Jung Yun - Shelter

Something about this explanation doesn’t sit right with him. “So you didn’t want me to know he was here because…?”

Connie shrugs. “I thought you’d probably want to see the interview, but no one was going to get a word of sense out of him, not in the state he was in. I figured we’d spare you the wait.”

Kyung searches Connie’s face, then the detective’s and Tim’s. It doesn’t seem possible that they did this to be kind, but nothing in their expressions contradicts what he just heard.

“Meet me in number three,” Detective Smalley says. “I’ll bring him over.”

Connie, Tim, and Kyung walk single file to the end of the hall and squeeze into a small room with an oversized window. On the other side of the glass, there’s a table and chairs. On their side, there’s nothing.

“You reek,” Tim says, covering his nose. “How long’s it been since you had a shower?”

“Give him a break. You want a coffee or something?”

Kyung shakes his head. The space they’re standing in is no bigger than a closet. It’s warm — there aren’t any vents or air ducts anywhere — and Tim is actually right for a change. Kyung smells awful; the room smells awful too, like food left out in the sun to spoil. He leans against the far wall, trying to put as much distance between himself and the others.

“What kind of place is this?” he asks. “It’s like an alley in here.”

“We use it for lineups, mostly,” Connie says. “The regular interview room’s got mold in the ceiling, so we’re stuck with this. You understand how it works, right? They can’t see us through the glass, but we can see them.”

“I don’t care if he sees me.”

“Don’t be stupid, Kyung. John’s doing me a favor. I thought it might give you some peace to see this guy locked up, but you can’t go crazy in here.”

If there was ever a time for crazy, Kyung thinks it’s now. He has nothing to lose anymore. His mother is gone. His wife no longer wants him around. His child, he’ll probably only be allowed to see on weekends and holidays. His attempt to start over in California has been exposed as the fantasy it is. Before the attack, Kyung’s life was far from perfect, but now he has even less than what he started with, and that hardly seems fair. Without the Perrys, the stasis he lived in could have continued indefinitely, and he would have been glad to accept that safe place in the middle where nothing moved him too greatly or hurt him too much.

The door in the other room opens and a uniformed officer places a paper bag and a soda on the table.

“McDonald’s?” Kyung asks, realizing that he hasn’t eaten anything since Erie. “You’re giving him food?”

“We have to,” Connie says. “He’s been in custody too long. Besides, it’ll help sober him up.”

Another officer leads Perry in, handcuffed from behind and shackled around the ankles. He doesn’t appear drunk so much as tired. Kyung always assumed he was a physically intimidating man, but Perry isn’t much taller than he is, only wider. His stomach is distended like a cannonball, and the ridge of his chest sags like old breasts through his T-shirt, which is stained at the neck and underarms, the fabric more yellow than white. The thought of such a filthy, disgusting man even looking at his mother, much less touching her, makes him want to hurl something through the glass and grab Perry by the throat.

“Knock it off,” Tim says.

“What?”

“The tapping. Stop it already.”

Kyung looks down. He didn’t notice he was tapping his foot on the floor. He has energy all of a sudden, too much to know what to do with. He crosses his arms and watches as the officer frees one of Perry’s wrists and cuffs it to the back of a chair. Perry sits down and opens the bag on the table. He unwraps a cheeseburger one-handed and scrapes the onions and ketchup off with a pickle, leaving them in a bloody-looking pile on a napkin. Then he leans over like a pig to a trough and alternates between his burger and fries, shoving them into his mouth in huge bites that Kyung wishes he’d choke on. The detective enters and sits down at the table to read him his rights, but Perry doesn’t seem to be listening. He eats his second burger exactly like the first, his eyes glassy, his hunger primal.

“I need a verbal response that you understand what I just told you and you’ve waived your rights to an attorney.”

Perry nods dumbly, his mouth still full.

“A verbal response.” Detective Smalley pushes the microphone and tape recorder toward him. “Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

His accent is unexpected, as is his use of the word “sir,” but Kyung remembers the mug shots that Lentz showed him. Perry’s a Southerner, at least he used to be.

“You put up quite a fight today.”

He shrugs. “I get that way when I drink.”

“But you did more than just drink, didn’t you? There must have been a couple dozen bindles in that apartment. It looked like you had a party or something.”

“What’s a bindle?”

“The little envelopes you buy meth in.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about those. I was just staying there — with the girl. It’s her place … her stuff.”

“Right. The girl.” Detective Smalley removes the rubber band wrapped around his folder and pulls out a sheet of paper. “Sharon Julie Andrews.” He chuckles. “Her parents had a weird sense of humor, didn’t they? Julie Andrews?”

“Who?”

“The actress? The little blond one? You know— The Sound of Music ?”

The reference doesn’t seem to register. “I’m not sure I follow.”

There’s a slow, syrupy quality to Perry’s responses that almost makes him seem harmless, but Kyung isn’t fooled. He knows what this man is capable of. The last time his mother saw him, he looked like a monster.

“So is Sharon your girlfriend?”

“No, not really. She’s just a friend.”

“She must be a pretty good friend to drive the car you stole all the way up to Vermont. You know that’s how we found you, right? She just left a brand-new Lincoln on the side of a road and hopped the bus back home. Didn’t even stop to think that maybe she should have found a better hiding place for it. I bet you told her to wipe the prints, right?”

He waits for an answer, but doesn’t get one.

“Lucky for us, meth heads aren’t too thorough. Sharon left a couple on the armrest.” He laughs again. “It took us a while, but we finally caught up with her this morning while she was out trolling the park with the other junkies. Didn’t have her in a holding cell for more than a few hours before she started telling us all about you. It doesn’t really look like you’re going to be friends anymore.”

Perry balls up the wrappers from his food and puts them in the bag. He doesn’t appear fazed by what he just heard, not at all. “Can you tell me where my brother’s buried?”

Detective Smalley seems thrown by the question. “How do you know he’s dead?”

“Because I saw him. In the bathroom of that couple’s house. He was dead when I left.”

“You’re admitting you were there?”

Perry looks at him, exhausted and unwilling to play. Then he turns to the window, as if to address everyone standing on the other side of it. “I think you all know I was there. I’m willing to cooperate. I’d just really like to know where my brother’s buried.”

Tim nudges Kyung in the ribs. “This one’s finished,” he says, smiling. “He’s not even smart enough to lie.”

The detective thumbs through the contents of his file until he finds what he’s looking for. “It says here that your brother’s in a potter’s field out in Westhaven.”