21

BECK

Coldcliff Police Station, September 23, 10:16 a.m.

OFFICER OLDMAN: I’ll get right down to it, Thomas. That’s your real name, right? Thomas Becker Rutherford III.

BECK: Nobody calls me that.

OFFICER OLDMAN: We had a warrant to search your phone. You weren’t exactly forthcoming when we asked you if you’d been in contact with Tabitha. There was a flurry of calls made from her to you right around Christmas. Then again a few months later. And over the summer. She hadn’t lost your number.

BECK: So she called me. I don’t see what the big deal is.

OFFICER OLDMAN: The big deal is you picked up. You must have talked about something.

BECK: I told her to stop calling. She did that sometimes. Just wanted to talk. Maybe there was nobody else who would listen.

OFFICER OLDMAN: Did she tell you she was upset with Mark?

BECK: No, because we didn’t talk about him.

OFFICER OLDMAN: Did she want anything from you? When she called? She must have wanted something, if she kept calling.

BECK: Sometimes she’d want to be picked up from a party. She knew I wouldn’t judge.

OFFICER OLDMAN: Judge what?

BECK: Her. For being wasted. Or whatever.

OFFICER OLDMAN: Tabitha drank a lot.

BECK: So do most people at parties.

OFFICER OLDMAN: You picked her up, then. On your motorcycle.

BECK: Yeah.

OFFICER OLDMAN: And what did you talk about, on those rides? Where did you go?

BECK: It was too loud to hear anything. You ever been on a bike before? Can’t hear much, besides the road. I’d drop her at home. Well, a block away, then I’d watch to make sure she got inside okay.

OFFICER OLDMAN: Why not walk her to her door?

BECK: Her folks didn’t like me much.

OFFICER OLDMAN: Why not?

BECK: Do you have a daughter?

OFFICER OLDMAN: Answer the question, please.

BECK: Maybe it wasn’t that they didn’t like me. They just didn’t know me.

OFFICER OLDMAN: Do you feel like a lot of people don’t know you?

BECK: Are you a cop, or a shrink now, too?

OFFICER OLDMAN: (clears throat) Those nights you drove Tabitha home. You never went to Queen Anne’s Woods?

BECK: No. Why would we?

OFFICER OLDMAN: If you and Tabitha—(pauses, is interrupted by another officer coming in) One moment, Thomas. I’ll be back shortly.

BECK: My name’s not Thomas.