Chapter 11
In the white box of the interview room, Tean measured his breaths and tried to tune his brain to a dead channel.
It was nearly midnight, and after a flurry of questions at Kazen Shumway’s house, Agents Trevino and Van Cleave of the SBI had made him wait: first, placing him in the back of Trevino’s unmarked car while Jem sat on the curb; and then, when South Jordan cruisers began to show up, shipping Tean and Jem back to the station separately.
They hadn’t been cuffed. They hadn’t been read their rights.
They hadn’t been processed—searched, fingerprinted, all that.
Which was why Tean could look at his watch and see that it was now a minute closer to midnight.
But all of that felt like a technicality, because he was still here, locked in this white box.
A round table that could have come from an office supply catalogue.
Two rolling chairs, the kind he was accustomed to seeing at desks—not the hard, metal, folding chairs that showed up frequently in the cop shows Jem liked to watch, the chairs that someone inevitably threw against a wall.
The room had two steel doors set at ninety degrees to each other, and a wired-glass window with blinds that could be lowered from the hallway.
Fluorescents filled the room with so much light that Tean thought it should have been hot.
Every once in a while, what sounded like a printer cycling interrupted the ambient hum of the building.
The problem was the smell: a hint of body odor, distress, anxiety. Heavy, stale air with a tang like the volatile fatty acids of flop sweat.
A year ago, Tean had sat in a little room like this.
The paint on the cinderblock walls had been the color of egg yolk instead of white.
There’d only been a single door, and the window had been a thin, wavy, one-way mirror.
But the smell had been the same. He’d been there for hours.
Talking. Then alone. Then talking again, the same questions, the same answers.
And worse than the sour, meaty stink of the room had been the faint whiff of gunpowder.
He couldn’t even tell if it was real. It was there at the edge of his awareness, registering when he took a breath without thinking about it.
But when he focused, when he tried to find the source of the smell, it was like trying to catch a ghost. Once, when the detective interviewing him returned unexpectedly, he’d walked in on Tean with his hands pressed to his nose.
Now, in the white box, Tean had the wild thought that he could smell it again.
So, he took deep breaths—calm, even breaths. He couldn’t smell gunpowder because there was no gunpowder to smell. Because he hadn’t touched a gun in over a year.
He closed his eyes, but the light pressed against his eyelids, trying to get in.
The sound of the door opening made him snap upright, blinking to adjust to the brightness again.
Trevino was the Latina officer he’d seen at Ammon’s house the day before—or had it been two days?
They were all starting to run together. She couldn’t have been taller than five-five, five-six, but built strong.
She was dressed again in khakis and polo and tactical boots, but this time no windbreaker.
Her hair was up in a bun. She was carrying a folder in one hand; Tean had spent enough time with Jem to wonder if this was a prop or something genuinely relevant to the conversation they were about to have, but he couldn’t tell—her broad face was fixed in an expressionless mask.
“Dr. Leon,” Trevino said as she pulled out the remaining chair. “Sorry to wake you.”
Tean said, “Am I under arrest?”
“That’s an interesting question. Why should I arrest you?”
“We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Would you like to tell me what you were doing tonight?”
“I already told you. Twice. We were having a conversation with Kazen Shumway. When Jem found Brennon’s wallet, Kazen ran, and Jem tried to follow him.”
“Jem. That would be Jeremiah Berger.”
“You know who he is.”
Trevino didn’t do anything dramatic like slide the folder across the desk. But she rested her hand on it. “Do you know what’s interesting about your friend?”
“He’s my boyfriend, not my friend.”
“No driver’s license. That’s one.”
Which Tean hadn’t known, not exactly. But it didn’t surprise him either.
“No vehicle registration.” Trevino paused, as though for commentary.
When Tean said nothing, she continued, “No voter registration.” She waited again.
“The last address I can find for him is a group home, but that was over ten years ago. It’s the kind of place they put kids after they age out of juvie. ”
“Jem didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It’s like he doesn’t exist. That’s the kind of thing that makes me start to wonder what’s going on. Is this a stolen ID? That happens. Is it something else? Is he a prepper living off the grid? How does somebody live in this state without a driver’s license?”
Tean set his jaw.
“So, I asked around. And damn it if there aren’t plenty of people who know exactly who your friend is. A con man. A scam artist. Taking money from old ladies. Turning tricks.”
It was like someone flipped a magnifying glass inside Tean’s head, and all the light coming inside was now focused on a single, incandescent point. For the first time since they’d put him in this room, his head cleared. “Am I under arrest?”
“You, on the other hand—well, you, Dr. Leon, are an upright citizen. You’ve been with the Division of Wildlife Resources for years. Your colleagues think highly of you. You’re respected in your field. I bet everyone thinks you’re just a normal guy.”
What came out of Tean’s mouth didn’t really sound like a laugh.
“What are the two of you doing together?”
“This is what you dragged me in here for?”
Trevino narrowed her eyes. “You travel a lot for work, don’t you?”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Don’t you?”
“Yes. Am I under arrest?”
“All over the state?”
“What’s the point of this?”
“When was the last time you were in the Uinta Basin?”
That white point of focused light in Tean’s head turned red. “That’s crazy.”
“When, Dr. Leon?”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“When?”
“I have no idea. I’d have to check my records.”
“You’d have to check your records.”
“What you’re suggesting is insane. I had nothing to do with Brennon Lee. I didn’t even know the man.”
“Now that’s where things get interesting, because you’re such good friends with Mr. Young. From what I understand, the two of you go way back.”
Tean knew he should stop talking, but the words slipped out of him. “If I’d been involved in this somehow, why would I be messing around in it now, while you’re investigating?”
“What’s the nature of your relationship with Mr. Young?”
“He’s my friend.”
“Are you sexually involved?”
Blood rushed into Tean’s cheeks so quickly that his whole face felt puffy. “You already know the answer to that, or you wouldn’t be asking it.”
“It’s a simple question.”
“No, we’re not. Yes, we have been in the past.”
“While he was married.”
That distant sound of a printer cycling came again.
“That’s none of your business,” Tean said. “And I’m finished with this conversation unless you plan on arresting me.”
“Where did you get Brennon’s wallet?”
Halfway out of his seat, Tean froze. “We found it,” he said. “In Kazen Shumway’s house. He’s the one you should be talking to.”
“See, I think that’s convenient. Because your best friend copped to a murder, and we can’t find the victim’s wallet, and all of a sudden, the wallet shows up, and it’s in the house of exactly the right person to create what a defense attorney would call reasonable doubt.”
“Then I guess the person you should be talking to is Kazen Shumway.”
“It’s supposed to be a coincidence that you harass Tilar Lee outside her home, drive to Kazen Shumway’s home, and miraculously find a piece of key evidence?”
“You were following us,” Tean said. “That’s how you happened to be there when Kazen ran out of the house.
And you think—” He shook his head; Jem would have laughed and said something clever, but all Tean could do was focus on his hands, on the tabletop beneath them and the way the corner bit into his palm. “I’m leaving now.”
She let him get to the door before she said, “You were an upstanding citizen until last year, Dr. Leon.”
He told his body to keep walking, but he stayed there, hand on the door.
“Even if you’re not charged,” she said quietly, “people remember when you kill somebody. You’re on the board now, Dr. Leon.”
The gun had moved in his hand like something alive. Something startled.
“If you want to talk to me again,” he said—and it was strange that he felt like his teeth were about to start chattering, like he was cold, because all he could feel was the tremendous, focused heat of that magnified light—“you can arrest me.”
He opened the door. The relatively cooler and fresher air from the hallway kissed his face.
But Trevino said, “It wasn’t just his wallet that was missing. Do you want to know the last place his phone showed up? When we checked its location, I mean. Before the battery died, and the location stopped updating.”
Keep walking. Get out of this room and don’t stop walking.
But he stayed where he was.
“Mr. Young’s house,” Trevino said. “Sunday night.”