The Kill Clause (22 page)

“And frowning when she didn’t like what she heard,” Rayner added. “If a girl gave the ‘wrong’ answer, she was subjected to repeated questioning—and the interviewer’s tacit disapproval—until she made something up.”

Tim glanced through the files at the badly photocopied detective notes. “The girls were in the same circles. Parents knew each other. After the first accusation, there were meetings between the families, conferences at school. Cross-pollination. These recorded interviews happened later. The witnesses weren’t exactly working from a clean slate.”

“And who knows how many other opportunities there were to have memories implanted and reinforced?” Ananberg added. “Other kids, media…” She spun her hand in a double loop, a gestured
et cetera.

“What about the dolls?” Mitchell said.

“Same criticisms apply,” Rayner said. “On top of which, anatomically correct dolls are not recommended to be used with very young children.”

“Only with the elderly,” Ananberg said.

Robert fixed her with a piercing stare. “This isn’t a fucking joke.” He gestured to his brother. “Not to us.”

“I don’t think she meant anything,” Dumone said.

“No, he’s right.” Ananberg ran her hand through her dark brown hair. “I’m sorry. Just trying to defuse the tension in here. It’s a, uh, tough topic.”

“If you can’t handle tough topics, maybe you’re in the wrong place.”

“Robert. She apologized,” Tim said. “Let’s keep moving.”

Ananberg returned to her usual briskly professional tone. “According to the Ceci and Bruck study published in 1995, questioning young children with anatomically correct dolls is less than reliable.”

Mitchell glanced up from the court file. “Who cares about the dolls? According to this, the guy confessed.”

“The confession was persuasively called into question by the defense,” Rayner said. He strode over to the VCR and switched tapes.

The cold light of a police interrogation room. The camera caught some glare from the backside of a one-way mirror. Mick Dobbins sat hunched in a metal folding chair while two detectives worked him. Despite his solid frame and broad shoulders, his orientation was distinctly youthful. His arms hung loose and heavy between his spread knees, and his left sneaker was untied, his foot turned on its side. One of his overalls straps had come undone; it swayed at his side like a yoyo waiting to be snapped up.

The detectives had the lights going hot, one of them always staying just out of Dobbins’s view, to his side, behind his back. Dobbins kept his head hung but tried to follow the detectives with his eyes, which peered nervously through the sweat-matted tangle of his bangs. His low-set ears protruded from his oddly rectangular head like opposing coffee-mug handles.

“So you like girls?” the detective asked.

“Yeah. Girls. Girls ’n’ boys.” When Dobbins spoke, his mild retardation was immediately apparent in his low register and plodding cadence.

“You like girls a lot, don’t you? Don’t you?” The detective raised a foot, placed it squarely on the small patch of metal chair exposed
between Dobbins’s legs. Dobbins lowered his head more, tucking his chin into the hollow of his shoulder. The detective leaned forward, his face inches from the top of Dobbins’s head. “I asked you a question. Tell me about them, tell me about the girls. You like them? You like girls?”

“Y-y-yeah. I like girls.”

“Do you like touching them?”

Dobbins wiped his nose with the back of his hand, a rough, frustrated gesture. He muttered to himself. “Chocolate, vanilla, rocky road—”

The detective snapped his fingers inches from Dobbins’s face. “Do you like touching them?”

“I hug girls. Girls and boys.”

“Do you like touching girls?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah what?”

“I like touching girls. I…”

“You
what?”

Dobbins jerked at the sharpness of the detective’s tone. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Strawberry, mocha almond fu—”

“You what, Mick? You what?”

“I, uh, uh, I sometimes pet them when they’re upset.”

“You pet them, and they get upset?”

Dobbins scratched his head above one ear, then smelled his fingers. “Yeah.”

“That what happened with Peggie Knoll?
Is it?
”

Dobbins cowered from the voice. “I think so. Yeah.”

After double-checking the file, Rayner paused the video. “That’s really the essential segment.”

“That’s no confession,” Tim said.

“Pretty weak,” Mitchell agreed. “I’ll grant you it wasn’t a confession, but I don’t think we need a confession here. I think the other evidence holds.”

“What other evidence?” Ananberg asked. “Seven impressionable children regurgitating implanted memories? A girl who died of an infection that was never conclusively linked to a molestation that was never proven to have occurred?”

“So let me get this straight,” Robert said. “We have seven little girls who testify individually that they’ve been molested by a retard groundskeeper, we have each of them acting out with puppets the sick shit the freak perpetrated on them, we have them each saying he
molested their friend who’s now dead from a resulting infection, we have him on tape saying he likes to pet and hug little girls, and you don’t think this is an open-and-shut?”

Tim pictured Harrison outside Kindell’s, arms crossed.
It’s an open-and-shut.

“No,” Tim said. “I don’t.”

Robert directed his scowl down the table. “Stork?”

The Stork’s rounded shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t really care.”

“If you’re gonna sit in this room,” Tim said, “you’d better care.”

“Fine,” the Stork said. “I think he probably did it.”

“Franklin?” Rayner asked.

Dumone shrugged. “We’re thin on physical evidence, especially with no indication of vaginal or rectal damage on any of the girls and nothing concrete linking the bladder infection and the molest.”

“Dobbins has got no criminal history,” Ananberg said. “No felonies, no misdemeanors.”

“That don’t mean shit,” Robert said. “A puke can start anytime.”

“It just means he’s never been caught for anything before.” Mitchell exhaled hard through his nose, irritated. “Sounds like you’ve made up your minds already. Why don’t we take a nonbinding preliminary vote to see if we’re just wasting our time in continuing our assessment here?”

Ananberg looked to Rayner with an arched eyebrow, and he nodded.

The vote went down four to three, not guilty.

The Stork looked typically indifferent, but Robert and Mitchell were having difficulty keeping their frustration out of their faces.

“We’re here to pick up the slack when the courts screw up,” Mitchell said. “When we fail to act, there’s no other recourse.”

“Acting is not always the right decision,” Tim said.

Robert’s eyes remained locked on the photograph of his deceased sister. “Tell that to the seven little girls who were molested and the dead girl’s parents.”

“The seven little girls who
said
they were molested,” Ananberg said.

“Listen, bitch—”

Dumone rocked forward in his chair. “Rob—”

“You might think you have the answers in here, with your studies and your Freudian bullshit, but you haven’t so much as set high heel on the real streets, so don’t you fucking tell me you know shit about who’s done what.”

“Robert!”

“Until you spend some time with these pieces of shit, you don’t know how they tick.” Robert jerked his head toward the TV. “That fucker just
smells
guilty.”

Dumone was standing now in a half crouch above his chair, hands on the table, arms elbow-locked, bearing his weight. “Believe it or not, your sense of smell isn’t the criterion for our voting. You can argue the merits, argue the cases, or you can hop a Greyhound back to Detroit and stop wasting our time.”

The room froze—Rayner’s glass halfway to his mouth, Ananberg midturn in her chair.

Dumone’s eyes burned with an uncharacteristic fury. “Do you understand me?”

Mitchell’s face was drawn. “Listen, Franklin, I don’t think—”

Dumone’s hand shot up, a crossing guard’s signal aimed in Mitchell’s direction, and Mitchell stopped cold.

Robert’s expression softened, his head ducking slightly under the heat of Dumone’s glare. “Shit, I didn’t mean it.”

“Well, don’t pull that crap in here. Do you understand me?
Do you understand me?
”

“Yes.” Robert raised his head but could barely meet Dumone’s eyes. “Like I said, it was nothing. I was just pissed off.”

“‘Pissed off’ has no place in our proceedings. Apologize to Ms. Ananberg.”

“Look,” Ananberg said, “I don’t think that’s really necessary.”

“I do.” Dumone kept his glare leveled at Robert.

Robert finally turned to face Ananberg. The emotion had burned itself out of his face, leaving behind an eerie calm. “I apologize.”

She laughed nervously, a single note. “Don’t worry about it.”

Silence descended over the table.

“Why don’t we take a little break before we tackle the next case?” Rayner said.

•Tim stood on the half circle of Rayner’s back patio, gazing out at the elaborate back gardens. A few motion-sensor lights had kicked on when he’d stepped from the house, shining golden cylinders into the night and illuminating flurries of winged insects.

He heard the screen door rattle open and then close, and he smelled Ananberg’s perfume—light and citrusy—when she was still a few steps behind him.

“Got a light?”

Her hand hooked around his side and slid into the front pocket of his jacket. He grabbed her wrist, withdrew her hand, and turned. Their faces were inches apart. “I don’t smoke.”

She smirked. “Relax, Rackley. Cops aren’t my type.”

“That’s right. Teacher’s pet.”

She seemed genuinely pleased. “A sense of humor. Who’da thunk it?”

Her hair, fine and dark, looked as though it would be silken. Ananberg was Dray’s opposite—petite, brunette, flirtatious—and she evoked in Tim a distinct discomfort. He turned back to the dark sprawl of the gardens. Rows of box shrubs zigzagged before fading into darkness.

Ananberg pulled a cigarette from her pack, stuck it into her mouth, and patted her pockets fruitlessly. “What are you looking at?”

“Just the darkness.”

“You like playing Mr. Mysterious, don’t you? The brooding routine, the strong, silent thing. I think it gives you distance, comfort.”

“You got me all figured out.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” She set her hands on her hips, studying him. Her curt amusement was gone. “Thanks for sticking up for me in there.”

“You don’t need sticking up for. I was just speaking my mind.”

“Robert can be pretty aggressive.”

“Agreed.”

“Does that concern you?”

“Absolutely.” Tim gave a glance back at the lit windows of the house. Dumone, the Stork, and Robert were waiting at the conference-room table. He scanned the side of the house, spotting Rayner in the kitchen pulling a bottled water from the fridge. Mitchell stepped into view, near his side, and Rayner drew him near, hand resting on his shoulder, whispering something in his ear. Tim glanced back over at Dumone and wondered if he knew that Rayner and Mitchell were swapping secrets two rooms over. Tim had assumed the two disliked each other—the egghead and the redneck enduring each other only as necessary instruments to help attain their respective aims.

“Dumone can keep him in line. Him and Mitchell.”

Tim chewed the inside of his cheek. “Your acuity threatens him. And your consistency.”

“Does it threaten you?”

“I think it’s exactly what we need.”

“Maybe so. But it feels petty, somehow. Even to me.”

“How so?”

“You see”—her eyes got shy, darted away—“I think it’s great that you’re seeking an idea of justice that you can hold in your hands. It’s courageous, almost. But for me that’s like believing in God. I think it would be fun. It would certainly be reassuring. But I stick with my statistics and little dogmatic regurgitations because I know the rules of that game.”

A thoughtful noise escaped Tim, but he didn’t respond. He worked his cheek, studied the dark shapes of the bushes.

She stood by his side, gazing at the garden as if trying to figure out what he was looking at. “That was something else you pulled off. The Lane hit.”

“Team effort.”

“Well, you had to front the lion’s share of the nerve.” She shook her head, and again he smelled her fragrance, thought about her hair. “Robert’s right on one count—I’m about as far from the street as you can get. I’m glad I’m on this side of things. Discussing, reviewing, analyzing. I could never do what you do. The risk, the danger, the courage under pressure.” She slapped him lightly on the arm. “Are you smiling at me? Why?”

“It’s not about courage. Or the thrill.”

“Why do you do it, then? Fight wars. Enforce the law. Risk your life.”

“We don’t talk about it, really.”

“But if you did?”

Tim took a moment to consider. “I guess we do it because we’re worried no one else is willing to.”

She pulled the unlit cigarette from her mouth and slid it back into the pack. “Not all of you.” She padded back to the house, head down, dodging snails on the patio.

The wind picked up, bone-cold and wet, and Tim slid his hands into his pockets. His fingertips touched a scrap of paper, which he withdrew, puzzled. A phone number and an address, written in a woman’s hand.

He turned, but Ananberg had already disappeared back into the house. After a moment he followed.

•All six members of the Commission were seated, awaiting Tim’s return. Centered perfectly before Rayner, like an awaiting plate of dinner, was a black binder.

The fourth, Tim thought. Then two more, then Kindell’s.

Lost in a blissful contentedness, the Stork was folding blank sheets into paper airplanes and humming to himself—the theme from
The Green Hornet.
Dumone sat cocked back in his chair, a fresh-poured bourbon chilling the V of his crotch.

Rayner leaned over, spreading a hand on the cover. “Buzani Debuffier.”