Chapter 5 - The Interrogation of Joe Vance
The interrogation room at the county precinct smelled of cheap floor wax, cold coffee, and industrial disinfectant.
Joe sat at the center of the small steel table, his wrists bound by heavy steel handcuffs that clicked against the metal surface every time he shifted his weight. A single fluorescent fixture buzzed overhead, casting harsh, unforgiving light across his pale, hollow face.
Detective Reed sat across from him, the black leather ledger open between them. I sat behind the two-way mirror in the adjacent observation room, holding a paper cup of lukewarm tea that an officer had pressed into my hands half an hour ago.
"Joe," Reed said, his voice low, steady, and conversational. "We have the ledger. We have your brother's badge. We have the film canister you buried under Margaret’s red maple in August of 1999. Do you want your lawyer present before we start?"
Joe stared down at his handcuffed wrists. His voice was thin, completely shorn of the quiet authority he had held as the head of our household for nearly three decades.
"My lawyer can't change what happened, Marcus," Joe said softly. "You knew Thomas. He was a good cop. Better than I ever was a brother."
"Tell me what happened in Margaret's garage on August 12, 1999," Reed said, tapping the ledger with his pen.
Joe took a long, shaky breath. His chest shuddered.
"I was twenty-two," Joe began, his eyes fixed on the reflective surface of the stainless steel table. "I was stupid. I owed forty thousand dollars to some people in North Jersey over a failed stolen-parts operation I got pulled into. Thomas found out. He intercepted a shipment coming through the county line."
He paused, swallowing hard.
"Thomas came to Margaret’s house because he knew I was staying in her guest apartment over the garage while Clara and I were prepping for the wedding. Thomas told me he was going to book me. He said he loved me, but he wasn't going to let me ruin my life with those mob guys, and he wasn't going to hide it."
"And you hit him?" Reed asked.
"No!" Joe suddenly raised his head, his eyes wide with a flash of old, buried agony. "No! I swore to God I didn't hit him! I begged him on my knees, Marcus! I dropped to the concrete floor and pulled on his belt, weeping, telling him that if he arrested me, Clara’s family would cancel the wedding, that my life would be over!"
In the observation room, I pressed my hand against the cold glass, my breath fogging the surface.
"Then who hit him, Joe?" Reed asked quietly.
Joe’s shoulders collapsed. He dropped his head back down, his forehead almost touching the cold steel of the table.
"Margaret," Joe whispered.
A cold shiver ran straight down my spine.
"Margaret?" Reed repeated, leaning forward. "Your mother-in-law?"
"She came into the garage with a heavy brass fireplace poker from the main house," Joe wept, his body trembling violently under the fluorescent lights. "She saw Thomas standing over me with his handcuffs out. She thought... she thought Thomas was some loan shark coming to beat me up, or that he was going to ruin the wedding she had spent sixty thousand dollars planning for Clara."
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Joe looked up at the mirror—looking directly at where he knew I was standing behind the dark glass.
"She hit him from behind," Joe said, his voice breaking into a full sob. "Right at the base of his skull. Thomas went down instantly. He died on the garage floor in front of my eyes. Margaret didn't even flinch. She looked down at his body, then at me, and said, 'If anyone finds out about this, you go to prison for murder, and my daughter's life is destroyed. You help me move him, or I call the police right now and tell them you killed him over your debts.'"
