The Rangers: The Complete Series
1. On a Scale of Ruined Sex Life to Waterboarding
ON A SCALE OF RUINED SEX LIFE TO WATERBOARDING
EXTON
“He’s lying.”
It’s true. He is lying. But why?
“Ask him again, but circle around to it and see if you can get him to answer.”
The one-way glass mirror allows me to see everything. The downside is he knows he’s being watched and that makes people act differently, even if it’s not in huge ways.
People who are being watched hold themselves with a different posture, a different head tilt. Their expressions are more benign. There’s a false innocence or kindness or humor. Resting bitch face—or in this case, resting dick face—is concealed by a Darwinian survival skill of self-protection.
Analyzing video is easier. I wish we’d done video.
“Do you have any idea where Meredith Sands is?”
“I told you. I do not.”
Another clue. Liars emphasize where truth tellers won’t. If he didn’t know, he might say “do not,” but the innocent would say “don’t” because they have nothing to prove.
“Tell me your most interesting story about her,” the interrogator pushes.
The man, handcuffed to a metal table in a sterile room, looks around like Ashton Kutcher will pop out at any time and yell “Punk’d.” Only this guy is too young to remember Kutcher before he was a CEO and an adult. He missed the That ‘70s Show and shock TV days.
He looks confused but exhales, slouches, and closes his eyes. When they open, a different man is behind them.
He’s relaxed, jovial, accessing memories that delight some place in his brain and fire off connections. His breathing evens. His tongue slows in his mouth. His respiration rate and swallow rate have returned to normal. A tug at his lips seems out of place.
Years of studying interrogations, studying truth-tellers and liars alike, analyzing them for the Bureau, means seeing these details is second nature to me.
“My favorite memory of her? It had to be three years ago. We found a lake in the middle of a stupid hot summer. Do you remember that summer?” he asks.
“So hot. Forty-something days over one-hundred degrees. There was no rain, just heat, day after day after day. And she was over it. We found a lake, but it was in the middle of this beautiful estate. But she wanted in, so she jumped the fence. I went right along with her. We snuck over to the water, dropped trou, and had just gotten in when they released the hounds on us.” He continues his story, which isn’t all that interesting or well-told, but at some point, he says, “She was a wild child. Nothing dangerous, but she definitely pushed the limits.”
It doesn’t take a body language expert to hear what he never intended to say.
Was. Pushed.
It is the catch-22 that, in his relaxed state, he inadvertently divulged what he couldn’t have known unless he were guilty or party to it.
Meredith Sands is not missing. She’s dead.
But we already knew that. Her body was recovered from a shallow grave, less than twenty miles from here, when neighbors commented that the buzzards wouldn’t stop swarming.
He continues and blathers on and on, but I’m not vested at this point. I have the answer I need and the rest I can do at a later date if they need me.
“Jon?” I ask into my phone.
“Exton.”
“He’s guilty. All we need now is to trap him on the stand. But you have your case. You just have to prove it.”
“Will you testify?”
“Sure.”
“Dinner tomorrow night?”
“Sounds good. Text me the details.” I disconnect before the district attorney can say anything further.
Our families go way back. Jon and I went to middle school together, played football in high school, and got busted smoking pot in small-town Texas long before Colorado and Washington pioneered its legal recreational use.
His dad was the sheriff in our county and still lives there. My dad owned the majority of the land since we had a horse ranch. School field trips went to the jail, to our barns, and to the local Burger King where we watched “flame broiling” in action. Small town life was quiet.
And then we left.
Now, Jon is a big-shot DA in Travis County, runs in elite circles, and makes enough to wear swanky cufflinks and custom suits.
I’m home from D.C. where I’m on assignment with the Bureau as a body-language expert, interrogator, and counter-interrogation trainer.
Had I known when I got into this business how lucrative these skills were, I might have gone another way.
It would be so much more fun to sit in a courtroom—or hell, in a Congressional hearing or any other political debate—and hold up a yellow card for every violation of the truth.
Can you imagine? Every time a politician speaks to see a light over his head for each exaggeration or lie? That would be the greatest thing ever.
Instead, I get organized crime bosses, terrorists, rapists, murderers, double agents, and sometimes pathetic schmucks, like that low-life punk. I listen to details that should never aggregate in one person’s mind. I sort through people’s thoughts.
I’m a human lie detector.
Buying a car is more fun than you can imagine. Negotiating anything is a kick in the pants. It’s a cool set of skills.
But it makes for a shitty dating life, as I can attest.
First dates, second dates, hell, even tenth dates are for putting your best foot forward, saving face, and making an impression. The problem is I know. I know every exaggeration. I know the lies, the big and the small. I know when someone is withholding.
Consequently, I also know when a woman is turned on, what brings her pleasure, and what does not. I know when she wants more and I know when she’s not worthy of it.
One-night stands are easier than depth. My skills breed distrust and, quite frankly, no repeat fuck has ever been worth being lied to.
Occupational hazards in my line of work lie on a scale of ruined sex life to waterboarding. Just my fucking luck.
I push out of the precinct doors into the cool Texas spring and head to my rental car. Time to see Pop and handle today’s new crap.