“I had nothing to do and it’s ten minutes away.”
“You’re selling yourself short, Deputy. You had to climb the fence to get in, no?”
“I needed the exercise.”
“Describe, please, what happened when you arrived.”
“The seal on the front door was broken.”
“That must have been vindicating for you. Did you enter the house?”
“I had to. There was evidence of tampering.”
“Naturally. And when you did?”
“I ran into Sean.”
I expected Rigo to ask about my tackling him, but evidently that part had been cropped from Sean’s rendition — minor editing to assuage his bruised ego.
“What was he doing?”
“Going through the knife collection. He’d also set aside some baseballs and baseball cards.”
“Our department retained a set of keys from Ms. Santos, the victim’s housekeeper,” Rigo said. “I was thus able to inspect the office. And several other rooms.”
Say it. Garage.
“To my eye,” he said, “no items were missing.”
“That’s because I put everything back.”
“Ah. Of course.”
“So you know very well I didn’t take anything.”
“It was not my intention to mischaracterize you, Deputy Edison.”
Not a question; I didn’t answer. I listened to the sounds from the street, keyed to the heavy tread of a truck.
He said, “After you encountered Sean Vandervelde, what did you do?”
“Escorted him off the property.”
“I noticed that you resealed the front door. I could be wrong, but it appeared to me that you removed the old seal, rather than apply the new one over it. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Can you help me understand why you did that?”
“I thought it would help the new seal adhere better.”
“First you restored the baseballs and baseball cards to their rightful places.”
“Yes.”
“When did you peform these tasks? Before or after you escorted Sean Vandervelde off the property?”
I could see where he was going. Sean must’ve said that I’d walked him down, then headed back through the gates — something Rigo could corroborate by talking to the Uber driver.
Had he gone to that length?
“After,” I said.
“Why did you choose to do things in that order? That is to say, it would appear to me simpler to clean up the baseballs and baseball cards first, exit the house, apply the seal, and escort Sean out, rather than have to walk up the hill a second time.”
“I needed the exercise.”
Rigo beamed. “Really, though. What was the reason for that sequence of events?”
“He was drunk and belligerent, and I wanted him out of my hair so I could deal with putting away everything he’d tried to steal.”
“Sensible. Now then, to avoid any possible ambiguity: After Sean departed, you reentered the house, unaccompanied.”
“Yes.”
“Do you recall which specific rooms you went into?”
“The foyer. The office and the one with the knives. He’d also drunk half a bottle of scotch. I put it behind the living room bar.”
“No other rooms?”
Come on, Cesar. Say it. Garage.
I’d worn gloves. I’d been careful.
Time for defense or for offense?
Offense.
“No,” I said.
My voice had taken on an edge.
“Very good. Let us review, please, what you have told me thus far. You depart your place of work at five p.m., or perhaps a trifle later, and go home. Ordinarily you would dine with your family, but on this night you are alone, with only beef jerky to nourish you. You take a shower. Reflecting upon the events of the day, you are seized by the thought that in view of Sean Vandervelde’s prior expression of anger, he may attempt to burgle his father’s residence. This thought concerns you to the extent that you elect to take matters into your own hands. Once again you dress and drive to the victim’s residence. What time do you arrive?”
Like all guilty people, I said, “I don’t know.”
Rigo crossed a green trouser leg. “Perhaps we can work backward. Sean Vandervelde was able to furnish a record of his Uber receipt, indicating that he was picked up from the residence at eleven thirty-seven p.m. Once you encountered him inside the house, how long was it before you saw him off?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let us suppose it was an hour. Does that sound reasonable?”
It didn’t sound reasonable to claim any longer than that. I nodded.
“Therefore your arrival at the victim’s house would have taken place around ten thirty.”
“Thus it would appear.”
He smiled at my mockery. “Does it appear otherwise to you?”
“Nope.”
“Therefore you left your house to drive to Mr. Vandervelde’s house shortly before that. By your description it is ten minutes away. Let us call your time of departure ten fifteen p.m. This, in turn, implies an interval of four and one quarter hours between your arrival at your own home, at six the latest, and your visit to Mr. Vandervelde’s residence. Some of that is spent eating dinner and what have you. But, of course, beef jerky requires no cooking time, and as you stated, you had nothing to do. So there would seem to be several hours unaccounted for. I presume you did not take a four-and-one-quarter-hour shower. To that end, it would be helpful to know, more precisely, at what time you had your brainwave. Perhaps it occurred later than you initially suggested. Not in the shower, but while you were brushing your teeth, for example. Or while you were getting into bed. If so, you had to change out of your pajamas. One can only aspire, Deputy Edison, to have such dedication. Another possibility is that you departed your house earlier than ten fifteen and went to another destination in the interim. That, too, could explain the lost hours. Incidentally, I forgot to ask: How did you obtain a key to enter into the victim’s house?”
Who had he spoken to? What had they said? Edmond, the property clerk? Kat Davenport? Did they know they were selling me out?
Had he checked the keycard records? The CCTV?
How much credit should I give him?
The better question was how much longer I felt like keeping this up, doing what guilty people did, improvising, freaking out and scrambling and committing one dumb messy error after another. The reckoning had to come sooner or later.
What I wanted was to lay my head on my arms and rest, like guilty people do.
“One other point of clarification,” he said, “and, again, I apologize for not mentioning this earlier. I noticed that the signatures on the newly applied seals resemble that of your colleague, Deputy Harkless, rather than yours. I grant you, the seals are a little hard to read. But comparing them to your signature on the autographed photo in the victim’s office, the disparity strikes me as greater than expected, even taking into consideration the degradation of penmanship that can occur over time. Since, as you say, you came to the victim’s house for a legitimate purpose, signing your colleague’s name in place of your own would appear — let us call it nonstandard. I can’t conceive of why you would do it, unless for some reason you wished to conceal your actions. I wonder: What might that reason be?”
As a suspect, I detested Rigo. As a cop, I applauded him.
“While you decide on your answers,” Rigo said, taking out his phone, “there is some additional information you may find of interest. During their investigation of the crime scene, forensics recovered fragments of two glass tumblers that bore fingerprints. One set of prints belonged to the victim. The other was submitted to the state crime lab for expedited analysis, and the results issued earlier today. You are familiar with an individual by the name of Luke Alan Edison.”