Love You Madly

by Michael Fleeman

It appeared that only one person took Rachelle’s claims of abuse seriously, according to John. “I recall Jason saying he wanted to protect her.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The big man was sweating.

  “I’ll be honest with you,” Sergeant Randy McPherron told Jason Arrant, “I don’t think this assault occurred. I don’t think it happened. In fact, I know it didn’t happen. It didn’t occur.”

  Jason squirmed. “Yes, it did.”

  “It didn’t happen,” McPherron repeated.

  “No,” said Jason. “I didn’t make it up.”

  “Come on. Look at me,” the detective said. “We have witnesses.”

  “They didn’t—”

  The detective interrupted him. “They saw nothing! I’m telling you, you made this up.”

  On Thursday, November 18, Jason was at the Klawock trooper post trying to convince McPherron and Trooper Bob Claus that an unknown assailant really did attack him with a serrated knife at the school the night before.

  By now Jason’s name was mud on Prince of Wales Island. Teachers were talking to police. Rachelle’s friends were talking to police. Rachelle herself had sat for an interview. The chamber of commerce members, the coaches, the church congregation, the merchants and fishermen—everybody had come to the conclusion that Jason Arrant had murdered the sweetest, most wonderful person on the island.

  The pressure was getting to him. Jason told the investigators how the island was closing in on him, how he’d never be able to show his face if he didn’t come forward with the truth.

  McPherron said he didn’t believe him—didn’t believe that he was attacked at the school and didn’t believe that he had nothing to do with Lauri Waterman’s murder.

  Jason fought it, but his resolve weakened. He appeared to wilt before the detectives’ eyes. Finally, he admitted that he made up the attack story, but clung to his alibi the night of the murder. He said he was drinking beer at Brian Radel’s place.

  No, said McPherron, you weren’t. You were involved in the murder. “Was it your idea?” asked the detective.

  “I didn’t do that,” Jason said.

  “Jason, I know you did.”

  “No,” he said weakly.

  Jason slumped.

  “So,” McPherron said, “what happened? What’s your role in this?”

  Jason paused.

  “I—” he started. “I know what happened out there.”

  When Jason was finished giving his account of the night of the murder, a change came over him. Color returned to his face.

  “It’s actually a huge load off my mind,” he told the detectives.

  “I can tell, you look a lot better,” said McPherron. “You looked pretty burned down.”

  In his third meeting with police, Jason had given up his best friend.

  Several hours later, at five p.m., Sergeant Mark Habib was hooking Jason up with a microphone and transmitter under his clothes. The equipment came from Habib’s duties on a regional drug task force in which he worked informants and did undercover operations. Once fitted, Jason drove his truck toward Hollis. Ahead of him, in an unmarked Suburban, were McPherron and Habib. Behind him in another vehicle was Claus.

  After the interview at the trooper post, McPherron had obtained a judge’s warrant allowing the surreptitious recording of conversations with Brian Radel. Jason had continued to deny killing Lauri, saying instead that Brian committed the murder. By the time Jason found out about it, Lauri was already dead.

  Jason’s cooperation was vital. The investigators didn’t just want Brian to make incriminating statements on tape, they needed him to. They had little else on which to build a case. Rachelle had claimed to know nothing about the murder, and Jason backed her up in the face of stern questioning by McPherron.

  “Absolutely not,” insisted Jason.

  “Why?” asked McPherron.

  “She’s just not that kind of a person.”

  “You want this relationship to continue, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “I think you love her, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Would you do anything for her?” asked the detective. “Would you lie for her? Have you lied for her?”

  “I don’t think she’s involved in this, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Jason.

  Brian was another story. Jason professed to be shocked that his friend had killed Rachelle’s mother. Jason admitted he withheld the information from police out of fear and confusion, and now agreed to help implicate Brian.

  The officers got to the house first, parking the Suburban across the street near the tree line to await Jason.

  They were all set to go, when the operation faltered. Brian strolled across the street toward the officers’ Suburban carrying a flashlight. Habib got out of the vehicle and shined his own high-powered police flashlight in Brian’s eyes to blind him. If Brian saw him, he’d know that Habib had come outfitted in full tactical gear: dark navy blue fatigues, Kevlar vest, night vision goggles, and an assault rifle.

  Brian squinted in the light. He asked what was going on.

  “I’m looking for the Johnson residence,” Habib said.

  It was a feeble lie, but Brian didn’t ask any more questions, for at that moment Jason’s truck pulled up in front of the house. Brian went back across the street, and the two men went into the house.

  Jason had been given a list of instructions by Habib in undercover practices, and immediately proceeded to ignore all of them. To begin with, he had been told to avoid any ambient noise while talking to Brian so that the recording would clearly pick up his words. Instead, the TV blared in the background, and for much of the time all the detectives could hear was an episode of King of the Hill. From what little they could make out, Brian was jumpy and paranoid, convinced police were onto him and had bugged the house, but he didn’t say anything about the murder.

  Jason ignored another instruction. When Brian asked for a ride to Thorne Bay to meet with his brother, Jason agreed. Habib had implored Jason to stay in the house, where he would be both protected by the officers across the street and within radio transmitter range. Instead, the detectives listened to Jason telling Brian, “I’ll drive you down there.”

  The detectives saw the men leave the house. Jason smoked a cigarette before the men got in his truck and drove away, with the police following. Due to the truck and traffic noise, little of the conversation during the half-hour ride could be understood, but one exchange was salvageable.

  “All right, man,” Jason told Brian, following a script of questions, “just, you know, if it comes down to it, and they try to pin this on me and Rachelle, even though we didn’t have nothing to do with it, what are you going to do?”

  Brian answered, “I’ll probably jump up and try to convince them that I did it.”

  After leaving Brian at a gravel turnout to be picked up by his brother, Jason drove back to the Klawock trooper station to return the recording equipment and get a ride home. The investigators huddled. Jason’s admissions and Brian’s comment on the tape left little doubt that both were involved in the murder, with Jason likely downplaying his role.

  The detectives had enough evidence to arrest Brian, but the case was weak. They had no hard physical evidence—no fingerprints or blood that could be tied to Jason or Brian—and no eyewitnesses. They couldn’t even know for sure where the murder took place.

  What they had were words. Rachelle acknowledged she told Jason about the abuse by her mother, Jason acknowledged that he knew that Brian had killed Lauri, and Brian was overheard saying he was willing to admit that he did it.

  If investigators were to build a tighter case, they were going to have to get the three to talk some more. They would have to act quickly, before the trio could compare notes, come up with reasons to remain silent, or hire lawyers.

  Just after midnight, McPherron and Claus knocked on the door of Jason Arrant’s parents’ house. Jason’s father Doug answered.<
br />
  “Howdy,” said McPherron.

  “Hi,” said Doug.

  “How you doing today? I’m Sergeant McPherron, and you know Bob Claus, don’t you?”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Doug Arrant.

  The men went into the house. Jason was there.

  “Hi, buddy,” McPherron said. “I have a few more questions for you.”

  “Sure,” said Jason.

  “Is there some place we can talk privately?”

  “Just go to my room or out on the porch there,” said Jason.

  “Your room sounds good,” said McPherron.

  Claus would later remember it as looking like a twelve-year-old’s bedroom, with action figures assembled with care and shelves of video games. A dog followed them.

  “What’s your dog’s name?” asked McPherron.

  “That’s Scruffy,” said Jason.

  “Scruffy, OK,” said McPherron. “Why don’t you have a seat. Just a few things we need to run by ya.”

  In fact, the detective had much more in store for Jason. He signaled this by telling him he had the right to remain silent, the right to have an attorney present, and that anything he said could be used against him in court.

  “Having these rights in mind,” McPherron said, “do you wish to talk to us now?”

  “Yes,” said Jason.

  The questioning then began, with McPherron taking the lead and Claus listening and jumping in at times. It began on friendly enough terms, with McPherron asking Jason about Rachelle. Jason loved her and listened to her, giving her claims of abuse the attention her other friends didn’t.

  “Did you believe all the stuff that she was saying?” asked McPherron.

  “I believed the abuse ’cause I saw the bruises,” said Jason.

  “What bruises? Where were they on the body?”

  “I saw some bruises on her arms and a couple on her legs and a couple on her back.”

  “Did Rachelle ever say anything like her parents were gonna sell her into slavery or something like that?”

  “She did tell me that,” said Jason. “They had actually discussed that. I wasn’t sure whether to believe that or not.”

  As they spoke, it was well past midnight, and the strain began to show not only on Jason but on the exhausted McPherron.

  “OK, so did you discuss these things with Jason?” the detective asked.

  “I’m Jason.”

  “I’m, sorry—Brian,” said McPherron. “I haven’t slept much in the last few days.”

  “Understandable,” said Jason.

  The interview so far had not told the investigators anything they hadn’t already heard from Rachelle, so McPherron shifted the focus to the hours leading up to the murder. Jason said that he and Brian went to stores in Craig and Klawock that Saturday afternoon. He insisted he saw nothing sinister in the fact that Brian was loading up on things like duct tape, gloves, and towels.

  “What did he tell you all these supplies were for that he was buying?” asked McPherron.

  “He told me that they were gonna be cutting up a deer,” said Jason. “[He] said that he used to use the same stuff all the time when he was working at Mel’s Meat Market place that has since closed down.”

  When they returned to Brian’s place, however, they didn’t drink beer and watch TV as Jason had originally said. Instead, Jason helped cut Brian’s hair.

  “He told me he was just tired of it being too long and he didn’t wanna pay for a haircut,” said Jason.

  “OK.”

  “Because he was—he’s always been kind of scruffy.”

  Then, at about midnight, Brian asked for a ride to the marina in Craig, where he had a broken-down boat he had been sleeping in. After they arrived, Brian had one more request: he wanted Jason to pick him up at an old logging road near Thorne Bay later that night. He gave him directions but no explanation.

  “What did you think was going on?” asked McPherron.

  “I wasn’t sure,” said Jason. “I kept asking him, but he told me just to trust him, that he needed my help. I mean, I’ve known him for years.”

  “What did you suspect was going on?”

  “I honestly suspected that something was fishy, but I had no idea that it was—that it was that.”

  Out of loyalty, Jason didn’t press the issue and did as he was asked.

  “And when he shows up with the body in the car, that’s the first time you realize that this was murder?”

  “Yes.”

  Jason said he then watched in horror as Brian set fire to the van with Lauri’s body inside.

  McPherron said he had a problem with that story. He said that Jason was lying. What really happened was that Jason knew all about the abduction and “you guys were going to get rid of the body.”

  “No,” Jason protested. “I did not have any idea. If I’d known, I would have never done it.”

  “Well, Jason, I have some problems with that because, you know, initially you told us several lies.”

  “I understand that. And I know that makes it lot harder for you to trust me,” Jason said, “but, I mean, we can go down and do a polygraph right now. I had no idea he was gonna do something like this.”

  McPherron refused to accept his answers.

  “You knew that he was gonna grab her, kill her, and you guys were gonna get rid of the body,” he told Jason. “He filled you in on the plan before you departed.”

  “No,” Jason said.

  “Jason, you’re not gonna help yourself by continuing to lie to us, OK?”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Well, you did lie. You even fabricated an assault.”

  “I know that,” he said. “I know that destroys my credibility. But I’m not lying now.”

  “You knew when you left Hollis that Lauri was gonna be dead by the end of the night?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  “No, I didn’t.

  “You honestly expect us to believe that after all these lies?” said McPherron. “You sat on this for four days. Four days of knowing exactly what happened, who’s involved, and you did nothing about it?”

  “That’s because by the time I’d already seen the body, I’d already given him the ride, and I was already up to my neck in shit,” said Jason. “I was terrified of this whole thing. But I did not kill this woman. I did not.”

  Claus then took a turn at questioning him.

  “I look around your room, your place, the little I know about you from the last couple days of conversation and stuff,” the trooper said. “You’re a smart guy. You’re a logical thinker. You play games and watch movies and things that require you to follow, to use clues to follow a logical sequence of events. What would a reasonable person do, who didn’t have the guilty knowledge, when someone presents them with this set of facts: I’m gonna buy duct tape. I’m gonna buy towels. I’m gonna buy gloves. I’m gonna have a little bag with tools in it. And you’re gonna drop me off in the middle of the night?

  “What is the reasonable person to think?” continued Claus. “Is something good gonna happen? Is this criminal activity? A reasonable person is going to figure out all this stuff. You’re too smart for this, Jason … . You get to the top of the hill, he opens the door, you see a body. You don’t go down the hill? You don’t leave Brian there?”

  “You saw that road,” Jason said. “You know how narrow it is. By the time I would have got half way turned around, he’d be a yardin’ me out of that truck and breaking my neck.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Claus.

  “Because he’s obviously capable of murder,” said Jason.

  “Look around you, man. You’re too smart for that. You can’t expect us to believe that?”

  “You’ve already made up your mind,” said Jason, “but I’m telling you the truth.”

  About forty-five minutes into the interview, McPherron finally said, “If this is the position you wanna take, then so be it. Carry th
is millstone with you—I’m not gonna try and stop it. We have a warrant for your arrest, OK? We need you to stand up, please.”

  Claus had the warrant in his pocket. He had secured it from a judge before they went to Jason’s house.

  “Where are your shoes at, Jason?” asked Claus.

  “They’re out in the living room,” he said meekly.

  “Let’s wander out there,” said Claus. “You can put your shoes on, then what I’m gonna do is put handcuffs on you outside the house. You have any ID or anything that you wanna bring with you? You might wanna leave money or whatever here, but you can bring your wallet. Do you have anything in your pockets at all besides that ID card?”

  “Nothing in my pants pocket,” said Jason. “I’ve got my cigarettes and my coat back there.”

  “You won’t be able to smoke when you get to the jail,” said Claus.

  “Just leave them behind,” added McPherron.

  “Leave the lighter as well,” said Claus. “Any tools, knives, anything like that?”

  “Keys with an edge on them?” said McPherron.

  “I can give you a copy of the warrant,” said Claus. “I can give it to your father if you’d like.”

  “That’s fine,” said Jason.

  As the detectives were about to lead Jason out of his room to take him to the police station where his mother worked, he said, “Wait.”

  The troopers stopped.

  “Let’s have a seat,” Jason said. “You’re right. I was digging myself deeper.”

  Claus let go of Jason. They took their seats in the bedroom and the interview resumed.

  “So, when did you know what Brian was going to do?” asked McPherron.

  “I don’t know exactly,” said Jason, “but several days.”

  About a week earlier, Jason said, Rachelle had told him she was traveling to Anchorage for the volleyball tournament. “And then she just mentioned offhand that her dad had to take a business trip too,” he said.

  “So the opportunity presented itself?” asked McPherron.

  “Yes,” said Jason.

  “When did you relay this information to Brian?”

  “Shortly thereafter.”

  “And that’s when you guys resolved: OK, this is when we’re gonna do it, when we’re gonna kill Lauri?”