A TV NEWS van was parked across the street from the Canaan Police Station when North arrived. Word got out fast on the scanners.
The Canaan Police station was nearly an hour closer than the state police barracks, so North had called in ahead to inform them he’d be bringing in a suspect for interrogation. Some detectives believed letting a suspect stew made them nervous, and there was a logic to that. But North was of the mind that the quicker he got the questioning started the less time the suspect had to formulate a story of lies.
North pulled the cruiser around to the back entrance.
Two reporters climbed out of their van and chased after the car on foot. North braked and threw the transmission into park. The cruiser’s front end rocked.
“C’mon,” he said. He hauled Brad from the backseat, mindful of the boy’s head, and
led him to the station. The reporters appeared around the far corner of the building at a clip, one clutching a microphone, the other holding a video camera.
“Vampires,” North mumbled.
Inside the station, North nodded at the nighttime dispatcher and hustled Brad down the hallway.
In what served as the booking room, North sat Brad down and took out a fingerprint blotter and a card.
He unlocked one of Brad’s handcuffs and sat back down across from Brad.
“Let’s see the hands,” he said.
“Are you arresting me?” Brad’s eyes were wide with panic.
“We’ll see. For now, they’re for comparison.”
“To what?”
“To those left in the Merryfields’ house.”
The color left Brad’s face. “I haven’t done anything.”
That’s why you just jumped out a window in bare feet, North thought.
“My arm is killing me,” Brad said upon finishing with the fingerprints.
The forearm did look nasty: swollen and purpled. But North doubted it was broken. Either way, it’d wait.
“A broken arm is the least of your worries,” North said.
Brad said nothing, simmering.
So, North thought, this was the arm that threw all those touchdowns. The one that might have been worth a great deal of money. It did not look any different from any other boy’s arm.
North gave Brad a paper towel and a handi-wipe to clean his fingers. Then he cuffed him again and led him down to the holding room. A modest rectangular wood table sat in the center of it, two chairs on either side of it.
“Sit,” North said. He gave Brad a small shove. “And decide that what you’re going say is going to be the truth.”
Brad rolled his eyes and slumped into the chair facing the door. “Where’s my dad?”
North left the room, shutting and locking the door behind him.
He strode down the hall to see about a cup of coffee. He needed something to keep him awake. He felt like death, his brain quagmired, exhaustion climbing into his bones. The clock on the break room’s microwave showed 1:12. Tomorrow—no, make that later today, in about seven hours—Loretta had to take her mother in for a treatment, and North wanted to be there to support her. The treatments made for a grueling ordeal. His mother-in-law was so infirm that even with a visiting nurse helping Loretta and North, it took nearly two hours simply to help her from bed and get her sponge bathed and dressed in the morning. The heightened patience and tenderness needed ate at Loretta’s emotions and left her done-in and melancholic. North hoped he would have some energy left after the interrogation to be of use to his wife.
IN THE MEAGER break room he poured the dregs of coffee into a paper cup, heated it in the microwave.
A hollering came from the hallway: “Where’s my son!?”
Victor Jenkins thundered past the break room and down the hallway. North slugged down his coffee and jogged after Jenkins, caught him by the arm.
“Where’s my son?” Victor said, wheeling on North.
“You can’t see him now.”
“I can see my son if I damn well want.”
“No. You can’t. Don’t make it worse.”
“My son did not kill that girl. He didn’t even know her.”
“We need questions answered.”
“What questions?”
“Why he smashed out a window and slid down the roof, for starters.”
“Cops come knocking for me, I might do the same.”
“We didn’t come knocking for him.”
Victor wiped spit from his mouth. “I don’t want him saying a word till I get him a lawyer.”
“If he’s innocent as you say, it won’t hurt him to talk, now will it?”
Victor took hold of North’s sleeve. “If you think—”
“Let go of me, Victor. I won’t ask twice.”
Victor let him go.
“Now. Go plant yourself in a seat in the lobby. I’ll come back out in a bit, talk to you. I promise. OK. If your son has no link to the girl this will be over quickly and you can be on your way after a routine questioning, and I will formally apologize for the disruption. He has not been charged. We only want to ask him some questions. Like you said, he has nothing to do with it. Fine. He’ll be out in no time. But we need his help as a citizen. We’d never have cuffed him if he hadn’t tried to flee. Please. Go sit.”
“This’ll all clear itself up,” Victor muttered. “You’ll see.”