The King Of Lies

CHAPTER 24

The room was square and had wire cages over the lightbulbs; it smelled of feet. Time-bent black linoleum tiles rippled across the floor and gave the room a warped feel, like giant hands had twisted it, and I wondered if it was bad construction or my state of mind. The room was at the back of the police station, and like similar rooms at the jail, this one had green walls, a metal table, and two chairs. It also had a mirror, and I knew that Mills was behind it. She knew that I knew she was behind it, and that just made it silly.

In spite of everything, I felt a strange smile cross my face. Maybe it was because I knew that I had an alibi. If I broke, I had an out, and that made everything surreal. Maybe I was closer to the edge than I realized. Whatever the case, the feeling persisted.

They’d brought me in the back, through the parking garage, then down a concrete hall to this place that smelled like feet. They’d removed my cuffs and left. I’d been sitting there for an hour but had not touched the water pitcher on the table. I’d heard cops joke about the technique. Suspects with full bladders often spoke too freely, just to get it over with and get to the john. The wait was also common. They liked for the reality to settle in; they liked the fear sweats.

So I sat still and tried to prepare myself, but what I really wanted was a cigarette. I thought of all the clients who had been in this room before me.

When Mills came in, she brought the ripe-peach smell with her. Another detective followed her in, and I knew his face but not his name. Mills sat opposite me and he leaned against the wall, next to the mirror. He had big hands and a small head; he hooked his thumbs in his pockets and watched me without blinking.

Mills put the usual things on the table-pad, pen, tape recorder, manila file folder. Then she put a piece of paper in front of me and I recognized the Miranda waiver form. She turned on the tape recorder and announced the date and the time. She identified everyone present, and then she met my eyes.

“Mr. Pickens, you have previously been advised of your Miranda rights. Is that correct?”

“May I have a cigarette?” I asked.

Mills glanced at Detective Small Head and he produced a pack of Marlboro Lights. I took one from his hand, slipped it between my lips. He leaned across the table, lit it with a cheap pink lighter, and retreated to his place against the wall.

Mills repeated the question. “Have you previously been advised of your Miranda rights?”

“Yes.”

“Do you understand those rights?”

“I do.”

“Before you is the standard North Carolina Miranda waiver form. It explains your rights. Will you please read the form out loud?”

I picked up the paper and read it for the benefit of the tape recorder and any judge who might be asked to scrutinize the legality of this interrogation.

“Do you understand these rights?” Mills was taking no chances.

“I do.”

“If you are willing to speak to us at this point, I’d ask you to indicate your willingness on the waiver form, then date and sign it.”

All such waiver forms have a box you can check if you’re willing to proceed with the interrogation. Under the law, once a suspect is in custody and requests the presence of counsel, the police are required to suspend the interrogation immediately. Anything said after that time is inadmissible in court; in theory, so is any evidence the cops find based on such statement.

I told all my clients the same thing: “Don’t ever sign that damn waiver. Ask for a lawyer and keep your mouth shut. Nothing you say will help you.”

I ignored my own advice, signed the waiver, and passed it over. If Mills was surprised, she hid it well. She slipped the signed form into her manila folder, as if afraid I might change my mind and tear it up. For a moment, she appeared uncertain, and it occurred to me that she’d never anticipated that I’d cooperate. But I needed information, and I wouldn’t get it without playing along. They’d found something. I wanted to know what it was. It was a dangerous game.

I took the initiative. “Have I been indicted?”

“This is my interrogation.” Her demeanor remained calm; she was still the detached professional, but it wouldn’t last long.

“I can always retract my waiver,” I said.

Few people realize this. You can sign a waiver in blood, answer questions all day, and then still change your mind. They then have to stop the interrogation, a thing that no cop wants to do until he’s ready. I saw a muscle twitch in Mills’s jaw. The deck is stacked in the cops’ favor, and they often benefit from people’s ignorance of the system.

“No. There’s no indictment.”

“But you have an arrest warrant?”

She hesitated again, but then answered. “Yes.”

“What time did you get it?”

Her mouth constricted into a narrow pucker, and I saw Detective Small Head straighten against the wall.

“That’s not important.”

I could see the struggle on her face. Her answer would piss me off, but so would her silence. And I knew Mills; she wanted me to talk, wanted it so badly, she could taste it. If I talked, she could trip me up, score an early victory. If I exercised my right to remain silent, she would be denied that pleasure. But she wanted the early hit. She wanted blood, and had faith in her ability to get it.

“One o’clock,” she finally said.

“Yet you waited until after five to arrest me.”

Mills looked down at her pad, embarrassed to have this conversation as part of the official interrogation tape. Cops have rules, too. Don’t let suspects take control of an interrogation.

“I just want to make sure we understand each other,” I continued. “I know why you waited.” And I did. By arresting me after five, I had no chance to go before a judge on a bail motion, not that day. That meant at least one night in jail, and that was personal, like the newspaper she’d left on my kitchen table. She wanted me to feel the noose, plain and simple.

“Are you finished?” she asked.

“Just so we understand each other.”

“Then let’s get on with this.” She began systematically, and I had to admit that she was good. She established my identity, my relationship to the deceased, and my occupation with minimum dialogue. She wanted a clean, crisp transcript. She questioned me about the night my father died, and she was thorough. She wanted every moment accounted for, and I gave her the same story I’d given before. Mother’s accident. The hospital. Ezra’s house. The phone call. His sudden departure. I played down the severity of his argument with Jean, and I confirmed once again that after I’d left Ezra’s house, I was at home for the rest of the night. “No,” I told her. “I never saw my father again.”

“What about his gun?” she asked.

“What about it?”

“Did you know where he kept it?”

“Lots of people did.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I knew where he kept it.”

“Do you know how to fire a gun?”

“You point and you pull the trigger. It’s not rocket science.”

“Do you know where it is now?”

“No,” I told her. “I have no idea.”

So she went back to the beginning. She went over every detail again and yet again. She approached my story from different angles, searching for inconsistencies, the tiny lies that every guilty person tells. “What time did you go to bed? How about your wife? What did you talk about? Tell me about the argument. Tell me what happened at the hospital. What else did your father say before he left? How about the phone call? Let’s go over that again.”

On and on, for hours. “How did you get along with your father? What was your financial arrangement in regards to the practice? Were you partners or were you an employee? Did you have a key to his house? Did he lock his office at night? How about his desk?”

I asked for water and Mills poured a glass from the pitcher. I took a small sip.

“When did you first learn about the will?”

“I knew he was leaving me the house, but I knew nothing else about it until I met with Hambly.”

“Your father never discussed it?”

“He was a secretive man, especially about money.”

“Hambly tells me you were angry about the terms of the will. He says you cursed your father’s name.”

“Jean was not included.”

“And that bothered you.”

“I think it’s cruel.”

“Let’s talk about your mother,” Mills said. I stiffened.

“What about her?”

“Did you love her?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Answer the question, please.”

“Of course I loved her.”

“What about your father?”

“He loved her, too.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“He was my father.”

“That doesn’t answer the question,” she said.

“I think it does.”

She leaned back in her chair, enjoying this power she had over me. “Were you friends?”

I thought about it, and almost lied. I wasn’t sure why the truth came out, but it did. “He was my father and my business partner. We were not friends.”

“Why not?”

“He was a hard man. I don’t think he had many friends.”

Mills flipped the pages of her pad, looking back over some previous notes. “The night your mother died.”

“That was an accident,” I said, a little too loudly.

Mills looked up, the pages still held between her fingers. “So you’ve said. But questions were asked. There was an inquest.”

“Haven’t you read the report?” I asked.

“I’ve read it. It raised some questions.”

I shrugged as if this wasn’t killing me. “People die. Questions are asked. That’s how it’s done.”

“Where was Alex Shiften?” she asked.

The question took me off guard. “Alex?”

“Yes. During the argument. After the argument. Where was she?”

“I don’t know,” I told her truthfully.

Mills made a note on her pad and then changed tack seamlessly. “You’ve never seen your father’s will. Is that right?”

She’d asked this before. “I’ve never seen his will,” I told her. “I never knew any details. Until I spoke with Clarence Hambly, I had no idea that his estate was so large.” I sensed movement and looked at Detective Small Head. He hadn’t actually moved, but the razor’s edge of his mouth had turned up at one corner, and suddenly I felt the true danger of the game I was playing. I couldn’t see Mills’s trap, but I sensed it. My next words were spoken slowly. “I certainly didn’t know that he’d left me fifteen million dollars.”

I put my eyes back on Detective Mills and saw the first gleam of triumph. Whatever she had up her sleeve, I was about to find out. She opened the manila folder and removed what looked like a document sealed in a clear plastic evidence bag. She read the evidence number into the record, took the document out, and then laid it before me. I knew what it was before it hit the table. A glance confirmed my suspicions. “The Last Will and Testament of Ezra Pickens,” it read.

“You’ve never seen this document?” she asked.

“No,” I said, a hollow place opening in my stomach. “I’ve never seen it.”

“But according to the title of this document, it is your father’s will. Is that a fair statement?”

“It purports to be the last will and testament of my father, yes. You’d need Clarence Hambly to confirm it.”

“He has,” Mills said, making her less-than-subtle point. Everything would be confirmed. Every word I said. “And you’ve never seen it before?”

“No.”

“No, you’ve not seen it?”

“That’s correct.”

Mills picked up the document.

“I am turning to page five,” Mills said. “There is a sentence here that has been marked with a yellow Hi-Liter. The last three words of that sentence have been underlined three times in red ink. I’m going to show this to you and ask you if you have ever seen this.”

She presented the document, placing it face up on the table. The feeling of surreal calm that had enveloped me started to crumble.

“I have never seen this before,” I said.

“Will you please read the highlighted portion?”

I felt Detective Small Head detach himself from the wall. He crossed the room and stood behind Mills. In a shallow voice I read my father’s words; it was a voice from the grave, and it damned me.

“To my son, Jackson Workman Pickens, I leave, in trust, the sum of fifteen million dollars.” Red ink underscored the dollar figure. Whoever did it had pressed down hard, as if in anger or expectation. I could not bring myself to look up. I knew what the next question would be. It came from Mills.

“Will you explain for us how this document, which you have never seen, came to be in your house?”

I could not answer them. I could barely breathe. My father’s will had been found in my house.

They had their motive.

Suddenly, a hand crashed down on the table before my eyes. I jumped in my chair, looked up at Mills. “Damn it, Pickens! Answer the question. What was this doing in your house?”

Mills continued, pounding me with words as she’d pounded the table with her open palm.

“You knew about the will,” she said. “You needed the money, and you killed him!”

“No,” I finally said. “None of that is true.”

“Hambly told us that your father planned to change the will. He was cutting you out, Pickens. Fifteen million dollars was about to fly out the window, and you freaked. So you put two in his head and you waited for the body to be found. That’s how it happened, isn’t it? Admit it!”

I was stunned. He was going to cut me out? Hambly had never mentioned that. I filed the issue away, concentrated on the present. This was a hard blow, a strategic nightmare, but I’d faced worse. I had to think. I had to be calm. I took a slow, deep breath, told myself to think about the transcript of this interview, think about a future jury. This was a deposition, I told myself. Nothing more.

I almost believed it.

“Are you through?” I asked, leaning against the back of my seat. My voice was quiet, and I knew that the sound of it made Mills’s histrionics seem extreme. She was on her feet, leaning over the table. She studied my face and straightened. “May I pick this up?” I asked, indicating my father’s will.

Mills nodded, took a step back, and sat down. Much of the color had faded from her face. “As long as you’re still planning to talk to me,” she said.

I declined to answer. I lifted the document from the table and slowly flipped through the pages. I needed something. Anything.

I found what I was looking for on the signature page.

“This is a copy,” I said, laying the document back down and squaring the edges.

“So?” I saw brief concern tighten her eyes. It showed in her voice, too.

“So there are only a few originals of any will. Usually the client keeps one, as does the drafting attorney. Two originals, then. Maybe three. But copies, by their very nature, can be limitless in their number.”

“That’s irrelevant. All that matters is that you knew the terms of the will.”

Arguing with me was her first real mistake. She’d opened the door, given me license to speculate, and it was my turn to lean forward. I wanted my next words on the transcript; I spoke clearly.

“You acquired a copy of the will from Clarence Hambly. You did so prior to the search of my home. That’s one person that we know of who had a copy-you. I can also assume that you gave a copy to the district attorney. That’s two. Clarence Hambly, of course, had one of the originals, so he could also have made a copy. That makes three people with copies of the will who have also been inside my home within the past few days.” I counted on my fingers, bending each one back as I spoke. “Hambly was at Ezra’s wake the night after his body was discovered. That’s one. The district attorney stopped by the other day to speak with my wife. He made a special trip to visit her at the house. Nowhere else. The house. That’s two. And you were there during the search. That makes three. Any one of you could have planted that copy.”

“Are you challenging my integrity?” Mills demanded. “Or that of the district attorney?” I saw that the color was back in her cheeks. My words had hit the mark. She was getting angry.

“You’re challenging mine. So why not? Three people, all of whom had a copy of the will, all of whom have been in my house within the past several days. That’s a compelling problem for you, Detective Mills. People love a good conspiracy theory. And let’s not forget Hambly’s office staff. He has fifteen support people working there, plus another five lawyers. Any one of them could have copied that document. Have you checked them out? I bet a hundred bucks could buy a copy of a dead man’s will, if you found the right person. What’s the harm in that, right? Barbara and I have had countless people in our house over the past year and a half. One of them buys a copy of the will and plants it in our house. That’s a simple picture. You should check them out as well.”

Mills was furious, which was how I wanted her. Her voice rose as she spoke. “You can twist this all you want, but no jury will buy it. Juries trust cops, trust the district attorney. The will was in your house. You knew about the fifteen million.”

“I wouldn’t be so quick to insult the juries of this county. They’re smarter than you think. They may surprise you.”

Mills saw the danger of letting me take control just as I smiled. I was calm. She was not. She had called the jury stupid. I had paid them a sincere compliment. It was on the record.

“This line of questioning is over,” Mills said. Her eyes burned with conviction, and I saw real hatred there.

I wasn’t ready to let it go. Not yet. I wanted one more theory on the record. “Then there’s the person that broke into Ezra’s office,” I said. “The one who tried to kill me with the chair. I wonder what he was after. Maybe he stole a copy of the will.”

“That is enough.” Mills was back on her feet, her hands clamped on the table’s edge. I would get nothing further from her; that was plain.

So I said the only thing left to say.

“Very well. I withdraw my Miranda waiver and assert my right to remain silent. This interview is over.”

Mills swelled as blood suffused her face. She had tasted the kill and liked it; but then I’d shut her down, blown massive holes in her theory. It would not be enough by itself-I knew that-but it made her look bad, cast some small shadow of doubt. She’d not fully considered the significance of the will being a copy. An original would have been much more damning. But it was all smoke and mirrors in the end. She had what she wanted. I was on record. I’d never seen the will, yet it was found in my house.

And fifteen million dollars-that would sway most juries.

Yet as Mills stormed out and left me alone with these thoughts, I had to deal with two more questions that, in their own way, were even more troubling: Why did my father want to cut me out of the will, and why hadn’t Hambly told me about it?

I rubbed my hands across a face that felt as if it belonged to another man. Razor stubble, deep lines-I ground my palms into raw eyes, opened them when I heard Detective Small Head approach the table. He dropped a telephone onto the surface.

“One phone call, counselor. Better make it a good one.”

“How about some privacy?” I asked.

“No chance,” he replied, and moved back to lean against the wall.

Already the interview was moving behind me. I looked at the telephone and remembered Vanessa’s face as she’d fled the sound of Barbara’s voice. I had one phone call, so I thought of all the lawyers I knew, then dialed the only number that made any sense whatsoever. I heard the phone ring at Stolen Farm and squeezed the receiver so tightly that my hand ached. Was I looking for my alibi? Maybe, for a moment, but most of all I wanted her to know that I’d not abandoned her. Please, I begged silently. Please pick up. But she didn’t, just her voice, indifferent, asking that the caller leave a message. But I couldn’t. What could I say? So I lowered the phone back to its cradle, dimly aware of the detective’s curious stare, and the fact that, far from here, an unfeeling machine carried the sound of my anguished breath.