Ridley Pearson - In Harm's Way

Worst of all, he thought he probably deserved it.

“Sheriff?” Deputy Linda Chalmers called out from the front door of the main house. Deputy Blompier stood just inside the house in silhouette.

It took Walt a moment to see the person wedged between them, the shorter girl, her arm clasped tightly in Linda’s hand. Took him yet another fraction of a second to process that it was Kira Tulivich. His mind made the identification, and then his eyes tracked over to Fiona, whose surprise appeared too genuine to be anything but. Barefoot, Fiona walked half on tiptoe as she crossed the driveway. She looked up the hill to Walt and back to Kira, mirroring him.

“Found her in a room off the wine cellar,” Chalmers explained as Walt reached them.

“A safe room. Hot plate. Chemical toilet. The works,” Blompier supplied.

“What safe room?” Fiona said, reaching them.

“Blompier, your jacket,” Walt instructed. The deputy peeled off his jacket and Walt placed it around Fiona’s shoulders. She tugged it around herself tightly and seemed to shrink.

Kira, looking tired, could not take her eyes off Fiona. It was this heated, locked stare of hers that interested Walt. It wasn’t a look of daughter to mother, or friend to friend, but one of incredulity, concern. That was it, he thought, the girl was afraid for her, projecting sympathy. Had Kira overheard them talking at the garden? Had she lit the fire? Had she killed Martel Gale, as the evidence suggested? Walt had no choice but to act upon the evidence.

“Kira,” he said, his voice subdued, “I’d like you to come down to my office with me for a talk.”

“Now?” Fiona complained. She tried to win Kira’s attention.

Walt spoke up immediately. “Yes. Now. For the time being I’m asking, but it can get more complicated than that.”

Kira’s focus remained on the sheriff. “Sure. I can do that.”

Walt wouldn’t have offered any visitor a personal explanation; any one of his deputies or the desk sergeant could convey the procedures and practices well enough. But the woman sitting alone in a row of chairs, separated by a table holding People magazine and copies of Western Sheriffs’ Association, was not just any visitor.

“Since when don’t you video an interview?” Fiona said angrily.

“We are videoing the interview,” Walt said calmly. “It wouldn’t be approp-”

“Oh, bull.”

“-for you to be in the room.”

“It’s one in the morning.”

“It is.”

“You should do this tomorrow.”

“Let’s not get into this, okay? I’m doing what I have to do. Kira is here voluntarily.”

“So what? You think it’s a conspiracy?” she choked out. “Really, Walt!”

“Of all people, you’ve been around this enough to know the way it works.”

“You try not to judge,” she said.

“That’s right.”

“That’s a pile of crap.”

“It’s voluntary. Exploratory. You think I’m incapable of keeping an open mind?”

“I’m like her guardian or something. I need to be in there with her.”

“She’s not a minor.”

“You notified her parents?”

“That’s up to her. I don’t believe she has.”

“An attorney?”

This was a sticking point. A matter of investigative leverage. “She has not requested a lawyer, and there’s no reason she should. She has not been charged with anything. This is exploratory.”

“Walt,” she chided.

“I’m sorry you came all the way down here. I don’t mean to shut you out. Please know that.” He remained on his feet, avoiding the chairs. He did not want to get into this with her.

“You can’t conduct this interview without an attorney present. She doesn’t know any better. Why won’t you look at me? Look at me please.” He turned. “Oh, Jesus,” she said. “You’d actually do something like this?”

“Like what? It’s voluntary. It’s necessary.”

She stood and lowered her voice, taking his forearm in hand and squeezing. “You think you’re helping me somehow? Is that it? I can see it in your eyes.”

How was that possible? How could she nail his thoughts so perfectly? He wanted back behind the restricted door and into his world, but her grip only tightened.

“Listen to me,” she said in a tone he would have rather not heard. “If you put this on her, I will be forced to… I will not let her be charged with this.”

“She hasn’t been charged, Fiona. But this-the way you’re acting, isn’t helping anything. Let me do my job. I know what I’m doing.” He let that sit there a second.

“But maybe you’ve forgotten who you’re doing it to.”

“We have evidence-hard evidence-that has to be accounted for. For all your good intentions-and I believe in them-there’s a process. A procedure. We’re just at the start of that. She answers these questions honestly, she walks out of here for now. If an attorney gets into it, it will prejudice the interview. That’s when I get backed into a corner and things get tricky. Let’s not get there. Let’s avoid that.”

“You’re setting her up.”

“I am absolutely not setting her up!” He’d raised his voice. It reverberated against the high ceiling. The receptionist on the other side of the window kept her head down.

He lowered his voice to a hush. “Listen to me. I care for that girl, and I care about you. At some point you have to trust me. I happen to know what I’m doing.”

“She’s innocent.”

“Good. Then there is nothing to worry about.”

She started for the doors, turning to look back at him once and put an exclamation point onto her disgust. Then she reconsidered. “No,” she said. “I’m not going. I’m not giving you that. I’ll be right here. Waiting. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Suit yourself,” Walt said, heading back through the door that cloistered him.

He mumbled to himself as he strode down the hall toward the first interview room, where he would find Deputy Linda Chalmers behind the video camera. Truth was, there was nothing to operating the camera; he asked Fiona to do the recording as a way to slip her extra income and get a chance to see her. She had begun to seep into his work and his decision making in ways like this, and he saw it for what it was-trouble-while still feeling no desire to change it. He opened the door and looked at the young woman on the other side of the table, frightened, unsure. Deputy Blompier sat in the chair to the left, by the wall. Walt took the only other chair facing Kira.

“You okay?” he began. Something transformed in him the moment he took his chair. A voice in his head said “game on.” Establish a rapport. Mimic language. Control emotions. Manipulate.

The empty chair to her left, the chair intended for an attorney, called out to him. Was he supposed to charge her and fill that chair for her, to give up the slight advantage he held by her not being represented? Did that help anyone?

Kira held a fixed stare of bewilderment and fear. He reminded himself beguilement took on many faces, came in all sizes and ages. Whether or not she might attempt to play him, he couldn’t tell. Her dazed expression seemed real enough. But one learned in the narrow confines of these interview rooms to put away interpretation, to ignore the suspect’s beauty or the tattoos or the lack of language skills and to drill down. So he took a second to make himself comfortable in the chair, his decision made. He took a deep, calming breath and exhaled, placed his forearms onto the table, a man determined, his body language as practiced, as important, as each word, each inflection. He lived for such moments.

He glanced over his shoulder. Chalmers gave him a nod: tape was running.