He wanted back behind the restricted door and into his world, but her grip only tightened.
“Listen to me,” she said in a tone he would have rather not heard. “If you put this on her, I will be forced to . . . I will not let her be charged with this.”
“She hasn’t been charged, Fiona. But this—the way you’re acting, isn’t helping anything. Let me do my job. I know what I’m doing.” He let that sit there a second.
“But maybe you’ve forgotten who you’re doing it to.”
“We have evidence—hard evidence—that has to be accounted for. For all your good intentions—and I believe in them—there’s a process. A procedure. We’re just at the start of that. She answers these questions honestly, she walks out of here for now. If an attorney gets into it, it will prejudice the interview. That’s when I get backed into a corner and things get tricky. Let’s not get there. Let’s avoid that.”
“You’re setting her up.”
“I am absolutely not setting her up!” He’d raised his voice. It reverberated against the high ceiling. The receptionist on the other side of the window kept her head down.
He lowered his voice to a hush. “Listen to me. I care for that girl, and I care about you. At some point you have to trust me. I happen to know what I’m doing.”
“She’s innocent.”
“Good. Then there is nothing to worry about.”
She started for the doors, turning to look back at him once and put an exclamation point onto her disgust. Then she reconsidered. “No,” she said. “I’m not going. I’m not giving you that. I’ll be right here. Waiting. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Suit yourself,” Walt said, heading back through the door that cloistered him.
He mumbled to himself as he strode down the hall toward the first interview room, where he would find Deputy Linda Chalmers behind the video camera. Truth was, there was nothing to operating the camera; he asked Fiona to do the recording as a way to slip her extra income and get a chance to see her. She had begun to seep into his work and his decision making in ways like this, and he saw it for what it was—trouble—while still feeling no desire to change it. He opened the door and looked at the young woman on the other side of the table, frightened, unsure. Deputy Blompier sat in the chair to the left, by the wall. Walt took the only other chair facing Kira.
“You okay?” he began. Something transformed in him the moment he took his chair. A voice in his head said “game on.” Establish a rapport. Mimic language. Control emotions. Manipulate.
The empty chair to her left, the chair intended for an attorney, called out to him. Was he supposed to charge her and fill that chair for her, to give up the slight advantage he held by her not being represented? Did that help anyone?
Kira held a fixed stare of bewilderment and fear. He reminded himself beguilement took on many faces, came in all sizes and ages. Whether or not she might attempt to play him, he couldn’t tell. Her dazed expression seemed real enough. But one learned in the narrow confines of these interview rooms to put away interpretation, to ignore the suspect’s beauty or the tattoos or the lack of language skills and to drill down. So he took a second to make himself comfortable in the chair, his decision made. He took a deep, calming breath and exhaled, placed his forearms onto the table, a man determined, his body language as practiced, as important, as each word, each inflection. He lived for such moments.
He glanced over his shoulder. Chalmers gave him a nod: tape was running.
“Do you want a glass of water or a Coke or anything?”
“I’m okay, thank you.”
“You understand why you’re here?”
She nodded. “To talk.”
“That’s right. Do you have any questions?”
“I don’t get it. Why me? What’d I do?”
“Why do you think you’re here?”
“That guy getting killed and all.”
“You’re referring to Martel Gale.”
“I guess.”
Walt opened a file folder and slid a photograph in front of her. He’d had two choices: an NFL photo, or the crime scene—half the guy’s face eaten off. It wasn’t out of the question that in certain interviews he would have chosen the crime scene photo, but not here. Not her.
“Have you ever seen this man before?”
She nodded.
“It’s important you answer aloud,” Walt said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Please describe the circumstances of the last time you saw him.”