But still. He looked like a kid. Still living at home. Sleeping in his childhood bedroom. She could see how a psychologist might point out that this environment could make him feel like a failure, make him want to prove he was a man. But that wasn’t the vibe she got from these murders.
Not only that, but she hadn’t had a single vision the whole time they’d been in there. Was it really that her visions were so bad now that she wasn’t going to trigger anything even by touching the killer? Or was it that there were no visions to come because he was caught, now?
Or the third option – that there could be no visions about the killings if he wasn’t the killer…
“It was almost too easy,” she said, thinking out loud, keeping her voice quiet enough that the kid in the car would only hear a murmur and not know what she was saying.
“Easy?” Nate shot her a look. “Speak for yourself.”
Laura smirked at him and shook her head. “In terms of the investigation, I mean,” she said. She looked at the house, shaking her head and muttering. “He just left it out in the open, right there…”
“Here’s backup,” Nate said, nodding up the road at a patrol car approaching rapidly.
Laura shaded her eyes to watch them come, mentally preparing for the interview they would conduct when they got William James back to the precinct.
If they didn’t get it right – and he was the killer – he could still walk away.
She wasn’t going to let that happen, doubts or no doubts.
***
Laura leaned back in her chair, happy to let Nate take the lead on this one. They’d already come to blows, after all. The kid was likely to be far more intimidated by him than he was by Laura, given that all she’d managed to do was let him run past her.
“I didn’t know the FBI were going to get involved,” he was saying, his words coming out like a ten-car pileup on the highway, all on top of one another and running over. He was stuttering, gesturing wildly, sweating in his pajamas. “It was just supposed to be a quick buck, that’s all! I don’t know anything about any murders!”
“A quick buck?” Nate repeated. “How’s that? You thought you could get some notoriety for those sick little scenes you set up, is that it?” He was laying it on thick, playing bad cop. Leaning forward across the table so James had nowhere further back to go, making aggressive and accusatory statements with each question, making sure to scowl at him as much as possible in between. He was doing a very convincing job of being the guy who wanted to make this guy’s life miserable in revenge for the fight they’d had.
“No!” James exclaimed, his eyes wide and his face a shade of gray. “I don’t even know what – what scenes you’re talking about!”
Nate scoffed, rolling his eyes, and turning his head to the wall momentarily as if to find someone to agree with him on the other side of the one-way glass. Laura knew there was no one there, but the kid didn’t. “Come on. You expect me to believe you haven’t heard about the local murders over the past few days? The news channels around here have practically been showing nothing else. Not to mention all that water cooler talk.”
“I work nights, alone,” the security guard pointed out. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. The first time I heard about any murders was when you said you were arresting me for them!”
“Alright,” Nate said, shaking his head with a disbelieving smile as if he was just allowing him to lie for now. “So, why did you steal the mannequins?”
James clamped his mouth shut for a moment and looked at his lawyer, who until now had been sitting so silently that Laura had almost forgotten he was in the room. Only almost, because you knew as an agent that if you took your eye off a lawyer, they would start poking holes in your case.
He brief leaned in to whisper something in James’s ear; he turned and whispered something back, and then they exchanged a quick nod.
“I did take the mannequins,” James said, his face pale as he confessed. “I’ve been selling them to art students at the college for a couple hundred bucks each. It’s still cheaper than what they would pay for them online or from the manufacturer, so there’s been a bit of demand. The first one was for my girlfriend and the orders have kept coming in since then.”
“Can you give us the names of the students you sold them to?” Laura asked. Inwardly, she felt a flash of despair. It was a good story. Good enough to be the truth. “We’re going to need to check that your story is true.”
James nodded wearily, reaching out for the pen and paper in the middle of the table. It was supposed to be for the start of recording his statement, but this would do just as well.
“In the meantime, you can tell us where you were after your shift last night, and before your shift the night before,” Nate said, his voice flat and still clearly not buying the idea that James was innocent. Of the murders, if not the theft.
“I just went home,” James said, his voice almost a squeak. “I was at home before and then I came home after. That’s it.”
“And can anyone other than your obviously biased mother and father verify that?” Nate snapped.
“My client has been very open and honest with you,” the lawyer interrupted, folding his hands on top of the table. “I suggest that you look into the sale of the mannequins as has been described to you before you ask any more accusatory questions. He’s been very forthcoming and cooperative so far.”
“Once we got into this room,” Nate grunted through gritted teeth. “He was a bit less cooperative in the house.”
Laura had the feeling she was about to have to step in and prevent another fistfight, but the door to the interview room cracked open a second after a rapid knock and all of the heads in the room swiveled to look at it. Laura glimpsed one of the detectives working under Ortega through the gap, and got up to hear what they had to say.
“What is it?” she asked, keeping her voice low as she stepped out into the hall and held the door all but shut behind her.