“I hope I can help out,” the boy said.
“Don’t worry about it. Just relax. We’re alone here. Only the two of us. You don’t mind being alone, away from the rest of your friends, do you?”
And now the first important step.
“I mean, we can have other people here, if you want. A lawyer or counsel. Or even your mother.”
The object was to isolate the boy, to avoid the presence of a lawyer or parent or guardian. It had to be done immediately at the outset and so deftly that the boy would not become suspicious. The words were important, of course, because they would appear on the official record—audio and transcript—but what would not show up on the record was Trent’s casual attitude, the shrug of his shoulders that conveyed the ridiculous idea of having other people present. The mention of his mother was deliberate, counting on the boy’s preadolescent pride—the humiliation of having his mother on hand to give him support—all of this to elicit from the boy the answer he sought and now received.
“No, that’s fine.”
And to make certain:
“Okay, this way then, without counsel?”
“Yes.”
“Fine, Jason. Then let’s proceed. First of all, tell me a bit about yourself.”
“Well, I’m twelve years old, thirteen in November. I’ll be starting eighth grade in September.”
Jason fell silent. What else was there to tell?
“Hobbies?”
Jason shrugged. “I’m not too interested in hobbies. I read sometimes. E-mail on the Internet. I have a pen pal in Australia. He lives in Melbourne.”
“Chat rooms on the Internet?”
“There’s a teen chat room. But I only listen. Watch. I mean, I never say anything.”
“Shy, right?”
An inclination of the head. “I guess so.”
“Spend a lot of time alone?”
“Kind of. I have a little sister. Her name’s Emma. She’s a nice kid, smart.”
“Friends?”
“Not many. I guess I don’t make friends too easy.”
Jason was impatient to get on with the questions about Monday, even though he didn’t think he had much to offer and would probably disappoint this Mr. Trent. He was also uncomfortable with these personal questions. What did they have to do with what he had seen or not seen that day? Maybe Mr. Trent was trying to find out how reliable he would be as a witness. The questions also made Jason realize how empty his life really was. The guys in the other rooms probably had a lot of things to tell—Jack O’Shea and Tim Connors could brag about the basketball games they won, for instance. What did he have to offer? An e-mail pen pal from Australia. I read sometimes.
“What kind of books do you like to read?” Mr. Trent asked, as if reading his mind.
“All kinds. But I like mysteries. Horror stories. Stephen King. Science fiction.”
“You don’t mind all that violence in those books? People killing each other?”
“It’s only stories. They’re not real.”
“How about movies and television? Do you like violent ones, too? Horror stuff?”
Jason was puzzled. He liked horror stories but he wasn’t wild about them and somehow these questions made it sound like he was some kind of fanatic when it came to horror stuff.
“I like other kinds of stories and movies, too. I mean, adventure. Like Indiana Jones, and Star Wars.”
“They’re kind of violent, too, aren’t they?”
“I don’t know.” He thought of them as cartoons, unrelated to anything in real life. “They’re unreal.”
“You seem to be fascinated by things that are unreal,” Trent said.
Do I? Jason wondered. He had never really thought about it.
“Do you sometimes get confused between what’s real and unreal?”
Jason squirmed, fidgeted, tried not to show his impatience and his growing uneasiness.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
He felt like he did in class when the teacher explained something that he didn’t understand, unable to process it in his mind. That was what was happening now with this real-unreal stuff.
“I mean, are you always aware of what is real—what is happening to you at any given moment—or maybe what’s not real, but fantasy? Like a dream? Do you sometimes confuse a dream with what’s actually going on?”
“No.” Emphatic. Why was he asking these questions?
Trent wanted to move on. The boy’s attitude, his restlessness, his hands moving to his face, scratching at his arm, all indicated his innocence and his puzzlement. But his disposition toward violent movies and stories was now on the record for whatever use might be made of it later.
Not wishing to make the boy uncomfortable, Trent changed tactics.
“Now, let’s get down to the business about Monday, the day you worked on that puzzle with Alicia.” Avoiding the fact that that was the day of Alicia’s murder.
Almost eagerly, Jason nodded.
“Tell me about that day, Jason. Your activities in a general way, and then we can get down to specifics and I’ll help you remember what you think you don’t remember. Regard it as a kind of game, okay?”
“Sure.” Relief in his voice.
And Jason told him. How he spent the day, from the time he got up and ate breakfast and went to the Y with his mother, lunchtime, cheeseburgers, and the afternoon, visiting Alicia at her house and the jigsaw puzzle. Then home. Exactly what he had told the detective.
Trent listened, his eyes and his ears alert to the boy’s voice, his postures and attitudes, taking note of the way the movement of his body either matched or clashed with his narrative. That was why Trent finished the interrogations in such exhaustion, of both mind and body, all his senses concentrating on the subject, absorbing, accumulating details and nuances, impressions.
And now to move into a new phase of questioning.
“How were you feeling Monday?”
“How was I feeling?” Surprised, puzzled.
“Yes. Were you happy or sad or upset about something?”
Again, Jason felt disquiet and unease, like something was wrong.
“These are funny questions,” he said. “About how I was feeling, I mean. Did the way I was feeling affect what I saw and did that day?”
A red light beamed in Trent’s mind. The boy was only deceptively docile and naive. He would have to proceed more carefully.
“Well, if you were worried about something, for instance, it might provide a distraction. So that you wouldn’t be as sharp with your observations.”
“I see,” the boy said. “But no, I wasn’t upset. In fact, I was kind of happy, I guess you’d call it. I mean, school was over. No more classes, no more homework. Yeah, I guess I was happy. Would that be a distraction?”
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
The boy looked doubtful again.
“Now, let’s go over it once more. At first, you said you saw nobody that afternoon. We’ve narrowed down the time of possible observations as the afternoon, after lunch, two periods of time, actually. Prior to the time you spent with Alicia and afterward. The period when you were on your way to her house and the period when you were on your way home. The first period—who did you see, whom did you meet?”
Jason had become aware of how hot the office had gotten, a gathering of heat that seemed to grow in intensity as the questioning went on. He was also aware of how close to him Mr. Trent sat, their knees almost touching. Also, had Mr. Trent suddenly grown taller? He seemed taller now than when Jason had first entered the room, seemed to loom over him. Besides all this, Jason was filled with a sense of failure. He had not seen anyone suspicious.
“Like I told you before, I didn’t see anyone suspicious.”
“But, Jason, we don’t know yet what a suspicious person would look like. I’m not talking about some stranger lurking at the mouth of an alley. We’ve established that you don’t remember seeing anyone like that. But what I’m looking
for is something of a dubious nature. For instance, take a druggist. Someone familiar you’ve done business with in his store, a pharmacy. He’s not suspicious in himself. But suppose you saw him out of context from the pharmacy.”
Seeing the puzzlement on the boy’s face, he explained. “Let’s say that you saw him outside the drugstore at a time when he should be in the store. Say you saw him suddenly hurrying through the park. Then a man who was not himself suspicious would suddenly become a questionable figure because of where he was at the moment, or what he was doing at that particular moment. That’s what I am searching for.
“So, tell me whom you saw that afternoon on the way to Alicia’s house.”
Jason felt more confident now. He would tell Mr. Trent exactly what he saw and let him decide whether there was anything suspicious about it.
“Well, I saw a mailman. I don’t know his name, but I’ve seen him a lot. He doesn’t deliver the mail on our street but to stores and business places on Main Street. He was delivering mail as usual.”
“Where did you see him?”
“Going into the building between the real estate office and the place next door with all the copy machines and printing stuff. He was carrying a bunch of letters and envelopes.”
“Not out of context, then?” Testing to be sure that the boy had perceived the meaning of context.
“Right. Just where you’d expect him to be, doing what you’d expect him to be doing.”
“Excellent,” Trent said.
And Jason smiled with satisfaction. For once, he had provided the right answer, even though he knew it had led nowhere and certainly hadn’t helped the investigation.
“Who else?” Trent asked, disguising his impatience with these particular queries.
“Well, a couple of kids from school.”
“Were they alone or together? I mean, did you see them individually, or separately?”
“Well, two of them were pushing their bikes. One of the bikes had a flat tire. They were kids from school but I don’t know their names. . . .”
“Younger than you? Or the same age?”
“Younger, like in the fourth or fifth grade, maybe.”
And suddenly, Jason drew in his breath sharply as an idea occurred to him, stunning in its audacity. At the same moment, he saw Mr. Trent’s eyes narrow, as if he had somehow seen the idea forming in Jason’s mind. What Jason had been thinking, what had taken his breath away, was this: He could make up someone, someone suspicious. He could pretend he had spotted a stranger in town after all. Maybe a strange kid he had never seen before. Someone to satisfy this Mr. Trent. To show that he had been alert.
Yet, at the same time, Jason knew that he had never been a good liar. He blushed easily, a pulse beating dangerously in his temples whenever he tried to fake someone out. Like sometimes pretending he had done his homework or telling his mother and father that he had no homework at all. In school, when teachers swept their eyes around the room, searching for suspicious activity, Jason would immediately begin to blush, afraid that he looked guilty even though he wasn’t. So how could he possibly lie to this man whose eyes were so penetrating, who often looked at Jason as if he could see right inside his brain, as he was doing at this minute? Jason looked away, dropped his eyes, acknowledging that he simply could not lie, could not pretend that he had seen what he had not seen.
Trent, too, experienced a moment of revelation, a flash of—what?—in the boy’s eyes. Faster than the blinking of an eye, the boy had revealed something hidden and furtive that he brought out to the surface of his mind for a quick look and then dismissed. Something he remembered, perhaps? And then discarded? Or something else? A revelation of some sort? Or a sudden planned deception? Trent noted that during that brief flash, the boy’s body underwent a change, went suddenly into a defensive posture, stiff, taut. Something had happened inside the boy, like a fault line moving below the surface. A warning light went on in Trent’s mind.
“What is it?” he asked.
“What?” The boy startled now, a look of apprehension crossing his face, his eyes darting fearfully.
“It’s not smart to be deceptive, Jason. We have to trust each other. I have to trust you and you have to trust me. I have to trust you to tell the truth because not telling the truth can lead to trouble. Sooner or later, the truth will emerge, the truth will come out as the questioning goes on.”
Now a look of guilt, and Trent was certain that the boy had had a moment of planned deception and then had discarded the idea. An errant thought, probably, that had nothing to do with the interrogation, or a possibility that had blossomed for a moment. There often came a time in an interrogation when the subject wavered, drifted away. Or sometimes contemplated a new approach. Or even decided to lie. Body movements often tipped Trent off to that kind of thing. But the flash had come and gone so quickly in the boy’s mind that only a slight body movement had occurred. Now the boy sagged a bit in the chair, indicating that a crisis had been reached and passed.
“Did you see anyone else?” Trent asked, allowing the moment to pass but on the alert now. He had been on the alert from the beginning, of course, but now he had an acute focus for his alertness, the possibility of deception.
The boy seemed to go blank, eyes dulled, body slumped.
“Let’s take a break,” Trent said.
Although it was risky, Trent sometimes paused in an interrogation, depending on the situation. His instincts told him that this was the proper moment to leave the boy suspended, allow him a moment or two of reflection. Other times, it was important to build inexorably, without interruption, toward the climax, confession and revelation. But that would come later.
The boy frowned, surprised at the suggestion.
“I think a break would do some good,” Trent said. “I’ll step out for a moment or two. Would you like something to drink? I can bring you back a soda.”
Trent, of course, would not bring back a drink, would pretend he had forgotten. But planting the idea of a refreshment would make the boy aware of his thirst.
“Thanks,” Jason said, glad of the break but still uneasy. The questioning had not gone as he’d expected and he wasn’t sure about where things stood at the moment. Was he doing okay? He felt like he was back in school, not knowing whether he had passed or failed a test or picked the right answer in a multiple-choice quiz.
Trent almost ran into Sarah Downes when he stepped into the hallway. She was standing immediately outside the door. Braxton and the senator were not in sight.
He was pleased to see her, a sudden and unexpected flash of brightness in the bleakness of headquarters.
“Keeping watch?” he asked, a bit of teasing in his voice.
“I’m interested,” she said. “And I always pace the floor when I’m killing time.” Sighing, she said: “How’s it going?”
He shrugged. “We’re only in the preliminary stage. He seems like a nice kid. Well-mannered, apparently sincere.” For her sake, he didn’t emphasize apparently.
She gave him a wisp of a smile. “That’s nice to hear.”
“Any new developments?”
“I think they’ve stopped looking for new developments, although Braxton keeps sniffing around. He never sleeps, literally.”
Trent didn’t take her up on Braxton’s sleeping habits.
“Otherwise, nothing’s going on,” she said. “They figure you’ve got the proper suspect, the perp, in there. Unless . . .”
“Unless I find him innocent.”
“Do you think you will?”
Was there a challenge in her voice?
Why did this young woman disturb him? Why was it important to justify himself to her?
“If he’s innocent, I’m going to find out,” he replied, aware again of her cologne, feminine and subtle.
“I hope so,” she said, reaching out and, surprisingly, touching his arm. “I’m sorry if I seemed so negative, so abrasive, in the car. I realize how hard your job can be. I apologize.”<
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“No apology necessary,” Trent said.
He felt suddenly cheered, as if someone had opened a window, allowing a fresh breeze to invade the hallway.
“I’d better get back,” he said, although reluctant to end the conversation. “I wanted the boy to have a few minutes alone. The line of questioning so far has thrown him off balance a bit. I think the stage is set for the next level.”
He wondered why he was telling her this, why it seemed important that she should know what he was doing.
“Good luck to both of you,” she said.
Trent was pleased that her voice didn’t convey the sarcasm he had expected.
Jason was thirsty, his throat parched, his mouth so dry that his tongue seemed to have swelled up. Funny, but he hadn’t realized he was thirsty until Mr. Trent said he’d bring him back something to drink. He noticed for the first time the absence of windows in the room.
Mr. Trent puzzled him. He seemed friendly, like he really wanted to help find out who had murdered Alicia, wanted to help Jason remember what had really happened that day, but at the same time there was something about his questions. Jason used the word strange for want of a better word. He couldn’t figure Trent out or what he wanted Jason to say. Sometimes he seemed unfriendly, like Jason had done something wrong, had broken a rule, a rule Jason didn’t even know about. And those eyes of his. Like black marbles but alive, that didn’t blink very much, that seemed to look right into your brain.
On top of all that, he felt that Mr. Trent was disappointed with his responses. Maybe right now, this minute, he was reporting to that detective that the questioning wasn’t going very well. A dawn of hope: Maybe they’d decide to call the questioning off and he’d be free to go home.
Jason wondered whether the other guys had done well, had answered all the questions correctly, had even remembered something that would be vital, provided clues that might lead to solving the murder, catching whoever had killed poor little Alicia.