Blood Runs Cold

53

Wardwell shifted forward in his chair.

‘Have you no trust in what the officers working the case believed?’ said Malcolm.

‘I’m not here to talk about the officers who ran the case, Mr Wardwell.’

He shook his head. ‘This is ridiculous.’

‘Moving on,’ said Ren. ‘I’d like to talk to you about the charity work you do for — ’

‘It’s not really charity — ’

‘Well, it is,’ said Ren. ‘You give stuff away for free to needy people.’

‘Right, but I’m not a formal charity.’

‘I know that. I just want to hear how it all works.’

‘OK. Well, my son Jason and I get some things together, head up the mountains and bring clothes or food, warm drinks, whatever, to the old guys living up in the cabins or tents around there.’

‘When do you do this?’ said Ren.

‘Maybe once or twice a month. My wife makes the food, so it could be she’s made a big batch of chili and has some to spare. Or it could be that it’s the end of sale season at the store, so we have some clothes to give away. Or there’s a major dip in temperature and we’re worried some of those old guys are going to freeze to death up there.’

‘There’s no regular delivery route …’

‘No. We don’t even deliver to the same people every time.’

‘Is it always you and your son?’

‘Yes. But we sometimes take some of the kids who work in the stores. Especially the ones I think need to learn to not always just be thinking of themselves.’

Ren pushed a piece of paper and a pen toward him. ‘Can you write down the nights you were delivering in January — with whom, to whom and where.’

Wardwell paused. ‘That’s impossible to do accurately. I can’t remember.’

‘Try.’

He wrote with thin, light strokes, pausing before he committed each date to paper.

‘I’m not going to get all of this right,’ he said.

‘We’ll Xerox you a copy and you can get back to me when you get home and check your diary,’ said Ren. ‘If you have anything else to add, call me.’

Ren took the page from him when he was finished.

‘OK,’ she said, scanning the list. ‘Where were you Monday night, January fifteenth?’

‘At home. My wife can confirm that.’

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘We’ll check that.’ She paused. ‘OK, let’s go back to the child porn …’

Wardwell looked away. He started tapping with two fingers of his right hand just above his collar bone. His lips started to move, barely. Ren guessed he was repeating something, but so subtly it was impossible to know what. She stared as his lips kept moving. For almost a minute he said nothing. Then he focused on her as if he’d talked himself into looking her in the eye.

‘I do not see what this has to do with anything,’ he said. ‘A grown woman was found dead, a — ’

‘I know,’ said Ren, ‘but you understand you have a record, and therefore you are going to be of interest when a crime is committed in your neck of the woods.’ She paused. ‘OK, what I have here is that the porn consisted of illustrated magazines, like fifties pin-up pictures where the women are in corsets and suspender belts in the kitchen, smiling gaily. Except these were illustrations of children in regular clothes, doing regular things, like walking to the store. They were cute drawings. But with coded captions: “Little John fights with other boys. He is going to get in so much trouble.”’ She shook her head. ‘There was a phone number on the back for you to call,’ said Ren. ‘You’d give the illustration number and you’d get a video in the mail that corresponded to it. So if someone found the magazine, it’d look innocent.

‘Officers searched your house and not only did you have the magazines, you had the videos — They were labeled Caribou Hunt nineteen-seventy-whatever — you’d get a half-hour of hunting, then it would cut to what you were really hunting for …’

‘It was thirty years ago,’ said Wardwell. ‘Yes, I had those magazines, I admitted it almost immediately — ’

‘Almost. Meaning, when the police arrived at your door, raided your home, found them — ’

‘I admitted it, yes. I couldn’t have admitted it any sooner, could I?’

‘No. I guess a pedophile doesn’t really go around admitting to much, does he? A pedophile only gets the title pedophile when he’s caught, right? Y’all don’t call each other up, saying, “Hey, pedophile, me and some of the other pedophiles are getting together tonight for a little bowling …”’

‘Stop. Please,’ said Wardwell.

‘Aw,’ said Ren. She glanced at Gressett; can you believe this guy? and turned back to Wardwell. ‘I’ve been here before. You will explain to me how it’s normal, you love these kids, they love you, the Romans were at it left and right, society will swing back that way. And I could, for the sake of this interrogation process, pretend that I don’t think that that’s entirely unreasonable, that maybe you could actually have a point. But I’m really not in the humor. I don’t know, but I’m kind of a fan of kids having a childhood.’

‘I never laid a finger on one child. It was a couple of magazines,’ shouted Wardwell. ‘And one video tape — ’

‘If everyone in the world had one video tape of one child being abused …’ said Ren. ‘And who knows what was under your floorboards or up in a cabin somewhere or in a lockbox or in a — ’

‘You searched everywhere,’ he shouted. ‘You turned my house upside down. You turned my life upside down — ’

She leaned into him. ‘You pathetic little pricks always blame someone else.’

Gressett stood up. ‘Agent Bryce.’

She turned to him, her eyes on fire, then leaned down into his ear and whispered, ‘Oh, come on.’

‘Agent Bryce.’ Gressett slid his chair back a fraction.

When Ren turned back to Malcolm Wardwell, he was nodding.

‘What are you nodding about?’ said Ren.

‘I … I …’ He started tapping the side of his thumb with three fingers.

‘What,’ she shouted, ‘is with all the tapping?’

‘It calms me down,’ said Wardwell.

‘Glad someone’s calm. And can I say something? How, really, was your life turned upside down? You got a blink-and-you’d-miss-it sentence, your wife took you back, you still get to run your successful business and you’re lucky enough that people come in and out of this town so much that most of them don’t even know your secret, and half of those who do are so loyal to your wife that they don’t shun you. And the other half just seem to avoid your store, so you lose a few customers; big deal. What about the children you people “love”? Now, there’s some destroyed lives for you.’ She paused and looked at his eyes. ‘Oh, come on, don’t you pull that shit on me — ’

‘Agent Bryce,’ said Gressett, standing up. He lowered his voice. ‘Please. Can we talk outside a minute?’

Ren took a breath. ‘Sure.’ She turned to Wardwell. ‘We’ll be back. You can use your moisture — wicking sleeve to wipe those tears.’

She followed Gressett out the door and closed it softly behind her.

‘Are you … all right?’ said Gressett.

‘Me? I could give two shits.’

‘Jesus … is there something else going on here?’

‘What?’ said Ren. ‘This is a man with a stash of picture-book kiddie porn and fucking caribou hunts with his own special interludes and you think this is personal? This is not personal, you …’ She paused. ‘If I was a male agent — ’

‘I wasn’t asking you if — ’

‘What were you asking? What does “is there something else going on here?” mean, then? Oh, right … is it my time of the month, is that why I’m so angry?’

‘Calm down,’ said Gressett. His voice was surprisingly gentle. ‘Where are you going with all this? I grew up with a single mom and four sisters … I was just saying, your anger seems — ’

‘Do not say out of proportion,’ said Ren, taking a step toward him. ‘It’s … these people drive me crazy. If I see one more of them weep in front of me …’ She paused. ‘How appropriate the crocodile tears. Crocodile — the only predator on earth to remain virtually unchanged since the time of the dinosaurs …’

Gressett conceded a smile. ‘Just don’t let your anger cancel out your professionalism. That’s all. I could give two hoots about that guy myself. I was just worried that vein on your temple was finally going to blow.’

‘Oh no — I need that vein. It hypnotizes people.’

Gressett smiled.

‘I know about you and Jean,’ said Ren.

‘What?’

‘I know you were in love with her,’ said Ren.

He opened his mouth to deny it, but Ren hoped that the look on her face had only compassion.

‘You had such a bad reaction that time to the idea she was gay,’ said Ren, ‘I thought you were homophobic, but it’s been clear since then that you’re not — you just didn’t want to think you had spent all that time loving her for what you would have seen as no reason and that you may never have found out if she was. Over the past six months I’ve seen how you are grieving. And that photo you gave me for her file was very touching. You wouldn’t come to the autopsy. And then there was me … you hated the idea of me taking her place.’

Gressett looked away.

‘Even though I had never, even for a second, thought I could,’ said Ren.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

‘Did you ever tell her?’ said Ren.

‘I didn’t get the chance.’