Both men were masters at their craft and they had learned from other masters. If there was anything there, Jamison was confident they could squeeze it out. He knew that by taking Miranda rights out of the process he wasn’t going to be able to use anything Stack said against him—but he didn’t care. He needed information and he would deal with the fallout later. It was one less impediment in the way of his investigators. The droning of Miranda rights—that the person interrogated did not need to speak to them, that he had a right to a lawyer—simply gave the quarry choices. Jamison did not want choices. He wanted results.
There was really no question who was going to be the good cop and who was going to be the bad cop. O’Hara stepped back and glowered at Stack, who quickly figured out that O’Hara was not a man to fool with. Ernie kept his voice friendly. “Jimmy, Detective O’Hara and I want to talk to you about Richard Sample. Now before you say anything I want you to know that we know you had nothing to do with the murder of that woman.”
Stack interrupted. “Harker did that. I told you before I didn’t do nothin’ with that.”
Ernie didn’t react by raising his voice. He simply said, “I didn’t say you did.” Sweat was steaming from Stack. Ernie recognized the distinctive stink of fear. Interrogators could latch on to it like a bloodhound in heat. There was something there, something buried but he could still smell it. Now he began the slow process of digging. “Jimmy, tell me about the baseball game you say you went to with Sample.” Both he and O’Hara had spent some time with a baseball almanac before meeting Jamison.
“I already told you about that. He had the tickets and we went. That’s all. Then the cops were asking about that murder and where we was. I told ‘em. That’s it.”
O’Hara edged closer to the table separating Stack and Garcia. Stack’s eyes began to flick back and forth between the two detectives and he noticeably shifted in his seat away from O’Hara. Ernie sensed a loose thread unraveling and began to pull. “Who played in that game?”
“Dodgers and Giants.”
“Who played first base for the Dodgers?” The smell coming off of Stack grew stronger and Ernie could hear Stack’s shoes scraping against the floor as he moved them nervously. Ernie pushed a little harder. “Anybody who was a Dodger fan would know. Who?”
“I don’t remember. I had a lot to drink.”
“When you were in court you testified that Don Sutton pitched. Is that right?”
“Yeah, that’s right. That’s what I said. Sutton.”
O’Hara leaned in until his face was within inches of Stack. His voice sounded like a bag of grinding gravel. “There’s one thing about baseball, Jimmy. They keep statistics on everything. I looked it up. Sutton didn’t pitch that day. It was Bob Welch.”
“Maybe Sutton pitched later. I remember Sutton. I’m a Giants fan anyway.”
“Really? So, you remember Willie McCovey pitching that day for the Giants?”
“Yeah, I remember that.”
O’Hara’s voice took on an even harsher edge. “Don’t screw with me Jimmy. Sutton didn’t play that day and McCovey was a first baseman. You don’t know shit about baseball.”
“Okay, so I was drunk and don’t remember who pitched. So what?”
“Give me the name of one player who played that day.”
“Look, I ain’t a baseball fan. I just went ’cause Sample wanted to go and the tickets were free.”
O’Hara reached out and squeezed Stack’s arm until Jimmy winced. “Cut the bullshit, Jimmy. You didn’t go to any game that day, did you? Sample’s dead. You don’t owe him anything, but I want the goddamn truth.” O’Hara’s voice came out a rasping hiss. “And. I. Want. It. Now.”
Ernie reached over and pulled O’Hara’s hand off Stack’s arm. “Jimmy, all we want is the truth. I promise you right now that you tell us the truth and nothing’s going to happen to you. But if you keep lying, then I’m leaving right now and you can finish this discussion with Detective O’Hara. You understand?”
O’Hara grinned like a wolf who saw an easy meal. He put both hands on the steel table and curled his fingers loosely. “What’s it going to be, Jimmy? We can make this easy or hard. I don’t mind hard but I guarantee you won’t like it.”
Jimmy’s hands were streaking sweat onto the table as he smeared them around, scraping the steel handcuffs against the metal table, adding to the scars left by men who had set there before. “I want a lawyer. I got a right.”
Ernie stood up. “Wrong answer, Jimmy. I’m going to get some fresh air.”
O’Hara slid onto the chair vacated by Garcia as Ernie moved toward the door, where he paused. Stack’s eyes flashed toward Ernie and then back toward O’Hara, whose face was now directly in front of him. “Your choice, Jimmy. You got ten seconds to make it. Tell me the truth or I let you spend the night in the jail with the Bulldog Boys and I’ll make sure the guard thanks you for your cooperation when he shuts the cell door.” Jimmy’s gaze darted over again toward Ernie as he opened the door to the interrogation room. The Bulldog Boys were a notorious gang of criminals who always managed to have a number of their members in jail and had very simple rules about snitches. O’Hara started counting. “Five seconds, Jimmy. Three. All right, you made your choice.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?” O’Hara’s voice carried the hard edge of a meat cleaver.
Stack deflated like a week-old Halloween pumpkin. “Okay, I wasn’t at the game. That’s what you want to know, right?”
“I already know that, Jimmy. What I want is the truth.”
“I didn’t hurt that woman. I had nothin’ to do with that.”
“I know that too, Jimmy.” O’Hara tried to soften his tone but his next words were about as soft as a lead-lined glove. “Otherwise, I would have reached across this table and you and I would have had a much different discussion. What I want to know is why did you say you were at the game and where did Sample get the tickets?”
“Sample called me. He said he needed me to cover for him. I didn’t know it was for no murder. He just said he might be in trouble and needed somebody to back him up. He said he’d pay me. We met up and he had the tickets and a game program. I don’t know who gave them to him, just what he said.”
“And what was that?”
“He said he got them from somebody who’d been at the game. I didn’t care.” Jimmy’s voice was a torrent of words. “He gave me a wad of cash and told me what to say but I figured it was his mom because later she told me stuff about the game ’cause she was there. So, I could make it sound good for the cops, you know? I tried to remember all of it but we just decided to say I was drunk most of the time. Pretty close to the truth anyway. The important thing was to say I was with Rick. It wasn’t until the cops talked to me that I found out it was ’cause of a murder.” Stack began wiping his nose with his sleeve. “But I didn’t think Rick did that so I went along.”
“Why’d you think Sample wouldn’t do that?”
“I don’t know, man. I known him a long time and he really liked that girl. I don’t know. Anyway, he said Harker did it. So that was enough for me. He really hated Harker.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Dude didn’t confide in me.”
“Jimmy, do you remember if Rick had any cuts on him, scratches, things like that?”
“He had like a cut or a scrape on his finger. I remember that ’cause I grabbed his hand when I saw him, and he pulled away. Said he got it sliced on a beer can.”
“Did Rick carry a knife?”
“Yeah, sometimes. He had a Buck knife. You know, one of them knives with a wood handle, folds up. A lot of guys carried ‘em that worked construction or odd jobs. I had one too.”
“How much cash did Sample give you?”
“It was a lot—maybe twelve hundred or fifteen hundred dollars.”
“You don’t remember?”
“Nah, like I said I was drunk most of the time. There’s whole parts of my life I do
n’t remember.”
“Do you know where he got that kind of cash?”
“I’m guessin’ his mom. She was doin’ some rich lawyer. That’s all I know. I mean she was workin’ as a cocktail waitress. She didn’t have that kind of money. So, I figured it was from the lawyer. She was a real looker back then. She must of gone to the game with him ’cause she couldn’t afford to pay for no baseball tickets.”
“Did you ever meet the lawyer or see him?”
“I saw him once. He drove a big Lincoln—real shiny black Lincoln, you know. Guy just looked rich but guys like that don’t have nothin’ to do with guys like me.”
Watching through the one-way glass, Jamison felt his blood run cold. His father had driven a black Lincoln back then. Now it all was in front of him separated by a wall of mirrored glass—what his father had done. He could feel the bile rising up in his throat. It amazed him how many years separated these events in his life and how all of that separation collapsed in a microsecond.
“So, you lied to the police about Sample being with you?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t have nothin’ to do with killin’ that girl. I don’t do shit like that. I heard they charged Harker with it and he got convicted so I figured it was all okay. He must of done it, right? I mean they found him guilty. So, I figured what was the harm.”
“Do you know Clarence Foster?”
Stack’s gaze shifted to the left. He hesitated almost imperceptibly before answering. “Nah, maybe I seen him around, but I don’t know him. I know Rick hung around with him sometimes. They drank together but I wasn’t with them. Anyway, Sample’s dead and word on the street is some cop hit Harker with one of them electric guns and fried him. So, what difference does it make now? All I know is I didn’t do it.”
For a seasoned interrogator, every movement, every gesture of the person being questioned is like an electronic bit of code. Some of it is meaningless and some of it is a silent alarm. O’Hara had years of experience watching men and women evade and obscure. He had seen people look him straight in the eye and lie and he had seen people mumble and look away as they told the unvarnished truth. What he had just heard was not the truth. How to extract that truth was what set men like him apart. He glanced over at the mirrored glass. The next move would determine whether he could open Stack up to reveal what he was hiding down deep where even Stack was afraid to look.
O’Hara waited until Stack finally looked at him, then locked his gaze on Stack like a hawk circling his prey. “You’re lying to me, Jimmy.”
“I’m not lying. I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t do nothin’ to that girl.”
The reaction blew out of O’Hara like a shotgun blast. “Cut the bullshit, Jimmy. I already told you that I didn’t think you killed that girl. But you know who did, don’t you? You know because you swim in the same piss stream as Harker and Sample.” O’Hara’s hand was pushed down on the table so hard that his fingertips blanched almost white. There was no mistaking the tone of his voice as he put his face within inches of Stack’s. “I’m going to ask you again and I want you to think real hard before you answer me. Now you should have already figured out that I am not the man you want to fuck with. Do you understand that, Jimmy?”
The answer came out in a mumble. “Sample did it. He killed that girl.” Stack’s eyes were staring straight down at O’Hara’s hand.
O’Hara reached across and grabbed the short chain separating the two wrist cuffs, twisting as he pulled. “Look at me, Jimmy. I want to hear you. Who killed that girl? How do you know who killed that girl?”
“Sample did. Later after the trial, we was drinking and I wanted more money. Sample hit me. He said he did it and he would do me too.”
“Is that what he said, Jimmy?” Ernie’s voice was tense. “Tell me exactly what he said.”
“He said what happened to her could happen to me too. He said he’d do me just like her. That’s what he said. I didn’t ask him to explain. I got it.”
Ernie moved forward, holding his hand out signaling O’Hara to back off. O’Hara slightly loosened his grip. “Why didn’t you go to the police. Why didn’t you tell the truth?”
Stack looked up at both men through rheumy red eyes. “And say what? I been a drunk most of my life. I didn’t owe Harker nothin’. I took money. There was people involved like that lawyer—rich people. Who was gonna believe me? All that would happen is Sample would kill me too. I mean I heard that girl got cut up bad. You think I was gonna fuck with him?”
Ernie’s voice was quiet. “Well why lie now? Sample’s been dead for years. Why not tell the truth?”
“Who’s gonna believe me? I may not know much but I was in it, man. I was in it and there was no way out.”
Ernie put his hand on Stack’s arm. “Jimmy, did you ever tell anyone what you just told us?”
“I told Foster.”
“You told Clarence Foster? Why? I thought you said you didn’t know Foster.”
Stack squirmed in his chair, confusion spreading across his face as he tried to remember what he’d said, the stress of the interrogation leaving him no time to think clearly. Resignation sank his body farther down into his chair. It was always like that, the slow extraction piece by piece, each bit pulling a chunk out of what was left of the last vestiges of defiance. Stack squeezed out a smirk. “Well, I lied about that. We was in jail. What else we got to talk about? Besides, I figured he should know. He said he just told the cops Harker did it because they were going to make him go down on it and he was scared too. He was gonna do a dime in the joint. I just figured, you know? Sample was still alive. Harker was in the joint too.”
Both interrogators could smell it. There was still something buried, something left. “Did you tell anyone else?”
“No. Nobody.”
O’Hara reached in between them and grabbed Stack’s cuffs again, pulling him forward, slamming Stack’s chest into the metal table. “You’re fuckin’ lying again, Jimmy. I told you I want the truth. Who else did you tell? I know you’re lying.”
The sour smell of fear filled the room like tear gas. “I told you I didn’t …” O’Hara twisted the cuffs.
The fury in O’Hara’s voice even clearly shook Ernie. “Bill, take it easy.”
Jamison watched through the glass and couldn’t constrain himself. He banged on the window before it got completely out of control. Then Jimmy Stack began to wilt. It happened that way sometimes. All of a sudden, a man just broke and when he did all his resistance drained from him. Jimmy Stack was about to become an empty grave.
“I told that prick Jensen. I told him.” O’Hara let go of Jimmy’s cuffs and stood up, glancing over at the one-way glass. While O’Hara seldom had a moment of indecision he could feel it creeping over him. Ernie was looking up at him with the same question on his face. This was now going down the rabbit hole and where it was going to come out was anybody’s guess. The only question was whether to ask the next question and the answer to that was there was no choice.
Ernie kept himself under control. “Are you talking about Detective Jensen from the Sheriff’s Department?”
“That’s right. I’m talking about that prick Detective Jensen. He came after me right after Sample got killed. He told me Sample was dead; that he got what he deserved. I remember just what he said. ‘Sample got what all assholes deserve.’ He said he knew I knew the truth and that’s why he was there.
“He scared the livin’ shit out of me. I was sleeping in a little place I built over by that recycling plant on the South Side, cardboard and some tarps I found. Next thing I knew Jensen was draggin’ me out. I had no idea what was happenin’. He hit me and kicked me. I told him. That’s it. Man, I was scared. I don’t know how he knew but he kicked the livin’ shit out of me. Yeah, I told him what Rick said—that he killed that girl. And he said he already knew that and then he told me that if I said a fuckin’ word I was dead too.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“Say anything?
Shit, are you crazy? Jensen told me that I could crawl into whatever fuckin’ cardboard box I called home and he would find me and set it on fire if I ever breathed a word. You guys got to protect me now. And I ain’t saying nothin’ till you cover my ass. Right before you made me go to court he sent me a kite in jail.” Both detectives knew that a kite was a jailhouse message. “All it said was, ‘Remember what I said.’ I knew who sent it. And I remembered what he said.”
Chapter 44
O’Hara and Ernie walked through the door to the observation room where Jamison waited, watching through the one-way glass. Jimmy Stack was still sitting at the steel table looking back and forth at the graffiti scratched into the metal surface by other handcuffed men intent on leaving a mark for their legacy.
Jamison was lost in thought until the sound of the door startled him. Ernie broke Jamison’s contemplation. “Well, this is turning into a real clusterfuck. What now, Boss? Where are we going to go with this?”
O’Hara was uncharacteristically quiet. Jamison stared at him for a moment. “What? I know you want to say something, so say it.”
“Not here.”
Ernie had a young deputy put Stack in a holding cell and get him something to eat. Then the three men walked back in silence to Jamison’s office. O’Hara separated from them for a few minutes and came back to Jamison’s office with a manila envelope. He laid it on Jamison’s desk. “The tapes.”
Jamison pulled the envelope across his desk and looked inside. “What tapes?”
O’Hara explained his visit to the retired sheriff’s department secretary, his listening to the tapes, and his decision not to give them to Jamison. He was unusually subdued. “Look, Matt, I knew those tapes weren’t going to do anything but keep you asking more and more questions that I didn’t think there were going to be any answers to. All I could see was you pissing off a whole lot of people and screwing yourself. But now …”
Shades of Truth Page 29