out of the room. Jeffrey took the next door down, entering the observation room. He stood with his arms crossed, watching Gordon and Lena through the one-way glass.
The interview room was relatively small with painted cement blocks for walls. A table was bolted to the center of the floor with three chairs spread around it. Two on one side, one on the other. Jeffrey watched Lena pick up the newspaper. She propped her feet up on the table, leaning the chair back a little as she opened the Grant County Observer to an inside page. Jeffrey heard the speaker next to him crackle as she folded the paper along the seam.
Gordon said, “I want some water.”
“Don’t talk,” Lena ordered, her voice so low Jeffrey had to turn up the speaker on the wall to hear her.
“Why? You gonna get in trouble?”
Lena kept her nose in the paper.
“You should get in trouble,” Gordon said, leaning over as much as he could in the chair. “I’m gonna tell my lawyer you slapped me.”
Lena snorted a laugh. “What do you weigh, one fifty? You’re about five six?” She put the paper down, giving him a soft, innocent expression. Her voice was high-pitched and girlish. “I would never hit a suspect in custody, Your Honor. He’s so big and strong, I’d be afraid for my life.”
Gordon’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You think you’re pretty funny.”
“Yeah,” Lena said, returning to the paper. “I really do.”
Gordon took a minute or two to refigure his approach. He pointed to the newspaper. “You’re that dyke’s sister.”
Lena’s voice was still light, though Jeffrey knew she must have wanted to climb over the table and kill him. She said, “That’s right.”
“She got killed,” he said. “Everybody on campus knew she was a dyke.”
“She certainly was.”
Gordon licked his lips. “Fucking dyke.”
“Yep.” Lena turned the page, looking as if she was bored.
“Dyke,” he repeated. “Fucking clit licker.” He paused, waiting for a reaction, obviously irritated that there was none. He said, “Gash grinder.”
Lena gave a bored sigh. “Bushwhacker, eats at the Y, dials O on her friend’s little pink telephone.” She paused, looking at him over the paper, asking, “Leaving any out?”
While Jeffrey felt an appreciation for Lena’s technique, he said a small prayer of thanks that she had not chosen a life of crime.
Gordon said, “That’s what you’ve got me in here for, right? You think I raped her?”
Lena kept the paper up, but Jeffrey knew her heartbeat was probably going as fast as his. Gordon could be guessing, or he could be looking for a way to confess.
Lena asked, “Did you rape her?”
“Maybe,” Gordon said. He started rocking the chair back and forth, like a little boy craving attention. “Maybe I fucked her. You wanna know about it?”
“Sure,” Lena said. She put the paper down, crossing her arms. “Why don’t you tell me all about it?”
Gordon leaned toward her. “She was in the bathroom, right?”
“You tell me.”
“She was washing her hands, and I went in and fucked her up the ass. She liked it so much she died on the spot.”
Lena gave a heavy sigh. “That’s the best you can do?”
He seemed insulted. “No.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you did to Julia Matthews?”
He sat back in the chair, leaning on his hands. “I didn’t do anything to her.”
“Where is she, then?”
He shrugged. “Probably dead.”
“Why do you say that?”
He leaned forward, his chest pressed into the table. “She’s tried to kill herself before.”
Lena did not skip a beat. “Yeah, I know. Slit her wrists.”
“That’s right.” Gordon nodded, though Jeffrey could see the surprise in his face. Jeffrey was surprised, too, though it made perfect sense. Women were far more likely to choose slitting their wrists over the many other methods of suicide. Lena had made a calculated guess.
Lena summarized, “She slit her wrists last month.”
He cocked his head, giving her a strange look. “How’d you know that?”
Lena sighed again, picking the paper back up. She opened it with a snap, then started to read.
Gordon started rocking his chair back and forth again.
Lena did not look up from the paper. “Where is she, Ryan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you rape her?”
“I didn’t have to rape her. She was a damn lapdog.”
“You let her go down on you?”
“That’s right.”
“That the only way you could get it up, Ryan?”
“Shit.” He dropped the chair. “You’re not supposed to be talking to me anyway.”
“Why?”
“’Cause this is off-the-record. I can say anything I want and it doesn’t matter.”
“What do you want to say?”
His lips twitched. He leaned over