which were miming binoculars, then sat back and looked at the pad. “But no, we’ll accept your story as you told it. Officially it doesn’t have any holes—no gapers, anyway. Believe me, the cops don’t care whether or not it’s true.”
After a moment he said, “If you stole the truck, right now you would be wondering how to read me. You’d be asking yourself if legally I can say I don’t care if you stole the truck—and by legally I mean whether it would hold up in court if I used it to trap you into confessing. You would also want to talk about it, not have to worry about the phone ringing with me on the other end saying we found a partial print on the parking brake and we need you to come down for more questions.”
I said, “Makes sense.”
“That’s good,” he said, nodding. “Neutral.” He paused, but I couldn’t tell if it was for effect or a real pause. What I could tell was that, in spite of what he had said when he’d set down the notepad, we weren’t nearly done here. I kept quiet, waiting for the rest of it. He said, “And partly you’re wondering if we would go easy on you, maybe even let you off, if you were to confess right now.”
He leaned back and sighed. “Well, Jim, I can’t help you. I could swear on my grampa’s pocket watch that this really is off the record, but the more I said it the less you would believe me because I’d say the same thing either way. Obviously, if you took the truck, you’d have to play it as if I’m trying to smoke you out. That’s your disposition.” He liked that word. “Which is interesting, see, because now you’re assuming I’m lying, and I’m assuming you’re telling the truth. It sounds like I’m not, but believe me, I am. Which is the opposite of what usually happens at this desk.” His believe me was beginning to sound like my actually.
But the man had an interesting mind. And to be honest, I wanted him to admire me for what I’d done: I had taken their own vehicle right out from under their noses! I also wanted him to see how I had to lie to keep the law, which was too general to appreciate the special circumstances of this situation, from treating me like a criminal. In a way it made us equals. And adversaries.
He gave a conceding nod. “You say you heard something—sure, that could do it, turn you back into a timid guy.” He didn’t seem any more convinced than I was. He flipped through his notes for a moment, then thumped his index finger on one of the pages.
“But someone took that truck. If it was you—if you sneaked out of the house and made it across the street and moved into position, and then somehow you jumped into their truck and drove off—that doesn’t make any sense either. No one does that. I mean, no one would do that. It’s just as likely that an alien spaceship beamed you and the truck aboard and then for some reason kept the truck and dropped you off somewhere nearby. And now you’re sitting there with some kind of probe up your ass. You are a first-class head-scratcher.”
He looked at me for a moment. “From your side of things—I know it’s late, but give me a second here, let me work this out—you say you ran. Which is what you would normally do, and now you’re uninteresting. But it’s also what you would say you did, if you took the truck.” It started to seem as if he would simply talk until he had everything figured out, even the details of my conversation with Marla. And it probably showed on my face. I was sitting there waiting for this absolute stranger to say, “You probably lied to your wife about stealing the truck, and then I’ll bet she leaned back against the sink and told you she watched you climb in and drive away.”
I mentally focused on what I recalled of Fred Jackson’s garage, its door stuck open all these years, the drift boat that had never seen a river and probably wouldn’t until it belonged to someone else, and the firewood stacked against the back wall. I tried to imprint the image on my brain so that it would be the only thing Sergeant Rainey found when he got that far in there and started rummaging around. In order to get away with the lie, I would have to become the lie.
I said, “We’re still off the record?”
“Sure.”
“Were they in their own truck?”
“We believe so.”
“But why? Why would they do that?”
“Well, think about it. They’re driving around at two in the morning, perfectly legal. They stop in the middle of the street—not so legal, but hell, a hundred newspaper-delivery people do that same thing every morning of the year. So they’re stopped in the street, they get out and look in the window of someone else’s car—they might flash-light the interior or test the handle to see if it’s locked—questionable but still legal. It’s when they try to get in that they leap the fence. See, they’ve been committing the crime all along, but this is when they’re committed to the crime. Now, if you go back and put them in a stolen vehicle from the start, they’re bustable all night long. Roll through the wrong stop sign and get nailed for grand theft auto.”
“So what happens now?”
“I want to hold them for a few days for resisting arrest, which might put them on the defensive. It won’t last long, but it’s worth a try. Eventually they’ll start thinking about what happened to their truck.”
“Do they think I took it?”
“That’s the real question, and frankly, I don’t have an answer. We asked about a third guy ditching them, and they gave us—I mean they each gave it because we had them in separate rooms—the big ol’ Bob Hope double take like they really didn’t know what we were talking about. There wasn’t a third guy.”
“But that doesn’t mean it had to be me.”
“My point is, if they suspect you—if they think they’re being run through the court system by the guy who stole their truck—they’re going to get hot. Irony is lost on people like this. And let’s not forget, they know where you live. Now, if you were to drop the charges and make a show of good faith by paying for the ignition repair out of your own pocket, this might be the end of it.”
It felt as if dropping the charges would be the same as admitting that I had taken the truck. Finally I said, “I’m not sure what to do, so let’s go ahead with it.”
He turned in his swivel chair, which groaned as if similarly disappointed by my decision. “Oh, boy, that’s not what I wanted to hear. And I probably can’t change your mind?”
“Why do we keep letting guys like this off the hook?”
“You know where it could go, don’t you?”
“No.”
“All the way.”
“By ‘all the way’ you mean to court? Lawyers and newspapers?”
“No, I mean one of them might try to kill you.”
I was glad Marla wasn’t there to hear this. He said, “We can’t hold them forever, and just a whiff of guys like them causes cancer in guys like you. Think of yourself as a slice of bread, and they’re a can of Drano. After they come in contact with you, all that’s left is a puff of smoke and little crusty bits. So if they start phoning or following you around—if this goes nonboring—I want to know about it.”
He watched me. I acted like I was thinking. I wanted to show that I wasn’t shaken by his words, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I didn’t want him as an adversary, especially if one of these guys went “nonboring” on me. I hated not being able to help him figure me out.
He said, “They saw it, by the way.”
My heart sank. “Saw what?”
“The truck, an older beer-bottle-brown Ford, was seen a few blocks from your house. The two officers in the first patrol car mentioned it later.” To no one in particular he said, “We missed the boat on that one too.”
He picked up the phone and punched three numbers.
“Franklin? Rainey. Are those throw-downs