by Lissa Pelzer
Lilly heard a noise outside like someone falling over and she sprung back up onto the windowsill. Bryan was getting up off the ground, retrieving his cigarette, he was talking to someone, and he was pissed.
For the briefest moment, she thought it was the trucker come to save her. From her darkened room, Lilly craned her neck to see. But in the glow of the security lights, she saw it wasn’t him. And she saw who it was. Lilly pulled back so fast that she slipped off the table. Her foot got caught in the roller chair and she fell hard to the ground.
Bryan
He had called Lauren and asked her to come over to the unit first thing in the morning.
‘I can come out now if you want,’ she said. ‘Valerie’s okay.’
And he had heard the sound of the street behind her head like she was already leaving his apartment.
It seemed unlikely, but perhaps he had misread the relationship between the two women. He knew himself, some guys he could drink a beer with in a bar would drive him crazy in his own house. And Lauren was so nice, so sweet and so positive, probably Valerie couldn’t stand to have her around right now, quoting sections of gossip magazines at her and telling her all the latest news.
‘If you can get here now, ‘ he said, ‘that would be great. The cops are here. They want to talk to Janine.’
And as soon as he had said that, the phone exploded next to his ear.
‘What do you mean, they want to talk to her? What? Why? What?’
‘I don’t – I don’t!’ he volleyed back. ‘Hey – I don’t know!’
‘Is it that woman cop?’
Now Bryan had held the phone away from his ear. ‘No. It’s two local guys from Clay County. They’re investigating the Snell shooting over at the trailer park. You know, the kid who hit Janine, they arrested him for it.’
‘I know. So what do they want from her?’
‘I’m not sure, testimony, I guess or a witness statement.’
‘At this time of night?’
‘It could be they can only hold him a certain amount of time.’
And she sighed so heavily, it made him pull the phone away in case it made his ear wet. ‘I’ll be right over,’ she said and hung up.
Caffey
The doctor hadn’t paused to speak to him on her way in, but Caffey didn’t care. He’d been waiting for her for five hours and in his sleep-deprived state, had convinced himself she was going to be hot. She wasn’t.
Caffey watched her go past. He could hardly believe his own thoughts. Thin with big breasts, but with a look on her face that made his dick want to fall off.
He had called Tanner to let him know it was on, to tell him to bring decent coffee and he then slunk back into the corner.
The doctor came out just a few minutes after Tanner arrived. ‘I understand you wish to interview my patient concerning an ongoing investigation.’
‘That’s right.’ Caffey waited for her to protest, but she didn’t.
‘I have my reservations, you understand. But if it’s necessary...’ And she shook her head.
Was she playing for compassion in the face of a relentless law? Caffey didn’t care.
‘Just make sure you have someone, her caseworker for example, in the room at all times. This is a very vulnerable young woman.’
Caffey and Tanner exchanged glances. Caffey knew he’d be thinking the same thing as him. Screw her vulnerability, get the prints, make a match, act like she wouldn’t be in trouble, get her statement then book the bitch.
‘I’ll find her caseworker,’ she said as she walked away.
The guy came back into the room smelling even rougher than he had the night before. ‘I’m looking for her now,’ he said. ‘Be with you in a minute.’
‘What do you mean you’re looking for her?’ asked Tanner. ‘You lose her?’
The guy paused and leaned back in. ‘She’ll be around here somewhere. Only, she just got her memory back, which tends to make people want to have a look around at their surroundings.’
‘She’s jumped ship!’ Tanner said.
‘I doubt it,’ the guy said, and then right on cue the door to the lounge opened and the girl was standing there with a blonde girl, not much older than herself.
‘Okay.’ Tanner slapped his hands together, as fun and friendly as he could be. ‘Here she is. Let’s start the show. Come on in.’ He had put on a cheese eating grin and the look on the girl’s face said she wasn’t falling for it, but then her face softened and she gave them a genuinely warm smile.
‘How are you feeling?’ Caffey proffered. ‘Well? Better? We’ve been waiting a long while to meet you properly.’ He reeled off the usual identifying salutations and showed her his badge as if it were something of interest to her.
The girl lifted her eyebrows and looked at the badge and then Tanner arranged them all on the couch.
‘So you know who we are. Can we know who you are?’
She cleared her throat and a weak little voice came out. ‘My name is Janine Kenny.’
Caffey ran his teeth over his bottom lip. If he was honest with himself, he wasn’t getting the murderer vibe from her, but you could never ever tell. They had done in-depth research into this matter, whether experienced law enforcement professionals could spot guilt or not. There were tells – the tight laugh of relief when someone thought they had deceived you and the gag from a throat drying out. But generally, people are poor at spotting deception.
‘And where are you from, Janine?’
‘I was born in South Bend. Is that what you mean?’
Caffey looked back over his shoulder for the fingerprint guy. He’d called him the same time as Tanner. He should have been here by now. He turned back around.
‘Sure, and your date of birth?’
They had all this, but he wanted her to say it, to get used to answering questions fully and truthfully. That way, if she started telling lies, he’d be able to see the difference. He asked her some more questions, about how long she had been here, how it felt to remember her past again. She was just talking about some people from the residential home when she stopped talking abruptly.
‘Just let your thoughts flow,’ Tanner said. ‘We’re all friends here.’
Tanner was a terrible liar. A flash of suspicion crossed the girl’s face. She was going to close up. Then she opened her mouth like she was going to stick her thumb in there, and closed it quickly again.
Caffey scooted forward and placed his forearms on his knees.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
Her lips parted again. ‘I just had the weirdest thought, like a memory or maybe it was a dream.’
‘And what was it about?’
‘Oh my God!’ Her hands shot to her mouth and her eyes got really wide, really quickly. Her face changed color ever so slightly, she began to sob and covered her face.
The blonde girl wrapped an arm around her, held her to her chest like she was her own child and the caseworker was on his feet.
‘Okay. Finished. Over.’
‘Wait!’ Caffey stood up too.
He could say exactly how, but for a moment, he knew this was fake, like she was suddenly going to pretend she had lost her memory again. But then Janine Kenny spoke and he couldn’t believe it was a lie.
‘I think I shot him,’ she said. ‘I shot him!’
Caffey felt like his jaw had just fallen off his skull. He turned to Tanner and saw his lips flopping open like the mouth on a drunk clown. What the hell was this?
Lilly
There had been some drama. Bryan had jumped up, knocked over a cup of chamomile tea and told the two detectives that they had to ignore everything she said. He claimed she was still unwell, that he needed to call her doctor back. They told him, if he wanted to call the doctor, fine, but considering that she had just told them she remembered everything, it didn’t make much difference.
Within five minutes another guy from the sheriff’s department had shown up in his uniform. They had arrested her and p
ut her in the back of a squad car.
From the backseat, Lilly had seen Bryan put his hands in his hair and try to pull it out in clumps. She saw Lauren with her arms crossed tightly against her body, looking cold and afraid. When the doctor pulled up, Bryan pounced on her, imploring her to do something. And Lilly watched as her head flopped on her shoulders, as she tilted it this way and that to listen to everyone’s comments. As Lilly expected, she nodded slowly. She wasn’t going to try to stop them. Good for you, Honey. Don’t let a guy tell you what to do.
And now they were in an interview suite.
Around fifteen cops stood between her and the front door and she ran her tongue back and forth along the roof of her mouth to stay calm. When Caffey spoke to her, she curled her toes in her shoes. When he leaned in so close she could smell his cool ranch Doritos breath, she just smiled.
She had a lawyer, but Lilly barely looked at her. One of the detectives pressed the button, the interview started and the questions they had already run through got asked again.
‘The reason we’re in here is because, less than an hour ago, you made a statement to myself and Detective Tanner, saying that you had shot someone. Is that right?’
Lilly’s toes curled again. She had to fight the instinct to ask – did he want to know if she had said that, or if she had shot someone?
She nodded.
‘You need to say the words.’
‘That’s correct,’ she said quietly.
A sweet smirk crossed Tanner's lips and Caffey frowned hard as if to stop himself from smiling.
‘But it wasn’t my fault,’ she added. ‘He made me do it.’
Tanner reached forward. He grabbed the edge of the table. ‘Who made you do it? Chad Purcell made you shoot Simon Snell? How did he make you shoot Snell?’
‘Easy – easy!’ Caffey said.
It was such a sweet pleasure to watch these two full-grown men fall over each other like this, but Lilly knew not to dwell on it.
‘Let’s go back to the beginning, shall we?’ Caffey said. ’We don’t want to get anything mixed up.’ He gave her a nod. ‘You just tell us what happened.’
Lilly straightened her back. ‘I went with Chad to see Simon Snell.’
‘This was early Monday morning, about what time?’
Lilly shook her head. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Midnight or five am?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
They considered this. They wanted specifics, but they knew they were on a roll while she was talking. They probably figured they could come back to that later.
‘Okay. Go on.’ Tanner said.
‘We went to see Simon. We went to his trailer...’
‘You drove in Chad’s truck?’
She nodded.
Caffey jerked his chin at the microphone.
‘Yes. We did.’
‘You saw Ryan Bukowski.’
‘No. I didn’t.’
Caffey reached into a manila folder and pulled out a printed photo.
‘This guy,’ he said. ‘Did you see this guy?’
‘No,’ Lilly replied. ‘I know who he is, but I didn’t see him that night.’
She could see that had confused them and she remembered the TV news show. They reported that Ryan Bukowski had seen Chad shoot the kid. Obviously, he had not seen Chad shoot him, he was a liar, but so what? If you thought, a hundred percent that someone shot your friend, wouldn’t you say you saw it?
Now Caffey put his hand over his mouth. The way Tanner was looking at him, it seemed he was trying to read his mind. Hopefully, Ryan Bukowski had just lost his footing on credibility mountain.
‘Janine,’ Tanner said. ‘Now remember, we’ve been talking to people about you while you were unwell. Your caseworker Bryan has been asking people about you. We’ve built up a pretty good picture of your movements in the last few months.’
‘Okay...’
‘Is Chad Purcell or was Chad Purcell ever your boyfriend?’
Lilly looked away. ‘No.’ She let the shame she felt for a thousand different reasons reach her cheeks and blushed.
‘Janine...’ Caffey crooned, coming in closer. ‘You do understand that you have to tell us the truth, don’t you?’
‘No way! You can’t say that just because you don’t get the answer you want.’
Caffey held up his hands. She saw the hard skin on his palms. The same ones the guys who did pull-ups all day at the beach used to have.
‘Janine. The truth. Were you in a relationship with Chad Purcell?’
‘No! Me? Are you serious?’
And Tanner got up like he was going to swing at her, but just stormed on out of the room.
Bryan
Tanner stuck his head around the corner of the interview room where he’d left him and Lauren and hooked a finger at him.
‘I need to ask you a quick question.’
‘Shoot,’ Bryan said, and immediately regretted his choice of words.
‘Did Chad Purcell – the kid who hit her in his truck – did he ever come to see her, or try to gain access to her in any way?’
Bryan ran his hand through his hair and gave it a light tug. He didn’t want to answer this, but Lauren was right there and he could sense Tanner’s attention moving somewhat to where she was. Lauren was the picture of guilt.
‘Ma’am. Do you know the answer to this question?’
Lauren began to cry so Bryan spoke. ‘When she was first in the hospital, I believe Chad Purcell may have sneaked in to see her, yes. He came once, ran off when Lauren arrived and hasn’t been back since.’
Tanner held up his hand. ‘Thank you.’
And Bryan turned to Lauren, expecting to have to comfort her, but she had composed herself as soon as Tanner left the room.
Caffey
Janine Kenny appeared nervous, understandably so. He could imagine what had happened. She had started coming around and been confronted with her own actions before she could fully understand the repercussions. Maybe even now, she thought the worst part was the knowing, that nothing bad could happen to her, but she was about to find out, she was punishable. She had recovered her senses and her memory. They would prosecute.
And for this reason, he should have been happy, but Caffey felt disappointed.
All that business with the gun, with the fingerprints, had become secondary. They had taken her prints and made a match, but after her saying she shot Snell, it didn’t really have the ‘wow’ effect he’d been waiting for. He still felt the need to trap her somehow, to show his expertise as the reason this case got cracked.
So when Tanner called him out and told him what he knew, he felt better prepared to deal with those old eyes floating about in a young face. He sat back down and cleared his throat.
‘Our investigations have established that you were in a relationship with Chad Purcell,’ Caffey said.
Janine looked away.
‘I can understand that you don’t want to think of that now. Maybe you feel differently about him after all that happened, but you can’t escape the facts. And it’s important that you understand, lying to us is not an option. Just because you regret anything that may have happened between you two, doesn’t mean you can pretend it never happened. Got it?’
She nodded but didn’t look up. That was okay. He’d rather see her lie once over something small like this, see what it looked like early on, than have her hold out until the big stuff.
‘So let’s carry on, why did Chad Purcell want you to shoot Simon Snell?’
‘Chad didn’t want me to shoot Simon,’ she said.
‘Janine...’
‘But you did shoot him and you just said he did.’ Tanner hunched forward.
‘Yes,’ she answered slowly like it was a trick question. Then shook her head. ‘No!’
Caffey was watching her eyes, looking for those small movements, the tells which would show which word was a lie.
‘So, Why don’t you tell us how Chad Purc
ell made you shoot Simon Snell?’ Tanner said.
‘He didn’t.’ Her lip curled. ‘I was trying to tell you. Simon did. Simon made me shoot him.’
And something in her look made Caffey's head feel like it had split open.
Janine Kenny kept talking. ‘He called me a bitch. He grabbed my hand and wrapped it around the gun and held it up to his face and squeezed it my hand…and the gun went off.’
‘Simon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Simon took your hand and turned the gun on himself?’ Caffey asked. ‘You know, my first response to that statement is that you’re telling us the most shameful lie, that you shot him and are really sorry you shot him, and wish that you never had…’
She didn’t reply and Caffey was left biting his lip for a moment. The shifty eyes he’d seen when she lied about seeing Purcell, were absent. Could this be the truth?
‘Why would Simon Snell want you to shoot him?’ Tanner asked.
‘Because I had been seeing Chad...’
Her eyes swept across to him and Caffey saw moisture collecting in the corner of her eye.
‘We went there to tell him, to get it out in the open.’
Tanner said, ‘see, I told you we knew about you and Chad. See how everything is easier when we all just stick to the truth?’
Caffey tried to catch his eye, but Tanner kept looking at the girl.
‘So, you went around there and had an argument and Chad told you to shoot Simon, how about that?’ Caffey asked.
Janine Kenny glanced at her lawyer, but the woman didn’t say anything. She was tame. She had been on plenty of these cases with them.
‘No. Simon knocked Chad out and then he took my hand and wrapped it around the gun. I tried to let go, but he was too strong. He said I was going to jail for this.’
Caffey felt the room getting smaller. He closed his eyes and leaned back for a moment. He could just imagine the courtroom and the jury. Put this tiny, previously-crime-free teenage girl on the stand and have her say one of the Snells turned a gun on himself in her presence and most of the jurors would believe her. Everyone within a fifty-mile radius of here knew about the Snell family history with guns. They shot themselves, on accident and on purpose, both in Indiana and Florida as often as other families held birthday parties.