Authors: Janice Cantore
5
“Detective Edwards. How’s it going?” The arresting officer, a guy Carly had met briefly at the crash scene, smiled and extended his hand. She shook it warily. Even though the brass had hidden her away in juvenile, new guys always seemed ready to pounce with questions about the shooting.
Everyone knew Carly Edwards. She was the first female officer in the department to be involved in a fatal OIS, or officer-involved shooting. Carly’s rep was made because of the incident, and many new guys were in awe of her. She understood that an unspoken question in a lot of officers’ minds was whether they or their partners would be able to use deadly force if the situation called for it. Anyone who had pulled the trigger had crossed that bridge, removed all doubt, and was looked at in a different light. Fairly or unfairly, female officers often had higher walls to climb when it came to earning trust, so Carly’s shooting brought her a lot of attention. She didn’t relish it. If any of them asked, she told them how happy she was that her bullets hadn’t been the fatal ones. Trouble was, they kept asking, all anxious for the details.
“It’s going okay. Thanks for bringing him down.” She nodded toward Londy and willed the focus to stay there. “Has he made any statements I should know about?”
“Not a peep. He’s just a model killer. I’m taking all of his property and clothing to homicide.”
“What did he have on him? Anything that looks like it might belong to the mayor?”
“Nope.” He held up a plastic baggie. “One cross necklace, one condom, and half a roach.”
Carly chuckled and shook her head. Her shoulders relaxed when the patrol cop gathered up all the paperwork and left the detention area without engaging her in extraneous conversation.
The officer gone, Carly leaned against the counter and studied the accused, Londy Akins. He sat on a soft beige bench, a rainbow mural behind him. Minors couldn’t be locked in cells in the Las Playas City Jail; as a result, juvenile detention bore no resemblance to a jail. Open and bright, the room was overseen by an unarmed security officer. Juveniles waited on the bench and watched television until parents came for them or they were sent to the county intake facility for Las Playas, Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall.
Londy wore a bright-blue jail-issue paper jumpsuit because his clothes had been confiscated as evidence. The boy’s eyes were puffy and bloodshot. Carly was pleased that Londy looked tired and scared in contrast to the brightness of his surroundings; it seemed right.
She walked around to the other side of the counter, to the spot vacated by the transporting officer, wanting separation. Then, with her elbows resting on the counter, she addressed the kid. “Hello, Londy.”
“Hello, Miss Edwards.” He looked up slowly and held Carly’s eyes without defiance.
“You’re kind of in a mess now, aren’t you? Is that why you asked for me?”
“I asked ’cause you know me. And ’cause of your mom. I guess I hope you’ll believe me. I didn’t know that woman was in the trunk, I swear.”
Carly held up a hand to stop him from saying any more, stifling the urge to laugh and call him a liar. The mention of her mother strengthened Carly’s resolve to squeeze the truth out of him.
“Let’s go to my office. We can talk more there.” She directed him out of the detention area. Once they were seated, Carly began the standard procedure. “I’m going to read you your rights, Londy. Stop me if you don’t understand.”
He nodded. Carly read the Miranda rights straight from the card, though she knew them by heart. When she finished, she held Londy’s gaze. “Do you understand these rights as I read them to you?”
“Yeah.”
“Having these rights in mind, do you want to give them up and talk to me about your arrest?”
“Yeah, Miss Edwards, I want to tell my side.”
“Okay, here is a printed copy of the rights I just read; look them over and sign at the bottom if you want to answer questions.” She slid the form across the table along with a pen. Londy read, signed, and slid it back to her. Carly clicked on the voice recorder. “I’m taping this conversation.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He leaned forward with his elbows on the table and his hands clasped in front of him. She found herself leaning back reflexively, surprised by his eagerness to talk. Because of this eagerness, she saw no reason to start anywhere other than with the facts and with Arnie’s advice.
“Did you kill Mayor Burke?”
“No! No, no, no. I couldn’t; I wouldn’t.”
“Then what happened? If you didn’t kill the mayor, what were you doing driving her car around?
Her car with her body in the trunk.
”
His eyes misted. “Man, I know I messed up. I know I shoulda never got in that car, but I didn’t kill that lady. I never even looked in the trunk until the officers showed me.”
“Londy, I want the truth. You’ve been to jail before and you know how things work. It’s always easier if you tell the truth; it’s easier to stick to your story and remember what you’ve said. You were driving the car, you ran from the police, and you expect me to believe you had no idea there was a body in the trunk?”
Londy looked down at his hands and shook his head. “Miss Edwards, I ain’t gonna lie. I’m a Christian now, but I knew Darryl from before.”
The word
Christian
pinched Carly and she sat up straighter.
Try to snow me, kid, like you snowed my mom, and I’ll bury you.
“He came and got me last night. He said he just bought the car. He got a job down at the harbor and he’s always got money, so I thought he was saying the truth. We were just driving around listening to music—the car was a fine ride. And then Darryl brought out some weed. I knew I shouldn’t, but I been good for so long, I just had to smoke some. When I saw the police, I thought I was in trouble for the weed, so I ran. I didn’t want Mama to know. I swear I didn’t know nothing about that lady. I done a lot of stupid things in my life, but I could never kill nobody.”
“What kind of job does Darryl have that he’d have the money for a Lexus?”
“I don’t know. He does something with the big ships, gets paid in cash. Lately he’s always waving money around.”
“Londy, do you really think a judge will believe the story you’re telling me? A street-smart kid like you would believe that Darryl could buy himself a car like that?”
“Miss Edwards, it’s the truth. I can’t lie. I won’t lie. I let my mama down and your mama down by smoking that weed, but most of all I let Jesus down. Maybe I thought Darryl jacked that car, and I shouldn’t have got in, and I did. But I didn’t kill that lady.” The boy looked across the table with such earnestness it made Carly shift uncomfortably in her chair. She tacitly ignored all his references to Jesus and God. They only served to annoy and irritate.
Okay, time for the hammer. You want to dump that church and God junk on me, I’m gonna dump on you.
“You thought Darryl jacked the car, and you still hopped in?”
Londy’s face scrunched as if he’d just bitten a lemon. “I did; I shouldn’t’ve, but I did.”
“You smoked weed with Darryl?”
“I did—I won’t lie.”
“Then you tried to run from the police, right?”
His gaze dropped and his lowered head moved slowly from side to side. “I did. I’m sorry, I got scared.”
“All those are things thugs and liars do. How can I believe you aren’t a murderer as well?”
His head shot back up. “No, no, I didn’t kill that lady.”
Carly kept at it, angry that the kid persisted in denial and angrier still she was beginning to believe him. He exuded none of the uneasy body language so evident with liars. At the hardest questions he looked her right in the eye calmly, no challenge or evasion present.
She continued questioning, threatened a little, and stretched the truth some about what Darryl had to say. Still Londy denied. And surprisingly, he never blamed Darryl, something Carly expected him to do before he finally caved and admitted his guilt. She switched from hammering to being his best friend, concerned about his fate in jail. Nothing worked; his story stayed the same.
When I looked at everything at the crime scene,
she thought,
I was certain I had a murderer. Now, I’m just not sure.
She drummed on the table and studied him in silence for a moment before smacking the recorder off in frustration and then asking one final question.
“You want to take a lie detector test?”
“Yes, please, I’ll take it. I’m telling the truth.” Again, the eyes were so earnest.
Biting back a petulant rejoinder because she’d struck out completely, Carly nodded. “I’ll talk to the homicide guys and try to set one up.” She stood up to lead Londy back to detention.
“What’s gonna happen tonight? Am I going to the Hall?” Londy asked.
“Yep, you’ll be leaving in a couple of hours.”
“Do you believe me? That I didn’t kill that lady?”
The question caught Carly by surprise. “I don’t know. All I know right now is that all the evidence isn’t in. Everything you told me will go to the homicide detectives.”
Londy nodded. “I understand. Can I call my mama?”
“Yeah.” Carly took him back to the detention area and set him up with a phone before leaving him with the security officer. Back in her office, it was time to call homicide.
Without a confession.
Grasping for any straws, Carly pulled Londy’s complete arrest jacket and scanned the pages. After a few minutes she slammed the file shut and pushed it away. The act of rubbing her forehead with her fingers couldn’t erase what was going on in her head.
I believe the kid—I hate to admit it, but there it is. I’ve seen a lot of liars in my time on this job, and if Londy is lying, he’s the best. No wonder my mother believes him.
The phone call to homicide could not be avoided.
Karl Drake answered. “Hey, what did the kid tell you?”
“Not much. He’s a complete denial.” Carly outlined the interview for Drake. “He wants a lie detector test; he’s very eager to take one. I hate to say it, Karl, but he’s not sweating like a liar, and he freely admits to the joyride and the pot. I guess my gut is telling me he’s not a killer. He didn’t even try to point the finger at Darryl. I’m thinking that he really knows nothing about the mayor.”
Drake let out a derisive snort. “We were really hoping you could get something out of the kid.” He sounded disappointed and tired. “There’s a lot of pressure on this case, Carly. The chief—heck, the city. I just got the third degree from the grieving widower.”
“I don’t know what to say, Karl. I tried. Out of curiosity I pulled Londy’s arrest jacket. He’s never been arrested for a violent crime. He may boost cars and draw graffiti, but he’s never been a violent kid.” Carly surprised herself the minute the words were out of her mouth.
“What about ‘Once a dirtbag, always a dirtbag’? You know as well as I do that most crimes are crimes of opportunity. These two punks jacked a car and a woman was in the way, so they killed her. He’ll get his lie detector test.” The phone clicked off.
As much as she wanted to get back into everyone’s good graces, Carly couldn’t suppress her own gut feelings.
Drake is just tired and frustrated,
she thought. With such a high-profile case, a quick closure in black and white would be preferable to something long and drawn out with shades of gray. If she was wrong and Londy was guilty, or if she was right and he was innocent, either way Drake and Harris had a lot of work to do, and they’d have to do it in the crucible of press scrutiny. But she didn’t doubt that they’d dig for the truth.
Sighing, she set about transcribing her interview. When she finished, she left her office and set it in front of Altman for his review and signature.
“I can tell by the look on your face this didn’t go well,” he said as he picked up the transcript.
“What can I say? The kid swears he didn’t do it.” She poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Ain’t it a shame. And thumbscrews are out of style.” Altman chuckled. “All the evidence isn’t in yet. Guilt is determined by what can be proved in court, and most of the time there is no confession.” He gave her his wise, knowing supervisor look.
She took her coffee out to the front desk area and sat sipping and brooding. Even if Londy was innocent, the tangential involvement of her mother bugged her. Kay believed she could change troubled kids.
I have to find a way to make her understand that she needs to be more careful about the strays she picks up.
When the day shift ended at four, Arnie and the other day detectives filed out. Altman finished his review of her interview shortly after that. Though he was her supervisor, he was alternating early days and late days, covering for a day sergeant who was on vacation. Today was an early day, and he’d leave Carly on her own until her EOW at 2:00 a.m.
“You did a good job. Don’t fault your interview,” he said when he packed up to leave. “Remember, cases are won without confessions.” He held up her interview packet. “I’ll drop this downstairs on my way out.”
“Thanks, Sarge. Have a good night.”
He stepped on the elevator and was gone, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
“Cases are won without confessions.” Maybe so, but are careers resurrected?
She busied herself with the paperwork involved in sending Londy to juvenile hall. There was a long list of charges against him, homicide being the most serious and the one that would not stick without more evidence. She tried not to think about that as she typed the information juvenile hall would need at intake. When the phone rang, she contemplated letting it go to voice mail but picked it up after four rings.
“What took you so long to answer the phone?” Captain Garrison’s baritone assaulted her ears.
“Sorry, Captain; I’m by myself right now.”
“Never mind. I’m downstairs in the lobby, and the boy’s mother is here making a scene with the press. She wants to see her son. Set it up.”
“Captain, we don’t allow visiting; we don’t have any space for it. She’ll have to wait until he gets up to juvenile hall.”