“Are you trying to tell me he’s some sort a psychic?” Bill said. Greg could tell the old sheriff wasn’t believing a word he said.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
“Yes and no.” Greg continued, “He doesn’t see the future. Sometimes, when he’s asleep, he sees what is currently happening through someone else’s eyes. He hasn’t had any of his dreams in a long time. I think Jeff Breaux was the last one he told me about and that was over three years ago. But now it seems he’s got some sort of direct link to whatever it is that’s doing all this killing.”
Bill said nothing. Greg could see in Bill’s eyes there wasn’t the slightest touch of belief in them. Greg was probably going to be fired or at least suspended. It was time to deal the one ace he had up his sleeve and hope for the best.
“Well, now that I’ve got that off my chest. I told James I would have this talk with you if he would agree to allow us to interrogate him without a lawyer present,” Greg paused, then added. “I have to be present though.”
Bill’s eyes widened just a touch, almost unnoticeably. Other than this minor change, his expression was still hard and unflinching as stone. “When do y’all want to do this?” Bill asked.
“Now is fine with me,” Greg said. He wanted to get this over as soon as possible.
“Go get him.”
The lights in the cell stayed on during the day, but James had managed to position himself with his head facing the wall and fall asleep, despite the hard bed and its thin mattress. It had been a long time since James had been able to sleep undisturbed for any length of time. The loud clack of the heavy metal lock opening his cell woke him from a deep, dreamless, sleep. His mind still muddled in a half-awake daze, James didn’t roll over to see who was at his door.
James had begun drifting back to sleep when he heard, “James, Bill wants to talk to us.”
He ignored the voice, and drew his sheet tighter around him.
“James.” Someone shook his shoulder, and he finally woke up. James raised his head; his eyes were still bleary, but he could make out Greg.
“Damn, you were sleeping like a rock,” Greg said as he sat on the corner of the tiny bed.
“Glad you noticed,” James replied as he sat up, stretched, and yawned.
“I had my little talk with Bill.”
“How’d it go?” James asked, rubbing and blinking his eyes.
“Well, like you said, he pretty much chewed me up and spit me out,” Greg said with mock cheerfulness. “It gets better. Apparently you were right on both counts; now he wants to meet with both of us so he can chew us both up and spit us both out.”
“Oh, great,” James said, as he stood up.
Greg stood up with him and they walked out of the cell and down the row of cells. They passed through the security door separating the cells from the rest of the building. Just past the door, they turned left into the room where James had been booked, fingerprinted, and photographed. The room was furnished much like Bill’s office except instead of a cluttered desk there was a small, neat, folding table with a notebook, a telephone, and a tape recorder on it. The pictures on the walls were different also. Instead of pictures of smiling 4H boys and girls with their prizewinning livestock and various gruff-looking Texas Rangers, there were bulletin boards filled with notices and one enlarged copy of the FBI’s most wanted list. Bill sat across the table, making no effort to hide the scowl on his face.
As they came through the door Greg closed the blinds which opened into the hall. He motioned for James to be seated in the lone chair across from Bill, then he went around and took a seat on Bill’s side of the table. As soon as Greg pulled his chair up to the table, Bill pressed Record on the tape-recorder.
Without smiling, Bill extended his hand to James and introduced himself, “Sheriff William Oates.”
James shook his hand, also without smiling.
“I believe you know Deputy Greg O’Brien,” Bill said, nodding his head in Greg’s direction.
James nodded.
Bill leaned forward in his chair, his forearms resting along the edge of the table, his fingers interwoven. His cold blue eyes bored into James’, keeping direct eye contact as he asked each question. James suddenly felt very small, like a field mouse under the gaze of a hungry red-tailed hawk.
“Please state your full name.”
“James Thomas Taylor,” James answered
“Are you aware that you have the right to demand a lawyer at any time during this interrogation?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And are you in here of your own free will?”
“Yes, sir.”
Greg had warned James that Bill was a little informal with his interrogations, but so far everything seemed formal enough.
“Could you explain what happened on the morning of November 2, 2001?”
James told the entire story of that horrible morning. He told Bill how he had left early in the morning to pick up some parts in Beaumont. He mentioned he had warned Angie about the dreams he’d been having and told her that she shouldn’t let anyone in the house. He mentioned that he had asked Greg to pass by the house while he was gone. Then he told the sheriff about nodding off and catching a glimpse of his front door and how he had sped back through town and arrived to find his wife and son dead.
While James talked, Bill listened. His eyes continued to bore into James. His expression never changed, not even at the mention of James’ dreams. No emotion was visible, not belief, not disbelief, not even a hint of sympathy as James mentioned finding his wife and child brutally murdered. Every now and then Bill would ask a simple question: Did she always wake up that early? Was there a certain time Deputy O’Brien was supposed to come by? About how long do you think you were gone from the house? But other than this Bill remained quiet and expressionless.
“Everything is a little hazy after that,” James finished, quite proud of himself for not bursting into tears at having to recall the horrible night.
“Do you recall shooting Deputy O’Brien?”
“Vaguely, yes.”
“So you do admit that it was you who shot Deputy O’Brien?”
“Yes, sir.”
Bill broke his gaze from James for the first time in the interview and jotted down some notes on the notebook. He checked a clock on the wall and made a note of it. James realized what he had said would probably be considered a confession in a court of law; not that he’d ever denied the fact. Still, it made him nervous.
“Do y'all want anything to drink? We’ve got coffee, water, and a coke machine in the lobby,” Bill asked, although his voice sounded as if this was an official question, not one of courtesy.
“No, thanks,” Greg answered.
“No, sir,” James answered at the same time.
Bill pressed the intercom button on the phone. “Debra, could you bring me some coffee?” They sat in silence for about thirty seconds, then someone knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
Debra Duncan, the daytime dispatcher as well as Bill’s secretary, entered the room. She was a well-dressed middle-aged woman with dyed black hair. She handed Bill his coffee.
“There you go, Bill,” Debra said in a sweet voice.
“Thank you,” Bill said, and Debra turned and left.
Bill took a long drink, then returned to his former position. “Now tell me what happened early this morning, November tenth.”
James told the story, starting with when he decided to go home. He mentioned that his medication had made him sleep heavier, and he didn’t have the dreams while he was on it. But, as soon as he’d stopped taking it, he had the dream of the creature at Mr. Youngblood’s house. He managed to wake himself, go immediately to the house, but he arrived too late. However, he did mention that he thought he had just missed the beast because of the dog he heard yelp in the back when he arrived.
Again, while James talked, Bill listened. His eyes never shifted away from James’. He asked a few more simple questions during the story: What type of medication was it? Who was the doctor who prescribed the medication? Was Mr. Youngblood’s door unlocked when you got there? Did you see any movement behind the house?
“All right,” Bill said, averting his eyes long enough to jot down some notes and take a sip of coffee. “Can you explain why you were out at Sharon Perrett’s place on October twenty-ninth, the day after she was killed?”
“Yes, sir. I saw that thing kill her horse and her the next night. I wanted to take a look around to see if I could find some tracks or anything left behind by whatever it was that killed Mrs. Perrett and her horse.”
“Did you find anything?”
“The rain had washed away most of the tracks outside and I didn’t have time to look inside the barn, but I did find some near the barn’s outside wall. Strange tracks — they almost looked human, except for the long claws.”
“Just like the tracks we saw,” Greg chimed in, but a quick cold glance from Bill told him his input was not wanted.
Bill turned back to James. “I see. Is there anything else you’d like to add?”
“No, sir. I think that just about covers it.”
Bill paused for a brief moment, then leaned back in his chair without breaking eye contact. “You do realize that this all sounds like a king-sized load of horseshit, don’t you?” he said in a flat, matter-of-fact voice.
This caught James off guard. “Sir?”
“I’ve heard some wild tales in my years, but this beats ’em all, hands down.”
James remained silent. Beside Bill, Greg looked briefly like he was going to say something, but, if he was, he must have decided against it because he too remained silent.
Bill shook his head and then said, “Greg tells me you’ve had these little psychic dreams all of your life. Could you explain?”
“They’re not exactly psychic, at least I don’t think so. It’s like I’m in someone else’s mind, looking out, watching what they’re doing,” James said. “I’ve had them since I can remember, but I haven’t had as many since I dropped out of high school. And I hadn’t had one in years before I had the first one about this thing, somewhere around the first of October.”
“Is there anything strange about these dreams? Anything different about them?”
“Yes, they don’t seem like dreams,” James paused, trying to think of how exactly to explain the difference between the visions and normal dreams. Then he said. “It’s like I’m not really asleep during them. My mind isn’t foggy, and I’m thinking clearly. I’m even tired when I wake up from them.”
“You’re tired when you wake up from these dreams?” Bill asked.
James realized what Bill must be thinking. “But I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m not talking about sleepwalking here.”
“How can you be sure?”
James started to reply that if he was sleepwalking, he would have awakened Angie, but he knew that wouldn’t help him any. Angie couldn’t verify this; she was dead. “I just know,” was all he could think of.
Then Greg chimed in, “How about when you saw Charles Wellman kill his wife and commit suicide? His neighbors were outside and heard the shots. They came over immediately and didn’t see anyone. Elbert Flanders even said he’d heard Charles say he was going to do it earlier that night. And what about when Matt and Bubba had their accident?”
Bill turned his gaze from James to Greg. “That doesn’t have a damn thing to do with what we’re talking about.”
“We’re talking about James’ dreams,” Greg replied, but was again interrupted by Bill.
“We’re talking about an investigation involving four recent homicides!” the sheriff snapped.
Now James spoke up. “Sheriff Oates, I don’t know all that much about law enforcement, but isn’t homicide one person taking the life of another?”
Bill didn’t answer. The wily old sheriff could probably tell the question was loaded.
Greg answered for him. “Yes, it is.”
“Do these killings look like they were committed by a person to you?” James asked Bill. “I went out there and saw those tracks at Sharon’s; they didn’t seem like any person’s I’d ever seen. And do the wounds look like any you’ve ever seen a man inflict on someone?”
At first, Bill didn’t say anything. James wasn’t sure if he’d really stumped the old sheriff or if Bill was just waiting to see if James had anything else to say — something that might be useful.
Finally Bill said, “Mr. Taylor, I suggest you get yourself a lawyer. A good one.” Then he nodded for Greg to take James back to his cell.