The Devil's Cinema (32 page)

Detective Link walked in, closed the door, and took a seat across from him. It was a different interview room from the night before, in the polygraph wing down the hall from homicide. There was a particle-board wood desk crushed into the corner. Link gave Twitchell a moment to finish eating and then stuffed back into his hands the piece of paper with his two options written on it.

Twitchell sat in silence for nearly an hour, pulling his head deeper between his shoulders, thumbing the paper between his fingertips. A grey long-sleeved shirt the cops had given him stretched tight, his belly spilling over his pants, and he pulled a neon pink and blue ski jacket closer around his chest. When he finally opened his mouth to speak, he told Link that nothing had changed.

“And why is that?” Link was hunched low across his knees, looking at Twitchell.

“Because I just need to see the lawyer first and then I'm sure the statement will come after.”

It was like Link had made a breakthrough. “Have I got your word on that?” He shot out his hand, but Twitchell just stared at him. “Give me your word on that,” Link repeated. “That's all you've got left is your word, Mark.”

“Well …” He lifted his fingers a moment, hesitated, then curled them back into his palm.

Link kept his hand held out. “Give me your word. And we'll make that happen. We're trying right now. We've left messages. We're trying to get him down here.”

“I know. I know. I'm just saying the last step is to talk to him, so …”

Link took a gamble and left the room to track down Twitchell's lawyer. Twitchell had already been given his one phone call, but Link felt the goodwill could be returned as promised with a formal statement, handshake or not.

Twitchell had ten minutes on the phone with his legal counsel. Link returned to the interview room, sat down, and asked for the promised statement. But Twitchell stayed silent and barely moved from his chair, ignoring his presence in the room.

Link started shouting. “You went back on your word! I actually gave you, that's the sad, despicable part of it, is I
actually
gave you the benefit of the doubt. And I actually
believed
you.”

Twitchell didn't move.

“And I thought possibly this whole thing could be a hoax.” Link sounded defeated, like he was embarrassed about what he had confessed. “I was trying to take your side there, to write it off as just a bad, bad mistake and just a hoax. But it's not even that.”

Twitchell continued to look down and away from Link.

“Do you have the energy to look me in the eye? Have you got it, Mark, or are you just going to cower some more? … Mark?”

Twitchell kept his chin down and never met his gaze. Link stared at him for minutes, but he eventually gave up and stormed out of the room. Throughout nearly fourteen hours of interrogation spread out over two days, not once had Twitchell denied killing Johnny. But he had also become a near-mute ever since being granted that second call with his lawyer.

Detective Clark walked in and threw some Halloween candy on the desk beside Twitchell's chair. It would be his last meal before eating prison food for months. “Okay, Mark,” Clark said. “Grab your snacks. Let's go.”

C
LARK HIT THE GAS
and pulled his sedan out of the parkade beneath headquarters. Twitchell sat in the backseat in handcuffs next to Link. Acting Detective Dale Johnson joined the three of them, riding up front with Clark. Twitchell had to be placed before a Justice of the Peace within twenty-four hours of his arrest. The four of them were going to drive around the city for the next three hours, the cops trying to pressure Twitchell into talking, until they ran out of time.

“I see it rained last night,” said Clark, wearing sunglasses, looking up at the sky from behind the wheel as they drove over the wet pavement. “Didn't snow, eh? We're lucky.” He flicked on the radio. “We'll see if we're on the news yet.” The radio buzzed low in the background. Clark tilted his head to see Twitchell in the rear-view mirror. “We'll go where you took the oil drum and tried to burn the body. In your parents' backyard.”

Twitchell peered down at his hands in cuffs.

They reached the house and Clark pulled over, turning up the radio as the sounds of trumpets signalled the start of the news hour.
Good afternoon. It is twelve noon
. The broadcaster's voice was deep and campy.

Twitchell alternated his gaze between staring at the back of the driver's seat and out the window, ignoring the radio. But then something caught his eye. A man was approaching the car from the passenger side with a big camera slung over his shoulder. Twitchell turned white and his eyes flared wide open.

Johnson turned to look. “Who is it? Is that the media?”

“Yeah!” Clark said, climbing out of the car. “I'll go talk to them.”

Twitchell, stuck in the backseat, pulled his head way back and to the side, trying to hide his face. “Let's go back to HQ,” he pleaded. He dropped his head down as the cameraman spun around to the other side. He hid his face with his hands. “Seriously, let's just go back to the station.”

Clark shooed the cameraman away and jumped back into the car. “Where do you want us to head to, Mark?”

“Station.”

“Station? The body's not at the station.”

Twitchell frowned. The detectives explained what was about to occur. Link jumped in first. “This is just a sign of what's gonna happen. You'll be all over the media. This is the first taste of it. How do you feel about that? … You're infamous now.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“It's just the start of the frenzy,” Clark added. “It's going to continue on until the body surfaces.”

The four of them drove next to Twitchell's sister's place. Clark tried Susan's apartment. Through her tears, she was in no condition to help the detective convince her brother to talk, even if she wanted to. The cops decided to head south instead, toward Twitchell's rented garage. Everyone got out of the car and showed Twitchell the property, still surrounded with police tape. Another television camera crew was already there, waiting. Twitchell was led to the back door of the garage. Clark knew crime scene visits sometimes prompted murder suspects to finally open up, the heightened emotions tied to the place bringing back vivid memories. But Twitchell just stood there, looking bored, as he again turned his head away from the watching media.

Twitchell's reaction was confusing for many of the detectives. They thought he would have been thrilled to see the cameras, considering how his filmmaking career depended on gaining publicity. He was rejecting the limelight after creating what detectives considered to be an elaborate crime designed, in part, with the objective of attracting attention. It didn't make sense.

As detectives continued driving him around town, looking for the body, Twitchell would sometimes yawn. Other times, he appeared catatonic as they repeated the same questions.
Which sewer? Where? Go ahead, Mark. End it now
. He sucked his teeth, chewed on his lip, and closed his eyes when the sun struck his face. He refused to talk, no matter who was asking.

Driving back to headquarters, Clark knew they were running out of time. But he had one last trick – a prearranged call on his cell phone. Clark spoke to the caller for a moment, then passed the phone to the backseat. “Traci Higgins for you, Mark.”

Twitchell's expression went blank as he clasped the phone between cuffed hands. They spoke for ten minutes, but Traci did all of the talking.
She begged him to give up the body, telling him she didn't understand why he wouldn't cooperate.

“There's a time and place for everything,” he replied. “I know what's going on, but you need to understand that I can't talk.” Twitchell was infuriated. He thought the cops had gotten to her and fed her lies to get her on their side. “I wanna say something, but I just can't. I'm sorry.” It was all Twitchell was willing to offer. His eyes started to tear up, but he fought hard and pushed his emotions down. He remained cold and distant until the phone call with the woman he would always love came to an end. It was the last time he would ever speak with Traci.

When they reached the station, Clark stopped the car for a second to lay down some harsh facts. “Tell your lawyer, when he decides – and it will come up – that if he wants to make the body deal for second degree?
No deal
.“

Clark knew that in light of the evidence they had, they probably only needed the body to bring closure for the family, not to prosecute for first-degree murder. And he was fed up after two days of dealing with Twitchell's attitude. “I think he's going to come up with that one. So, shut him down,” he spat. “No sense even making the call. No. Deal.”

S
QUINTING IN THE THREE
o'clock sun, Detective Mark Anstey stood outside headquarters in a suit, burgundy shirt, and silver tie, announcing Twitchell's arrest to a semicircle of reporters. But more to the point, he was using the media to help find the surviving victim. He was never much of a media performer, but he endured posing for cameras and holding up one of Short's photos of the hockey mask in the hopes that the man would see it on the news and finally come forward. Anstey didn't dare utter a word about S. K. Confessions, the blood trail, or any forensic evidence. But in explaining the first attack and how the police could charge someone with first-degree murder without a body, he had to reveal the basics of the case. It was a killing that mirrored Twitchell's movie script, he explained. Both included luring a man through online dating, a vicious killing and dismemberment, and the use of the victim's personal information to convince loved ones that he was still alive. And there was more: “We have a lot of information to suggest that he definitely idolizes
Dexter
.“ Anstey paused, swallowed, and bobbed his head, making sure he didn't blurt out the “hold-back” details to the press. “And a lot of information that he tried to emulate him during this incident.”

And so it began.

The initial trickle of radio bulletins and website briefs burst into a flood of the bizarre and sensational. Twitchell had left a digital trail of his life all over the Internet. Even his personal Facebook profile was open to the public, feeding the media's hunger for details. Suddenly he was the lead item on the six o'clock newscasts.

No one warned his friends. Most found out through the media. Twitchell's old roommate, Jason Fritz, was at home as he caught his friend's name on television. Joss and Mike had already been called by reporters. They were beginning to panic as the story went viral and sensational newspaper headlines emerged:

DEATH MASK?

DID LIFE IMITATE SLASHER FILM?

And later, as journalists continued chasing the story:

TERROR IN THE ‘KILL CHAIR'

It seemed unbelievable. But with no body, Twitchell's friends wondered, surely this must be some kind of mistake?

The world took notice. A producer with ABC's
20/20
flew to Edmonton and started interviewing a slew of locals about the bizarre slaying. CNN's legal affairs program
Nancy Grace
had a producer call around, as did television news magazines
Inside Edition
and
Dateline NBC
. Detectives checking online found stories about the case had reached as far as the Philippines, Europe, Argentina, and Australia.

It even attracted the attention of Hollywood. Errol Morris, an Academy Award–winning director acclaimed for his documentaries
The Thin Blue Line
and
The Fog of War
, was blown away by the outrageous details. His production team researched the case for months. Twitchell was the perfect subject for an episode of
Tabloid
, a half-hour television documentary series Morris was creating.

Of course, the Twitchell story also dominated the city newspapers.

But it wasn't the first time he had grabbed the front page – a fact later republished as reporters discovered images of the newly arrested Twitchell had already been captured in their local newspaper archives.

Back in 1999, Twitchell and his sister were teenagers wanting to share in the thrill of
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
. They headed to West Edmonton Mall's movie theatre in costume to celebrate the premiere of the long-awaited motion picture.

Their outfits attracted newspaper photographers who were looking for a colourful
Star Wars
photo for the next day's edition. Susan had come dressed as one of Jabba the Hutt's dancers, but Twitchell's effort was far more elaborate. His face was painted red and black and it looked like he had a shaved head.

Twitchell was dressed as Darth Maul, an evil Dark Lord of the Sith. He had a crown of horns, a black cloak, and a sinister grin. As the photo was taken, he stared directly into the camera lens, his eyes shimmering like the devil himself.

T
HE
X
PRESS
E
NTERTAINMENT WEBSITE
was shut down quickly. Twitchell's closest friends stopped answering their phones. Others, like Rebecca, who had expected to meet Twitchell at the Halloween Howler the night he was arrested, thought it was some kind of sick joke when she began to receive Facebook messages from people she didn't realize were journalists, asking about a murder.