The Murder Artist

CHAPTER 11

The polygraph test is scheduled for this morning at eleven. Despite my innocence, I can’t help worrying. How can a machine designed to measure galvanic response (and I have only a vague idea what this is) distinguish kinds of stress? How can a mechanical device separate anxiety about telling deliberate lies from anxiety about taking the test, about being falsely accused, about the fate of my missing children?

Mostly, though, the test is a distraction – almost a welcome one – from the horror of the T-shirt. And although I don’t look forward to the walk to the car, especially since Shoffler failed to keep news about the “child’s blood-soaked T-shirt” from leaking to the press, in a way I can’t wait to get out of the house. Hour by hour, the atmosphere becomes more suffocating, a bell jar of anguished waiting.

Every time the phone rings – which is at least once every five minutes – we wait, suspended between hope and fear.

Mostly fear. We’re relieved when the call offers no information about the boys, when it’s just another call from the press or the police, from a friend or a stranger wanting to help. The cliché turns out to be true. No news is good news; no news feels like a reprieve.

My parents and Liz may be incensed over the accusations against me, but with Jack I’d have to say the jury’s out. He’s not sure. In some ways, this is easier to take than my mother’s constant litany of affronted woe.

My father wants to go with me to the police station, even Liz makes the offer, but I won’t put them through it.

At this morning’s press conference, which we all watched in the family room, Shoffler refused to answer questions or comment about the bloody T-shirt and warned against “leaping to conclusions.”

Still, I know what to expect when I step out the door.

And then it’s time. Christiansen arrives with a fellow officer to escort me to the squad car. Although I’m not in handcuffs or shackles, escorting doesn’t begin to describe how I’m hustled down the steps and propelled through the shouting, strobe-dappled crowd.

I’m not under arrest yet, but the body language of my companions makes it clear what this is: a perp walk. I fight against my natural inclination to avoid eye contact. It’s not easy. Reflex alone makes me want to turn my head and avert my eyes from the constant explosions of light. I work to keep my head up. By the time we get to the car, I’m blind from the dazzle.

Christiansen pushes me inside. I’m being transported to the Park Street station for the polygraph. D.C. is involved now because there are “jurisdictional questions to be resolved, dependent on the location and the nature of the crime.” This is the way Shoffler explained it at this morning’s press conference, for which, Christiansen tells me, they badged 318 representatives of the media.

Like most authorities, Shoffler didn’t explain what he said – despite pleas from the press.

I got it, though – along with the millions of Americans who watched various “experts” deconstruct Shoffler’s statement. It comes down to this.

Scenario 1: I murdered my kids at home, disposed of their bodies, then drove sixty miles to Cromwell, Maryland. I then wandered around the fairgrounds for a couple of hours to establish my alibi before reporting the kids missing. Jurisdiction: D.C.

Scenario 2: I murdered my children in Maryland, somewhere in the vicinity of the Renaissance Faire. Jurisdiction: Anne Arundel County.

Scenario 3: The boys were kidnapped from the Renaissance Faire (this has now been referred to by at least one broadcaster as “the father’s version of events”). Jurisdiction: Anne Arundel County in conjunction with the FBI.

The police station has a kind of played-out atmosphere that against all odds calms me down. It’s so different from the adrenalized energy at home. It reminds me of the DMV.

I get the sense that most of the people who work here, from clerk to detective, see enough barbarity on a regular basis that it’s blunted their emotional response. No matter how unthinkable a crime – even the murder of children – there’s a precedent, a number for it in the criminal code.

It’s all procedure. There’s a process to deal with every conceivable type of human wrongdoing, a process that doesn’t leave much room for passion or outrage. While I’m here, everyone – if not exactly polite – at least treats me with professional disdain, interested only in advancing that process. I’m here for a polygraph test; the idea is to get it done and move on to the next chore.

Just like getting fingerprinted, though, there’s something sordid about the procedure. I feel trapped, caught in a lose-lose situation, the lie detector test a not-so-modern version of the test given to the Salem witches. As I remember it (from a History Channel special), if the accused woman, weighted down with stones, managed not to drown – as a normal person would – it signified guilt and she was burned as a witch.

The test is the same. Just being asked to take a polygraph counts against me. I won’t fail the test, but as someone who’s covered a lot of court cases, I know it’s possible the result will be “inconclusive.”

If I pass, that won’t help. It’s just that refusing it would have been worse. Passing means nothing because no one actually trusts the results – which, I am reminded, as the technician asks me to take a seat, are not “admissible in court.” He offers a thin smile.

“Kind of makes you wonder why they bother,” I hear myself say, instantly irritated by my nervous chatter.

He shrugs. “The results can be instructive,” he says, “even if not on the evidentiary level.”

We both know why they bother with lie detector tests. They can be instructive in many ways. It means one thing if someone agrees to take the test, another if he hires his own technician, who might frame a slightly different set of questions or put them in a more client-friendly way.

Gary Condit took the test, but hired his own tech. Same with the parents of JonBenet Ramsey. I remember these deviations from the accepted path of innocent behavior. So does everybody else.

For the most part the test is a form of pressure, pure and simple. You have a suspect, you squeeze him, make him nervous in every possible way. We’ve all seen it a million times. That’s what Shoffler wants: to squeeze me.

The technician squirts gel onto the sensors and attaches them to my skin. The gel is very cold.

The polygraph man himself also seems cold – even mechanical – as he explains the procedure. After a long pause to check his machinery, he begins to ask me his list of prepared questions.

The inflection of his voice does not vary, whether he’s asking me routine establishing questions (“Is your name Alex?” “Do you reside in North Dakota?” “Is the shirt you are wearing blue?”) or the ones at the heart of the matter (“Did you kill Sean and Kevin Callahan?” “Do you know the whereabouts of Sean and Kevin?”)

There is a long interval between each question while he adjusts his machine and makes notes. I catch myself holding my breath when I’m answering the questions and can’t stop myself from mentioning this. The technician offers a weak smile. “That won’t matter,” he says, in a way that does not reassure me.

And then it’s over. I’m handed a foil-wrapped wipe to remove any residue of gel from my skin. I roll down my sleeves expecting to return to the squad car and be driven home.

Instead, Shoffler materializes, with a young African-American man he introduces as Detective Price.

The three of us go to Price’s cubicle. On the monitor, tropical fish swim through waving aquatic vegetation. The gray fabric walls of the cubicle display a dozen or more photographs of a little smiling boy.

“Tell me something, Alex,” Shoffler asks, “you mind going through your story one more time? I’d like Detective Price to hear it – he’s been assigned to assist us with the case.”

I shrug. I don’t see the point, but once again, why not? “Fine.”

“Thing is, Detective Price has some special training in… ah… questioning people. What I hear is he’s got a real gift for tickling the memory bank. What I hope is maybe you’ll come up with something that will help us find your sons.”

“Some kind of lead,” Price says in an earnest baritone. “That’s what we all want.”

This is bullshit and all three of us know it. Shoffler’s looking for inconsistencies in my story. Which means that’s what he thinks it is – a story.

“Whatever you want,” I say.

A heavyset woman with huge round earrings raps on the side of the cubicle wall. “Yoo-hoo, need you to sign something, Jason.” She beckons with one red-nailed finger. “Come to my parlor please.”

Shoffler studies the array of photographs pinned to the cubicle walls. “Cute kid,” he says, and then he lets out a regretful jet of air. “Jeez, I’m sorry.”

“What about the ticket?” I ask him.

“What?”

“Ticket to the fair. One adult, two children. I showed it to you. I think I gave it to you, didn’t I?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s got the time right on it, when we went in. One adult, two kids.”

Shoffler shakes his head, his face showing a kind of get-real look. “Alex – you do realize this ticket means nothin’.” His hands rise up, fall down. “You could have bought a ticket for one adult and ten kids, you know what I’m saying?”

To my surprise, I’m embarrassed.

Acoustics.

Liz and I did the backpack thing right out of William and Mary. In London, we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral and climbed halfway up the dome to the Whispering Gallery. Our guidebook noted an acoustical anomaly: someone halfway across the vast dome could whisper against the wall and the sound, if unimpeded, would travel around to anyone listening on the opposite side. Liz insisted we try it out, and we took up our positions, waiting several minutes until no one was in the way. I still remember the shock of Liz’s voice in my ear, so intimate and immediate, when I could see her only as a small shape across a distance of a hundred yards or so. “Meet me back at the hotel,” she whispered, “and I’ll show you a good time.”

Through some trick of acoustics, I now hear Detective Price’s voice, although I can’t even see him in the crowded and noisy space of the police station. His words float to my ear, precise and clear. “No, that’s what I’m telling you. That’s why we’re going for it. The guy is not lawyered up – you believe that? Not yet, anyway.”

He sits across from me, straddling a chair, arms making a kind of platform upon which he rests his handsome head. “You must be sick of this,” he says, with a sad swivel of his head. “I can only imagine.”

Price is good, I have to acknowledge that. I was expecting – I don’t know – gamesmanship, I guess. Good cop, bad cop with Shoffler, I don’t know. Some kind of heavy manners.

It’s not like that. It’s just me and Detective Price in the room. Shoffler is nowhere in sight, although I don’t doubt he’s behind the long mirror against the opposite wall.

I give my permission for the use of a tape recorder.

We start by going through my account of Saturday one more time, in great detail.

Then we move on to my finances.

“It’s tough, isn’t it, running two separate households on more or less the same income?”

I admit that it’s a strain, financially, but tell Price that Liz and I are getting by.

“I understand you were late with your support payments on two occasions.”

I nod. “That’s true. But it wasn’t because of the money. I was abroad. On assignment. You can check with the station.”

“Abroad,” Price says. His face twitches when he repeats the word, as if he just got a whiff of something unpleasant. “Abroad,” he says again. “I see.”

He says nothing for a good long minute or two. I look at my feet and resist the urge to fill in the silence. Price rocks back on his chair, then tilts his head and looks at me. “The preliminary separation agreement takes a good chunk out of your salary, right?”

I nod.

“Your house – that’s a pricey neighborhood, isn’t it? If you don’t work things out with Liz, you’re going to have to sell, isn’t that right?”

I shrug. “That’s true.” And then, before I can stop myself: “I don’t care about that. It’s not important to me.”

I hesitate. I don’t like the way I’m trying to explain myself to this guy. I don’t like the way he refers to my wife by her first name. He’s never even met her.

“So will you lose the house?”

I suddenly get angry. “What are you saying? You think I killed my kids because I don’t want to move out of Cleveland Park? Is that what you think? Jesus.”

He makes a conciliatory gesture. “Okay, new subject. Did the boys have insurance? Some policy out there? Because if they did, it would be best if you told us now.”

“Insurance? You mean medical insurance?”

Price shakes his head. “I mean life insurance.”

“Life insurance? They’re six years old!”

Then I get it, and my voice, angry and too loud, shows it. “Now you’re suggesting I killed my kids for insurance!? What – and after a decent interval, I’m going to cash in and move to fucking Brazil! Are you out of your mind?”

“No,” Price says, his voice calm and reasonable. “No one’s suggesting anything of the sort. We’re just talking about the pressures you’re under, that’s all, we’re just exploring that area. Personally, I think it’s far more likely that someone like you – you simply lost your temper, the way you did just now, and it went a little further than you intended, you know…”

Of course, I go ballistic. “Look,” I say, my voice shaking. “I didn’t kill my children.”

“Mr. Callahan. Maybe we should take a break here. Maybe you should consult an attorney.”

“I don’t need a break and I don’t need a fucking attorney.”

“Did Detective Shoffler tell you that someone saw you in the parking lot, opening your car – and this was after you reported the boys missing.”

“I was checking to see if the boys went to the car when they couldn’t find me. The security guy – he suggested it.”

It goes on like this. One hour, two hours, three, four. We’re into hour five, when Price, after asking me if I need to use the facilities, excuses himself to do so. When he comes back, he brings me some water and suggests we go over the whole story again.

We do. “Remind me,” he starts, “whose idea was it to go to this festival? You come up with that?”

“No,” I tell him, “I’ve told you. It was their idea. It’s not my kind of thing.”

“What is your kind of thing?”

It goes on.

“You say you heard Kevin’s voice on your cell phone,” Price says when we reach that point. “He said one word: ‘Daddy.’ So what I want to know is – how you could tell it was Kevin? They’re identical twins, right?”

“They’re my kids. I could tell.”

“You could tell.” Price makes quotation marks in the air.

“That’s right.”

He looks as if he’s about to challenge this, but then he smiles. “I guess I can accept that.” He shakes his head. “Must have been rough, though,” he says with what seems to be genuine concern. “Tantalizing.” A regretful sigh. “Just that one word, and then he never called back.”

“No. That was it.”

“Boy,” Price says, then suddenly veers off in another direction. “Why don’t you tell me about the night before. Hmmmm?”

“I don’t see-”

“Do you not want to talk about that?” He frowns and then apologizes, as if he’s inadvertently hit a sore spot.

“No, I don’t mind talking about it. I just-”

Price shrugs. “Look, you never know when something’s gonna come up that will help.”

I nod.

“Okay, so the night before – Friday night – you said you had a lot of work to do. So, let’s talk about dinner, okay? You cook, or did you eat out?”

“We ate out. Pizza.”

“What pizza? Where?”

“The Two Amys – on Wisconsin.”

“Anyone see you?”

“Sure. The waiter, other customers.”

“You pay with a credit card or cash?”

“Probably a credit card.”

“You don’t remember.”

“I don’t remember.”

He waves the significance of this away, tosses me a smile. “I don’t always keep track of that kind of shit, either.”

Jason Price has a powerful charm and he uses it all to persuade me that he wants to be my friend, he really does. And the way to get in tight with my new friend is to tell him what he wants to hear. And what he wants to hear – not that he’d hold it against me, he’s had some bad moments with Derrick, he wouldn’t lie to me – is that I did it. I lost it, we all do, it’s the human condition. Nobody is under control 100 percent of the time. And so on.

I’m making it sound hokey and easy to dismiss, but it isn’t like that. It’s an almost religious yearning, the impulse to confess. If only I could confess, I’d be cleansed and reborn, I could start over.

As the hours slide by, I begin to slip into a dangerous apathy. I want to stop talking. I want to sleep.

I’ve read more than once about survivors pulled back from the brink. There’s a point where the will begins to fade. Just before freezing to death, the victim of hypothermia is said to get warm and sleepy; the drowning person, to find himself immersed in a burst of light. I take it from such accounts that oblivion can be enticing, a welcome respite from struggle and pain.

We’re going over the journey through the fairgrounds yet again when someone raps on the door. Detective Price frowns, says “excuse me one moment,” gets up, opens the door a crack, conducts a brief conversation with someone else. Although this discussion is conducted at the volume of a whisper, I can tell it’s an argument. Then, without a word, he leaves me alone.

I wait in a kind of dull reverie, checking my watch every few minutes. Ten minutes go by. Twenty. Half an hour.

When Price comes back, he launches into a whole new line of questioning, one that baffles me.

“What is your religion, Alex?”

“What?”

“Your religious conviction. Your faith.”

“I’m not very religious.”

“Are you an atheist, then?”

“No, not exactly. What does this have to do with anything?”

“Bear with me, okay? Say you had to check off a box, for instance – would you check off atheist?”

“No. I’m sort of a lapsed Catholic. I – I don’t know. I’d check off Christian, I guess.”

“You guess.”

There are questions about what I think about animal sacrifice, about a piece I once did about Santería in south Florida, about my spiritual convictions, my opinion on religions such as Wicca.

“Look,” I say finally, “where are we going with this? I don’t understand the relevance.”

“You don’t like this line of questioning?” Price asks, a surprised frown on his face.

“I just don’t get it,” I tell him.

“It’s not idle curiosity,” he says. “I can assure you of that.”

And looking at him, at the professionally disappointed expression on his face, I finally realize that no amount of cooperation on my part is going to exonerate me. I’m trying to prove a null hypothesis – and you just can’t do that. No matter how many questions I answer correctly, Jason Price is interested only in answers that point toward my guilt. And since I’m not guilty, there’s no reason to sit here and endure this.

I tell him I want to go home.

“You refuse to submit to further questioning.”

“I don’t see the point.”

“You refuse. Is that what you’re telling me?”

I shake my head. “You don’t quit, do you?”

Jason Price offers a thin smile. “Is that a yes?”

I decide to oblige him. What can it matter? “Yes,” I say. “I refuse.”

Price gets up. He leaves me alone in the room.