Hang the little guy out to dry. No big mystery there.

Kitt felt bad for the man. Reality checks sucked, big-time.

Her cell phone rang. She unclipped the device, brought it to her ear. “Lundgren here.”

“Kitt, it’s Sal. Derrick Todd made an appearance. Officer Petersen picked him up.”

“Good. Stick him in an interrogation room. We’re on our way.”

23

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Noon

Derrick Todd was an angry young man. Big on bad attitude. Small on smarts. Not to say he wasn’t intelligent. M.C. had no idea if he was or not-he had enough brainpower for her not to have ruled it out yet.

He seemed like one of those kids who consistently made the wrong choice, then blamed somebody else for it.

This cycle always ended badly, in squandered opportunities, jail-time-or worse.

Kitt wandered in, carrying a coffee mug, a newspaper and a box of doughnuts. The doughnuts were a cliché, but that was the point. They figured Mr. Not-So-Bright probably had a chip on his shoulder about cops and would buy right into it.

As they had rehearsed, she dropped the latest edition of the Register Star on the table, well within Todd’s line of vision. The headline screamed Copycat Or Not-Will He Strike Again? There was a picture of both little Julie Entzel and Marianne Vest. There were also smaller photos of the original SAK victims.

Most serials loved the limelight. They loved to read about themselves in the news. Loved reliving the act. Got off on it. And on the fact they had people in a panic and the cops on the run.

If he was the killer, once he saw the headline, he wouldn’t be able to take his eyes off it. It was a psychological trick that had been developed by the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI. The trick also worked with items from the crime scene, photos of the victim, murder weapons.

The first time M.C. had tried it, the suspect had actually moved his chair to get a better view of the item, a lavender knit cap the victim had been wearing at the time of her murder.

They would start out easy, they had decided. Lull him into a false sense of security. M.C. would play the “bad cop,” Kitt the “good one.”

Kitt set the box of pastries smack on top of the paper. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I was taking a coffee break.”

“Cops,” the kid muttered.

“Excuse me?”

He rocked back in his chair, expression cocky. “You never disappoint, that’s all.”

“Doughnut?” She motioned to the box. “Help yourself.”

“No thanks.”

“M.C.?”

“Sure.” She made a great show of choosing one, then taking a bite.

“Why am I here?”

“I think you know, Mr. Todd.”

“So I got a job at the Fun Zone. Big fuckin’ deal.”

“Where were you last night, Mr. Todd?”

“Out.”

“Out where?”

“At a friend’s.”

“Name?”

“Don’t have one. Met her in a bar.”

No accounting for taste. “Which bar?”

He hesitated. “Google Me.”

“You don’t seem so sure about that.”

“I’m sure. Just don’t want you pigs to know where I hang out.”

Another indication of low IQ: insulting people who carry guns and hold your fate in their hands.

Duh.

M.C. glanced at Kitt. She was watching Todd intently, the expression in her eyes fierce. She could guess her thoughts: Look at the paper, damn you.

But he didn’t. Almost pointedly. Could he be on to them? She didn’t think this one had the native intelligence to know what they were up to, but she needed to put it to the test.

“Kitt, can I have a word with you outside?”

The other woman met her eyes, immediately understanding what she was up to. They exited the interrogation room, locking the door behind them. They went around the corner to the surveillance room. There an assistant D.A., a thirtyish young man sporting Harry Potter spectacles and prematurely thinning hair, Sal and Sergeant Haas were watching the video monitor.

All homicide interrogations were videotaped, a relatively recent addition to the RPD’s investigative arsenal. The videotape provided a permanent account of the interrogation to study at length later, and a means for the department to cover its ass against rights violations and brutality charges.

Other than a quick glance in their direction, the trio never took their eyes from the monitor. M.C. pulled up a chair; Kitt stood. Todd thrummed his fingers on the table. He stood and paced. He sat again, looked at the camera and flipped them the bird.

But he didn’t give the paper more than a cursory glance.

“Maybe he can’t read,” M.C. muttered.

“He’s not the one,” Kitt said. “He’s not going for it.”

“You don’t know that for certain,” M.C. shot back.

“Yeah, I do. Dammit!”

“Hold on,” the assistant D.A. said, “he’s taking the bait.”

M.C. swung back to the monitor. Sure enough, Todd was inching his chair closer to the paper. As they watched, he leaned forward, as if craning to read the headline around the box of doughnuts.

She held her breath. Move the box. Get yourself a real good look at that paper. Read all about it, you bastard.

Instead, he spat into the box of pastries, then settled back into his seat, smiling.

“That little son of a bitch,” Sal muttered. “I was going to have one of those.”

M.C. looked at Kitt. “Let’s take the gloves off.”

Kitt frowned slightly. “That’s not the way we rehearsed it.”

“So?”

“So, we go the way we rehearsed it.”

M.C. made a sound of frustration. “He needs more heat.”

Kitt pulled rank. “We give it another minute or two. Then up our ante.”

M.C. wanted to argue, but saw Sal frown. He would not have his detectives arguing over methods, and certainly not at this important juncture. “Okay, let’s go.”

They returned to the interview room. Todd grinned at them. “Doughnut, detectives?”

“You’re a nasty little prick, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Whatever,” she repeated, pulling a chair out, angling it to face him. “Funny you would patronize a place called Google Me. After all, you wouldn’t want to be Googled, would you, Mr. Todd?”

“Fuck you.”

“Do you think that woman you spent the night with would have let you near her if she had known you’re a registered sex offender? Or maybe she wasn’t a woman at all. How old was this “friend” last night?”

Kitt stepped in before he could respond. She kept her tone low, without the edginess of her partner’s. “Who at the Fun Zone hired you?”

“The owner. Sydney Dale.” He said the man’s name on a sneer.

“No love lost there?” she asked. “Even though he gave an ex-con a job?”

“No love. You could say that. The guy’s a dick.”

“When he hired you, did he know your history?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care.”

M.C. took over. “Really? A children’s play center seems a strange place for a child molester to work. Or maybe not so strange…at least from the pervert’s point of view?”

His face turned red. “I’m not a child molester!”

“A jury disagreed, didn’t they?”

She grabbed the newspaper and tossed the front page on the table in front of him. She tapped Julie and Marianne’s photos. “Ever see either of these girls before?”

“No.”

“You sure about that?”

He stared at the paper. The headline. He put it all together. And looked ready to puke.

“Care now?”

“I never saw those girls.”

“Did you work Saturday, January 21?”

“I don’t remember.”

“I can help with that,” Kitt said. “I had Mr. Zuba check your time card. You did.”

“How about Saturday, February 11?”

“I don’t remember. Probably.”

“You did,” Kitt offered, cheerfully.

“So?”

He tried for his earlier confident attitude, but came off scared and queasy instead.

“Both those girls had birthday parties at the Fun Zone. Julie Entzel in January. Marianne Vest in February. That’s a pretty big coincidence, don’t you think? A convicted sex offender working at the place two murdered girls had their birthday parties?”