CHAPTER 34: THE INTERVIEW
[Seattle Police Department, Interview Room 3 — Late May 2015, 9:00 AM]
The door closed with the specific click of a mechanism designed to sound final. Fluorescent light — the flat, even kind that eliminated shadows and gave skin the color of old paper. A table bolted to the floor. Two chairs, both plastic, both uncomfortable by design. A camera mounted in the upper corner, red light steady.
Clive Babineaux sat across from me with a manila folder, a legal pad, and a cup of coffee that smelled like the break room machine — burnt, thin, the olfactory opposite of everything the chef's brain valued. He set the folder on the table but didn't open it. The cop's move: let the suspect look at the folder and imagine what's inside.
"Thank you for coming in voluntarily, Mr. DeBeers."
"Of course, Detective." The lawyer's brain had coached the approach on the drive over: cooperative, calm, responsive without being eager. Margaret Yee's thirty years of witness preparation distilled into a single instruction — answer what's asked, nothing more, and let the silence work for you instead of against you.
"I want to ask about a property connected to your business records. A warehouse on First Avenue South, SODO district. Lease originated March 2014 under a holding company called Pacific Northwest Provisions LLC."
He opened the folder. A photo — the warehouse exterior, photographed under the CSI van's work lights. The loading dock. The padlock. The access road.
"I recognize it," I said. "That lease was part of the previous business structure — cold storage for surplus inventory. Meat products. We terminated the lease in early April of this year."
True. The lease termination was in Blaine's records — the accountant's brain had found it during the financial audit of Week 1 and filed it as a liability to be closed. The termination paperwork had been filed by the lawyer's brain using standard commercial lease dissolution protocols.
"You terminated it yourself?"
"Through legal channels. Standard thirty-day notice to the property management company."
Clive made a note. His pen moved slowly — the deliberate writing of a man who was documenting responses rather than simply recording them. The security brain read the tells: controlled breathing, minimal facial movement, the posture of a detective who'd already formed a hypothesis and was testing it against the subject's answers.
"Mr. DeBeers, a concerned citizen reported suspicious findings at that location two nights ago. Our crime scene unit investigated. They found evidence consistent with..." He paused. The pause was tactical — letting the next phrase land with maximum weight. "...violent criminal activity. Biological material. Structural damage consistent with persons being restrained."
The words sat in the fluorescent light between us. Biological material. Luminol had done its work. The drain, the scratch marks, the walls that told their story — Clive had seen all of it, and the folder contained the photographs that turned a warehouse into a crime scene.
"That's concerning," I said. The teacher's measured delivery — empathy without admission, the tone of someone processing disturbing information rather than defending against it. "When I terminated the lease, the space was empty. Whatever happened there predates my involvement with the property."
"Your involvement?"
"The holding company — Pacific Northwest Provisions — was established by my predecessor. I inherited the business structure and simplified it. Consolidated to the main shop, terminated satellite leases, streamlined operations." The accountant's vocabulary, the lawyer's framing. Every sentence was true. Every sentence was also a carefully constructed wall between Clive's evidence and the man sitting across from him.
Clive made another note. Then he set the pen down. The pen-down was the shift — from documentation to direct engagement.
"Mr. DeBeers. Three teenagers have been reported missing from the Capitol Hill area. One of those teenagers — Eddie Torres — was found dead with injuries consistent with the forensic evidence at your warehouse. The same warehouse whose lease was in your business records."
The name landed like it always did — a weight that no amount of skill could make lighter. Eddie Torres. The page in the desk drawer. The first name on a list that kept growing.
"I don't know about any teenager's death." True in the narrowest, most agonizing sense. The transmigrated consciousness hadn't committed the murder. The body had. The distinction was invisible to anyone who didn't know about transmigration, which was everyone.
"But you might know about an employee who does."
The opening. The redirect I'd prepared — the lawyer's brief, assembled on the drive, designed to channel Clive's investigation toward a target who was genuinely guilty and away from a body that housed an innocent consciousness.
"I had an associate. Went by Chief — I don't have his legal name in my records, but I have a physical description. Six-two, two-twenty, Black male, mid-thirties, shaved head, military bearing." The description was accurate — drawn from weeks of observation, security-brain detailed, combat-medic precise. "I fired him in mid-April after discovering he'd been conducting unauthorized activities. Violent activities."
Clive's pen came back. He wrote faster now — the shift from testing to recording.
"What kind of activities?"
"I don't have specifics. But when I fired him, he became aggressive, and the nature of his aggression suggested experience with violence. I terminated him immediately and changed the locks."
"Did you report this to the police?"
"I should have." The lawyer's calculated concession — admitting the omission before Clive could use it as leverage. "I handled it privately. That was a mistake."
"Where is Chief now?"
"I don't know." The lie was clean, delivered with the security brain's composure and the teacher's steady eye contact. Chief was in FG custody — a location I couldn't disclose without exposing a private military organization of zombies. "He left Seattle, as far as I know. I haven't had contact since his termination."
Clive studied me. The detective's assessment — measuring the responses against the evidence, testing for inconsistencies, reading the body language for the micro-expressions that liars produced involuntarily. The combat medic's training held my pulse at sixty-two. The lawyer's preparation held my syntax clean. The security brain held my eye contact at the precise duration that communicated confidence without challenge.
"Mr. DeBeers." Clive closed the folder. "I appreciate your cooperation. I may have follow-up questions."
"I'm available anytime, Detective."
He stood. Offered his hand. The handshake was firm and brief — the professional farewell of a detective who hadn't gotten what he wanted but had gotten something worth filing.
"One more thing." He paused at the door. The Columbo move — the question that arrived after the suspect had already relaxed. "The warehouse lease. Your business records show a secondary payment to a cremation service. Watkins Funeral Home. Can you explain that connection?"
The accountant's brain screamed. Watkins. The payment trail — the original Blaine's sloppy bookkeeping, connecting the warehouse where bodies were processed to the funeral home where remains were disposed of. A paper chain I should have cleaned during the financial audit but had missed because the accountant's brain had prioritized revenue over liability management.
"Historical. The previous operator used Watkins for disposal of expired meat products. We've since switched to a licensed waste management company."
"Licensed waste management." Clive wrote it down. His expression didn't change — the professional neutral of a detective who knew when a statement was technically true and substantively misleading. "Thank you, Mr. DeBeers."
The door opened. The hallway. The elevator. The lobby.
Outside, the morning air hit like permission to breathe. My hands were steady — ten skill sets maintaining the composure that the man underneath them was burning through like fuel.
Two messages on the phone. First: the FG burner number I'd saved after the parking lot meeting. Your associate has been informative. We should talk.
Second: Don E. Evan Moore invited us to cater a party this weekend. His birthday or something. You in?
Three days. Three tasks. FG wanted a meeting about whatever Chief had told them. Eleanor's blood type needed confirming for the donor contingency. And Evan Moore — the twenty-year-old with O-negative blood and a sister who was building a murder case — wanted the butcher shop to cater his party.
I typed back to Don E: We're in. Full spread. Saturday.
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