J. Bertrand - Pattern of Wounds

“Okay, fine. Here’s what really happened. Simone left me and moved in with a UH professor named Joy Hill. The idea was, she’d pay rent and that way Joy wouldn’t have to sell the house, because her husband had left her. But when I found out about this, I was like, ‘How are you gonna swing that?’ Because Simone was hardly making anything. She had some hours at a bookstore, but quit to take a job at this nonprofit center. Well, I looked that position up online and they listed the salary as eighteen grand a year. So I know this arrangement’s not gonna work.”

“You told her that? The two of you had a conversation.”

“We had a fight over the phone. I tried to explain the numbers to her, and she said I was treating her like a child-which is true, but she was acting like one. She knew I didn’t want a divorce and assumed that if it came down to it, I would hand over the money.”

As he talks, he leans forward, elbows on the table, staring into his cupped hands.

“I knew she’d have to come to me eventually, so when she did, I was ready. At least I thought I was. She still managed to surprise me, though: the amount she wanted was ten thousand. Ten! I told her there was no way, but we could meet and talk about it. That’s all I wanted, to talk. For the last six months, she’d barely acknowledged my existence. She wouldn’t take my calls. If I went over there, she wouldn’t answer the door. Now suddenly all that changes.”

He admits he went over there. Knew the lay of the land.

“So you met up in person. When was that?”

He pauses. “It was Veteran’s Day, whenever that was. We went to a restaurant and I remember on the TVs they were showing a lot of military stuff.”

I reach into my briefcase under the table, consulting the Filofax. “November eleven was Veteran’s Day. That was a Wednesday.”

“Right,” he says. “Anyway, she wanted a lot of money. A loan, she said, but we both knew there was no way she’d ever pay it back-and besides that, she’s my wife, okay? If I was going to give her money, I’d give it, not loan it. But I told her the money wouldn’t solve her problems. The solution was obvious, but it wasn’t that.”

“And the solution was what?”

“To move back in,” he says, wide-eyed. “Obviously. And I could tell she was listening, too, in a way she hadn’t before. We got married too quick, that’s the problem. We weren’t on the same page about a lot of stuff. But now she’d been on her own a little and she’d seen how hard it could be. She softened up some. I was like, ‘You just need to come home.’ But she said I sold her home. We couldn’t afford it, I told her, but my new place, that was her home now.”

“Did she go home with you?”

“You know she did. But I thought it was for real.”

Bascombe nods. “You thought she was moving back in with you. Things were getting back on track.”

“Exactly. She spent the night.”

“You had intercourse.”

He nods. “I remember waking up and thinking, Everything’s gonna be fine now. But in the morning she’s already made breakfast, and on the table there’s my checkbook and she’s already filling out the amount. It’s just sitting there, waiting for my signature. I got what I wanted, she said, and now it was her turn.”

“Those were her exact words?”

“Pretty much.” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t believe it.”

“And what happened then?”

“We got into it then. She called me some names and I called her some, too. She said I was trying to cheat her. She said we had a deal. I was incredulous. I said if she thought I was paying her ten grand for last night, she had too high an opinion of herself. But it’s her mother that puts these ideas in her head. Before she let Candace back in her life, things were different. Her new landlord didn’t help things, either. She was filling Simone’s head with all this girl power stupidity, be an independent woman, stand up for yourself. The thing is, Simone did have some things in her past, and people assume if that’s the case, that you’re gonna instinctively choose abusive men. So in her eyes, the professor’s, the fact that Simone chose to marry me meant I was like that.”

“But you’re not like that,” Bascombe says.

“Of course not.”

The lieutenant gets up. “Look, Jason, this is really helpful. We need to take a quick break, all right, and confer on some of this. Can I bring you anything while you’re waiting?”

The interruption surprises me, but I take it in stride and start gathering my papers. Bascombe puts a hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t worry about that, March. Let me talk to you outside a minute.”

It goes against the grain, leaving everything out, but I follow him anyway, pulling the door shut after us.

“All the paperwork’s in there,” I say. “I don’t want him looking through it.”

“Come with me.”

We head down to the monitoring room, where Aguilar is on observation duty. On-screen, Young sits frozen, eyes fixed on the stacks of paper across the table. But he makes no move toward them.

“I want to see what he does,” Bascombe says. “He’s putting on a pretty good show in there, don’t you think? Question is, if you leave an innocent man alone with all that paper, does he let it be or does he take a peek? I say he looks, because more than anything he’s curious what’s going on.”

“If he’s guilty, he’ll look to see how much we’ve got on him.”

“Yeah, but if he’s guilty, he’ll also know we’re watching him.”

My patience for interview room tricks runs out fast, but I know it’s the lieutenant’s thing. In a situation like this, he’s looking at physiology and behavior, none of which is admissible in court, though if you’re a good reader of signs, it might lead you toward some truth. Personally I believe in the story. You lock them in, then you trip them up. That takes time, though, and attention to detail.

“We need to lock him into a timeline for yesterday,” I say. “According to Sheila Green, the killing went down sometime between four in the afternoon and when the call came in at quarter to nine. I want an explanation for the injuries to his face, too.”

“And his movements this morning,” Aguilar adds. “Was he on his way to the scene or not?”

“It’s interesting, though, isn’t it?” Bascombe says, ignoring us both. “Is he concealing something or not? He hasn’t tripped up yet as far as your victim is concerned. He hasn’t even let on that he knows she’s dead. When you brought him in here, he did see the sign on the door, right? He knows this is Homicide.”

“It’s not like I pointed it out to him or anything. But yeah, he’d have to be pretty self-absorbed not to realize.”

“Or pretty convinced he knows what’s going on.”

“Meaning what, you’re buying his story? He thinks he’s in here on a rape charge?”

“Maybe,” Bascombe says. “Or maybe he’s really good. Maybe we’re not dealing with your garden variety domestic here. You’re assuming he killed her in a crime of passion scenario, then tried to make the scene look like something else, a sex murder. What if this guy’s the real thing? He just happens to be starting in his own backyard.”

“That’s what you’re getting off him?” I ask. It seems like a stretch to me.

“I’m not getting nothing off him, that’s my point. Here’s what we need to do. Go back in there and get what you need-an explanation for the injuries, a full timeline-but do something else first. He’s sticking to this rape story, so let’s run with that. Whatever happened between them, it was at his apartment. He gave us that. So tell him we want consent to search.”

“He’s not going to give it.”