The Confession (15 page)

“What’s up?”

Minor pointed at the shovel in my hand. “Where you been?”

“Clam digging.”

“There aren’t any clams out there.”

“You’re right about that. I couldn’t find a single one.”

“You’re a funny guy,” said Milofski.

“What’s this about? What have you been doing in my trailer?”

Neither man answered. I heard something in the reeds, and a man emerged from the other side of the berm, a uniform cop, circling behind me now. His job was to chase me down if I ran into the tidal lands—but there was nowhere to go. Mt. Tamalpais loomed, the legendary maiden, half asleep, drowsing over the marsh. I saw the maiden’s face then. The prominent cleft, up there in the ridge, her horse-teeth, her head tilted back, snoozing in the rock.

“Where did you go you last night?” Minor asked. “After you left the party.”

“Elizabeth,” I stammered, “did something happen to her?”

“This isn’t about Elizabeth.”

“Sara Johnson,” said Milofski. “Your girlfriend. The one you chased across the lawn.”

“What about her?”

“She’s dead.”

I glanced down. I felt the past and present coming together—and all the jagged aspects of my personality. I imagined myself underneath the ground, beneath that damp sand.

“That’s illegal entry,” I said to Milofski. “Unless you have a warrant.”

“We just want to talk to you.”

“I saw you in my trailer.”

“No. I was only knocking. The door was open when we came up.”

He was lying. The uniform cop was just a few yards behind me now, tightening the circle.

“What are you doing out of the office, Minor? You’re a prosecutor, not a field cop.”

“Lieutenant Milofski would like to get in pursuit while the scent’s hot. You were one of the last people to see her alive. We thought maybe you could help.”

I could imagine how I looked to them then: in my white shirt and my khakis, rocking back on my heels, eyes glistening with something like tears, maybe, and a small halfsmile on my face. Milofski and Minor regarded me suspiciously, as if my posture proved my guilt.

“Do I have a choice?”

“You were with Sara, we know that. We saw you pursuing her across the lawn.”

“I wasn’t pursuing her.”

“Be that as it may. Would you help us out with a statement?”

The three of us rode in Minor’s Caprice, with the uniform following in a squad car behind. Minor told dispatch we were on the way. He was taking me to the tombs, to the jail beneath the Civic Center. When we got there, a television crew stood waiting on the sidewalk.

“What’s this?”

“They must have got it off the scanner.”

“What do you mean?”

“The murder—the press picked the news up, and they’ve been around all day. They’re listening to the public frequency for every tidbit they can get. They must have heard you were coming.”

“Christ.”

“Sorry, I don’t like this either. Except you know how it is once they get a bug up their ass.”

I didn’t believe a word. He could have picked me up without all the fuss, but he wanted to make sure he was in the footage.

The reporters came at us, and Minor went to speak to them. I turned my head and Milofski hustled me inside, down a long hall into the catacombs, to a dismal room not unlike that in which I had interviewed Matthew Dillard.

They left me sitting in that room for quite a while, all alone. It was standard stuff no matter who you were. The cops wanted you to wait, helpless and bored. When they finally came, they came together. Minor still wore his suit coat. Milofski had taken off his jacket and stood brute-like in his wrinkled shirt sleeves. Minor sat across from me, but Milofski stayed on his feet, shambling around the table, a barrel-chested man, bearish and hungry.

Minor did the talking, at least at first.

“What we are trying to do here is get your statement,” said Minor. “If you feel like you need a lawyer, you can get yourself one. I have no problem with that.” His voice was flat and reasonable and in other circumstances I might have admired his professionalism, maybe, despite the enmity between us. “But I want to make it clear, you haven’t been charged with anything.”

Meanwhile Milofski paced behind me. The way he fluttered, just beyond my vision, got on my nerves.

“What went on between you two out at the arbor?” Minor asked.

Prosecutors don’t often participate in the interrogation of a suspect, especially in the initial stages. Minor couldn’t resist, and I knew why. He had always disliked me, and it gave him a special pleasure: the possibility he could prosecute me for murder and bang my wife at the same time.

“Sara and I had a relationship,” I said.

He squared his shoulders and regarded me. He had an open face, and clear set eyes, and part of me could see why Elizabeth might be drawn to him. How she might turn away from me and all my ambiguities to someone who, on the surface of it anyway, played it all by the book. He was too calm, though, too self-assured—and I knew I should not trust him. Even so, I also knew there were certain facts that would cause me less trouble now, out in the open, then they would later on.

“The reason I’m hesitant to talk to you, I don’t want that relationship dragged around in the paper,” I said. “Things have been rough between Elizabeth and I. It’s not going to make things any easier if my relationship with Sara gets dragged into the papers, alongside a murder investigation.”

“I understand,” said Minor.

“We both understand,” said Milofski. “You don’t want everyone to know you been messing around on your wife. But there’s a dead woman here—and there’s some questions we’d like you to answer.”

Minor held up his hand, conciliatory. Playing the good cop now, keeping Milofski off my neck. Milofski would have none of it; he grunted in disgust.

“Sara came up to me at the party,” I said. “She wanted to talk, so we went out under the arbor. Then we went our separate ways.”

“What happened out there?”

I should cut this conversation short, I thought. I should get a lawyer. It’s the thing you’re supposed to do, everybody knows, but the truth is hardly anyone pays attention to that advice. The impulse to talk is strong. I wasn’t any different from anyone else, but in my case there were other considerations. Sooner or later the cops would run a DNA test on the sperm, and they would figure out I’d been with her. Eventually I would need an explanation for what had happened between us, one that didn’t put me out at her apartment. I decided to give it to them now.

“We were intimate.”

“What does that mean?”

“For a little while, out at the arbor, we were intimate.”

“You had sex out there at the arbor? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes,” I lied.

Milofsky burst in. “You are a quick operator, aren’t you. You two, you couldn’t have been out there ten minutes.”

“I was trying to end the affair. It was all but over anyway, that’s the truth of it. But she was an attractive woman, and we got carried away. We cared for each other, but Sara had a fiancé—and I told her she should get back together with him. That maybe it was over between my wife and I, but maybe it wasn’t. I just couldn’t give her a commitment. The situation was upsetting to us both.”

“All this in ten minutes?”

“She ran away. Across the lawn. I followed her out there—but by the time I caught up, she had driven off.”

“What did you do next?”

There were no witnesses to prove I’d been out to her apartment. No one had seen me.

“What did you do next?” Minor asked again. “After Sara left the party?”

“I had the valet bring me my car.”

“Where did you go?”

“Home.”

“To Golden Hinde. To your wife’s house?”

“No. My wife and I are separated. But you know that, don’t you? You’ve been out to Golden Hinde.”

Minor didn’t blink, I’ll give him that. He wasn’t about to admit what was going on between him and Elizabeth (or what I thought was going on, anyway), but people had seen them at the party. People would talk and the gossip would spread.

“I went to Lucky Drive,” I said. “To my trailer.”

“You know how Ms. Johnson died?” asked Minor.

“I only know what you told me.”

“She was strangled. With a blue tie.” Minor gestured at Milofsky. “Show him the picture. The one from the party.” Milofsky slid it across the table: a Polaroid taken the night before by Barbara Wilder in the meditation room. Madison Paulie stood on one side of me, Milofski on the other. I was smiling, standing there in my white coat—and my blue silk tie.

Minor took the Polaroid away and slid another photo across the table. A color glossy taken by the homicide photographer. Sara, prone on her bed. Legs spread. Milofski placed his index finger on her neck.

“Same tie.”

“No.”

“It’s an expensive fabric. Not your usual.”

“You’re not listening.” My voice trembled. The situation was coming home to me, I guess. “When I left the party I didn’t have it on. I took it off up at the arbor. I must have left it there, draped over the car. The convertible. I remember quite distinctly.”

“No,” said Minor. “You didn’t leave the tie behind. You had it with you. You had it in your pocket.”

“How would you know?”

He didn’t know, of course; he was just playing games, guessing. I glanced down at the table, at the picture of Sara. She was naked and her eyes had a milky look and her tongue was distended.

I sobbed.

“Why did you do it?” Milofski asked.

I put my head in my hands. I let it rest there for a long moment. I could feel the pair of them watching me, waiting for my answer, but I could say nothing. I was thinking of Elizabeth and Sara and all the women I had known over the years, and I was overcome.

I sobbed again.

Milofski repeated the question. His voice was gentler this time, a voice more gentle than I thought a man like him could have.

“Did she reject you?”

I knew what they were doing, how they were playing me. I glanced from one of them to the other.

“You offend me,” I said.

“You killed her, we know that. “

“No”

“It’s your tie.”

“Why would I strangle her with my own tie?” I asked—and remembered Dillard saying the same thing. I was getting angry now. “Why would I do something like that?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell us?”

“You can’t keep me here.”

Neither of them responded. Their eyes were cold as moonlight falling on a concrete stair.

“Did it ever occur to you, while you’re here—playing this game, for personal reasons, trying to rattle me down—that the real killer is still out there? People are at risk.”

They held that same composure, both of them, and I could see it didn’t matter what I said, things were going to go a certain way. And it occurred to me that the DA’s office would downplay the obvious similarities between Sara’s murder and the Dillard case. At least for now. Because they didn’t have the evidence tying them together. And Minor wouldn’t want to risk the conviction he already had.

“You have to either charge me or let me go.”

“We can hold you forty-eight hours,” said Minor.

“I want to see a lawyer. “

Milofski swaggered up to me. His was face was inflamed and all the pretense was gone. “You’re a goddamn liar.”

“No. . .”

“We know what happened. You didn’t have sex out at the arbor. No, Sara ran from you and you followed her home. You raped her in the apartment. You murdered her, and you think you can get away with it. That you can murder in cold blood and smile your way down the road because the rest of us are just too damn fucking stupid. Because you’re clever and charming and it’s all some kind of joke. I know exactly who you are. I know exactly.”

He was in my face now, about as close as you could get without touching, hoping I would do something, anything, to give him an excuse—but it was an act, too. He knew where the line was, exactly how hard he could push. Minor watched from across the room.

“Call him off,” I said to Minor. “I know my rights.” Milofski chewed his cud. He spat on the floor. Minor smiled. A tight smile, smug, angry—with the ends of his mouth turned up and his lips all prissed. I knew what that smile meant. He was going to take everything away if he could. He was going to ruin my life. Then the smile was gone and the pair of them left the room.

It took a while but eventually I got my chance at the phone. I called an attorney by the name of Ted Hejl—an old friend of Elizabeth’s. He was an estate lawyer, not criminal, but he was an affable guy, and I needed someone to make the initial contact.

“You know more criminal lawyers than I do,” he said. His voice held a certain reserve. He was from Texas, from a Slovak family in the central part of the state, turn of the century immigrants, but the old country had long since worn away. Hejl spoke in a gentleman’s drawl that he could turn on and off at will. “I’m not sure I’m the man for this.”