Deviations (13 page)

“I understand that,” I said, “but we need
something to poke him with.”

“Try to let him know you’re interested in BC. Does
he know what case you’re asking about?”

“Yeah, he knows it’s Dolores Weston. He mentioned
that in our interview.”

“Try to give up as little as you can, but make it
clear that if he has any knowledge of BC or anyone else who might be involved
with killing Weston, he needs to get out in front of this right now.”

“You got any questions for Nick, Ryan?”

“No,” Ryan said. “I’m good.”

* * * *

Willson Fredericks was
lecturing to about a hundred students. Twin screens high above his head showed
a map of Europe with a bunch of red and blue lines in squiggly circles around
Germany. There were little symbols of tanks with U.S., British, and Soviet
flags on them, converging on Berlin. I think we were looking at the last days
of the Nazis. Or at least the last days of the German Nazis in World War II.
You never want to count out the truly odious regimes like the Nazis, which can
adapt to a lot of different environments. Like cockroaches.

We were standing outside the lecture hall on the
main floor of the Social Sciences Building. I didn’t see any kids sleeping, but
a bunch had their legs draped over the seats in front of them. Half the kids
had their laptops going. I could see a few Facebook pages, a couple of video
games, some kids writing email. But a number of students were listening to
Fredericks talking through his lapel mic, and some were taking notes.

About a dozen skateboards were leaning against the
side walls of the lecture hall. I don’t understand why kids today want to act
younger than they are. My generation, we wanted more than anything to seem
older and more mature, which would explain the binge drinking and anonymous
sex. I wondered if the skateboards bummed Fredericks out. It would me. Would
make it harder to believe I was teaching at an actual university.

“Want to wait till he’s done?” Ryan said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Can’t disrupt a class unless
you’re gonna read him his rights.”

“I didn’t know that.” Ryan smiled. “Is that in the
regs?”

“No, I’ve seen it on TV.” I glanced around at a
bunch of kids gathering outside in the hall. They must be the next shift. “You know
when the next class starts?”

Ryan went over and asked a girl, who gave him his
answer—and a big smile. “He’s done in about five minutes,” Ryan reported.

The laptops in the lecture hall started to close
up, but Fredericks kept talking. Finally, he looked at his watch and finished
up. The kids gathered their stuff and started to leave. Three or four students
made their way to the front of the lecture hall to talk to the professor, so we
sat on a bench outside. There was no exit near the front. We’d catch Fredericks
as he came out one of the doors near us.

“Professor Fredericks,” I said. “Detectives
Seagate and Miner.”

He pulled back, like I was contagious. “Yes, Detectives,”
he said. “I’m surprised to see you here.” Meaning we had no right.

“We need to talk with you, Professor.”

“All right,” he said, the tone a little annoyed.
“Let’s go up to my office.”

“We’d rather do this at headquarters.”

“I don’t see why,” he said, wearing a smirk, as if
the two of us were playing chess and I was too dumb to see that he was about to
checkmate me. “My office is right upstairs.”

“We want you to make a formal statement. We’ll
video it, so there’s no question later about what was said.”

“I can’t imagine what you could possibly expect me
to make a statement about.”

“Professor Fredericks.” I leaned in toward him and
gripped his bicep with a little force. He looked down at my hand, like now I’d
crossed a serious line. “There are some things you see, and some you don’t.
Now, the fact you don’t see why we’re gonna bring you in, or the fact you don’t
see what we could possibly want to talk to you about—those are both real
interesting. But they don’t change the fact you’re gonna come down to
headquarters with us—right now—and give us a statement—right now. We’re
treating you respectfully—we didn’t interrupt your lecture, and we’re not
cuffing you right here. But I need you to understand, we’re not really asking
if you’d like to go to headquarters with us. We’re telling you that’s what you’re
gonna do. Maybe me being so polite is throwing you off.”

“This is unacceptable, Detective—”

“Ryan, cuff him.”

“All right, Detective,” Fredericks said. “All
right.” He jerked his arms back, palms up, like he’d collapse and die if we
came any closer.

“Good, Professor. I was getting worried there for
a second you still were not understanding how this works.”

“I will go with you to headquarters,” he said,
“but first I insist on putting my books and materials back in my office and
notifying the staff that I will need to cancel my office hours.”

“First you what?” I said.

“I said ‘I insist.’”

I smiled at him. “Okay, Professor, I see you’re
not real used to having someone tell you what you’re gonna do. How about this:
we walk upstairs with you, let your put your things away and tell the staff
you’re gonna miss office hours, then you come with us quietly. Is that okay?”

He turned his body slightly so that he wouldn’t
have to look at me. When I was a kid I had a dog did that when he was mad at
me. Fredericks said, “This way,” and he led us toward the staircase.

Chapter 12

“Ryan, you wanna get the
video?”

He turned it on from the unit on the wall. We were
in Interview 2, which was the less scary of the two interview rooms because the
cuffs attached under the table, not on top. We were sitting on heavy steel
chairs, straight backed, no cushioning. We used to have plastic ones, but they
always broke. Then we got metal ones with cushions on the seat, but they didn’t
last because the cushions got ripped. Sometimes interviews can get highly
aerobic.

Willson Fredericks was looking a lot less pulled
together than he did when we interviewed him in his office yesterday. His
forehead was a little shiny, and he kept touching the ends of his skinny
mustache like it was a prop and the glue wasn’t holding. He clasped his hands
and rested them on the table in front of him, but a slight tremor made his gold
watchband click against the steel table. Some people, you wonder if they’ve
ever been in a police station. Willson Fredericks, you knew he hadn’t.

We sat across the table from him. I opened a
manila folder and studied it with furrowed brow for half a minute. Over the
years, I’ve learned that slowing things down gives newbies a chance to marinate
a little bit in their own sweat. It moves things along when we start the
questioning.

“We appreciate you being willing to come in and
give us a statement.” I didn’t mean it to sound wiseass, having explained to
him ten minutes ago how he was going to do what we told him to do. But I could
tell from some pretty vigorous jaw clenching and a vein on his temple thumping
like a bass drum that he was not a happy professor. Which gave me and Ryan the
advantage.

I’ve never had a professor in for questioning, but
I’ve sat across this scratched-up table from all kinds of business execs, a
minister, a couple lawyers. They were all smarter than me, of course, but they
couldn’t get comfortable with the different roles and different rules. You live
your life lording it over the less powerful, it’s hard to realize that when
cops are chatting with you in a room with a videocam, tiled walls, and a
one-way mirror, maybe you’re not holding the high cards. These professional
types never do anything real stupid, like take a swing at a cop, the way drunks
do. But they can’t even make themselves pretend they’re cooperating. In that
way, they’re not as smart as, say, your average tranny whore. Compared to the
typical professor, they’re Einsteins. Get one of them in here, better bring
your A game.

“Professor Fredericks, here’s what we wanted to
ask you about. You’ve certainly written quite a few articles on the Neo-Nazi
movement.”

He looked like he wanted to smile and bow his head
slightly to acknowledge the compliment, but he restricted himself to inhaling
loudly and flaring his nostrils.

“I notice from a number of these articles that you
refer frequently to someone named Benjamin Connors.” I was looking down at the
pile of articles in the folder. “Here, for example, ‘personal communication
with the author.’ Here again, ‘personal communication with the author.’ Help me
with this, if you don’t mind, Professor. It’s been quite a while since I had to
write footnotes.”

“Of course, Detective.” He let himself relax now
that we were back in our proper roles: him smart, me stupid. “Those are not footnotes.
In a list of works cited—you might remember that as a bibliography—the author
lists the sources that he or she used.”

“Yes, I see most of the items in the
bibliographies are articles and books, some Web sites. But with Benjamin
Connors, it’s always ‘personal communication with the author.’ What exactly
does that mean?”

“Without being more technical than necessary,
Detective Seagate, each of the various journals and book series in which I
publish has a different policy about how to cite research sources. Some call
for the author to list personal communications; others do not list them, the
argument being that a personal communication is not archived and therefore is
of no value to scholars. For that reason, in some pieces there will be no
personal communications whatever in the list of works cited—”

“I’m sorry, Professor, I guess I didn’t make my
question clear. What I want to know is, what exactly is a personal
communication?”

“Oh, I see, I misunderstood your question,” he
said, with an obnoxious bump on “misunderstood,” as if even a shit-for-brains
like me should know my half-assed question was to blame. “A personal
communication can be a phone call, a letter, an email, an instant message, or a
conversation. The medium is of no relevance, in fact. The crucial point is that
a personal communication is not archived and therefore not available to other
scholars to examine.”

“So someone reading an article that lists a
personal communication, that person in effect has to take the author’s word for
it. I mean, that the conversation or letter or whatever said what the author
said it does.”

“Yes, that’s correct. The academic community
relies on trust, just as any discourse community does. I don’t wish to appear
immodest, but my fellow historians are familiar with my work. I’ve been active
for close to three decades. When I claim that someone had a personal
communication with me, my word is good. My most valuable possession is my
scholarly credibility. I assume it’s the same in your community?”

“Right,” I said. “It’s the same in the cop
community. Let me get back to this Benjamin Connors for a second. We’d like to
talk with him. Can you give me his address?” I picked up my pen, not expecting
to use it.

“Yes, I could.”

“Great,” I said, my pen poised over my skinny notebook.

“But I won’t.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Detective, you have to understand. I have worked
for a number of years to gain the trust of these people in the patriot
movement. I assure you, nobody hates them more than I do. But as a scholar I
must protect the confidentiality of my sources. Without the assurance that my
word is good, nobody in the movement would speak with me.”

“I understand what you’re saying, Professor, but we’re
conducting a murder investigation, and we think the murderer might have
something to do with someone in the patriot movement. Surely you want to help
us in the investigation?”

“Of course I do. But I’m not sure you understand
my point. Benjamin Connors—by the way, that’s not his real name—”

“That’s not his real name?” I sighed. Such disappointment.

“That’s correct. His real name is not Benjamin
Connors. Certainly you can understand why the operatives in the movement use
aliases to try to evade the FBI.”

“So your position is that you are not willing to
assist us in tracking down Benjamin Connors so we can question him.”

“I am quite certain that Benjamin Connors is in no
way involved in any murder. It is a matter of academic freedom, Detective. I’m
sorry. Perhaps you’ve heard the term
reporter’s privilege
? Like a
journalist, I have a right guaranteed by the First Amendment to the
Constitution—indeed, it is a responsibility—to protect the confidentiality of
my sources. That principle is inviolate.”

“Actually, Professor,” Ryan said, “I’m not sure
all Constitutional scholars would consider that principle inviolate.”

Fredericks’ eyes flared, like Ryan had personally
betrayed him, first by disagreeing with him, then by using the word “inviolate,”
which apparently is reserved for douches with PhDs. Then, in an instant, Fredericks
seemed to catch himself. He leaned back slightly in his chair, the tolerant
professor willing to entertain the possibility that a star student had a valid
alternative point of view. Of course, it was all part of the show, Fredericks
knowing the best way to crush a young punk was to let him speak: eventually
he’d say something stupid that Fredericks could disassemble. “I’d certainly be
interested in hearing more about your interpretation of the First Amendment,
Detective Miner.” Detective Shithead.

“I’m no scholar like you are, Professor,” Ryan
said, “but my understanding of the First Amendment is that, like almost every
provision of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it was written to outline
general principles, not to provide specific definitions—”

“That is precisely what I said, Detective. That
principle is now known as the reporter’s privilege—the right to not name
sources.”

“As I was saying, Professor,” Ryan said, smiling,
as if the guy’s interruption meant not that he was rude but that he was
nervous, and that Ryan was now going to exploit his advantage. “The purpose of
presenting general principles is to enable courts to exercise some flexibility
in adjudicating future cases that deal with matters of fact or circumstance
that the founders could not have anticipated. And that flexibility enables
courts to allow the reporter’s privilege in some circumstances and compel the
reporter to reveal his or her sources in other cases.”

“All very interesting, Detective—”

“Courts routinely seek to balance the interests of
the unfettered press and other interests,” Ryan said, not stopping to
acknowledge the interruption, “such as those of the victims of serious crime or
of national security. So if a court found that a reporter is protecting the
confidentiality of a source who knows the identity of a murderer—or of a person
who is likely to commit a murder—it is quite likely to authorize the state to
compel the journalist to reveal his or her sources. The courts have a phrase
for those circumstances: I think they call it
exigent, urgent circumstances
.”
Ryan was leaning forward in his chair. “Or isn’t that your understanding of the
reporter’s privilege, Professor?”

The professor smiled slightly, saying nothing. I
took that to mean he wasn’t going to challenge Ryan.

I said, “So, if I understand you two correctly, if
I was to convince the prosecutor—Ryan, would that be local or federal?”

“Local if it’s a routine murder, federal if it’s a
hate crime.”

“So if I was to convince the federal prosecutor
you know the identity of someone who, say, murdered a state senator because of
her views on stem cells or religion or something like that, or this someone
might kill someone else, such as another public figure he doesn’t like, then
that prosecutor might compel you to tell us who the hell Benjamin Connors is,
right? Is that how you read it, Ryan?”

“Yes,” Ryan said.

“And you, Professor, is that how you read it?”

He sat there, silently.

“And if the prosecutor compels you to divulge his
identity, that might make it into the paper.”

“I would welcome the opportunity to defend my
point of view in any public forum.” He smiled a bring-it-on smile.

“All right. Good.” I put on a facilitator smile. “We’re
making some progress here.” I looked down at my notes. “Professor Fredericks,
is it true that you receive mailings from patriot groups?”

“Yes, Detective.” He sighed. “I am a scholar of
the patriot movement, and I receive their emails. I read books and articles about
them, too. And I talk with other scholars about them. Guilty, guilty, guilty.”

The sarcasm told me he thought I was wrapping
things up. “And do you ever correspond with members of patriot groups and talk
about operations they’re planning to carry out, are considering carrying out,
or have carried out?”

He looked weary, like it was a real burden having
to ask sluggish students to phrase their questions more precisely. “Let me ask
you, please, to define what you mean by ‘operations.’ Would a rally be an
operation? A brochure? A video on YouTube?” His hands fluttered in the air, the
gesture saying that the possible interpretations of the word are almost
limitless, and therefore the quality of my question quite shitty.

“No,” I said, looking right into his face. “By ‘operations’
I mean unlawful acts such as harassment, intimidation, any kind of physical
violence such as beating, attacking with a weapon. Baseball bats, knives, guns,
that sort of thing.”

He closed his eyes slowly, shaking his head.
“Don’t be absurd, Detective.”

“I want to be sure we get this clear for the
record. You are saying that you have not corresponded with anyone about
unlawful operations?”

“Detective, I’m sure you find this interview
exciting, but I must say that, from my perspective, it has become quite
tiresome.”

“Still, Professor, just to make sure we get your
words on record, you have not corresponded with anyone about past or future unlawful
operations?”

“In the interest of speeding things along,
Detective, let me say, with the utmost clarity, with no equivocation—which
means I’m really really telling the truth, cross my heart hope to die—that I
have not corresponded with anyone about past or future unlawful operations.” He
tilted his head and raised his eyebrows, as if to ask me if that would be
sufficient.

I looked over at Ryan, and he nodded. Go ahead, he
was saying, show him the emails. I hadn’t planned out how far to go in telling
Fredericks about the emails. On the one hand, I knew Nick Corelli told us to
try not to use them. The safest thing would be to terminate the interview right
now: Nick would start to like me, Ryan would still like me, Willson Fredericks
wouldn’t dislike me any more than he already did, and I might be able to figure
out who’s zoomin’ who. I’d like to do the safest thing, maybe not piss off
everyone I work with, not give the other detectives a chance to place their
bets in the office pool on when I’d be fired again.

It wasn’t that I saw myself as some kind of rebel
with a cause. It’s more that I wanted to move things along. We had nothing. Forensic
Services had gone over Weston’s estate north of town. Nothing to suggest anyone
had been there and grabbed her, and with her place being more than ten acres,
there weren’t any close neighbors. But we’d canvassed twice, and no
eye-witnesses to anything suspicious. No phone calls with anyone outside her
circle of rich buddies and her kids. And with the DNA from the rape still out,
we didn’t have any decent forensics from the murder. All we had was the 1488
carved into Weston’s chest. And since Willson Fredericks was the only way we were
going to track down the Nazi slug who did it, I wanted to set the pieces in
motion. Plus, when an obnoxious prick like Willson Fredericks tells you
straight up that he didn’t write the emails that we knew he did—well, I got
kind of curious to see what was going to happen.