Crack-Up (43 page)

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope,” she said.

“Sounds like a longshot.”

“It usually is.”

For reasons that will soon become clear, the detectives had concluded that my own, unique knowledge of the unsub might very well help to elicit a confession.
 
So they filled me in on what they’d learned investigating during the previous week, and then we spent hours hatching a plan together to obtain the confession.

The next morning, Detective Fellows met me in my jail cell carrying a garment bag filled with some of my old clothes: a navy blue Brooks Brothers suit, a white pressed shirt, a striped tie, dark socks, and a shiny pair of black leather Bruno Magli shoes.
 
I gladly swapped my orange jumpsuit and white Reeboks for them.

The jail administrators processed me into temporary police custody with a warning to Fellows—as well as a joke or two—about my martial arts skills, my history of altercations with deputies, and my prior escape from the psych ward.
 
Yet I wore no handcuffs as we met Strecker in the lobby and walked out of the building.

The weather was sunny and steamy, but I felt invigorated dressed in my own clothes and returned once again—if only for a brief time—to non-institutional surroundings.
 
I took in the big blue sky overhead, cloudless, marred only by planes coming and going out of Reagan National airport—planes with fully-dressed flight attendants aboard them—and long, wispy trails of white jet exhaust.
 
I rode in the back seat of the very same blue Chevy Impala in which I’d recently stuffed Strecker and Fellows into the trunk.
 
Our route took us across the
Potomac River
and into
Virginia
, ending thirty minutes later in suburban
Vienna
, at the world headquarters of Helms Technology.

It was a Saturday, yet the parking garage beneath the main building was half full.
 
The company’s workaholic work ethic would outlive the founder who’d instilled it.

As expected, we located Chief Technology Officer Jeremy Crane on the top floor, working alone in his cluttered office with the door open.
 
He was dressed down in blue denim.
 
He was three hundred pounds of blueberry snow cone melting in a chair.

He didn’t notice us at first, keystroking at warp speed with a pair of music headphones on.
 
Mona Strecker leaned across his huge, L-shaped desk, which supported three slender, yet full-size computer monitors, and waved a hand in front of his face.

“Oh!”
 
He quit keystroking, dropped the headphones around his neck, and rocked back in his swivel chair until it groaned.
 
Van Halen music dribbled out of his tiny speakers.
 
“Visitors!”

The volume control to Jeremy’s voice box needed lowering.
 
It was as if he’d spent so much time in front of a computer he’d become more acclimated to two dimensions than three.

Strecker said, “You remember me, don’t you, Jeremy?”

“Yes, of course.
 
Detective . . .”

“Strecker.”
 
She motioned to her partner, who’d already swung around the side of the big desk, planting himself in front of Jeremy’s personal espresso maker and demitasse set.
 
From there Fellows could monitor all of Jeremy’s body movements, head to toe, from a step away.
 
“And how about Detective Fellows?”

“Yes, of course,” Jeremy said, exchanging nods with him.

I came shoulder to shoulder with Strecker in front of the desk.
 
“And do you recognize me, Jeremy?”

He studied me, and I him.
 
Blue-black rings rimmed the lower halves of his eyes.
 
Dandruff flaked his lumpy shoulders, and his body odor—I can’t help recalling—was a retched mix of burnt rubber, sweaty horse blankets, and stale pizza.
 
He’d pulled an all-nighter in his office.
 
But his eyes—puffy as they were—were fully alert.
 
Alert and wary.
 
He’d recognized me, alright.

“Uh, no,” Jeremy said.

“No, what?” Strecker said.

“No, I don’t recognize him,” he said, pointing at me.

“Recognize who?” Strecker said, pretending not to see me as she glanced where Jeremy had pointed.

I locked eyes with Jeremy.
 
“You know I’m Argus Ward.”

Strecker said, “Are you feeling alright, Mister Crane?”

“I, uh . . . think so.
 
What is this?”

“They can’t see me,” I told Jeremy.
 
“Or hear me.
 
I’m just a vision of yours.
 
An hallucination.”

I watched Jeremy’s black pupils and muddy brown irises being cast adrift suddenly in great seas of white.
 
It was a pleasure.

“We’re here,” Strecker said to Jeremy, “because we’d like to ask you a few more questions.
 
But before I do, I’m going to read you your Miranda rights.”

Jeremy bounded to his feet.
 
“What is going on here?”

Gary Fellows put a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder.
 
“Why all the fuss, Jeremy?
 
You got something to hide?”

“Uh . . . no.
 
But—”

“Then why don’t you just sit back down and relax.”

After some brief hesitation, Jeremy complied.
 
By now he couldn’t take his eyes off me for long.
 
“This is all some kind of gag, am I right?”

“Gag?” Fellows said.
 
“This ain’t no gag, buddy.
 
This is official police business.”

After Strecker had finished Mirandizing Jeremy, I said to him, “People take you for perfectly sane, but you’re not, and haven’t been for awhile.”

“Now, Mister Crane,” Strecker said, “my first question concerns the food irradiator we found in your garage.”

Jeremy looked at her.
 
“My food irradiator?”
 
He looked at me.
 
“Wasn’t . . . wasn’t Argus Ward arrested?”

“Of course he was,” Fellows said.
 
“For the murder of John Helms.
 
He’s rotting in jail as we speak.”

Jeremy’s eyes bulged again.
 
I said to him, “You’ve been sick for some time.
 
For the last six or nine months, I’d wager.”

“What are you talking about?” he said to me, but it was Fellows who responded next.

“What are
you
talking about?”

Jeremy shot frustrated looks all around as Strecker said to him, “We searched your home one day recently when you weren’t there.
 
We discovered an item not typically found in the home.
 
A food irradiator.”

“You searched my home?” he said.

“We obtained what is known as a ‘surreptitious search warrant.’ ”
 
From a pocket of her blazer, Strecker removed some typed pages and tossed them on the desk.
 
“Here’s your notice.”

“What’s with the food irradiator?” Fellows said.

Jeremy shrugged.
 
“I use it to kill the bacteria and the fungi that can spoil food, or make a person ill.
 
I have a weak stomach, you see.”

Strecker said, “How else do you use it?”

“How else?”

“I ask,” she said, “because inside your food irradiator we found what our forensics lab has identified as numerous strands of human hair.
 
Some of it pubic.”

I told Jeremy, “They think you’ve been crawling in there nude and irradiating yourself.”

“We think,” Strecker said, “you’ve been irradiating yourself in the nude, Mister Crane.”

“Preposterous!” Jeremy said.

“Paranoid!” I said.

Strecker said, “Are they your hairs, Mister Crane?”
 

He hesitated.
 
“You people have no right . . .”

“Not talking?
 
No matter.”
 
From her blazer, she produced more typed pages and tossed them on the desk.
 
“It’s a warrant to obtain a hair sample from you.
 
Detective Fellows?”
 
Her partner, using tweezers, plucked a hair by the root from Jeremy’s scalp.

“Ouch,” Jeremy said, rubbing the top of his head.

Fellows placed the hair inside a small plastic bag.
 
“We interviewed your co-workers, Mister Crane.
 
The people working on this floor, and on your project teams.
 
According to them, you haven’t exactly been yourself lately.”

“What do you mean?” Jeremy said.

“In recent months, you’ve taken a number of sick days, which is unusual for you.
 
And around the office here, you’ve appeared fatigued, and complained of nausea frequently.
 
Odd skin burns have been noted, and your hair is thinning, some say.
 
These are all symptoms in keeping with radiation poisoning.”

Jeremy sighed.
 
“Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s stipulate that I’ve been doing what you say.
 
What do you care?”

“We tested those hairs,” Fellows said, “and they show no trace elements indicating that the owner was using anti-psychotic medications of any kind when they fell out.”

Strecker leaned forward, her fists on the desktop.
 
“Which means, Mister Crane, that if we match you to those hairs, then we’ll know that you—a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic—have been off your meds for some time now.
 
Which goes to motive.”

“Yeah, motive,” Fellows said, twirling a forefinger around one ear, the near-universal sign for
crazy
.

Jeremy shot up again, his massive folds all jiggling at once.
 
“Out with it!
 
What, pray tell, am I being accused of?”

I answered myself, rapidly, for the sake of the hoax.
 
“You and I both know from personal experience, Jeremy, that sanity and insanity are no dichotomy.
 
It’s a continuum they form.
 
Some months ago, you went off your medication voluntarily—just as many schizophrenics do—but instead of falling into full-fledged psychosis, you got stuck between the poles of that continuum.
 
Half sane, half insane.
 
Sick enough—and at the same time, well enough—to mastermind a fantastic murder conspiracy worthy of Agatha Christie.”

Jeremy swallowed hard.
 
“I want a lawyer.”

Strecker threw up her hands.
 
“But I haven’t even told you yet what we think you did.”

“Stop it!” he said.
 
“Just stop it!
 
I’ve had enough of your stupid, stupid game!”

Strecker leaned on her fists again and shouted.
 
“You’re the one who’s truly to blame—And in my opinion, solely to blame!—for the unnatural death of John Helms, Mister Crane!
 
Argus Ward was just the murder weapon!
 
Your modus operandi!
 
Isn’t that right!”

“They know,” I said to Jeremy.
 
I had fake blood pouches, one in each of my front pants pockets, that I’d crushed with my fists a few moments earlier, and I held my wet, dripping, painted palms up for Jeremy to see.
 
I felt like the gory ghost of Banquo from Macbeth.
 
“They know what you made me do.”