William's eyes glittered. "Yeah. It's the way of the world, cops," William sneered. "I take what I want. I'm smart enough to do it. No one can touch me."
"No one?" Kerry asked. "What about the police? Or the FBI?"
"I'm smarter than the cops. And the FBI is a joke. That's why they had to send a couple of rookies like you. You're not going to get me."
May could see Kerry was annoyed by that insult. Seriously annoyed. This guy was getting right under her skin. But she was too professional to show it.
"You just went out and blew people up? How did you plan it? Where did you get your materials?"
"I'm not going to talk about details, no. You want me to give you a motive for the killings? I don't have one."
"Oh, come on!" Kerry almost exploded. "Of course you must. You killed people. You must have had a motive."
"Why? I'm smart. I'm good at what I do.That's enough, right?"
"How did you plant the bombs?" Kerry asked. “How did you build them?”
"Like I said, I'm not going to talk about details. I did it, and that’s all you need to know."
"Why wouldn’t you give details, then?"
"Because I don't want to."
“Do you have alibis for the times of the crime? Where were you late last night, and early this morning?” Kerry asked.
“I was capturing the recent victim. Mrs. Jacobs, right? I was planting a bomb in her house.”
May shuddered. Was knowing her name and the timing the start of a confession? Then she reminded herself that William could easily have been following the news, which had given those details. They needed more to nail this suspect down. Especially since she was starting to think that he wasn’t smart or disciplined enough to have pulled off such a technical series of crimes.
“Where did you capture her?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
Again, it was left wide open. They needed more proof than a broad confession.
May saw that he was taunting them with the fact he knew something they didn’t. She'd seen this before - it was the attitude of a psychopath. He thought he was too smart. He thought he could escape capture.
But she didn't know if he was really guilty. He could be thinking that this entire situation was a huge joke. For someone like him, to mislead the cops could be a massive win; it could feed his ego. And jail time would only be a bonus. He already had a juvenile record. A guy like him would learn a lot in jail, May guessed. All the wrong things, and would be more skilled when he came out.
And in all honesty, it wasn't like jail was going to be worse than his home environment. Deep down, she was sure that William acknowledged that.
"You know, there's one problem that always gets in the way of our investigation," May said.
"Yeah? What's that?" William asked, looking interested.
"I don't think you're telling us the truth. I think you're trying to hide something. I'm just not sure what that something is. Because you're being vague on the details. So I'm thinking, maybe you aren't that clever. Maybe you didn't commit these crimes. Because if you didn't then you can't take responsibility for doing so."
That got to him. She saw it. May could tell that she'd struck a nerve.
His head snapped to face May. "Why do you say I'm lying?" he demanded.
"Because of the lack of details," she said.
"Details? I told you, they're not important."
"Where did you make the bombs?"
William hesitated. "At home, in the basement."