SK01 - Waist Deep (31 page)

Matsuda shook his head.
“Terrible.”

“Oh, it gets worse,” Stone said.
“The husband eventually copped to the whole thing.
The kidnapping and how Grandma killed little Amy.
He wouldn’t confess to the sex stuff, but DNA on her body took care of that.
He told us everything else, though.
He sat right there in a chair just like that one Steffie’s in and he spilled his guts.
And you know what he said?”

“What?” Matsuda asked, on cue.

“He said that when our hero, Officer Golden Boy here, came to their house to question the
grandma
and she offered to let him search the house which he refused to do, that little Amy Dugger was alive and well in the upstairs bedroom.
” He paused a moment, then repeated,
“
Alive and well.”

My stomach burned, but I said nothing.

Stone shook his head.
“That little girl died because of him,” he said, looking at me while he said it.
“He could’ve saved her, but instead he just let her die.”

My jaw clenched again. My hands
balled into fists.

Matsuda whistled.
“What a screw
up.”

60

We sat there, all three of us, in silence.
I could hear the distant tap of feet outside in the Investigation Division, along with the occasional rattle and clang of a desk drawer or a file cabinet.
The sound of Stone’s breathing was the loudest thing in the room, after the sound of my own heartbeat raging in my ears.

The silence was a tense one. I
t was a challenge, too.
Stone was challenging me to say something, to defend my actions a decade ago.
He
wanted
me to say that Karl Winter’s death was not my fault.
He
wanted
me to say that Amy Dugger didn’t die because I let her.
He was counting on it.

There was no way I was going to give it to him.

Matsuda twirled his pencil absently.
Stone gave me a hard stare
.
I reflected it back to him and waited.

Five minutes might have passed that way.
Matsuda looked dutifully straight ahe
ad, twirling his blue pencil while
Stone and I stared at each other.
I was patient, knowing it would be him that would have to break first.
He had a job to do
. H
e was on overtime and that was the way of it.
I had all the time in the world and I’d already spent over t
wo
hours waiting on him.

Finally, he sighed and flipped open the folder he’d brought with him.

“How do you go f
rom hero cop to pornographer
?” he asked
, without looking up at me.

“Pornographer?”

“How the mighty have fallen,” Matsuda said, staring absently at his pencil.

Stone chuckled, but it was a fake chuckle, part of the act that they’d put together before coming into the room to work me.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, Jack,” I said, “but you’re wrong.”

Stone looked up at me.
“Jack?
Jack?
Oh, s
o we’re pals now, huh?
Is that it?
You can call me Jack?
Maybe we’ll go out for coffee after?”

“Jesus Christ,” I said, “how long are you going to be an asshole before you start talking with me for real?”

“Now I’m an asshole?”
He pointed to his chest and looked over at Matsuda.
“
I’m
an asshole?”

Matsuda continued to spin his pencil slowly in his fingers and shrugged.

Stone leaned forward and jabbed his finger at me.
“Maybe I am an asshole.
Some people around here
think so.
But I’ll tell you what I’m
not
.
I’m
not
a sack of shit who lets people die.
And I
don’t
make kiddie porn and sell it on the Internet, either.
I’m not
that
kind of asshole.”

I thought about asking for a lawyer right then, but pushed the thought away.
I wasn’t guilty.
I didn’t need an attorney.

“No,” I answered him, “You’re just a garden variety, arrogant asshole who doesn’t listen to anyone.”

Stone’s eyebrows shot up and he glanced over at Matsuda.
“You hear that
, Richie
?
” He shook his head.
“
Boy, back in the day, when a maggot said something like that to you…”
He drove his fist into his palm.
“Pow!”

Hearing him call me a maggot, a term I’d used myself to refer to all kinds of crooks, hit harder than anything
else
so far.
Worse than being slammed on the ground, worse than being cuffed and stuffed in a car, worse than waiting in the interrogation room, even worse than having Amy Dugger’s memory shoved in my face
by something other than my own conscience
.
It was the ultimate exclusionary term.
You’re on the outside,
he was saying when he used that word.
Former cop or not,
now
y
ou’re on the outside looking in
.

“If you want to kick my ass before we talk, get it over with,” I told Stone in a low voice, trying to break his rhythm.
“But from what I hear, you hit like a little girl.”

Stone didn’t bite.
His voice was cold when he replied, “Like the one you killed?”

Matsuda finally stepped in.
I don’t know if it was on cue or not, but he was smooth about it.
“Now, let’s not get out of hand here.
You’re right, Mr. Korpuvah—”

“Kopriva,” I said automatically, then realized he’d made the error on purpose to get me talking to him.

Matsuda smiled.
“Of course.
Sorry.
But you are right.
We need to talk.”

“Let’s do it, then.
Let’s get to the bottom of this.
”

“First, since you are in a police station, I need to read you something.”
He pulled a card out of his shirt pocket and started to recite.
“I am Richard Matsuda, a police detective.
You have the right to remain silent.
You have the—”

I interrupted him.
“I’m aware of my rights.”

“—right to an attorney.
If you—”

“I understand my rights and I waive them,” I said, raising my voice to override his.
“Give me the card and I’ll sign it.”

Matsuda glanced at Stone, who shrugged and motioned toward me with his head.
Matsuda set the card in front of me.
Stone slid a pen across the empty table.

I scrawled my name, then
pushed the card and the pen back to Matsuda.
“Ask your questions.”

Matsuda handed the card to Stone, who put it in the case folder.
The folder was thin now, but if it were like most cases, it would get thicker and thicker before the end of the case.

“When exactly did you become involved in the pornography business, Mr. Kopriva?
” Matsuda asked.
“
The legitimate elements
, I mean.”

“I’m not involved and I never have been,” I said.
I couldn’t believe they were lumping me in with LeMond and
Jackson
.

Matsuda gave me a look of disbelief.
“I’m not talking about the kiddie stuff that
Jackson
had going on.
I’m sure you didn’t know about that.
I’m just wondering about your involvement in the legitimate business dealings.”

“I’m not in business with
Jackson
or anybody,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Are you deaf?”

Matsuda frowned.
“Funny, because it looks a lot like you’re involved.
Deeply involved.”

“I’m not.”

Matsuda looked over at Stone.
“Maybe you’re right, Jack.”

“Maybe,” Stone said.

Matsuda looked back to me.
“Jack here told me he guessed you were involved in this stuff clear up to your waist.
Just mired in it.”

Waist deep in the big muddy, I thought.

Matsuda continued.
“I told him no way.
I figured you got involved in a little bit of porn business, all legal and stuff, just to make a little bank.
No way would a former cop be involved in kiddie porn.
Especially not after what happened with little Amy Dugger.”

“You’re right,” I said.
“I’m not involved.”

“Well, that’s what I thought,” Matsuda said.
“But then you sit there and tell us you don’t
have
anything at all to do with this porn operation, not even the l
egitimate side of the house. We all
know that’s a lie.
So then I have to wonder if you’re lying about the kiddie porn angle, too.
That maybe Jack’s right after all.”

I gave Matsuda a long stare, tired of all this interrogative gamesmanship.
“It’s been ten years since I wore a badge,” I told him, “but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid or have forgotten enough that you can play me.
Drop the crap and ask your questions.”

Matsuda wasn’t fazed.
“I’m trying to ask you questions, but you aren’t telling me the truth.”

“The truth is, I have nothing to do with this porn asshole.
I was—”

“Nothin
g to do with him?” Matsuda interrupted
.
“Y
ou were taken into custody outside of
Roger
Jackson
’s house.
Inside his house, down in the basement, is a little film studio where you guys make your videos
. Also down there is
his computer where th
ose videos
get uploaded onto the Internet to a pay site called ‘Barely Legal Beaver.’
You had a
sixteen
-
year
-
old girl in your car.
That girl appears on the website and on a DVD found in
Roger
Jackson
’s basement.”

“That’s Kris Sinderling,” I said, “and I’ve been—“

“We know what you’ve been doing,” Stone said, breaking his short silence.
He reached into the folder and pulled out the three pictures of Kris that I had taken from
Jackson
’s basement, along with the picture of Yvette.

“Those aren’t mine,” I said.
I knew what I meant, but I cringed when the words came out, knowing how they sounded to both cops.

“I’m sure they’re not,” Stone said.
“You’re just holding them for a friend, right?”

“You were holding a gun, too,” Matsuda said.
“With no concealed weapons permit.”

I swallowed.
This was getting worse
by the second
.