balled into a fist, he muttered, “I–I-I put a bottle of painkiller into her. A whole fucking bottle. Figured the more I used, the quicker and faster and less pain that way, you see?”
Keyes tried to get control back, saying, “You don't have to relive these events here and now, sir. We are only interested in what you saw in that parking garage at the courthouse where you stole that woman's purse.”
“ Millie… she went just as peaceful as nightfall then… after I took it on myself to… to… you know…”
“ I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Marsden… really. But we have a situation on our hands here and now that requires our full and undivided attention. Do you understand?” Keyes firmly asked.
Jessica continued to be impressed by Keyes's approach.
Leaning into his space, Keyes added, “How you came to be in that parking garage, and how you took Judge DeCampe's purse off the floor and emptied it. That's what we're interested in here and now, sir.”
“ If we have your full cooperation, Mr. Marsden, you're outta here in the time it takes to answer a few questions.” Jessica's lie would have to suffice for now.
The others all knew that with a confession of having killed his wife, they would have to return Dr. Marsden to the Georgia judicial system, likely to stand trial for mercy killing.
The broken giant, tears in his eyes, asked, “You want to know how that man got her, don't you?” Marsden thanked Keyes, who offered him a handkerchief from her purse.
Impatient again, Jessica held herself in check, saying, “Go on, Mr. Marsden.”
“ I saw how he zapped her.”
“ Zapped her?” Jessica perked up at this.
“ I heard the buzz and smelled the flesh bum. I was that close. In my usual comer.”
“ Go on,” encouraged Keyes.
“ She fell like a piano with no legs. After he zapped her, she went to her knees and right into him. She almost knocked him over with her weight. He dragged her to a van, put her inside, and drove out. That's all I know… all I know.”
“ Zapped her? Zapped her how?” repeated Jessica.
Marsden looked again directly into Jessica's eyes. “One of them rods, an electronic gizmo you might use on a cow.”
“ A cattle prod?” asked Keyes. 'That's it.” Jessica, who had remained standing at Marsden's side, now stared across at Keyes. She had watched Dr. Keyes closely and again felt pleased with the woman's technique. She gave Marsden the feeling that he was the only person in the world she wanted to be with at the moment. She shrewdly nodded at everything he said, not flinching once, and her body language didn't give her away either, not even at the worst moments in the interview. At the same time, Keyes listened intently for every nuance, studying their only witness to the crime.
“ Are you sure of what you saw, Mr. Marsden?” asked Keyes, her glasses playing hip-hop with her eyebrows.
“ 'Cause, he was a little guy… scrawny as a scarecrow. Clothes hung on him. No way he coulda overpowered that woman any other way.”
Jessica asked, her eyes burning into Marsden, “At what age would you place the man who attacked her?”
“ Old… way old, you know.”
“ Old, how old?” asked a surprised Keyes, who, like the others, had been going by the usual profiling measures, which statistically placed the attacker at between the ages of eighteen and forty. “Define old.”
“ Granddaddy old. Looked like somebody's grand pappy. Wore a suit, but it looked like he'd slept in it more than once. All skin and bone, you know, sun-baked hound-dog- leather skin, you know, like they say in Georgia.”
“ Do you think you could describe him to a sketch artist, Mr. Marsden?”
“ For a hot meal and some coffee? Sure.”
“ Deal, sir. I'll just arrange to get an artist in here,” replied Jessica.
“ Sir… used to be my name… sir. Then the thing with Millie… hit me so hard, first her sickness, dealing with her mortality, and then… then having to do what I had to do…
Jessica girded herself for this uncalled-for confession. She gritted her teeth before staring into Keyes's eyes, and then she stared at the one-way mirror at the back of the room. “Maybe we ought not say any more about Millie, Dr. Marsden.”
“ Yeah,” agreed Shannon Keyes, “let's keep that between… among us for now, OK? We can get you a court- appointed lawyer to discuss that with you.”
Jessica added, “And Dr. Keyes here is a psychiatrist. You can tell her all about Millie later. How's that?”
“ Pains me to talk about it.”
“ I absolutely understand,” replied Keyes, smiling warmly and adding, “I think we all understand, Dr. Marsden.”
“ It's been a long… way down… a whataya call it… free fall.” The big man had a feminine, even childish air about him. “Just walked away… right off the face of my life. Stopped making payments. Walked away… got on a bus, then a train… don't recall how I got to D.C., not really.”
“ I'm sure Millie was in a lot of pain,” offered Keyes.
“ Pain… we're talking horror. She had a rare form of cancer in the blood you don't often find in canines.”
Both Jessica and Keyes found their mouths had dropped open. Now, staring at one another, they knew they had been had, not intentionally, but had nonetheless. Keyes falsified a coughing jag to cover her mirth.
“ Did you say canine, sir?” asked Jessica.
“ Millie was my support, my linchpin, my fulcrum, my unconditional love, and all round best friend. It's true what they say…”
“ But she was a dog, sir?” pressed Jessica. They shoot horses and dogs, don't they? ran through her mind.
“ She wasn't just a dog, detectives. You people… you all pretend to be so understanding and sensitive, but that's only a means to an end. With Millie and me… there was never any inkling of that, ever. Not even when I put her outta her misery.”
But Millie licked your face for food, thought Jessica; still, she censored herself, saying instead, “Well, sir, we certainly understand how much you must have loved Millie.”
“ Love… still do.”
“ Yes, of course…”
Keyes, still crushing out a full-blown laugh directed as much to Jessica and herself for being so gullible, added, “That's… painfully obvious, Mr. Marsden.”
Jessica imagined Richard, Santiva, and J. T. behind the one-way mirror, likely laughing it up on learning that the mysterious, ailing Millie had turned out to be a dog and not the man's wife or lover. For a moment, she wished herself to be behind the mirror, where she could safely vent her feelings at having wasted so much time over this interrogation. Still, Jessica felt both the room and the outer room fill with great relief that Marsden had not killed his wife but had put down his dog instead-animal euthanasia-still not a crime in America, despite all the lobbying to make it one by certain animal rights groups. One chimp in the news had his own lawyer now.
“ Ahhh, Shannon… Dr. Keyes, will you arrange for a Boston Market meal for Dr. Marsden while I arrange for a sketch artist?”
“ Absolutely, right away, Dr. Coran.” Keyes's rolling eyes told Jessica she could not wait to get out of there.
“ We'll want a complete description of the van the old, cattle-prodding guy used, too, Dr. Marsden. Did you get a clear look at it?”
“ Not real clear, no. A dark van, tinted windows. Didn't get the license plate, but it was curious, since it was out of state.”
“ Out of state?”
“ Yes, ma'am.”
“ What state was it?”
“ Something like Iowa.”
“ Something like Iowa, or Iowa?”
