Without any adjustment, Detweiler resumed: “The reason I believe he wanted to detain or retain me was: he grabbed my shoulder. If he had wanted to kill me he obviously could have done so with most hope of success when my back was turned.
“He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me around. I tried to put him at ease about one thing, if that was the trouble.
“I said, ‘Yes, I killed them, if that is what you are in doubt about.’”
Detweiler shrugged. “Then we began to wrestle. The reason I don’t say we fought, at that point, is that there seemed to be more the spirit of a game about it than a life-and-death struggle. You know, each was trying to best the other, not to destroy him, for there would be no contest if either were eliminated from the competition. He would get a hammer lock on me, I would finally break it. I would have him in a sort of half-nelson, he would struggle free, and so on. Though we were not wrestling in any formal sense, so the holds were far from classic I can demonstrate, if you like.”
Detweiler started up, but Tierney, his defenses rising more swiftly, ordered him back. It would be no game were he to touch Detweiler.
“O.K.,” Detweiler said goodnaturedly, and slumped in the wooden chair until his shoulders touched his ears. But it was not an insolent movement, and Tierney took no offense.
He said: “But all during this game, this sport, you were trying to get hold of the screwdriver.”
“Nope,” said Detweiler. “The screwdriver had fallen to the floor and was just lying there. Neither one of us was interested in it: we could not have cared less about it!”
“Then how did it end up in Appleton?”
“Ah yes,” said Detweiler. “Obligations come with knowledge. Had I not known Appleton was alive and present in that apartment, I would have left. But in possession of the facts, I had no alternative but to finish out the pattern. Having killed the other two residents, I could not abandon him to loneliness. I had to clean it up. Otherwise it would have been a disgusting mess for him. On Christmas Eve. I never could have forgiven myself for leaving him with that.
“So I snatched the screwdriver from the floor, and caught him with it as he lunged. I used both hands, plus his momentum, and the combination was enough to penetrate his temple, but that is solid bone there, seizing the blade and tearing it from my hands as he fell. In telling you this for your purposes, I am compressing the experience. In your irritable mood, your nervous chronological captivity, I am really reluctant to mention the extraordinary feature.”
Tierney gave a cop’s shrug. “Rely on me,” he said.
“For what?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Tierney swiveled his head about.
“It strikes me,” said Detweiler, “that the standard interrogation is designed to conceal or suppress the truth.”
“Believe me when I say this isn’t the standard type, but you may be right anyway, Tierney said literally, patiently, as if he were speaking to Mr. Average Citizen, whose taxes paid his salary. Occasionally, for relief he had to pretend Detweiler was sane.
“A suspect naturally tries to make you believe he is innocent. Or if he has confessed he tries to explain why he committed the crime. He tries to associate himself, as best he can, with normal behavior. Everybody gets mad, everybody has moments when he is out of control, everybody at times breaks the law.”
“They do?” asked Detweiler, marvelously, and Tierney could see he was not faking. “You’re not saying that to trick me, are you?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you, Joseph.”
“I’m sorry I was difficult about the chop suey,” Detweiler said. “It was nothing personal. I got to thinking it over, and it just didn’t seem right to eat if we were having this talk. I should have explained that, but you were posing as unfriendly at the appropriate moment.”
“That’s right, it was just a pretense,” said Tierney. “You tell me anything you want. I won’t make fun of it.”
“I wasn’t worried about that. I don’t mind being ridiculed; I just can’t stand not being listened to.”
“That’s why you killed Mrs. Starr, wasn’t it?”
Detweiler struck his hands together. “I told you that we, you and I, had an affinity, did I not! This is great! … Of course, of course, you understand perfectly.” Detweiler put his hands on the edge of the table. “Do you mind if I get up?”
“Go ahead.”
Detweiler began to stride about in the suit that was too large for him. Yet to Tierney he did not look pathetic.
Reaching the window and reversing, his wide cuffs sweeping the floor, Detweiler said: “I am excited by the possibilities of our association. Since we’re both men, sex isn’t a factor. That was the trouble with Betty as a partner. She was a woman, and that could not be ignored altogether.”
“You went there on Christmas Eve to kill her, didn’t you?”
“Certainly. But you know it all now that we are in alignment, so let’s not waste any more energy on the matter. We have a job to do which, accomplished, will place these things in perspective.”
“What is that?” Tierney asked in earnest, for despite his apparent disingenuousness, his sudden assumption of the familiar, avuncular style of the routine interrogator who has won a suspect’s confidence, he was authentically naive now, else he could not have produced involuntarily the accurate statement of Detweiler’s motive. He could not explain his clairvoyance except by use of Detweiler’s theory: they had some profound though unreasonable link.
Detweiler said: “To kill Time.”
Chapter 15
DETWEILER continued: “People use that expression negligently, in reference to the interval between what they believe to be important phases of experience. Between the end of the workday and dinner, they kill time. Sunday is ideal for killing time in this sense, which signifies idleness, quiescence, the mind a blank, the body either limp or, if active, engaged perhaps in a game the outcome of which is inconsequential: solitaire, for example, the winner and loser of which are both yourself.
“A waste of time, in the conscious opinion of most, who would not be so occupied if they had a task, but they do not say ‘waste’: they say ‘kill.’ Very interesting. The alternative to killing is using. Time is used to arrest criminals, to print newspapers, and so on. Time is killed by playing games, but not if the players are professionals; or gazing at trees, but not if the observer is a botanist.
“I did not use Mrs. Starr or Billie or Appleton. I killed them. As I am not a professional killer, I was also killing Time.”
“Then killing them was a game?” asked Tierney.
“Yes, but one like solitaire or ticktacktoe if played by yourself: there was no personal winning or losing.”
“By you,” Tierney felt he must point out in all justice. “They lost their lives.”
“Certainly it must seem that way to someone who believes life can be won or lost,” Detweiler said, leaning on two hands at the end of the table. “Like the district attorney, and the commissioner of police, and the older man who accompanied us on the flight. But not to you and me, and not to Mrs. Starr, Billie, and Mr. Appleton.”
“You can speak for them?” Tierney terminated this with the accent of interrogation, though he knew there was no question in Detweiler’s mind.
“Because, having killed them, I possess them,” said Detweiler. “And they me. They are in me and with me, and I of them and with them. And now I shall be executed because of you, and we all shall be part of you.”
Tierney apologized. He said: “I do not understand.”
Detweiler smiled helpfully. “I’m going to confess to premeditated murder in the first degree.”
“You will do that for me?”
“Not for you,” said Detweiler. “You will see that it is not exactly a reward, though to superficial minds like those of your superiors it may seem an accomplishment. I say because of you, because you are capable, because you will accept responsibility for the lives you incorporate. You are not a frivolous indi
vidual by any means.”
Tierney said softly: “Forget about that, Joseph.”
“The advantage is that you have a profession,” Detweiler said, “and a special kind: you regulate and control. Exactly what is needed, lacking which I have not made the progress I should have.”
“Joseph, I am not your partner or collaborator in anything. You must understand that. I am not, believe me for your own sake. Do you understand? I am a police officer, and what you tell me can be used against you, so you want to be very sure it is the truth. All these speculations and thoughts of yours, however interesting and maybe even brilliant at times—they are not appropriate here. I am not a priest. I do not have the right nor, to be frank, the competence to deal with these other matters. You’ll get the opportunity to speak with a spiritual adviser, a minister or priest. Save your ideas for him.” Tierney paused, then added bluffly, to take the pressure off: “Hell, I’m not worthy of these high-powered concepts. I am just a cop.”
“If you want to be simplistic,” said Detweiler, “then I am just a killer, and Billie and her mother and Appleton are just corpses and already rotting, and God is just a despot.”
“God?” asked Tierney. “That’s the first time you have mentioned God.”
“It could be the last,” Detweiler said matter-of-factly. He rolled his head about and, lowering his chest to touch the end of the table, did a few standing pushups. He said: “That’s one subject on which I try to keep from being vulgar. Suffice it to say that you and I can do without the name, so long as we have the power.”
Tierney was embarrassed, and asked a sophomoric question. “Do you believe in God?”
Detweiler did a pushup. He looked at Tierney with what seemed to be amusement, and said: “You can be pretty crafty. I’d certainly hate to be interrogated by you if I were a criminal.”
Tierney sighed and collected himself. He said: “Joseph, do you really think we’re getting anywhere? I put it to you. You’re an intelligent fellow. Aren’t we wasting our time? Now, you told Mr. Crews you were ready to make a statement, so we cooperated with you. But it’s getting later and later, and the rest of us haven’t had any sleep since last night. Frankly, I don’t think you’re being considerate.”
“More than once you have used the word ‘frankly’ or a form of it. I just want to tell you,” said Detweiler, “that I never doubt your sincerity. No need to reassure me. I trust you completely, no matter what it seems you are doing at the moment.”
There was an implication here that Tierney did not like. Before he could protest, however, Detweiler had intuited his reaction.
“I mean,” said Detweiler, “that though it might seem as if you are trying to distract me right now, I’m ignoring it. I know you are testing me.”
“For what?”
“To see whether I’ll break under the strain. One has to be careful when choosing an associate for dangerous work. Think of the mountain climber who must trust the comrades who share his lifeline. One cannot survive if the other is capricious or forgetful or has an uncontrollably humorous turn of mind, though a direct sense of enjoyment is all to the good. I can assure you that I am seldom very witty.”
“Oh, that I can believe,” Tierney said seriously. “But supposing I promise to talk over these philosophical or religious problems with you at a later time. Can we make a deal? Right now you will stick to the facts about what happened on Christmas Eve at the Starr apartment. No interpretations or abstract stuff, O.K.?”
“That,” said Detweiler, “is a distinction I find hard to make. Between ‘fact’ and ‘idea.’ But I will do my best, and if I get off the track, please let me know.”
“Another thing: shouldn’t we get a stenographer in here so this can be taken down and you won’t have to go through it again for the record?”
“Matter and mind,” Detweiler went on. “Their connection is Time.”
“Joseph,” said Tierney, “you are off the track.”
Detweiler shook his head. “You know,” he said, “it’s a funny thing, but the rare occasion on which I am not distracted, when I am on the track, the world invariably pulls me away. Even you do it, with the best of intentions. Betty always did, too. I would simply give up but for one thing: I know I’m right. I cannot be that all experience passes away forever, beyond recall.” He struck the tabletop. “That is unthinkable. If it is so, then there goes your law, Tierney. Your profession is meaningless, then, and you are an idiot.”
At the moment it seemed to Tierney a realistic appraisal of himself and his job. What point would be served by aiding in Detweiler’s conviction? If he were so disposed of that he could not kill again, there would yet be other murderers, rational or insane—another meaningless distinction, along with life or death, fact or idea. Since all men would die anyway, a murderer took nothing essential from his victim but time. If Detweiler believed he could stop time, he must believe he was God. This little, skinny, pale criminal dressed in a baggy suit.
Tierney asked him: “Joseph, are you God?”
“Yes,” said Detweiler. Then: “But that shouldn’t bother you. You are too, if you want to be.”
“And Mrs. Starr and Billie and Appleton?”
“Certainly.”
“Then how could you have killed them?”
“Exactly,” said Detweiler. He returned to his chair. “You understand thoroughly.”
Detweiler believed everybody was God, but Tierney had had too much of religion in his schooling to be anything but a practical atheist. Tierney recognized that this distinction was much greater than that between criminal and cop. Under the appropriate conditions he could see himself strangling Betty, but he could never accept a connection between humanity and divinity.
“Well,” said Detweiler, “now that we’ve got that settled, why don’t you call in the stenographer?”
Tierney opened the door and asked the uniformed men to come in. Without looking again at Detweiler he went along the corridor to the room where the D.A. and the others waited amid clouds of cigarette and pipe smoke. Mr. Crews held a blond briar between his incisors. He had taken off his jacket, exposing the embroidered initials on the breast pocket of the white shirt and the full length of his blue-figured tie.
He looked at Tierney. He wasted no show on subordinates; it was self-evident that the occasion was momentous, else he would not have been there at all. He was unassailable; Detweiler would not have chosen him as confidant.
Tierney was aware of many pairs of eyes as he spoke to Crews, belonging to as many superiors; the commissioner, a few captains, Shuster, detectives on the D.A.’s staff. It was his moment.
“Sir,” he stated to Crews, “I’m afraid I can’t come up with anything. He might want to talk, but what he says is psycho malarkey, like the stuff he gave the newspaper.”
Crews sucked his pipe, which was either empty or not alight, looking cross-eyed towards the bowl; he could manage such an expression without being absurd. Yet he was not a genuine pipe smoker: the pipe was much too blond.
He said: “Tierney, I wish you would not use the word ‘psycho,’ or any similar terms, in referring to this individual. I intend to have him indicted, and to try him for, Murder One. I don’t care whether he gibbers like an ape or eats his own excrement. I don’t care how many noted alienists Melrpse brings into court to assure us that the defendant is as incapable of moral decision as a chipmunk. I am going to hold him legally responsible for his actions, and I am going to get a conviction. We all have our quirks. You overlook mine as I overlook yours, and as we will all overlook Joseph Detweiler’s.”
“Yes sir,” said Tierney. “I suppose he is trying to make fools of us.” He did not feel he was selling Detweiler out. What kind of contract could be made with a maniac?
“A routine type,” drawled Crews, around the hard-rubber bit between his teeth. “Thank you, Tierney.” He spoke to two of his own men, Detectives Hatfield and Speyer, as Tierney faded away into the corner where Shuster stood.
&nb
sp; “Well,” said Tierney, “I tried.”
“Did you touch him?” Shuster asked.
“No.”
“You are a stupid son of a bitch,” Shuster whispered.
Hatfield and Speyer went to the interrogation room. They were not huge men, yet both were fit and larger than Detweiler. Tierney believed that the killer would hold out more stubbornly with every blow he received.
Tierney was wrong. By morning the D.A. had a complete statement of the approved type, in which Detweiler confessed to the premeditated murder of not only Billie Starr, but Appleton as well. Tierney assumed that Detweiler had broken under the punishment; that the prior symptoms of madness with which he, Tierney, had been confronted had been faked or at any rate exaggerated: Detweiler knuckled under when he faced the D.A.’s men, who were efficient and unreflective. Tierney made this assumption because it was his duty so to do, and it did not alter his private judgment that Detweiler was insane. Tierney saw no conflict here: he was very normal.
It never for a moment occurred to him that Detweiler assumed he had sent Hatfield and Speyer to take the confession which Detweiler understood he and Tierney had agreed on; just as to Detweiler the thought did not occur that Tierney had betrayed him. Detweiler rarely thought the worst of anybody. He felt no animosity towards Hatfield and Speyer for punching him around some before it became clear he was not resisting them.
The D.A.’s men of course shared Tierney’s belief that they had beaten a statement out of Detweiler, and felt a sense of achievement. Detweiler did not know about this; but it is probable that if he had known, he would have done nothing to set them straight, interested as he was in the rewarding of purpose by accomplishment.
On the following morning Detweiler was taken to the line-up: a brightly lighted stage at the end of a room that resembled a gymnasium, a man on a nearby platform, an audience. A number of other persons were assembled behind the stage, but Detweiler was sent out first.
He had had some sleep after giving and signing his statement, in a neat little cell furnished with all that a man might need: bunk, toilet, washstand. He had eaten quite a nice breakfast of oatmeal and coffee with sugar and milk, and there was plentiful hot water, soap and a clean towel. He understood he was supposed to get a uniform, but had not received it so far, and his shirt being soiled around the neckband, he washed only the collar and squeezed it in the towel, then smoothed and stretched it in his fingers. It was still damp and felt cool, refreshing, around his throat, which was still somewhat sore at the adam’s apple from having been seized by one of the men who took his statement: “Is this how you did it, Joe?” But he no longer remembered the bruises he had sustained in the saloon encounter with Walt.