*****
The man’s fingers drummed nervously on the paint-chipped wooden desk, his fingernails bitten and scarred as if he’d actually chewed them completely off his fingers a time or two. Burton watched Donnell’s mutilated fingers continue their drumming and vowed to stop biting his own nails just as soon as he had the nicotine thing kicked.
Dave Kazmaroff sat across the room—with its single table and three chairs—and balanced a legal pad on his knee. His stomach growled and he glanced at his watch.
“Come on, Bob, it’s a simple question.” Kazmaroff could hear the fatigue in Burton’s voice. Usually it was a feigned weariness, designed to allow the suspect a certain false security to encourage him to lower his guard. Tonight, Kazmaroff doubted the weary tone was affected.
“I told you.”
“Told us what? What did you tell us?” Kazmaroff chimed in.
“I told you that I was just walking along and—”
“Oh, give me a break.” Burton tossed a pencil down onto the table and Donnell flinched. His bald head glistened with sweat. Every so often, he would reach up and smooth the top of his bare crown with his fingers. It was a gesture that repulsed Burton.
“You were walking along and saw this apartment building and decided to go knocking on doors. Man, if you don’t start helping us out here…” The threat hung in the air.
“I don’t know what you want from me!” Donnell’s hands flew to his mouth, where he began to gnaw a forefinger with vigor. “I confessed to everything, didn’t I?” His voice was muffled.
“Take your hands outta your mouth,” Burton said.
Donnell jerked his hands back to the table.
“I said I did her, right? I told you who and how.”
“And now we just wanna know why, Bob.” Kazmaroff spoke softly to countermand Burton’s roughness.
“Yeah, Bob,” Burton said quietly. “Why did you do her?”
The man looked at the detectives with wide eyes, as if he didn’t understand the question.
“Like, instead of riding your bike ten miles that day or, say, painting your living room, why did you go out and strangle someone you didn’t know? Why?”
“Why?” he chirped back at them, a panicked look beginning to appear on his face. “Well,” Donnell said, staring at his bad hands, “because she never really cared about me. That’s why.” He looked down at his shirtfront, resting his chin against his chest. “She only pretended to when he was around, but when he was gone she used to laugh at me or just pretend like I wasn’t there.”
Kazmaroff eased the front legs of his chair back onto the ground. “Who?” he asked.
Donnell looked up, his face a mask of misery and frustration. “Betty,” he croaked. “You know? Betty?”
Burton restrained himself from screaming: Betty Rubble? Betty Crocker? How would I know what Betty you’re talking about, you stupid prick?!
Kazmaroff said, “Your mother, Betty?”
Donnell nodded and buried his sweating face on his folded arms upon the table.
“I picked up the gun because she looked so much like Mother. I had to.”
The gun? Burton covered his face with his hands.
“Oh. My. God. He didn’t do it.” Kazmaroff looked at Burton, who was standing with his hands over his face by the now sobbing Donnell. “He didn’t friggin’ do it.”
Murder in the South of France, Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries Page 30