“What’s that?”
“One of my best friend’s a nigger.”
“Yeah, what’s his name?”
“You don’t know him.”
“I might. You know us niggers sticks together.”
“Bullshit. Saturday night you kill each other.”
“I’m curious. What’s the man’s name?”
“Alvin Guy.” Clement grinned.
“Is that right? You knew him?”
Clement said, “Shit, I could tell you anything, couldn’t I?”
“There was a window in there I’d have thought seriously about throwing him out,” Wendell said, and Raymond nodded.
“I know what you mean.”
“Man doesn’t give you anything to hook onto. You understand what I’m saying? He jive you around with all this bullshit, you don’t know who’s asking who the question. See, he does the judge, then goes home to his bed. We been up two days and a night.”
“Go on home,” Raymond said.
“I’ll stay on it, you want me to.”
“We’ll let the old pro take a shot,” Raymond said, looking over at Hunter. “The old reddish-gray wolf. What do you say? If we can’t shake him tonight we’ll turn him loose, try some other time.”
Hunter got up from his desk. He said, “You want to watch, see how it’s done?”
There was no clear reason why Hunter was the squad’s star interrogator: why suspects so often confided in him and why the confessions he elicited almost always stood up in court. Maureen said it was because the bad guys got the feeling he was one of them. Hunter said it was because he was patient, understanding, sympathetic, alert, never raised his voice… and would cite as an example the time last winter he questioned the suspect, young guy, who admitted “sort of strangling” two women while “overcome with cocaine.” The young guy said he thought this belt one of them had was a snake and wanted to see what it would look like around their necks; that’s how the whole thing had come about, while they were sitting on the floor tooting and having a few drinks. But he refused to tell what he did with their bodies. Hunter said, well, the bodies would show up by spring, when the snow melted, and added, “Unless you’re some kind of animal and you stored them away for the winter.” Hunter noticed the suspect appeared visibly agitated by this off-hand remark and quickly followed up on it, asking the suspect if he liked animals or if he was afraid of them or if he related to animals in some way. The suspect insisted he hated animals, rats especially, and that when he went out to the abandoned farmhouse a few days after and saw that rats had been “nibbling” on the two women he immediately took measures to prevent them from being “all eaten up.” He cut the bodies up with a hacksaw and burned them in the coal furnace. He was no animal…
“What you do,” Hunter said, “you see your opening and you step in. You don’t let the guy out until he’s told you something.”
“Remember this room?” Hunter asked Clement.
“Yeah, I remember it. I remember you, too.”
“Still put grease on your hair?”
“No, I like the dry look now,” Clement said.
“Good,” Hunter said. “You messed up the wall the last time-all that guck you slicked your hair down with.”
Clement looked over his shoulder at the wall. “Don’t you ever clean this place up?”
“We hose it out once a week,” Hunter said, “like at the zoo. Get rid of the stink.”
“What’re you,” Clement said, “the heavy? First the nigger and then you. When’s the good guy come in?”
“I’m the good guy,” Hunter said. “I’m as good as it’s gonna get.”
“You haven’t read me my rights.”
“I figured you know it by heart. You want me to read ’em to you? Sure, I’ll read ’em.”
Hunter went out into the squad room. Raymond Cruz sat at his desk with his eyes closed. Hunter poured himself a mug of coffee, picked up a Constitutional Rights form and went back into the file room, sat down and read the first paragraph of the document to Clement.
“You know your rights now? Okay, sign here.” Hunter pushed the document over to Clement with a ballpoint pen.
“What if I don’t want to sign?”
“I don’t give a shit if you sign or you don’t sign. I’ll put down you refused, give us a hard time.”
“But why do I need to sign it?”
“I just told you, asshole, you don’t.”
“I’m in here for questioning as… what?”
“You were arrested.”
“For not having a driver’s license? What’s this got to do with it?”
“While in custody the defendant’s record was examined with reason to believe he might be involved in a homicide under investigation and was detained for questioning.”
“Detained-I can hear you,” Clement said. “And then my lawyer stands up and says, ‘Your Honor, this poor boy was held against his will, without any complaint being filed and was not read his rights as a citizen.’ Buddy, I don’t even know why I’m here. I mean, nobody’s told me nothing yet.”
“You’re in here, Clement, because you’re in some deep shit, that’s why.”
“Yeah? Friend of mine was in this room one time, he refused to sign and nothing happened to him.”
Hunter said, “Look at it from the court’s point of view, Clement, all right?… Which looks better, we get a warrant and arrest you for first degree murder, which carries mandatory life? Or, we report you came to us voluntarily to make a statement. Under no duress or apprehension you describe the circumstances-”
Clement began to smile.
“-under which a man lost his life, telling it in your own words, putting in whatever mitigating factors there may be, such as your mental or emotional state at the time, whether there was some form of incitement or threat to your well being… what’re you grinning at?”
“You must think I went to about the fifth grade,” Clement said, “buy that load of shit. I don’t have to say a word to you. On the other hand I can say anything I want and you can’t use it because I ain’t signed your piece of paper. So what’re we sitting here for?”
“It’s a formality,” Hunter said. “I got to give you the opportunity to make a statement. You don’t, then I take you down the garage, stand you against the wall and beat the shit out of you with the front end of a squad car.”
Hunter said to Raymond Cruz, “Fuck-we don’t get him with the piece, we don’t get him.”
“He sign the sheet?”
“No, but what difference does it make? He’s not gonna say anything. He knows the routine better’n we do.”
“I’ll give it a try,” Raymond said. “Go on home.”
“No, I’ll stick around.”
“Go on. What’re we doing, we’re just chatting with the guy.”
“Clement… how you doing?”
“You’re in trouble,” Clement said. “Carolyn told you, you guys don’t talk to me without her.”
Raymond said, “You spend the night here, she might be a little mad when she finds out, stamp her feet maybe. But she knows it’s part of the business. We see a shot, we have to take it. Listen… let’s go in the other room. You want some coffee?”
Clement said, “I wondered who the good guy was gonna be.”
He sat at Hunter’s desk swivelling around in the chair, unimpressed, until he spotted the mug-shot display, the 263 color shots mounted on the wall and extending from Norb Bryl’s desk-where Raymond sat-to the coatrack by the door. Raymond sat sideways to the desk facing Mansell, ten feet away, who was turned sideways to Hunter’s desk.
“Poor fuckers,” Clement said. “You put all those people away?”
“About ninety-eight percent of ’em,” Raymond said. “That’s this year’s graduates, so far.”
“About ninety-eight percent niggers,” Clement said. “The fuck am I doing sitting here?”
“You want me to tell you?” Raymond said.
“I wish somebody would,” Clement said. “I can guess what your heart’s desire is, but I know you don’t have nothing good else I’d be across the street.”