Detective Cross

Chapter 7

As soon as Bree returned after a shower and a change of clothes, I went into the interrogation room alone. My first task was to build trust, and see what Chorey might tell me of his own volition.

Wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, Chorey sat in a chair bolted to the floor, gazing intently at his grimy hands folded on the tabletop and the handcuffs that bound his wrists. A heavy leather belt encircled his waist, with steel hoops attached to chains welded to the legs of the chair.

If he saw me enter, he ignored me. Not a flicker of reaction passed over his face. His entire being seemed focused on his hands and wrists, as if they held some great secret that calmed and fascinated him.

He was, as Bree had described him, six-foot-three, rail thin, with dull brown dreadlocks, a sparse beard over drawn skin, and dark bags under his eyes, which were still gazing, barely blinking. He stank of body odor and cheap booze.

“Mr. Chorey?” I said.

He didn’t react.

“Gunny?”

Nothing. His eyes closed.

I was about to take the seat in front of him, and shake the table so he’d open his eyes and at least acknowledge my presence. But then something dawned on me, and I eased to his side, studying him more closely.

I went around behind him and clapped my hands softly. Chorey didn’t react. I clapped them loudly and he didn’t startle, but instead slightly cocked his head as if wondering if that sound was real.

“He’s almost stone deaf,” I said to the mirror. “That’s why he wasn’t responding to officers’ orders. And hate to say it, Ned, but it jeopardizes the Miranda.”

Chorey opened his eyes and saw me in the mirror. He startled, squinted, and twisted around to look up at me. I held up my hands and smiled. He didn’t smile back.

I went around the table, took another chair, and got out a legal pad and pen from my bag.

I wrote, “Master Gunnery Sergeant Chorey, my name is Alex Cross. Can you hear with your hearing aids?”

Chorey brought his head close over the tablet when I spun it. He blinked, shrugged, squinted at me and in a weird, hollow nasal voice said, “I don’t know.”

“Did you have them in when you went in the reflecting pool?” I wrote.

“Been two and a half years since I’ve had them. I think. Time goes by and...”

He stared off into the middle distance.

“What happened to them?”

“I got drunk, heard voices and that damn ringing in my head, and I don’t know, I think I crushed them with a rock.”

“Get rid of the voices and the ringing?”

He laughed. “Only if I kept drinking.”

“Would it help if we got headphones and an amplifier for you?”

“I don’t know. Why am I here? Is it that big a deal to protest in Washington? I’ve seen films of hundreds of peaceful protesters in that reflecting pool back in the sixties. Hell, they were in it in Forrest Gump, right? Jenny was, anyway.”

I smiled because he was right. Before I could scribble my response, a knock came at the door. An FBI tech entered with headphones, amplifier, and a microphone.

The tech put the headphones on Chorey, and turned on the amp. He turned the sound halfway up, and told me to speak. Chorey shook his head at each hello. It wasn’t until the amp was at ninety percent of capacity that he brightened.

“I heard it. Can it go louder?”

The tech said, “At a certain point it could further damage your ears.”

Chorey snorted and said, “I already know what the silence is like.”

The tech shrugged and turned the volume up again.

“Can you hear me?” I asked.

Both eyebrows rose and he said, “Huh, yeah, I heard that in my right ear.”

I set down my pen and leaned closer to the microphone the tech had set up on the table. “Going in the water, dismantling your weapon, you did that as a protest?”

“Destroying my weapon as protest. Beating swords into ploughshares, and baptizing myself in the pool of forgiveness. It was supposed to be a new beginning.”

He said this with earnestness, conviction even.

“You ran from the police.”

“I ran from shapes chasing me,” Chorey said. “My eyesight sucks now, except right up close. You can check.”

“What about the bombs?” I asked. “The IEDs?”

Chorey twitched at the word bombs, but then appeared genuinely baffled.

“IEDs?” he said. “What IEDs?”