Chapter 25
The Riverwood Police Station is not a big place, so sitting the boys down in three separate rooms pretty much fills it out. Clay is surprised to learn that one of the three boys is Thomas Becker, Steph and Wags’s son. Clay figures it’s best if he doesn’t interrogate Thomas—let someone else do that.
Judd questions Thomas Becker at the facing desks Mike and Andy use.
Zoey questions Markey Franzen in her office.
Clay questions Graham Collins in the basement storage area.
All three boys are cuffed at the ankles and wrists, but that is the extent of their confinement.
Zoey hasn’t even put them in a cell. Nor has she arrested them, though she has every right to since they assaulted Judd and stole forty-five thousand dollars, and she witnessed Graham point a handgun at Braedon and Daniel, even though the handgun was not loaded.
Judd allows Thomas Becker to sit at Mike Wahlquist’s desk while Judd sits in Andy Kimmich’s. This is Judd’s way of making Thomas feel he has some importance and control in the conversation. That’s how Judd defines it to Thomas. “This is just a conversation. That’s all. No big deal…”
Thomas Becker is one of those fifteen-year-old boys who could pass for eighteen.
He’s six feet tall, has to shave every day, and has deep-sunken brown eyes and olive skin like his father.
He also has Wags’s black hair that falls down the sides of his face to his jawline.
He tries to look like a man, but Judd sees the boy.
Thomas has the cheeks and forehead of a child.
His hands are delicate as if the kid were a concert pianist. His eyes are not yet hardened.
Judd sees fear but also inquisitiveness, an eager anticipation of what’s about to happen.
“Where exactly did you find my brother’s things?” says Judd.
“I already told all this to Zoey,” says Thomas, whose voice is deep but without much resonance in his tiny chest.
“I know,” says Judd, “and I appreciate that. But humor me. I want to hear it right from the source.”
Thomas sighs. “All right.” He fidgets a bit with the handcuffs on his wrists and adds, “We found the stuff halfway up the mountain bike trail on Miller’s Bluff. We ride there a lot.”
“Could you lead us back to that exact same spot when it gets light?”
“Yeah,” says Thomas. “Easy.”
“How did the stuff look when you found it? Was it all over the place or stacked in a neat pile or some combination of the two?”
Thomas takes a moment and looks up into his brain as if the answer is posted there and he just has to read it. “It was in a messy pile, kind of … like the hoodie was just tossed on the ground with the saw and glove and earring on top of it.”
“And did the earring have the little pink back on it or did you find that separately?”
Thomas looks down for a moment and then up. “Off, I think. Like crumpled up in the sweatshirt.”
“Okay,” says Judd. He’s trying to convince himself that this is just another questioning of a suspect who’d found a random man unconscious on a trail. Not his own brother. Judd tries his best to mask the urgency he’s feeling. “And whose idea was it to take the earring?”
“That was Graham.”
“Was this fake kidnapping and ransom note his idea?”
“I guess,” says Thomas.
“You guess or you know?” says Judd.
Thomas shifts in his seat. “I suppose I know.”
“And you and the other guy, Markey, you went along with it.”
Thomas nods.
“Why didn’t you take the saw and glove and hoodie?”
Thomas shrugs. “Once Graham thought of the kidnapping idea and using the earring, we were kind of focused on that, I guess.”
Judd nods. “What was the split? Fifteen thousand each?”
“Yeah,” says Thomas.
“What were you going to do with the money?” says Judd.
“We were going to buy cars when we turn sixteen. You know, used ones. You can’t get much for fifteen thou.”
“That’s practical,” says Judd.
“Well, Markey works at the marina. And he heard you saying you had fifty grand to spend on a new boat. And when the salesman asked you about financing, you said you were going to pay cash. That’s how we knew you had that much.”
“But it was easier to divide forty-five by three than it was to divide fifty by three?”
Thomas responds with a shrug.
“When did Graham come up with the kidnapping plan?” says Judd. “Before or after you guys found Teddy’s earring?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, did you see the stuff and think you could use it to say you kidnapped Teddy? Or did you find the earring and then get the idea?”
“Well … when we saw the hoodie and stuff, we were wondering if there was a wallet and phone in there. Kind of to know who it belonged to, but also kind of like we wanted the stuff. Graham was kind of pissed there was nothing valuable. But then we found the earring … yeah … and we thought it was Teddy’s.
So Graham said he was going to take the earring as a consolation even though we knew it was a big deal because that guy from the Clash supposedly gave him that earring.
Everybody in town knows that story. So Graham thought maybe we could ransom it back to Teddy.
“But the next day we heard Teddy was missing and you and other people were looking for him. So Graham said fuck trying to get money for the earring—excuse my language, but that’s what he said—we can get a lot more money if we say we kidnapped Teddy and use the earring as proof.”
Judd doesn’t speak for a minute. He wants Thomas to feel comfortable but not too comfortable. A good pregnant pause does wonders to unsettle a suspect under interrogation. “Anything else you remember about the glove and saw and hoodie?”
“Like what?” says Thomas.
“Did anything look dirty? Maybe smudged with blood? Was the electric saw intact or broken? Was the battery attached?”
Thomas looks up into his brain again and says, “It just looked like it had been dropped on the ground. That’s all I remember.”
“Was the glove for a left or right hand?”
Thomas shrugs. “No clue.”
“Tell me more about the saw,” says Judd. “Was it a circular saw, jigsaw, reciprocating saw?”
“Oh!” says Thomas, brightening. “That I do remember. It’s the kind with a blade pointing out the end. Like a swordfish. My dad has one. He can put different blades in it to cut different stuff. Like metal or wood or a concrete block.”
“Got it,” says Judd. “That sounds like a reciprocating saw. Also called a sawzall. If we go to the hardware store when it opens, maybe you can point out what you saw to me?”
“Yeah,” says Thomas. “I can do that.” He lowers his cuffed hands from the desk to his lap and adds, “Are we under arrest? Are we going to jail?”
“The arrest part is up to Chief Jensen,” says Judd. “If she does arrest you, the jail part will be up to the district attorney and a judge or jury. Do you think you deserve to be arrested?”
Thomas shrugs. “I know what we did was pretty bad. But we didn’t hurt anyone.”
“Really?” says Judd. “Because I got a bump on the back of my head that says otherwise.”
In the basement of the police station, Graham Collins sits in an old office chair made of oak.
It’s on wheels and can swivel back and forth and that’s just what Graham does as if he has a nervous tic or restless leg syndrome.
He has a boyish haircut, as if his mom still sits him down in the kitchen and hovers over him with electric clippers.
It’s still blond as a child’s, and his blue eyes are blue blue, not gray.
He wears cargo shorts and a ratty gray University of Minnesota sweatshirt.
His socks don’t match each other and neither do his Converse sneakers.
One blue, one white. His buddy, Markey, who’s upstairs talking to Zoey, wears the other white and blue sneakers.
Clay leans against a wire cage where Riverwood law enforcement sometimes keeps stray or dangerous dogs taken away from crime scenes or homes where someone had been bitten. “Tell me about the gun,” says Clay. “Where did it come from?”
“It’s my brother’s,” says Graham. His voice is high-pitched. It hasn’t changed and maybe never will. “He’s in the army. He keeps it locked in a box in his room but I know where the key is.”
“Why didn’t you load it?”
“He keeps his ammo and clips in a safe with a combination lock. I don’t know the combination, so I just carried the gun in case something went wrong and I needed to scare someone with it.”
“You realize you’re in a lot more trouble because you threatened someone with a gun.”
“But it wasn’t loaded.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re in trouble with the law. And you’re in trouble with me. You pointed that gun at my son.”
Graham winces with fear and averts his eyes from Clay’s. “Like how much trouble?”
“That’s up to the police and the courts,” says Clay.
“Hey,” says Graham. “You’re not the police. Why am I talking to you?”
“Because I’ve been asked to help by Chief Jensen. She has the authority to do that.”
“But why? I thought you were a soccer player.”
“I was. I was also in the army. Now, you told Chief Jensen that you found Teddy’s sweatshirt, a glove, an electric saw, and his earring.”
“Yeah,” says Graham. “Because we did.”
“And you only took his earring.”
“Right…”
“Why should we believe that? Why shouldn’t we think that you abducted Teddy for the purpose of extorting a ransom? You certainly seem capable of it.”
“Because we didn’t do it,” says Graham. “We just found his stuff. Plus, all we needed was the earring. It’s not like we needed to take Teddy so we could chop fingers off him and tie those to a rock and throw them through your dad’s window.”
“That’s your reasoning?” says Clay.
Graham swivels on his chair. “What’s wrong with it?”
Clay stares hard at Graham. “The police and prosecuting attorney will consider your attitude and willingness to cooperate when deciding what to do with you.”
Graham drops his eyes and doesn’t respond.
“Not that it matters legally,” says Clay, “but whose idea was it to send the ransom note and earring to make it look like you’d kidnapped Teddy?”
Graham keeps his eyes down. “Mine.”
“By the way, who wrote that ransom note? It doesn’t read like any of you three wrote it.”
“We had AI write it so it didn’t sound like us.”
Clay nods. Makes sense. “So you find a guy’s earring and think, Hey, let’s make it look like we kidnapped him and make a quick forty-five thousand?”
“It didn’t happen like that,” says Graham.
“Then how did it happen?”
Graham lifts his eyes. “I just wanted to take the earring. You know, ’cause Joe Strummer supposedly gave it to Teddy. I thought it might be worth some cash. Then when we heard Teddy was missing, I had the idea to make it look like we kidnapped him. Figured we could get a lot more money that way.”
“Yeah,” says Clay. He leans back into the chain-link. “Forty-five thousand dollars is a lot of money. What were three fifteen-year-olds going to do with that kind of money?”
“Buy cars when we turn sixteen,” says Graham. “Well, Markey wanted to buy a car. A Mustang. Rugburn—”
“Who?”
“Thomas Becker. I call him Rugburn. He wanted like a Ford Escape or some other small SUV. And I wanted a pickup. Kind of like what you got. Sweet ride.”
“Yeah,” said Clay. “Are you the one who drove it away from the bridge?”
Graham looks away again and nods.
“Thanks for not banging it up.”
Graham shrugs, reluctant to take the compliment.
“Which one of you picked up the earring from the ground?”
Graham exhales as if it’s a stalling tactic. As if he won’t have to take another breath for half an hour. But he does take another breath and says, “Me.”
“Was that little back thing on it when you found it? The pink clasp?”
Graham shakes his head. “No. But near it. Like Teddy took it off fast and dropped it with the other stuff.”
“A hoodie, a saw, a glove, and an earring … That’s a weird four things to find together. And I assume once you saw the earring, you thought it might be Teddy’s.”
Graham nods. “Yeah…”
“Did you think he might be nearby? Did you call out to him or anything like that?”
Graham bites his lower lip and shakes his head.
“Did you look around for him?”
“No. We just wanted to get out of there with the earring.”
Clay nods as if this makes sense. “Any other details you remember?”
“Like what?”
“Were the hoodie and glove dirty? Were they wet? Did they have any kind of odor?”
Graham shakes his head, but then stops and says, “There is one thing that was kind of odd. When I knelt down to pick up the earring, the hoodie smelled like smoke. Like it’d been hanging around a campfire or something.
It wasn’t exactly that kind of smell but it was like it, do you know what I mean? ”
“Not really,” says Clay. “Are you saying the hoodie smelled like woodsmoke?”
Graham thinks about this. “Maybe…” he says. “Kind of like that but not that.”
“Like car exhaust?” says Clay.
“Maybe…” says Graham.
“What did the glove look like?”
“It was a work glove.”
“What color?”
“Brown leather…” Graham thinks for a few more seconds, then adds, “Yeah, pretty sure it was brown. So what’s the deal here? Am I under arrest or what?”