CHAPTER
15
F
ootsteps and voices came from outside the door. John figured if he looked around, he might find a camera in the corner of the ceiling pointed down on him. He glanced to his right and spotted it.
They're watching
?
Probably.
What did they think he was doing as he stared at the floor? Reliving his crime? Would they laugh if they knew he'd examined his cuffs and thought about the history of metal fabrication?
Probably not.
They seemed to think he killed girls. That he was the Bedroom Killer. He wasn't. They had no evidence on him, and he would probably have alibis for the other killings. Or would he? He spent most of his days alone. Who could vouch for him?
The door to Interrogation Room N
umber 1 swung open, and Bell stepped in, followed immediately by a female cop, causing John to jump in his seat as the air rushed into the small room. The quick turn of his head caused the nerve in his right cheek to send an electrical shot of pain to his brain for a brief second, which in turn, caused John to wince and blink his eyes.
The woman
carried a chair, and Bell held a file folder and a paper sack.
She put
the chair down next to the table, then sat in another chair. Bell set the paper sack on the floor next to the empty chair and pulled out a stuffed, brown teddy bear. He placed it squarely in the middle of the chair, turning it to face John. He looked at the bear, then at the officers as they went about opening their file folders, snapping their pens, and preparing for the interrogation. Bell scanned the pages in front of him as if they held vital information.
"Doctor Randall,
as you know, I'm Detective Gerald Bell. This is my partner, Detective Megan Ash."
"Why am I here?"
"You're here concerning the incident you were involved in last night. You do remember that don't you, John?"
"I remember."
John said.
"I understand you'd been doing some drinking
, so I wasn't sure if you'd recall it or not.”
"I remember."
His eyes tightened, shifting from Detective Bell to Detective Ash..
"Where do you work, Dr. Randall
?" Ash asked.
"I'm on disability
. I worked at Greenwood Hospital. Emergency room."
"That's where we picked you up, isn't it
, Dr. Randall?" Bell asked.
Bell
had a smug look on his face.
Must be the bad cop.
"Is it
? I don't recall." His tone was serious.
"What
? You remember the incident, but you don't recall being arrested at the hospital?"
John said nothing
.
"We've taken statements from Nurse Atwood and Drs. Turner and Larson," Ash
said.
"They have nothing to do with this."
"I know—" Ash started to say before Bell cut her off.
"To do with what, John?"
John said nothing. Bell leaned forward.
"What happened to your face, John
?" Bell asked.
"Don't you know?"
"I'd rather you told me."
"I
…"
John
moved his head away as he thought about the gunshot and, as he did so, his eyes landed on the teddy bear.
What the hell was with the bear?
And then, without notice, his thoughts turned to Trevor and his dinosaur collection. Stuffed toys, plastic dinosaur models, dinosaur posters. He was a dinosaur freak.
"John?"
He snapped out of his daydream and turned to face Ash as she read from her file. "Were you parked at 1736 Date Avenue earlier this morning, about one thirty a.m.?"
John said nothing.
"You used to live there?" Bell asked.
John took a moment before answering.
"Yes."
"With your wife
, Paulette, and son, Trevor?" Ash asked.
John shook at the cold mention of their names, as if this lady were reading items from a grocery list
. John was growing tired of this, and they were just getting started. He was innocent. He was no killer. He peered across the table at the female detective's hand. Her pencil shook. He looked closer and could tell it wasn't the pencil shaking, but her fingers. They trembled.
"You
—" he started to say to her, but Bell cut him off, which John had come to expect by now.
"John?"
"And now you live on Sonoma—1507?" Ash asked.
"Yes."
Ash flipped the sheet in front of her and read the next page. She looked up at John, then back down at the sheet.
"Your wife and son died in a car accident?"
John didn't answer. He stared at the teddy bear, and his eyes welled up. How could his wife and son have anything to do with this?
Yet he knew they did
. But it wasn't their fault.
How would Paulette
have felt if she knew her name was thrown about in a murder interrogation? She was a very proud and private woman. She would've been so embarrassed. How would she have felt knowing that less than twelve hours ago John sat outside their home with a gun to his chin?
It was so unfair
. He didn't belong here. He didn't do anything wrong. Paulette didn't do anything wrong. Trevor was just a kid. He didn't deserve any of this. None of it was their fault. They were innocent.
"Is that bothering you, John?"
Detective Bell said.
John's eyes blinked and he focused on Bell
, who leaned forward, his eyes locked on John's.
"What?"
"I said is that bothering you? The teddy bear," Bell said again, with his finger pointing toward the bear.
"No," John said, confused by the question.
"Are you sure…cuz I can move it if you want me to."
And with that
, Bell reached over and slid the chair a foot closer to John, banging it against the table leg, almost knocking the bear over on its side.
"There," Bell
said. "That better?"
"John, you ever heard of a girl named Colleen Hanson?"
Ash asked.
"No," he said.
Bell picked up the ball and ran with it, placing his elbows on the table and leaning closer to John. And then he let go with a barrage of questions, steamrolling John in the process.
"Lori Pashton?"
"No."
"Jamie Kirk?"
"No. Why are you asking me these questions? Why am I here? I didn't do anything."
Bell slammed his hand on the table, making both John and
Ash jump.
"Cut the bullshit, John
. Why were you parked in front of 1736 Date Avenue this morning at—"
"I told you."
"No, you didn't. You just admitted to being there. Why were you there?"
"You know why."
Bell reached into the paper sack again and dropped a Ziploc baggie containing three bloody envelopes onto the table. John looked down at his suicide notes to Danny, Carrie, and Dr. Larson. They'd been opened, and surely read.
They knew.
So if they knew, why were they asking him these questions?
"We found these in your car
, John," Bell said. He pointed to the letters, one at a time, reading the names they were addressed to. "Danny Turner, Carrie Atwood, and Dr. Burt Larson. Why is there blood on these envelopes, John? Why is there blood on these envelopes?"
John didn't answer
. He only stared at the envelopes and the blood on them.
"John
!" Bell yelled at him, snapping his fingers in front of John's face. "Earth to John."
"What
?"
"Why were you at
—"
"You know why
."
"No
, I don't. Tell me."
John fidget
ed in his chair, his cuffed hands shook, and his lips trembled as he spoke. He was losing it. He didn't want to lose it. Not here. Not in front of them. "You read the letters."
"Why'd you do it, John?"
"I didn't—"
"Why'd you kill them, John?"
"What?"
"Why'd you kill Rachel?"
"Who's Rachel?"
"Let's quit playing games
. I'm not stupid. You staked out their house, you waited until they went to sleep, then you broke in."
"What are you doing?"
Ash interrupted, turning to face Bell.
Bell continued
. "You sneaked into her room—"
"Wait
," Ash said.
"
…and you killed her." He looked to Ash. "What?"
John took the opportunity to jump in
. "Is that what you think?"
Bell
focused on John. "I sure as fuck do."
"John, all we want to do is
—" Ash started in a calm voice.
"But you didn't count on Mom waking up did you?"
John
studied Bell, trying to understand what he meant by “mom waking up.”
Is he talking about the woman with the bat? Is that it? She woke up and found the killer? That's why he hit my car.
It hadn't occurred to John until then. That guy, the one with the dark hair. Up to that point, he didn't understand why someone would run into a car so hard that they'd fall across the hood.
Unless he was running away
. And the only way he could have been running to fall across the car hood was from… My house. That meant he was the Bedroom Killer. The guy they've all been looking for all this time was on my car.
John
's eyes went wide and he spoke as fast as he could. "She was chasing him out of the house. She thought I was the killer. That's it. That's what it is. She chased the killer out of the house, then she thought I was the killer. It makes sense. It all makes sense. Then you found me at the hospital. That's it. That's what happened. Don't you see?"
Now he understood everything
. But Bell hadn't stopped talking. He was still ranting away. John's mind began to focus back on Bell's words.
"
…surprised the hell out of you, didn't she?"
"No, it's not like that."
"You smacked her around a bit, then you got the hell out of there as quick as you could, right?"
"Haven't you heard a word I said?
" John looked to Detective Ash.
"I heard you
," Ash shouted over Bell's booming voice.
"And she smashed your car window before you could get away
." Bell slammed his hand down as he said the word
smashed
.
"No, it wasn't like
—"
"What happened to you
r face, John?"
"Calm down
." Ash placed her hand on Bell's forearm. "Did you hear what he just—"
Bell pulled his arm away, as if her hand were hot to the touch
.
"You
r blood is all over her nightgown, John," he said, then pointed to John's bandage and added, "She scratched you."
John shook his head
. "No, she thought I was the killer. But I was…"
John
would have to confess to the whole thing. It was the only way to get them to listen. John tried to grab his bandage, as if touching it would somehow make it disappear, and no one would see any evidence of his inconveniently unsuccessful suicide attempt.
"She really cut you up," Bell
said.
"No, it
's not a scratch."
John stood
, slouched over, due to the chain holding his cuffed hands.
"Sit down!" Bell yelled.
"It's not a scratch!" he shouted.
"John, it's
okay," Ash said.
Bell stood
, pointing across the table.
"I said, sit down!"
"I'll show you." John reached up as far as he could with his shackled arms. Bell began to round the table, and Ash stood, too.
The door burst opened
, and two officers ran inside. They grabbed John from behind, each taking an arm. But it was too late. In the time it took them to enter and Bell to get around the table, John had managed to get the fingers on his right hand under the corner of the four-inch by three-inch gauze dressing that covered his right cheek. As they shoved him down, he ripped the bandage from his face, exposing the ugly, four-inch long laceration that ran from his right jaw line up to the corner of his right eye. John held the bandage in his right hand and turned his head so his right cheek faced Bell.