Pending – Chapter Thirty-Seven

Catch up on the previous chapters here

Part Six: Rhymes of Yesterday

The number of times they asked Ben if he understood was insulting. Yes, he understood his rights as they read them to him. Yes, he understood that they wanted him to tell them everything. Yes, he understood that they were accusing him of more than the attack on Hillier, which they were hinting was a murder, but they could lie. They were always allowed to lie in the interrogation room, and he would be punished if he tried the same.

]Correction: if he tried the same … and was caught.

Hillier, yes, fine, he’d probably made mistakes there. Although he’d also made mistakes here, because he’d believed the address, and the scripted fight, and he’d been caught red-handed with the standing lamp held like a weapon and two more lamps bugged. Not to mention the crowbar by the door.

They hadn’t missed it. It had in fact been their cue.

The woman wasn’t right at all. He supposed that’s how it was always going to be: people reading the book and imagining their own Rosie, because author’s descriptions always worked best when they left enough spaces for each reader to individualize the characters. Sure, he supposed her hair was blonde, but her build was wrong, and he’d noticed her voice wasn’t right even as he was looking for a weapon to use to defend her.

The irony. The one time he was actually there, the woman in question—not her—didn’t need defending.

He didn’t have access to the news, which bugged him more than the continued attempts to get him to talk. She was still out there, somewhere, and he didn’t know what they were telling her. What she thought she knew. He supposed they might contradict whatever made it into the news, and argue that of course they knew better and were telling the truth, or maybe they simply kept the news from her so she had no idea what was going on. Maybe she didn’t even know that he’d tried.

Maybe she still thought she was alone. Alone, and forgotten.

It was always the same two men, but it wasn’t the two from before. And it could’ve been—Jack and Tyler could’ve squared off against him—because Ben was back in Michigan. The paperwork reason was Hillier, which trumped any sort of breaking and entering in Iowa, but they’d already told him the real reason when they demanded he confess to everything.

These two either hadn’t given their names, or he hadn’t been paying attention when they did. It didn’t matter. None of the words coming out of their mouths mattered. He’d fallen for their trap, gone haring off to finally save her, and she hadn’t been there. They’d played him, and the way to make sure he didn’t get played again was to keep his mouth shut. He’d get what he got for Hillier, but that would be it.

That was the whole point. There was no evidence connecting him to any of those murders—which was a small miracle, considering something they hadn’t even thrown at him as a guess. If they knew that, then maybe there was a problem

He didn’t have a problem. This was a delay, but it wasn’t a problem. Really, he hadn’t lost anything. He didn’t know where she was, but he hadn’t known for years. If they put him in prison, fine, he’d do the time and then get out and start over. But, if they put him in prison for Hillier, that meant the book money would still be there when he got out. They could allege and accuse and cajole, but until they sentenced, it was simply a strange connection. Some deep insight that put all five together when everyone else thought there were only three. Instinct, or author’s creativity.

They brought Ben into the room again, the big, empty one with the obvious camera. He wasn’t handcuffed, but he was in a jumpsuit and little paper booties, and he’d been searched very thoroughly—perhaps even overly intrusively—more than once. The only weapons he had were the ones stored inside his head, and that was behind an unpickable lock.

The two agents came in, and they didn’t say hello this time. It was rude, and it was also worth noticing, because they’d greeted him all the other times. They’d even tried asking him how he was doing—did you sleep well, how are they treating you—but he didn’t answer any of that. No response was the best response, and didn’t they deserve the best?

But today they didn’t talk, and they each looked exhausted. It wasn’t just in the pulled-down ties or the lack of suit jackets with shirt sleeves rolled up, which could all be—and probably was—part of an act. The light in here was stark, and the dark patches under their eyes were real. Neither had a five o’clock shadow, which was probably against regulations, but to his calculating eye they both looked about beaten.

Good. He could keep his mouth shut for as long as necessary, but it was annoying to continually be brought in here and have questions barked at him.

One of them carried a thick folder, probably for show, and started laying out printed sheets of paper in neat columns despite his apparent exhaustion. He dropped his eyes to see if he could make out any of the lines of text from here, but it was too small, and he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of making him lean in. Let them wait in silence until they broke and started to explain, and then—

The last image was a black and white printout of a photo of Heidi Phillips.

That was fine. There were plenty of photos of Heidi Phillips. A big fan of documentation, Heidi Phillips. She hadn’t had the face for selfies, but she’d taken them, anyway.  She’d hook an arm around someone’s neck and force them to lean in, nearly cracking skulls, and hold out her phone and order you to look at the camera—not the screen, the camera, because she’d re-take it if your eyes went elsewhere—and click away, baring her teeth the way a chimpanzee did as a warning.

It was fine. She’d kept her phone in the car. He’d insisted. He was a very private person who didn’t want his face out there where anyone could take it and use it, and that hadn’t even been in the era of generative AI. He wasn’t on social media, and he wanted things to stay that way.

This photo was from Facebook. It had been her profile picture when she died. The fact that they had a copy didn’t mean anything, because that particular image had been everywhere. Even in the paper, which he knew, because that was in his own folder of printouts, so …

So. He looked back up at the agents, fighting the thought that maybe he’d been staring at Heidi for too long.

The agent who’d displayed Heidi’s picture reached out to push it just a little closer to Ben. “You know who this is.”

It wasn’t a question, so it definitely didn’t deserve a response.

“You latched onto the two other murders, but you missed something major about this one,” the agent continued. “Which is weird.”

He just looked across the table, breathing easily, blinking when necessary.

“The night she was murdered, she’d told her roommate—your Rosie—that friends were going to pick her up for the weekend.” He tilted his head. “That’s why Lida-Rose Dawson’s boyfriend came down for the weekend. He got there, Dawson left with him to go get dinner, and it was the two of them who found Phillips’s dismembered body.”

Uh. Well. If they said so. Ben tried not to let that thought show on his face or flicker across his eyes. He wanted to tell them that, if it hadn’t made it into the paper, then no, he didn’t know it—and besides, not everything that made it into the paper ended up in the book—but he also didn’t want to tell them anything.

The second agent opened a folder, holding it so Ben couldn’t see what, if anything, was inside. “Dawson’s been told she can’t see you until after you talk to us. She’s not happy about that.”

His heart rate jumped before he could try to stop it. They were probably lying to him. They were certainly allowed, and if they were already trying to poke him with Heidi’s picture …

The first man sighed. “This is basically your shot. You tell us, or she’s off the table.”

He didn’t think they could really do that. Maybe she’d be denied visiting privileges, but she could write to him. She’d know where to find him, after all. If they censored everything … Well, if that happened, he’d get a lawyer. Except that probably wasn’t the best way to approach this, was it? He wasn’t going to talk about Kalamazoo no matter what, and they wouldn’t—shouldn’t—be able to get him on anything else but Hillier, but the law didn’t work well for people who were one step behind and just trying to catch up. It was better to get on top of things if they were already threatening to keep her from him. To not let her see him, even when it was what she wanted. When they knew it was what she wanted.

He took a slow breath, and it was clear they were desperate for anything from him because that was all it took. He didn’t straighten up or move appreciably—it was just the slow breath, and they were both putty in his hands. “I want a lawyer.”

Well. Not quite putty. But he went back to his silence and waited them out and did his best not to smile.

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Chapter Thirty-Eight – coming February 7