Gallery of the Dead

Forty-Nine

The seven-mile drive between Tucson International airport and the Police Department on South Alvernon Way was made in almost absolute silence. Everyone, except Agent Brandon, kept their attention solely on the files they were given.

‘Here we are,’ Agent Brandon said as he swung a right into the small visitors’ parking lot to the right of the police station.

The building, which was set back from the road, was an unattractive two-story rectangular structure, with a well-kept front lawn. A short concrete walkway led them to a set of dark-glass automatic sliding doors and into a spacious entry hall. The young and slender officer sitting behind the security windows at the reception counter immediately stood up as the five visitors entered the building.

‘May I help you?’ he asked after sliding open part of the window.

‘Yes,’ Agent Brandon said, already producing his FBI credentials. ‘Captain Suarez is expecting us.’

The officer blinked at the agent’s ID card before furtively consulting his watch.

‘At this hour?’ He frowned. ‘Are you sure you’ve got the time right?’

At that exact moment, the heavy door by the reception counter buzzed loudly before swinging open. At the other side of it, a short, overweight man stood at the entrance to a long corridor. He wore a dark suit that fit him like a sack of potatoes, over a light-blue shirt. No tie.

‘It’s OK,’ he said, peeking around the corner at the young officer. ‘I’ll take it from here.’

‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir, I didn’t know you were in.’

Captain Suarez faced the group. ‘Special Agent Brandon?’

Agent Brandon stepped forward and they shook hands.

‘If you’d all like to follow me, please,’ the captain said after all the proper introductions. ‘As I’ve told you over the phone,’ he began, first leading everyone toward the end of the corridor before guiding them down a concrete set of steps, ‘the subject isn’t talking. He hasn’t even given us his name.’

‘He hasn’t spoken a word since his arrest?’ Hunter asked.

‘Well, not exactly.’

The steps led them to another long hallway, this one a little darker than the one they’d just come from.

‘One of my detectives tried to speak to him,’ the captain explained. ‘But all he managed to get were four stupid words — “This shall be fun”.’

‘One of your detectives tried to speak to him?’ Agent Fisher stepped forward, her tone firm and annoyed. ‘I thought your instructions were clear, Captain — the suspect was not to be interrogated by anyone. I hope you will agree that those weren’t really a complicated set of instructions, were they? Nevertheless, you don’t seem to have understood them. We’ll need to hear the recording of this conversation between your detective and our suspect and we’ll need to do that right away.’

Captain Suarez paused halfway down the corridor and looked back at the agent resolutely. He really didn’t like her tone of voice.

‘Look, Special Agent Bitchness, we’re cooperating here. We have arrested a man at the scene of a homicide. A homicide that — though it partially matched a description received yesterday through an APB from the FBI — was committed inside our jurisdiction. Upon the arrest, we complied with the instructions in that FBI bulletin and, without asking “why”, immediately contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We have placed this man in a separate cell, isolated from everyone, as requested. Also as requested, no investigation was initialized from our side, though we had the right to do so. Since then, I have been sitting on my ass here until this godforsaken hour, waiting for you all to show up like heroes out of the dark dust because whatever this is, it just couldn’t wait until the morning, right? Who knows? We’re so incompetent at what we do here at Tucson PD that the suspect might’ve escaped before sunrise.’

The captain’s eyes widened at Agent Fisher.

‘There’s no recording of the interview because there was no interview,’ he continued. ‘My detective walked in there and asked him a couple of questions, to which he never got a reply. As I’ve told you, the only words the suspect has spoken since his arrest were “This shall be fun.” I could’ve omitted all that information from our little conversation here, but I didn’t. Like I said, we are cooperating. If you don’t like the way in which we are doing so—’ he pointed down the corridor, ‘—you can walk back the same way you came in.’

Garcia almost danced a jig.

Agent Fisher took a deep breath, but before she was able to reply, Agent Williams stepped forward, placing a hand on his partner’s shoulder.

‘I apologize, Captain. We definitely didn’t come here to pick a fight or to rub anybody the wrong way. We’re certainly grateful for your cooperation. It’s been a very long and surprising day for all of us and we’re a bit out of shape here. You’re right. Maybe we should’ve waited until the morning when everyone would’ve been at least rested and less on edge, but since we’re already here, do you mind if we carry on and talk to the subject?’

Captain Suarez held Agent Williams’ stare for a couple of seconds.

‘Right this way.’

As they carried on down the corridor, Garcia leaned over toward Hunter. ‘Am I the only one who thinks that “This shall be fun” being the only thing the suspect has said since he was arrested is a little strange?’

‘No,’ Hunter said back. ‘I’m with you on that one.’

Captain Suarez turned left at the end of the hallway and guided everyone past a door guarded by a young police officer before showing them all into a small observation room just around the corner. The air inside the concrete-walled room was uncomfortably warm.

‘There he is,’ Captain Suarez said.

Through the large two-way mirror on the wall directly in front of them, they could see a tall and broad-shouldered man sitting at a metal table. His hands were cuffed to the tabletop through a one-foot-long chain. He was sitting back on his chair in as much of a comfortable position as he could muster, given his predicament. His eyes were low, focusing on his lap. He wore a dark-blue T-shirt, blue jeans and black All-Stars. His shoelaces had been taken from him as a precautionary measure.

For a long, silent moment everyone attentively regarded the man on the other side of the mirror, and if anyone in that observation room had ever imagined what The Surgeon might look like, that man would be pretty close to it.

‘From what I understand,’ Agent Fisher said, ‘he had no identification on him when he was arrested.’

‘That’s correct,’ Captain Suarez confirmed. ‘All he had on him was a camera.’

‘A camera?’ The question came from Agent Williams, but the concerned look was uniform across everyone’s faces. They had not known that fact until then, as none of them had seen the arresting report yet.

‘That’s right. When the two officers surprised him at the scene, they saw him drop a heavy object to the floor. They thought it was a weapon. It turned out to be a camera.’

One of Agent Fisher’s eyebrows lifted as she turned to face the group.

‘I said that he would probably be photographing his scenes, didn’t I?’

‘The camera has been bagged as evidence and it’s sitting upstairs,’ Captain Suarez announced.

‘Has anyone looked through the photos yet?’ Hunter asked.

‘No,’ Captain Suarez replied, purposely giving Agent Fisher a plastic smile. ‘For two reasons. One — since this isn’t our investigation, the evidence doesn’t belong to us either, and two — it’s not a digital camera.’

That fact surprised everyone.

‘We’re talking about an old-fashioned, thirty-six-millimeter film camera here. You’ll have to get the film developed if you want to see the photos.’

‘Not a problem,’ Agent Brandon said, nodding at Captain Suarez. ‘Let’s go get the camera.’ He addressed Agents Williams and Fisher. ‘I’ll have the pictures in an hour. Two, max.’

The captain looked at the rest of the group.

‘It’s OK, Captain,’ Agent Williams assured him. ‘We’ll be all right by ourselves. We’re just going to ask him a few questions.’

‘Suit yourselves,’ Captain Suarez replied before he and Agent Brandon left the room.

Everyone went back to regarding the man on the other side of the two-way mirror, but Agent Fisher seemed to be looking at him a little differently. There was a new shine in her eyes, as if she knew something the others didn’t.

‘We should let Robert talk to him,’ Garcia suggested. ‘He’s an expert interrogator.’

‘Oh, I really don’t think so,’ Agent Fisher said, taking a step back from the two-way mirror. ‘Despite whatever title appears on the official report, Detective Garcia, this is an FBI investigation and as such, an FBI agent will be the first one to interrogate the suspect. And please rest assured that Detective Hunter isn’t the only expert interrogator in this room.’

‘So Agent Williams will interrogate him?’ Garcia asked, his face as straight as a die.

‘You probably think you’re funny, don’t you?’ Agent Fisher asked back.

‘I have my moments.’

‘Well, this is definitely not one of them.’

Agent Fisher grabbed the notepad and the pen that were sitting on top of the small rectangular table inside the observation room. ‘Please remember something, Detective: make no mistake, you’re here as guests, nothing more, so you’d better get used to the view from the back seat. My advice to you is: get comfortable and try to pay attention, OK?’ She reached for the door. ‘Who knows? You might even learn something.’