Page 35 of Nightshade

CAPTAIN CORUM WAS not happy about having to spend another night and day on Catalina heading up the investigation of another death. His team included two of the investigators assigned to the murder of Henry Gaston, but this time they were supplemented by two deputies from the officer-involved-shooting team. Stilwell and Tash Dano were questioned separately and repeatedly. Stilwell conducted a walk-through of the crime scene with the investigators, from the rocky shoreline where he had come out of the water to the interior of the trailer where the body of the man he had killed was still lying on the floor.

From the start of the investigation, neither Corum nor Stilwell was concerned that there would be any verdict other than that the shooting was within department policy. The only issue was in Stilwell’s decision to carry out the rescue of the abducted woman on his own, without calling for backup until it was over. Corum told Stilwell he would likely receive a suspension for this move.

At one point Corum took a phone call and stepped away from the investigators to speak quietly. The call was short and Corum did more listening than speaking. When it was over, Corum pocketed his phone and nodded to Stilwell to join him.

“That was Mayor Allen,” he said. “He wants me to take you off the island. Permanently.”

“I bet he does,” Stilwell said. “What did you tell him?”

“Not much. I said I’ll consider that at the conclusion of our investigation.”

“He’s going to be sweating when we pick up Terranova and put the squeeze on him.”

“If we find Terranova.”

Stilwell knew that Corum had put two of his investigators on finding Baby Head and taking him in for questioning. So far, they hadn’t even picked up his trail.

“A guy like him, he had an escape plan,” Stilwell said. “He was probably on the mainland when this thing went down.”

“Well, we don’t have much of a case against him, do we?” Corum said.

“He ordered Spivak to grab Tash, I know it. He was the one who called to check that it was done.”

“And we can’t prove any of that.”

“We have the saw handle.”

“Yes, we have the saw handle, but it doesn’t prove a thing when it comes down to what happened to Gaston and what happened tonight. If we can find him, we’ll see what we can get out of him.”

“He’ll just lawyer up,” Stilwell said. “We need to charge him. Put him in a cell.”

“Then we’ll need more evidence.”

Stilwell shook his head. He was frustrated but knew that Corum was right—and that he was just as frustrated.

“I’ll get more,” he said.

Corum pulled his phone and checked a text.

“Not now, you won’t,” he said. “You’re on the bench until this investigation is over. And they’re ready to do the formal interview at the substation. I’ll have Ramos take us over.”

Fifteen minutes later Stilwell was sitting in front of two OIS investigators, Batchelor and Harrington, in the interview room at the substation. It was the formal, on-the-record sit-down, and the story he told here would be locked permanently into the file. This would be the interview that was referenced should any legal action occur following the shooting.

While Corum watched on the feed in the dayroom, Harrington did most of the talking and questioning. It was now late Saturday morning and they had gleaned all they could from the scene and evidence. Stilwell knew from past experience that this was where things could become adversarial. Despite operating on one hour’s sleep over the past two days, he believed he was ready for it.

“Let’s start with the decision-making process,” Harrington said. “You get this call, they say they have your girlfriend, you ask for proof of life and you get it, and then you decide to be a one-man rescue team. Can you walk us through how you came to handle it that way?”

“Sure,” Stilwell said. “Time. The caller gave me an hour. In my mind, that meant I didn’t have a minute to spare. I couldn’t wait for anyone to come over from the mainland, even by helicopter. I had only one deputy on duty on the island at the time, and I didn’t think she would be up to it.”

“That was Deputy Ramirez. In what way did you think she wasn’t up to it?”

“Experience-wise. We all know that deputies assigned to this island have shown some form of… deficiency in their work. I’ve worked with Ramirez for the past nine months and this was going to be a rescue mission, not a patrol. I just didn’t have confidence in her, and I thought she could end up getting hurt herself. I didn’t want that.”

Harrington had a yellow pad on the table in front of him and made a check mark on it next to a written note Stilwell couldn’t read from his position.

“How long have you had a relationship with Natasha Dano?” he asked.

Stilwell understood that this questioning would jump all over the place to try to catch him off guard. The important thing, he knew, was to not dissemble or outright lie. If he did, things could go downhill fast.

“We started having a few casual dates about ten or eleven months ago,” he said. “I would say things started to get serious about six months ago.”

“Do you live together?” Harrington asked.

“Technically, no. We both have our own homes, but we end up at one place or the other just about every night. Most often my place. There’s more room and a better kitchen.”

“And this was a secret relationship?”

“Not really. We didn’t go around advertising it, if that’s what you mean. But we didn’t go out of our way to hide it. Tash—Natasha—doesn’t like going to the mainland, so that meant staying local if we went out for dinner or to socialize.”

“You two had been to the Buffalo Nickel together before?”

“Yes. A few times. It’s a locals’ place for the most part. Off the beaten path.”

“Did you know she was going there last night?”

“Yes and no. I had been so busy with yesterday’s work that I texted that she probably wouldn’t see me. She texted back saying that was fine—I’m sure you’ve looked at our phones. I didn’t know she was at the Nickel till I got home to crash. I checked her location and saw she had been there earlier in the evening.”

“You hadn’t told her about what kept you working all day? She didn’t know about the Gaston killing or that Spivak had escaped?”

“There were a lot of newspeople out here yesterday. She might have seen something about it. But we didn’t have a conversation about it. I don’t talk about my work with her.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“She grew up here on the island and was classmates with a reporter from the Call, Lionel McKey. They’re still friends and I just never liked the idea of putting her in a position where she knew things that Lionel would like to know.”

“Do you know of any instance where she passed information she heard from you over to him?”

“No, not at all. When we got more serious about our relationship, we talked about that and she understood. But I sort of stuck with the practice of keeping work stuff to myself.”

“So you’re telling us that she had no idea what was happening with you when she decided to go to the Buffalo Nickel last night?”

“Not as far as I know. The Catalina Call is the only local media on the island and it’s published on Saturdays, so unless she heard some scuttlebutt about it at work or McKey reached out and asked her about it, she probably didn’t know. I’m sure you’ve asked her this.”

“Okay, well, we’re just trying to figure out how they knew to grab her when she left the bar last night. Any ideas on how they knew you two were a couple?”

“Well, like I said, we didn’t advertise that we were together, but it wouldn’t have been that hard to find out. Since the mutilation of the buffalo up on the preserve a couple weeks ago, I’ve probably been on Oscar Terranova’s radar as a possible threat. He could have had any one of his people checking me out, possibly following me. If he did that, they would have seen me with Tash. You can ask him when you bring him in.”

That answer drew the first words from Batchelor in this round.

“We’re not handling that side of the investigation,” he said. “This is only about the officer-involved shooting.”

“Yeah, too bad,” Stilwell said. “Because that side of the investigation is what we should be focusing on.”

“That side is well in hand,” Batchelor said.

Stilwell looked away from them and up at the camera, knowing he was looking at Corum.

“Let’s continue,” Harrington said. “We want to move on to what happened in the trailer. Something’s not adding up for us.”

“What’s that?” Stilwell responded.

He braced himself. These men had had hours to analyze the actions he had taken in a matter of seconds.

“You told us you kicked in the door and entered the trailer,” Harrington said.

“That’s right,” Stilwell said.

“You did not identify yourself or instruct Spivak to freeze, correct?”

“That’s correct. There was no time for that. But I didn’t have to identify myself—he knew who I was.”

“There was almost no light in the trailer. Just the computer screen. Would he have been able to see your face and identify you?”

“Good question. I don’t know. I’m sure additional light came in through the open door But I identified him. I could see his face.”

“You said he had just taken his shirt off and was unbuckling his pants.”

“I said he had no shirt on. I don’t know if he had just taken it off, because I wasn’t there. You may be confusing what I said with what Tash—uh, Natasha—told you.”

“My mistake. His shirt was already off when you entered the trailer. His hands were at his belt buckle, is that what you told us?”

“It’s what I told you and it’s what happened.”

“Why did you fire your weapon if his hands were occupied at his belt?”

Stilwell was prepared for the question, although he knew his answer would break his own rule about not outright lying.

“His gun was tucked into his pants,” he said. “He let go of the belt and was reaching for it when I fired.”

“Tucked into the front or back of his pants?” Harrington asked.

“The front.”

“And he was facing you when this happened?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it odd that he didn’t remove the gun before unbuckling his belt?”

“I don’t know—is it? I can’t speak for what he was thinking, only what I saw.”

“And you told us he was facing you.”

“That’s right.”

“So, facing you, on what side of his body was his gun?”

Stilwell knew that Tash had put the gun on the floor on the left side of Spivak’s body, but he also knew that only one in ten people was left-handed. He went with the percentages.

“His right side, my left,” he said.

Harrington looked down at his notes and something about his face told Stilwell that the percentages were wrong.

“That’s kind of curious,” Harrington finally said.

“How so?” Stilwell asked.

Harrington glanced sideways at his partner before answering.

“Well, we’ve had the weapon dusted and we got a palm print on the grip,” he said. “We haven’t matched it to Spivak yet, but the palm is on the left-side grip, which indicates he was left-handed. But you just told us he had it tucked in on the right side of his pants. That—”

“He had the grip turned in,” Stilwell said. “I think I said that during the walk-through.”

Harrington and Batchelor glanced at each other.

“I don’t recall that,” Batchelor said.

“Neither do I,” Harrington said. “So you’re saying his left hand came off his belt and was reaching across his body to the weapon.”

“Exactly,” Stilwell said. “He was pulling it when I discharged my weapon. Then he went down and the gun ended up on the floor.”

Both of his inquisitors looked at him silently, probably hoping he would add more detail, which they could evaluate for inconsistencies. But Stilwell said nothing more.

“Okay,” Harrington finally said. “I think we have everything we need at this point.”

He ended by officially informing Stilwell that he was relieved of duty with pay until the investigation was finished and submitted to the district attorney’s office for review. There would then be a final determination of whether the shooting was within policy and the law. Stilwell would also be required to set up an appointment with the behavioral science unit and complete a psychological evaluation before receiving a return-to-duty order.

This was the routine after an officer-involved shooting.

“We will reach out to you if we need anything else,” Harrington said.

“And Captain Corum will notify you when the investigation is concluded,” Batchelor added.

“You know how to find me,” Stilwell said. “We’re finished here?”

“Done,” Batchelor said.

Stilwell stood up and left the room. He believed he had handled the interview well, but he also knew that his future was in the hands of people and political forces in the department that he couldn’t control.