by Mike Markel
Larry Klein shook his head. “He doesn’t look smart enough—or alert enough—to think two or three moves ahead. You’ll know he is if he says Tiffany told him she did it. You don’t have any forensics or eye-witnesses that put him there at the time of the murder, do you?”
I shook my head. “No. Not yet, anyway.”
“You’re waiting on something?” Klein said.
“No, sorry. I’m just saying, something can turn up. But we’re not waiting on anything that puts him at the scene.”
“Give him your best story on how he did it, see if he buys it. If he doesn’t admit it, let it be. Either way, he’s off the street for a while.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I said, “but I’d like to wrap them both up this afternoon.”
Larry Klein smiled. “I think we all would. But if he doesn’t confess, he doesn’t confess.” He turned to Ryan. “Since you’re going to do the domestic, why don’t you go in alone now, do some interview questions. We’ll see if we can spot any tells.”
“Sure,” Ryan said and walked down the hallway.
Like most police departments, we use the Reid interrogation method, which calls for some low-stress interview questions at the start to see if the guy shows us anything from his eye movements. They say people move their eyes to the right if they’re remembering things and to the left if they’re thinking. Which is good to know because if you ask the guy if he owns this particular kind of shotgun that you know he owns and he looks left, that means he’s thinking about how he should answer the question, which means he’s gonna lie. All of this is supposed to tell you if the guy’s guilty, in which case you interrogate him hard.
In my experience, though, people don’t look in one direction when they’re lying and another when they’re thinking. And a lot of times—like this one, with the dead grad student—you’re not absolutely sure he did it, but you want to come at him hard anyway. So, like with almost everything else they teach you in the academy, it’s helpful most of the time. Some of the time, anyway.
And it’s not like I’ve figured out a better way.
The chief, the prosecutor, and I stood at the one-way mirror and watched Ryan enter the interrogation room. He hooked his cane on the edge of the table, then removed his jacket and put it over the back of his chair. Brian Hawser was seated in the chair facing us, making it easy for us to watch him.
“Where’s the bitch?” he said. His eyes were glassy, and he seemed a little groggy, from the lack of sleep and some pain meds. He shifted in the chair, putting his left hand on his right bicep to immobilize the right arm, which was probably throbbing pretty hard around now.
“You’re referring to Detective Seagate?” Ryan said.
Brian looked annoyed, like Ryan was going to make him spell everything out just to be a pain in the ass. “Yeah.”
“She’ll be in soon.”
That was a good answer. Part of the strategy is to isolate the guy, making him realize he’s not in control anymore.
“Let’s talk a little bit, Brian,” Ryan said.
Brian gave him a fuck-you look.
Ryan opened up the manila folder he had put on the table in front of him. It had the name “Hawser, Brian” written on the tab in black Sharpie. Brian’s real folder was thin, no more than a dozen pages long, but this one was a half-inch thick, full of scrap paper to get the suspect thinking he’s Public Enemy Number One, so we’re going to do whatever it takes to get him off the street. “You’re a student at Central Montana State University, is that correct?”
“I have to answer your bullshit questions?”
Ryan looked up and held his gaze. “That’s right. I ask the questions. You answer them.”
Brian didn’t say anything.
Ryan said it again. “You’re a student at Central Montana State University, is that correct?”
Brian waited a few beats. “Yeah.”
“Good,” Ryan said. “Thank you.” He waited a moment. “You’re a General Business major, right?”
This time Brian hesitated only a second. “Yeah.”
I didn’t notice his eyes moving right or left.
“I’m looking at your transcript here,” Ryan said, glancing down at the file. “At the end of this semester, you’ll have finished twenty-one credits, correct?”
Brian’s eyes flicked to the left for a moment. “Yeah.”
“And you need 120 to graduate, is that correct?”
This time Brian just nodded.
“So how many is that left? I mean, after you finish this semester?”
Brian frowned. “That would be ninety-nine.”
Ryan nodded and jotted something on his pad. “Now, if you have to withdraw this semester—you know, because of this thing—how many credits will you have completed?”
Brian’s eyes flicked to the left. “Fourteen.”
“And how many credits would you need to complete the 120?”
“What the fuck you wasting my time for? Can’t you add up this shit yourself?”
“And how many credits would you need to complete the 120?”
“I’d need 106.”
Ryan dutifully wrote this down. “You grew up in Billings, right?”
Brian didn’t answer.
Ryan said, “You grew up in Billings, right?”
Brian waited a beat, then said, “Yeah.”
The chief said, “You better go in now, Karen. His arm is hurting him. We’re not going to learn any more from these questions.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I didn’t see much of a tell. His eyes go left a little when he’s thinking, but that could be random.”
“I didn’t get a clear pattern.” The chief shrugged. “Do the best you can.”
I walked out of the corridor. Once I was in the interview room, I turned on the recording equipment from the control box on the wall and announced the names, date, and time of the interrogation.
I sat down next to Ryan and nodded to him to begin.
“We’re going to start our questions with the assault on Tiffany Rhodes,” Ryan said.
He waited for Brian to react, but he was expressionless.
“We know that was a domestic assault incident—and we know you were involved. You must have been arguing with Tiffany. You punched her in the face. You fractured a bone in her face.”
Brian looked like he wasn’t expecting Ryan to accuse him of it. His expression turned grim, and he began to lick at his bottom lip. “Wasn’t me.”
“Yes, it was, Brian,” Ryan said, his voice soft and level. “The neighbors heard the two of you arguing. Heard Tiffany scream. Heard the door slam. Couple minutes later, the neighbor looked out the window, saw you running over to your car, get in, peel out. The rubber’s still on the street.”
“Wasn’t me.”
Ryan shook his head slowly, disappointed. “Yeah, Brian, it was. There wasn’t anyone else.” Ryan stood up and walked over to Brian’s side of the table, half sat on the edge of the table, his side up against Brian’s bad arm. Brian started to pull away, then grimaced and grabbed at his arm.
“We have a statement from Tiffany, at the hospital. It was you.”
Brian sat there, looking straight ahead but not denying it anymore.
“She said it was you, Brian—”
“I don’t believe anything you say to—”
Ryan broke in fast. “You’ll get a chance to talk later,” he said. “We have the victim’s statement. All we’re talking about now is how it happened. And here’s where you can do yourself some good. We know you didn’t mean to hurt her. It was just an argument got out of control.”
“Wasn’t me,” Brian Hawser said.
“We know it was just an argument got out of control. It wasn’t like you planned to hit her. We know you didn’t mean to hurt her. It was just she said something that got you real angry. What was it, Brian? She say something about how she was still fucking Austin Sulenka? Is that what got you really mad?”
Brian looked up at Ryan with fire in his
eyes but didn’t say anything.
“Okay, Brian, it’s good we’re starting to communicate like this. A lot of times judges see guys who just hate their girlfriends so much, they plan how they’re going to hurt her, then one day the cops show up and the girl’s dead. But it’s clear that wasn’t what happened with you and Tiffany, Brian. Because you loved each other, right? And then, this argument, she says something that gets you really mad, and you lose your temper. I bet you don’t even remember hitting her. Now, judges take that into account. Plus, you have the fact that Tiffany isn’t going to break your balls about this. She knows it was just an argument, and she realizes she was out of line. That’s the way it happened, Brian, isn’t that correct?”
Brian’s trunk slumped forward. His left forearm was supporting his trunk, his hand cradling the bad shoulder.
“We’ve already talked with the professor runs the English department. Man named Van Vleet. He says you hit him a couple of times, but I think he understands what happened. I tell you, he’s so embarrassed about what happened with Austin Sulenka last semester, I wouldn’t worry about him coming at you over a couple of bruises.” He paused. “So I think we can get past this thing with Tiffany, then with the professor. Good news is, nobody wants to make any trouble for you about what happened. So are we good, Brian?”
“What?” He was groggy, still leaning up against the table.
“The argument with Tiffany, you punching her, not meaning to. Then, this morning, in the English Department, hitting the professor with your pistol. You did those things, right? We need you to admit those things. You know, for the paperwork.”
Brian made a kind of grunting noise, his chin resting on his chest as he slumped over the table.
Ryan leaned over and pulled him up straight. “We need you to say that. We need to have that on the tape. You got in an argument with Tiffany, punched her. Then, this morning, you hit Professor Van Vleet, twice. We need you to say it on tape so that we can get past all this.”
Brian opened his eyes wide, trying to focus. “Yeah.”
“No, Brian, we need you to say it. You punched Tiffany, and you hit Van Vleet, right? We know you didn’t mean to do those things, but you did them, right?”
Brian took a deep breath, widened his eyes again. “Yeah, I punched Tiff.”
“And you hit the professor this morning.”
“I hit the professor this morning.” His body started to sag again. “Can I go now?”
“Couple more questions, Brian,” I said. “About Austin Sulenka.”
Brian turned to me, his eyes glassy. “She told me she was still fucking him.”
“Yeah, we know that, Brian. I want to talk about last Sunday night.”
“What about it?”
“Tiffany was over at Austin’s place. Around seven that night. She told you that, right?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know when.”
“Tell us about how Austin Sulenka died,” I said.
Brian lifted his head to look at me. “No fuckin’ idea how he died.”
“The night Austin Sulenka died. You know Tiffany was over there earlier that night, around seven, having sex with him. We’ve established that, Brian.”
He shrugged, then grimaced and grabbed at his bad arm.
“The way it happened, you and Tiffany were so pissed at Austin because he gave her a lousy grade last semester, the two of you headed over to Austin’s place later—maybe eleven o’clock. Tiffany knocked on the door. Austin let her in. But then you came in, too. Once you got inside, you strangled him. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”
“Never been to that fucker’s place.”
I shook my head. “Now, we know that’s not true, Brian. We know you were over there that night you were drunk and smashed up his car. We know you were there that night.”
“Never been in his apartment. Never. You had any evidence puts me there, you’d’ve arrested me for that already.”
Shit. He was a little more pulled together than he looked.
“The way it happened,” I said, “you lost control when you saw Tiffany coming out of Austin’s place that night around seven-thirty. You suspected she was still doing Austin, even though she didn’t admit it, so you followed her, just like you followed her to the coffee shop the other day when she met with us. You followed her to Austin’s place. You knew she was in there with him, fucking him, for about a half-hour. She came out. You confronted her. The two of you figured the best thing, the only way to get him out of your lives, to get you back to where you were with Tiffany, was to take him out. So you and Tiffany went back to his apartment, she knocked on the door. That’s what happened, isn’t it, Brian?”
He shook his head. “Never been in his apartment.”
“Now, the judge is gonna see it as you losing control, after you realize Tiffany’s still involved with Austin. You know, a crime of passion, just like when you punched Tiff the other night.”
“I didn’t kill nobody.”
“It’s not like you planned to kill him,” I said. “There was no premeditation. It just happened when you found out about Tiffany. That’s real important, it not being something you meant to do.”
“Fuck you,” Brian said, and his head slumped forward.
“I need you to say it,” I said. “I need you to say you strangled Austin Sulenka.”
Brian Hawser looked up at me, his eyes mostly closed, some drool hanging off the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, I strangled Austin Sulenka. I did it. Now I need to go to sleep.”
I looked over at Ryan, who was shaking his head. Ryan put his hand on my arm. I nodded for him to go ahead.
“Brian, this is Detective Miner. Look at me.”
Brian slowly lifted his head, trying to focus on Ryan. “What?”
“What did you strangle Austin Sulenka with? Was it a rope?”
“My hands. I strangled him with my hands.” His head slumped forward and made a dull thunk as it hit the table.
Chapter 32
After it became clear that Brian Hawser had killed Tiffany Rhodes but not Austin Sulenka, we pumped him full of caffeine and Tylenol. We waited an hour, then got him to write the statement about how he’d gotten into an argument with Tiffany and punched her, that she’d fallen and hit her head, and that he then took off. Plus, that he pistol-whipped the English department chair.
After he put his signature on it, we told him Tiffany was dead. He crumpled up and started howling for a good long while. Ryan was right in getting him to show us he hadn’t strangled Austin Sulenka, even though I wanted to be done with both cases.
Now Brian Hawser was Larry Klein’s problem. I was good with letting Larry figure out how hard to come down on him. The way Brian was screaming and moaning in the interview room when we told him Tiffany was dead showed me he really loved her. Even after she told him about still screwing Austin—and maybe about the two dweebs she fucked for weed—I don’t think he intended to hurt her. He just didn’t have enough brains or self-control or whatever it is that lets some guys not shout at the woman, not get in her face, not shove her, not punch her. Not kill her.
The irony, of course, is that the one Brian really wanted to kill, Austin Sulenka—well, somebody else killed him.
If Austin hadn’t nailed Tiffany when she was his student, Brian wouldn’t have gotten drunk and broken all the glass on Austin’s car, which brought cops and judges into the picture. Of course, we’ll never know whether Tiff would have been quite so skanky if she hadn’t gotten involved with Austin Sulenka in the first place. If she hadn’t gotten addicted to Austin’s neon dick, she might not have felt trashy enough to screw the two jerks for the weed.
But maybe I’m being a wistful idiot. Maybe she was just a skeevy bitch who liked weed enough to fuck anyone who’d give her some, and therefore ran a pretty good chance of getting beat up or killed by a guy sooner or later.
I’ve known a lot of girls like that. I was one for a while.
“Let me fill you in on
where we’re going with Hawser,” Larry Klein said. He was seated in the chief’s office, his toes tapping the carpet. The chief nodded for him to continue. “I reviewed the tape of the interrogation. You two,” he said, referring to me and Ryan, “walked right up to the line in that interrogation—”
“How’s that?” I said. It came out a little more defensive than I intended it.
Larry smiled at me. “That was a compliment, Karen. He was obviously in distress from the gunshot wound earlier in the morning, and the fatigue had caught up with him. When I showed the tape to the public defender yesterday, she wanted to fight me—”
“On what grounds?” I said.
“She thought it was borderline coercion because he was so beat-up looking, and she was unhappy about how you didn’t tell him his girlfriend was dead.”
“What the hell?” I said. “We don’t have to tell him that.”
“I explained that to her. We can lie all we want about the circumstances of the crime. If the suspect didn’t do it, he’ll know we’re lying and he won’t admit guilt. No harm, no foul. We can’t threaten him or try to bribe him about penalties, like how if he confesses we’ll give him a better deal or tell him he’ll get a stiffer sentence if he doesn’t cooperate. Those lies you told him were perfectly legitimate.” He put up his hands to let me know he wasn’t criticizing me.
“Okay,” I said, “so whether Tiffany’s alive or dead has to do with how you’re gonna charge him, not with whether he punched her in the face.”
“Exactly,” Larry Klein said. “Now that we have a confession, we’re free to charge him, and that means he gets a public defender. She can do whatever she wants to defend him, including arguing that the confession was coerced. She could argue temporary insanity or any other ridiculous thing she wants.”
“But you’re saying our interrogation was clean, right?”
“I think so,” he said. “Whether she agrees is up to her.”
“What did we do?”
“She might have a point about how Ryan said Van Vleet isn’t going to press charges related to Brian pistol-whipping him.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Ryan said, his voice kind of forceful. “That’s not lying about how the system is going to treat him. It’s obviously speculation about how another victim is going to act. It’s not a guarantee that if he confesses to roughing up the guy he’s going to get a lighter penalty.”