by Dave Balcom
“So you have nothing to add to this inquiry?”
I looked again at Reynolds and she was still intent on that other thing holding her attention. I shook my head, “I would talk to him as a friend; I can do that. I figure he knows that as long as he says nothing, you can’t trip him up; as long as he doesn’t give you any handhold, you’re just grasping.
“In the service I was introduced to some comprehensive training on how to deal with being a prisoner. How to defeat interrogation; how to use silence. Granted my captors would have had access to means of interrogation that I’m assuming you’d never use here, but I think the concepts I was taught are being used by him, and I might, if I were alone with him, find a place where I could get a grip.”
“Tell me, Mr. Stanton, have you ever interviewed a suspect in a murder investigation?”
“Never.”
He turned to Marcia, “I think this is a waste of time.”
She responded without refocusing her gaze, “I know you do, Chris. I think it’s worth a shot, and Jim thought it was worth a two-and-a-half-hour drive on short notice. Let’s get on with it.”
Brownlee scratched his head for a second. “You won’t be alone with him. You two will be the only ones in the room, but the entire visit will be recorded – sound and video. He knows that and you shouldn’t think he doesn’t.”
I nodded, looking from him to Marcia. Their exchange had baffled me a bit. He read the question in my look. “It’s Marcia’s case; her call.”
I let him know I understood with a look, and he stood up, “So, I think you should go see Mr. Hennessey. When you’re through, Marcia will show you out or show you where you can eat and stay the night. Thank you for coming.” He extended his hand, and I shook it.
We left the office without another word and went to the elevator. We ended up in the basement, which was still very nicely furnished, just lacking windows. She showed me to an interrogation room, and departed to retrieve Max. She was back in just seconds.
Hennessey came into the room blinking, as if he’d just awakened from a nap and the lights were brighter here. I stood up, and he came to the table with his hand extended, “Jim! What are you doing here?”
“I came to talk to you, of course.”
He sat down with a frown. “I’m not going to talk with you, Jim. I don’t have anything to say.”
I let that hang there for a moment, and then changed direction. “I can’t figure that out. I took the POW classes in the service. I remember being told to offer nothing, but I was always directed to answer questions, even if I just recited name, rank and serial number...
“I’m trying to figure out how a guy I’ve come to know and respect could possibly be a serial killer of young women. I’m trying to get my mind around that and that alone. I would expect that he’s going to tell me that he isn’t that guy, and tell me why it can’t be him.
“Hell, that’s what Marcia and Segura expected, but instead they got this nothingness. I can’t see how that protects you or serves your higher calling which, I thought, was to catch the bad guy...”
My words just hung in the air, but he gave no indication that they’d reached him. I started again, “Then I figured that you’re just an old salt who knows the way this game is played. You haven’t been charged, you’re just a ‘person of interest,’ and unless you give something away they’ll have to let you go tomorrow...”
I waited again, and again I got nothing for my effort.
I picked up the thread, “But what does that do for you? You go home, back to your job? Probably find the chief there waiting to hand you a suspension notice, then what? How many lake trout can you catch waiting to get your life back?
“How does this all play for you, Max? How does this strategy serve you?
“Do you know how many young girls have gone missing since Sue Anne? Do you know if she was the first? How many girls have taken their last walk on the last Saturday of summer since she disappeared?”
At the mention of the last Saturday of summer, his head snapped up as if he’d felt an electrical shock. His eyes were wide and his nostrils had flared. His reaction stopped me cold. “What?”
He shook his head.
“Max! What? What does the last Saturday of August mean to you?”
He turned his head away. I couldn’t read it. Was it shame or just disavowal of the question? I decided to give it a minute.
We waited. The silence in the room was absolute. I couldn’t even hear either of us breathing. Turn out the lights, I thought, and you’d have complete sensory deprivation.
“It can’t be, that’s all,” he whispered. “It just can’t be.”
62
I tried to fit his whispered words into the conversation, but I was missing some context. “What can’t be?” I asked.
The pain and anguish in his eyes was almost more than I could bear. I couldn’t imagine his feeling that pain as part of some personal jeopardy or remorse. If he’d started bawling at that moment, I don’t think I would have been more surprised, that kind of display was no part of his makeup.
“Max? I think it’s time you tell us who or what you’re protecting. What is the significance of that last Saturday in August?”
“It’s my wedding anniversary,” he said softly. His voice was hoarse with pent up emotion. “I married Jennifer Sue Crawley on August twenty-ninth in nineteen seventy...”
I waited, but he had lapsed into some internal world. His head was lowered and I couldn’t see his eyes, but I had the sensation that they were flicking back and forth, up and down in the sockets as he remembered that time of his life and then associated that information with his life since then.
I still waited.
“I was never in love with her the way you’re in love with Sandy. I wasn’t thinking lifetime commitment when we got married. I was in the Navy, stationed in San Diego. She was a senior at San Diego State, there on a track scholarship...”
His head rose to look at me, and the sight of his tortured face was frightening, “She was a California state champion sprinter... tall, lithe, a beautiful young woman and I loved loving her, you know?
“But it wasn’t the mature devotion that makes a marriage. It was a novelty to me. It gave me a steady girl when I wasn’t working, you know?
“I knew almost immediately that I’d made a huge mistake – hell, I really knew it before that, when I could have called it off, but I didn’t have the balls. She was really into me. Her parents were so happy for us. Her old man was making plans to bring me into his company and we’d live the American dream, you know?”
His head drooped again, and I heard him almost breathe the words, “I was too much a coward...”
“So you came to hate her? Is that it? You felt trapped and over time you lost control...?
His head snapped back up, but before he could say anything, another thought interrupted him, and what had been a snarl on his lips was replaced with an ironic smile, the kind of smile you might save for the guy who never gets the punch line.
He slowly shook his head, and folded his hands together in prayer-like formation on the table top. He was talking to those hands when he spoke again.
“I didn’t want that corporate, country club life, and told her so. She was disappointed at first, but then she just did what committed wives do, she helped me find Golden West Community College – they offer a two-year program that prepared me to be a sworn police officer in California...”
He looked back at me again, “She was prepared to make her life as the wife of a cop; you get it?”
I nodded, but didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think of anything to ask.
He picked up the thread. “I graduated with my license in seventy-three, and applied for the deputy position in Inyo County, it’s over on the east side of the Sierra. It’s pretty remote; pretty much desert, pretty much owned by the federal government... pretty much Nevada, really.”
“How did that go? Did you like the work?”
“I loved it. Still do. And, if I do say so, I’m pretty good at it – the work that is. I love catching the bad guys.”
He lost the train of thought again, and sat studying his hands.
“How were you doing at home?”
He shook his head, “I was miserable. I’d lost interest in her. I was always looking for someone new...”
“When did she find out?”
“I don’t know, but I remember when she confronted me. It was July fifth, the day after the bicentennial fourth, and I had been absent without leave most of that day. She thought I was on patrol, but really I spent most of the day at a place called Convict Lake with a young woman I’d met on the job...”
“How did she find out?”
“She called the dispatcher to contact me about something or other, and the lame brain told her I wasn’t on duty...”
“That must have ignited some kind of row.”
“Oh, yeah. Big time blow out. We screamed at each other for hours, and then she stomped out, went home, and filed for divorce. I didn’t contest it.
“We were officially divorced on November first in seventy-six. I let her have everything that wasn’t my personal property – like my firearms and hunting stuff. She got the house, the newer car, everything... You know, she never said another word to me after that blow out? Not a word...”
“Does the date August thirty-first, nineteen seventy-four mean anything to you?”
“The thirty-first? No, it was just around our fourth anniversary... I was working in Inyo County... why?”
“Sue Anne Greene, eighteen, state high school hurdles champion from Huntington Beach went missing that evening and has never been seen again...”
I could see his eyes moving again, and I wondered if he was recalling or fabricating.
“I knew a girl in Huntington Beach, but she wasn’t some high school kid. She was one of the first women I was with after I got married. We’d moved up there to attend school, you know? I met this woman in class... I can’t remember her name, maybe Claudia, I just don’t recall. We were together a couple of times, but I was uncomfortable going behind Jen’s back like that... I don’t think she ever knew about it.
“I’m pretty sure that if the duty logs are still available for that date, you’ll find I was on patrol that whole weekend in the Eastern Sierra... that’s why Jennifer went to visit her folks... I remember now, she left on Friday and didn’t come back until Tuesday. I realized later we hadn’t even exchanged anniversary cards...”
I had been making sketchy notes, but as I completed a longer entry he waited.
“Do you recall August twenty-seventh in seventy-seven?”
He lifted his face up to me as he once again went silent. I again wondered if his rapid eye movement behind his closed lids indicated a memory search or a fabrication effort.
“Oh!” He opened his eyes. “Sue Nichols? Is that the date?”
“You don’t recall?”
“It was the weekend I was in Cincinnati, interviewing for the job there. I flew out of Vegas on Thursday, and came home on Sunday... They offered me the job in September, and I started there in January.”
“What about Sue Nichols?”
“It was awful. That whole place went crazy. She was gone without a trace, just vanished into thin air... I was brought in after the fact, and worked hundreds of possible leads, talked to hundreds of people who knew her or knew of her... she was a local hero... Oh, my.”
“Another track star,” I filled in for him.
“More than that, though.”
“Really? How?”
“Native American to boot.”
I didn’t respond right away, so he continued, “Of course everything in that world is about race, and so when we couldn’t find her or what happened to her, we were accused of not trying. The Sheriff took heat for the lack of Native American investigators.
“It just turned into a nightmare for the whole community. I wasn’t sorry I was heading to Ohio, I can tell you that.”
I entered notes and he sat patiently. Then there was a tap at the door.
“Excuse me,” I said as I got up and went to the door. When I opened it, I was prepared to blister somebody’s ass for interrupting, but instead of finding a person, I found a cart with bottled water and a carafe of coffee and some snacks. I looked at my watch and saw it was after four in the afternoon.
I pulled the cart into the room, “You want something to drink or eat?”
He shook his head and stood up, “But I could use the head.” He started towards an internal door, and I started in that direction as well. “You too? I’ll go first, if you don’t mind, come on.”
Inside the door was a small apartment. There was a sitting room, a bedroom and a bath. He closed the bathroom door and I looked around for the cameras, but I couldn’t spot any.
I heard him flush, and as he came out he said, “This is a far cry from the holding cells in Lake City, isn’t it? But when you look carefully, you realize it’s still confinement, and you won’t find any sharp objects, belts, or shoe laces in here, either.”
When we returned to the interview room, I poured coffee for both of us, added cream to mine and served his black. I tossed a couple bags of nuts on the table, but they went untouched.
We sat there, sipping our coffee, until I said, “What about August thirtieth, nineteen eighty?”
He stared at me. “Another one? Where?”
“Monterey, Ohio.”
“Holy shit, really?”
“You were there; you don’t remember?”
“Complete blank. Hell, I lived in Monterey. I didn’t spend much time there, for sure. I worked downtown. In fact in the four years I lived in Ohio, I moved five times. I just never connected with that place outside of my job. Tell me about it.”
“Becky Sue Tischman, Ohio state champion sprinter; ring any bells?”
“Man, I didn’t follow high school sports or local politics in that place. I read the Cincinnati Enquirer every day, but only national news and sports. I can’t explain it, but while the job was great, living there felt like it was temporary every day. I know it wasn’t a case our detectives were involved in...”
I had nothing left.
“You out of questions?”
“I am. Are you going to cooperate with the Feds?”
“I think I just did, didn’t I? Haven’t they been recording everything?”
I nodded. “And if things check out, you’re probably clear of being charged in connection to any of this.”
“But are we any closer to finding who is responsible?”
“I don’t know, Max. My purpose here today was to help you if I could; bury you if I couldn’t.”
“I know. This whole case has been about you as much as anything. Who do you think they’ll look at now?”
I considered that question for several seconds, wondering if I should say anything to him or not and finally decided against it. “That’s a question for Marcia and Segura. I think I’m gonna head for the barn.”
“Give Sandy my love.”
I packed up my notes and left the room. Marcia was waiting for me at the elevator. “You want to debrief now or tomorrow?”
“I’m pretty drained. Can we debrief by phone?”
She gave me a rueful smile, “What? You don’t want to enjoy our hospitality tonight?”
I looked at my watch, “I think I’ll head home. I can gestate on this during the drive, and be ready to talk with you first thing in the morning.”
“Drive carefully. You look bushed, so if you get to noddin’, be smart and take a break, okay?”
“Yes ma’am,” I said meekly.
“I’ll call Sandy and Sara and tell them you’re on your way, and thank them for sharing you today.
I nodded and walked out into a bitter cold wind off Lake Erie. It felt like snow in the air, but it hadn’t started yet. I stopped and looked back at the building. It looked so much more like a bank than a j
ail. That set off a train of thought that followed me all the way home, just how so many things in life don’t look like what they truly are.
63
The drive had been the perfect wind-down for me, and when I parked the car in our garage just before eight, the door to the kitchen opened and Sara came flying down the steps to hug me as I climbed out of the car.
“DAAAADDDDDDY!” She whooped. I met her outstretched arms and swept her up into a hug.
“Did you miss me?”
“We all did. The FBI lady called and talked to Mommy, and she said you’d get here by eight, and so I got to stay up and see you!”
Her enthusiasm for the moment was infectious, and I carried her up the stairs and into the kitchen with a huge smile on my face.
Sandy was taking something hot out of the oven and looked up with a smile of her own as she put it on the counter. “Home the conquering hero,” she said quietly. “I hear you were a star today.”
“Really?” I answered. “I don’t know if that’s accurate, but my day was certainly interesting. I’m really glad to be home now.”
I put down my bag and carried Sara over to the counter to sniff at the dish set there to cool. “What’s this?”
“Is your nose broken?” Sandy rejoined from the cupboard where she was getting ready to set the table.
“Smells something like lasagna...”
“Smells like pisghetti,” Sara said with awe, “but it’s different.”
Sandy came over to relieve me of my little girl. “It’s like adult spaghetti; it’s called lasagna. You had your dinner; now Daddy and I are going to have ours while you sleep.”
“Oh, noooo,” she started to wail. “Now Daddy’s home and I have to go to bed! I want to stay up!”
“We talked about this, remember? We had a deal, and now it’s time for you to get to bed. Tomorrow’s a school day. Kiss your father goodnight.”
Her lip was quivering as I took her in my arms, “Good night, honey. I’ll see you in the morning and tell you all about Buffalo, okay?”
She didn’t answer, just gave my neck a hug and big kiss on my lips before I handed her back to her mother.