that we finally played. By the time I gave it up, Cooper was crying and I was ready to beat his head against the table. I mean, I didn’t show it, but even my patience only had so much give. And this loop Cooper’d gotten himself on, well I think we both needed a break so he could step back from it a moment. It’s just one of those senses you develop as an officer. Some folks you have to push right up, so that they’re looking at that thousand foot drop before they’ll come clean. Others, like Trey, well they’re willing to risk the fall ‘cause they think it’s like a painting on some cartoon, an illusion of sorts. And then there’s guys like Cooper who fall apart at the mention of the cliff and they ain’t even nowhere near it. Someone like that, you got to give them a bit of space to process it all.
I gathered up my stuff and the rifle and told Cooper I’d send in a pop and some chips or something in a bit. Then I got myself on out of that room. Shut the door behind me and leaned on it. Sheriff Simple, Jess and Kabe all looked up from the monitor. I don’t know as I’d have let my boy stay, but since it hadn’t been my call, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over the decision.
“Please, Heavenly Father,” I sent up a short prayer as I pushed away from the wall and took the couple steps over to the viewing console, “make that idjit come to his senses so I don’t have to go through more of that.” I dropped the file on the desktop before I pulled the evidence tag off the lever on the rifle.
Jess picked up the file and used it to point towards our section of the building. I nodded a yes to his unspoken offer to file it back in the cabinet for me. Jess headed out. Probably had a hundred things to do that this little party sidetracked him off of.
“That’s it?” Kabe used his heels to roll his chair back. “You’re not going to, like, get him to confess?”
“No, boy.” I grinned as I started to tuck T’s rifle back in its case. “It ain’t like TV. Even when they
confess
, most guys don’t come out and say ‘I shot him,’ or nothing like that.” Be nice if they did. Once in a while you got someone either so guilty or so drunk they’d spill like that…but not most folks. “They give you enough to know they’re guilty, but most can’t admit what they done to you, heck, most can’t admit it to themselves.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Well.” My boss answered that question. “We got enough to hold them for a while.” He set about making sure the recording had taken and then buttoned up the console. “Let’s see what a night in county lockup does.”
I liked the idea. “Put ‘em through booking and get ‘em some stripes.”
“Stripes?” Kabe looked at me all funny.
“Black and white.” Some places went for orange or blue jumpsuits. A lot of jails in Utah, like Garfield County, wanted to remind the inmates they weren’t wearing hospital scrubs. “Just like the old movies.”
My boss finished up with the computers. He swung his chair out, rocked back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Shall we take ‘em on the long walk?” He had a snake-bite grin on his face as he asked.
It was Sheriff Simple’s turn to get one of Kabe’s confused as all get out looks. “What?”
He laughed. “We walk ‘em down the tier and let them get a taste of what’s going to happen.”
“Look, see, there’s two ways to get to booking.” I pointed off in the direction of the of the Garfield Sheriff’s office. “We go through that door, across the lobby and past dispatch to this long hall that ends at booking.” Then I swung my arm off to indicate where the rows of cells sat just beyond a thick, concrete wall. “Or, we go out that door, through sets of security doors with the jail guys opening each door for us with their keys. And then we walk past all the cells and through another set of doors, across the yard and into the back end of booking.” I knew that Kabe, having been in prison, would understand the whole emotional impact we wanted from that journey. Although, we didn’t give everyone that treatment. “You come in on a DUI, you get the shortcut. These boys, we want them to see, hear and smell where they’re going to spend the night before we give them their stripes.”
Sheriff Simple jumped in again. “The guys we have here on contract, they ain’t hard, but they’re gonna have their fun with two young’uns coming in. Cat-calls, threats and the like. They don’t get much fun. And they like to have their jokes.”
“Probably hole one of them up with Karl, maybe put Cooper in with him.” I shrugged. “‘Cause Karl will tell him what he’s seen and been through.” For someone as edgy as Cooper, Karl might just get what I couldn’t. “Man’s seventy-something now, half blind, mostly deaf, couldn’t hurt a flea if he tried, but he’s a lifer. He’s a trustee, maintains the outside grounds for us.” I kinda needed Kabe to know I wasn’t throwing Cooper to the sharks. “State sent him here to keep him from being abused.” Karl, under the supervision of the greenest corrections officer we had, kept the grass mowed and the flowers around the entrance nice come summer. “He will fill that boy’s head with things most folks just don’t want to know about.” All sorts of things I kinda knew Kabe seen firsthand. Not that he’d told me, but my boy tended to talk in his sleep. “Scare Cooper through and through and maybe he’ll give it up in the morning.” I looked at the room holding my other suspect. “Trey, I think, we’ll just put him alone with his thoughts.”