help me do it. I want to be a dog walker. I lift for a time in New York City. There they half many dog walkers. Five on a leash-six sometimes-you should see. So funny.”
“The night of the murder. In your initial statement, you said you drove Leonard Priest to Algonquin Bay to-as you put it-’play some games.’ That it was Priest’s idea. That you were just there to role-play.”
“Yes, but I was confused. I was high, you know, when I was arrested. I was confusing it with another time. Many times. Leonard was wanting me to play Nazi always. With people who like to be scared and so on. I didn’t like to do it myself. I didn’t like people thinking always Germans are Nazis. But Leonard luft it and so did many customers also. To me it was acting. Performing a part. Pretty convincing, too, I would say. You know, I studied acting.”
“In fact, you terrorized people.”
“Only people who wanted it so. Nobody was calling the police, something like that.”
“Because they were terrified.”
“Yes, of course-but like at the movies you’re terrified. Frightened because you want to be frightened.” He half rose from the chair and flashed his enormous hands. “ Boo! Ha ha, you jumped.” He sat back down. “But it’s not like you’re having a heart attack, something like that.”
Delorme glanced at the door.
“He’s not there probably. I think so.”
“You can hardly call it a game, Fritz. The gun was loaded.”
“Yes, of course. It’s more frightening. Shoot a hole in the wall, shoot a tree. Boom! Then you are convincing people. When I was studying acting in New York, they used to say, ‘Ya gotta sell da line.’ Just like that, they would say. ‘Ya gotta sell da line.’ We were selling the gun, in that sense. Not really selling it, of course. Ha ha. Not gun- running.”
“Do yourself a favour, Fritz. Tell me something I can use. There’s no mention of you being high when you were arrested. You were a bartender, sometimes a bouncer-how would you get to know a customer so well that you could drive up to Algonquin Bay on your own for an encounter with her-let alone take her out to an abandoned boathouse for sex? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It was sex. To make sense is not required. I got carried away, that’s all. I was playing my role, you know- Nazi bastard interrogating poor little prisoner and so on-threatening her. I’m drunk, I’m in character, a total Nazi bastard, and I did it. I’m sorry for it. I never wanted to kill her. I never wanted to kill anyone, never in my life. Always I am a peaceful person. It was just games and I had too much to drink. It went too far and I can’t fix it.”
“Except in your initial statement you said it was Leonard’s idea, Leonard giving the orders. Leonard ordered you to shoot and you did.”
“I was high. I was confused. It’s wrong. Leonard didn’t do it. I did it.”
“So here you are for, what, another twelve or thirteen years.”
“No, it’s eight years total. So six more only.”
“Really? Someone’s telling you they give parole to a guy who takes a woman to an abandoned boathouse? Who slaps a leather mask over her face and terrorizes her for God knows how long? Threatens her with a loaded gun and then puts a bullet through her head?”
Reicher’s face changed. His eyes stayed on her and Delorme pitied Regine Choquette if those were the last eyes she saw in this world.
“You’re being harsh to me, Detective. But I’m having good behaviour. I’m taking courses. I will get parole.” Even from across the table, Delorme could see the heat rising from his chest, up his neck, scorching the pale skin. His breathing had become rapid.
“Meanwhile,” Delorme said, “the years go by. You’re in here getting old, losing your good looks, surrounded by people a lot nastier than you are, and the man who ordered you to murder this woman is in one of his beautiful houses. How many houses does he have, by the way?”
“Okay, so life is not being all the time fair. Is life treating you all the time fair?”
“Fritz, it was his gun. Found at his club. His prints at the scene. Why isn’t he in prison?”
“Leonard is trying his best to get me out. He’s doing, you know, behind the scenes. It takes time. He’s talking to the Ottawa animal shelter for me, too. He has a veterinarian friend in Algonquin Bay, too, he’s talking to. He cried, you know. When he heard I got twelve years? Leonard cried.”
“ His gun. Found in his club.”
“I was not thinking clearly. Hiding the gun at the club, it was not the best idea.”
“All of this against him, and yet Priest was never charged. Don’t you wonder why?”
“Leonard has money. Friends. People like Leonard.”
“Fritz, I can name three millionaires who are serving time in this country. Money and friends don’t get you off a murder charge.”
“It’s the women, with Leonard. I’ve seen it. A magnetism. And Ottawa, you know, powerful people. There’s a woman who helps him.”
“A lawyer? Who are you talking about?”
“I told him, Leonard, I said-one time he’s coming to visit me-I said, ‘It’s amazing, I thought they would charge you. Why didn’t they charge you?’ ”
“He came to visit you?”
“Listen about Leonard. If you are Leonard’s friend, he stays always your friend. He’s generous. He’s kind. He understands. He told me, he said, ‘Fritz, it’s not fair’. He said he was just lucky. He had a secret weapon. A person, I mean. A secret weapon named Diane something. Deborah, something like. Darlene! That’s it. Darlene. I never heard of any Darlene and I said Darlene who but he said it was better I’m not knowing. Well, you can look at me like that if you want, but it’s true.”
“Some lawyer in Ottawa. Darlene.”
“Could be Toronto. Could be also Algonquin Bay.”
“No. I’d know her.”
“Toronto then. I don’t know.”
“This is bullshit, Fritz. You know it’s bullshit. I don’t believe in any magic ‘Darlene’ and neither do you. The reason he wasn’t charged is because you changed your story. You took the fall. Do you have any idea how dumb that is? You could get years off your sentence if you told the truth.”
“You call me stupid?”
“I just said taking the fall for a murderer who doesn’t care is dumb.”
“You think I’m stupid.”
“I didn’t say that.”
The placid, indifferent features had rearranged themselves. Reicher unfolded himself from the chair and went to the door. He put a hand up to shade the Plexiglas. He made a tsk-tsk sound. “It’s improper. It’s bad security, don’t you find?”
“Sit down, please, Fritz.”
He turned his back to the door and leaned against it, folding his arms. “Look at you, so small. I could kill you right now. Imagine. And no one would know. No one would hear.”
“That would be a really bad idea.”
“I don’t like it. Calling me stupid.”
“Just sit down, Fritz. If that guard sees you’re up, you’ll get in trouble and that’s not what you want.”
“Do you see a guard? Do you see a camera? There is no camera. What’s to stop me pulling you out of that chair, snapping you in half?”
“Fritz, I’m a cop. You’re not going to touch me.”
He showed her an enormous hand, just swivelled his arm out from the elbow like a gate, hand open, fingers aligned. He flexed it a couple of times.
Delorme pressed the panic button with her knee.
“Look at you. One hand I could wrap around your throat-one hand. You couldn’t even scream.”
“Unless I shot you first.”
“Ha ha. You’re not armed.”
“You don’t know that.”
