'Good morning to you too, Chief Drummond, and please call me Kate.'
'All right then.'
Southerners, Dylan was learning, were always polite, no matter what the circumstances.
'You have a situation?' Dylan asked, trying to get his attention.
'Real interesting,' he said. He stepped out of the way so Kate and Dylan could go inside first, then made sure the door locked behind him.
'A fella came in here about a half hour ago. Said his name was Carl Bertolli.'
'Carl's here?' Kate asked.
The chief nodded. 'You heard right. He's here.' He led the way up the stairs to the first floor.
Kate waited impatiently for him to explain, but he didn't seem to be in any hurry as he proceeded down the back hall and pushed open the door to his office.
She hurried inside and turned to face him. 'Why is he here?' she asked.
'He said he drove all this way to pay you a call, Kate, but you weren't home, and so he decided to come on down here and turn himself in. Please, take a seat.'
She dropped into one of the chairs facing his desk. 'But what is Carl turning himself in for?' She was thoroughly confused.
Drummond made himself comfortable in his old squeaky chair. He folded his hands on his desk and said, 'He told me he was responsible.'
Kate looked at Dylan, who had closed the door behind him and was leaning against it with his arms folded across his chest. He seemed to be taking the news in stride. She wasn't. She was flabbergasted.
She carefully placed her briefcase and her purse on the floor next to her chair, her mind racing with questions.
'What is Carl saying he's responsible for?' she asked the chief.
Drummond shifted his weight and tilted his chair back on two legs. 'That's a good question. I thought I would give him a few more minutes to settle down, and then I'd try once again to get an answer out of him.'
'Settle down?' Dylan asked, not understanding.
Drummond nodded. 'I want to question him, I sure do, and just as soon as I can figure out a way to get him to stop crying, I'll start in.'
Kate now understood why the chief looked so bewildered. He'd obviously never encountered anyone quite like Carl.
'He's… dramatic,' she said.
'Yes, he is,' the chief agreed.
'And he can be temperamental. He's an artist,' she hastened to add, so Drummond wouldn't think she was criticizing her friend. 'He majored in drama at the university, and he's been in several local theater productions. And as I'm sure you know, some creative artists are high-strung and… emotional.'
'He's emotional all right.'
'How do you suppose he knew you were looking for him?' she asked Dylan.
'I'm guessing his fiancee,' he answered. 'The police questioned her about his whereabouts. She must have gotten word to him.'
'You want to take a shot at him?' Drummond asked Dylan. 'He should be calming down about now.'
'I'll talk to him,' Kate said.
'I don't know about that,' Drummond said.
Dylan was shaking his head, but she ignored him as she stood, picked up her things, straightened her skirt, and asked the chief to please take her to Carl.
When he didn't immediately hop to, she said, 'Where is he waiting? In a conference room or a lounge? Chief, if I have to open every door on every floor to find him, I'll do it.'
'We do have a nice conference room, and we've got a lounge with a soda machine, but Carl isn't in either one of those rooms. He's in a cell.'
'You locked that dear man in a cell?'
He didn't give her time to get all worked up. 'Now hold on. I didn't want to put him there. It wasn't my idea.'
'Then whose idea was it?'
'His,' he answered. 'He insisted that I lock him up.'
That didn't make any sense to her. 'But why did you arrest him?' she asked.
'I didn't.'
'Excuse me?'
'I didn't arrest him. He wanted me to lock him up, so I did. I figured a cell was as good a place as any for him to calm down.'
'Where are the cells?'
'Upstairs.'
'Will you please take me to him? He must be beside himself with worry.'
'No, I'm not taking you to his cell, but here's what I will do. I'll bring Carl down to the first floor and put him in the interrogation room. You can talk to him there.'
'Thank you,' she said.
'Don't thank me yet. You've still got to get around him,' he said, nodding at Dylan.
'I'll talk to him,' Dylan said. 'And I'll tell you what he had to say.'
'She could stand on the other side of the two-way mirror and watch and listen,' Drummond suggested. 'We just had it installed,' he announced proudly.
The chief was clearly on her side, and that made her like him all the more.
'Kate has something she would like to talk to you about,' Dylan said. 'Now would be the perfect time.'
'Oh, that can wait until after I talk to Carl.'
'I plan on being here all day,' the chief said.
She took a step toward Dylan. 'Carl and I are friends. He'll talk to me. He isn't going to hurt me, and if that's your reason for not wanting me to talk to him, then come in with me. Just don't-'
'Don't what?'
She sighed. 'Scare him.' He looked exasperated. 'And don't intimidate him.'
'How old is this guy? Ten?'
'He's sensitive,' she muttered. 'Unlike you.'
Dylan had to move out of the way so the chief could open the door and leave. Kate seized the opportunity and slipped past Dylan on Drummond's heels.
Drummond pulled a huge round key ring with only three keys dangling from it off a wooden peg attached to the wall and headed toward the open staircase. 'The interrogation room is the second door on the right. You two wait in there, and you better decide who's talking to him and who's listening, and then get on with it because, Dylan, you know you've got to call this in to Charleston and let Detective Hallinger know Carl's here. And he'll have to let the FBI know, and that means that you've got about an hour tops after you make that call before they all come tearing in here to snatch Carl away.'
'They're going to have to wait,' he said. 'I'll make the call after I find out what Carl knows. I also want to run a couple of things past you,' he explained.
'After we talk to Carl,' Kate said.
He finally relented but with conditions. 'If I think he's playing you, you're out of there. Understand?' Before she could agree or disagree he continued, 'And if I don't like the way he's talking to you, you're out of there.' He let her go ahead of him, and when they reached the interrogation room, he added yet another condition. 'And if I think he's becoming belligerent or threatening…'
She turned around. 'Let me guess. I'm out of there?'
'That's right.'
'Would you like to know what I think?'
He grinned. 'Not really.'
'You're going to listen anyway. If he plays me, I'll know it and I'll tell him to knock it off. And if I don't like the way he's talking to me, I'll tell him to stop. Should he threaten me, I'll threaten back.'
