Chapter 44
The Ketchikan PD day shift captain had Preston handcuffed to a heavy wooden table in their interview room when Cutter and Teariki arrived at the station.
A patrol officer Cutter hadn’t seen before took Joellen down the hall to get her statement.
The deputies secured their handguns and blades in numbered lockboxes on the wall of the squad room.
Cutter hung onto his small pocketknife and a fist-size piece of yellow cedar he’d found by the ghost tree the day before at Ward Cove.
Preston looked up with a start when Cutter opened the door. The handcuff chain rattled against the eyebolt where it was attached to a heavy table.
“This is cozy,” Lola muttered.
The interview room wasn’t much bigger than a broom closet, barely large enough for two plastic chairs and a table. That was fine with Cutter. It put Lola on one side of the squat table and the prisoner on the other.
Cutter opened his pocketknife—a three-blade whittler that had once belonged to Grumpy—and took the piece of yellow cedar out of his pocket before plopping himself down on Preston’s side of the table, his thigh almost but not quite touching the prisoner’s arm, towering over him.
Secured to the eyebolt, there was nowhere for Preston to go.
Sweat ringed the collar of his dark polo.
Lola looked over her file folder. Cutter studied the piece of cedar in his hand before beginning to shave away small slivers of wood. Neither said a word for a full three minutes. An eternity when you’re handcuffed to a table.
Preston jumped, letting out a barely suppressed squeal when Cutter finally did speak.
“My grandfather taught me to study the grain,” he said without looking up from the cedar.
His blade curled paper-thin slivers of the fragrant wood into his lap.
“The goal is to cut away what isn’t true.
…” Cutter stopped carving and held the piece up at eye level for closer inspection.
“Everything has an essence, the old man would say. Our grain, so to speak. Most of us spend our whole lives hiding behind a mask.”
He turned suddenly, bumping Preston with his knee and causing the man to jerk away.
“This little hunk of yellow cedar saw some terrible violence yesterday. I mean, some really awful shit. My partner was there, too, so I could be reading into it, but when I look at this wood now, I see a bird, an owl maybe.”
“You’ve lost your damn mind, man,” Preston said. “How long are you gonna keep me here? This is harassment!”
Cutter took a deep breath and eyed the mope just long enough to make him squirm. Grumpy had called interview techniques like this, playing with his food. He went back to carving, as if ignoring everything else in the room.
Lola read Preston his rights and then, rather than asking him any questions, started in with statements of her own.
“I gotta be honest with you, Bartholomew—”
“I told you, it’s Bart!” the outlaw snapped. “Who the hell goes by Bartholomew nowadays?”
“According to your driver’s license, you do.” Lola cleared her throat. “My apologies, Bart. As I was saying, I gotta be honest with you. Ketchikan PD thinks you were targeting that woman’s purse. They believe you’d been following her with the premeditated idea of stealing it.”
Bart tried to sit back, but the chain caught him. “I wasn’t trying to steal anything.”
“You were getting pretty aggressive with her from my vantage point.”
“That bitch hit me in the nuts,” Bart said, whining as if he were reliving the pain. “Did you happen to catch that from your vantage point?”
“Looked to me like she said something to you. Whatever that was, it must have been pretty rude.”
Lola had yet to ask a question.
“Yeah,” Bart said, flailing for what he surely thought might be a lifeline. “She spouted all kinds of shit. Making weird accusations—threats, even.”
Lola tapped her pen on the folder. “She really pissed you off. Enough to make you grab her.”
“I never saw that lady before today.”
Cutter adjusted his posture just enough to force the prisoner to lean away. He didn’t look up from his carving.
“That’s interesting,” he mused, almost to himself. “The room key in your pocket shows you’re on the same ship.”
“So?” Preston said.
Cutter glanced up.
“You spend a lot of time lifting weights.”
Preston shrugged. “I own a gym.”
“I’m guessing you’re six-one, somewhere around two-thirty.”
“Two-forty,” he said.
Cutter used the tip of his blade to rough out what would eventually become the owl’s ears. “Cruise ships are monstrosities,” he said. “I’ll bet you could have been on the same ship for a week and not run into her.”
“Damn straight,” Preston said.
Cutter looked over his shoulder at Lola. “You know what, Teariki? I don’t buy the purse theory either.”
Preston leaned forward in his seat, hopeful. “You don’t?”
“Nope,” Cutter said. “No way you’d plan to steal something from that woman when you knew she’d be able to ID you.”
Preston threw back his head and stared at the ceiling. “That’s what I’ve been telling you. I wasn’t trying to rob her!”
Cutter nodded in agreement. “She initiated the conversation.”
“Yes! She’s the one who came up to me.”
“Okay … I’m tracking now,” Cutter mused. “Some strange woman you never met before just walked over and started harassing you.”
“Yes!”
“There wasn’t much you could do but grab her to try to defend yourself.”
“Absolutely,” Preston said.
“It’s hard for other people to see when a girl attacks a bigger guy.”
“That’s right!”
“Well …” Cutter gave him a smiling nod. “I want you to know, you’re not alone.”
“Thank you.”
“Hell no.” Cutter returned to carving with the whittler. “There’s plenty of assholes out there just like you.”
He leaned over, all but forehead to forehead with Preston. Two big dogs with one clearly asserting his dominance. “You can’t help it if that woman had the gall to hurt your tender feelings.”
“She ain’t exactly a little daisy.”
Cutter pooched out his lip. “And her words made you so angry you had to grab her and give her a little shake—maybe even toss her over the railing.”
“No …” Preston stammered.
Cutter shrugged. “The bruises on her arm tell me otherwise.”
“That’s not what happened … Should I talk to a lawyer?”
“Do what you gotta do.” Cutter got to his feet. “This all make sense to you, Teariki?”
“It does,” Lola said. “Charging him with robbery won’t do at all. What do you reckon, Boss, second- or third-degree assault?”
Preston rattled his cuffs. “That’s a misdemeanor, right?”
“Would have been,” Lola said. “Except you had that club in your hand.”
“It was a stick!”
“Stick, club … that’s a distinction for the jury to chew on.
” Cutter folded the whittler and stuffed it into his pocket.
“Well, Teariki,” he said, tapping the nascent cedar carving against the table.
“We have learned two things. This piece of wood is not an owl—and Bartholomew, here, is full of shit.” He stuffed the carving in his pocket, with the knife, ignoring Preston, glancing at Lola. “?Listo?”
“Ready as, Boss,” she said.
Cutter turned at the door. “Anyone you want us to contact?”
Preston’s head snapped up.
“What?”
“You know,” Cutter said. “Phone a friend. I’m assuming you didn’t come on this cruise alone. I’m happy to call your shipmates and tell them where they can find you.”
Preston opened his mouth like he was about to speak, then stopped. “Nah,” he said. “You got it all wrong. It’s just me.”
“Suit yourself,” Cutter said. “KPD should have you in front of a judge by tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow? What about the cruise!”
“That ship has sailed, so to speak.” Cutter chuckled. “Or it will have, by the time you’re arraigned. We’ll alert the onboard security office. They’ll gather up your stuff and leave it with the port authorities before they depart.”
“They got no right to go into my room.”
“I understand how you feel,” Lola said. “It is worrisome to have strangers rifling through your private togs. I reckon you never know what they might come across.”
“Get me that lawyer!”
Lola stared down at his legs and shook her head. “I cannot believe you own a gym …”