Page 19 of So Lethal (Faith Bold #22)
Rebecca's brow furrowed slightly, but she kept her bright smile as she took one of the desk chairs. Faith took the other one, and Michael sat on the edge of one of the two queen beds.
“So you volunteer at the community center in addition to your job with the ASL interpreter service?” Faith asked.
“I do. Is that how you heard about us?”
“Actually, no. Your firm was recommended by Detective Ferris of the San Jose Police Department.”
“Ah. Yes, we do a lot of work for them.”
“We heard about your work at the community center through their website,” Faith explained. “I understand that you hosted a career fair for the hearing impaired a few months ago.”
Rebecca’s brow furrowed again. “Yes, I did.”
“And the following week, you moderated a support group for the hearing impaired.”
“I… yes, the support group leader was out with the flu. May I ask what this is about?”
“Do you remember Monica Smith, James Porter, and Sarah Martinez?” Michael asked.
Rebecca looked between the two agents and then at Turk, who stood in between them, tail switching slowly back and forth.
Her eyes narrowed further. “I remember Monica Smith from the career fair. She was a graphic designer and amateur artist. There was a woman named Sarah in the support group who was involved in an altercation with another member of the group. I don’t remember her last name, and I don’t remember a James Porter.
Can I ask what this is about? I thought I was here to provide interpretation services for you. ”
“We’ll talk about that in a moment,” Faith said. “I’ll answer your question, though. Monica Smith, James Porter, and Sarah Martinez were all murdered over the past several days. They were strangled to death by a rubber ligature, probably a tourniquet.”
Rebecca blinked. Her eyes widened. “I remember now. This was on the news. I didn’t pay attention to the names, but now I get it.
” She took a deep breath and chuckled slightly.
“Sorry. I thought I was in trouble for a second. I’ll help out anyway I can.
I didn’t know them well, but if there’s anything I can do to help you guys catch the people who did this, I will. ”
“I appreciate that,” Faith replied. “Can you tell me where you were last night?”
Rebecca’s smile faded. “Oh my God. You think I killed them?”
“We’re just asking where you were,” Faith demurred. “We’re not charging you with anything. We’re just going through standard questions we always ask people of interest.”
“Well… If this is an interrogation, I would prefer to have a lawyer present.”
Faith lifted her hands. “Like I said, we’re not charging you with anything right now. It’ll just help us clear your name from the list if you can confirm your whereabouts.”
“Why did you have me come out here? Why wouldn’t you come to the office?”
Rebecca's voice was loud, and her words clipped.
She was getting nervous. It wasn't a sure sign of guilt, but that coupled with her evasion of the question definitely made Faith suspicious.
"If you can provide an alibi for last night, then it'll be clear to me that you're not our killer. That's all I'm asking you to do."
“Okay,” Rebecca snapped, getting to her feet. “This is… I can’t believe this. I want a lawyer. You guys are literally assuming I’m the killer because I happened to be in the same place as these guys months before their murders?”
“You happen to be the only person so far who has had contact with all three of our victims,” Faith said.
“You would have had contact information for Monica Smith and James Porter because of their involvement with the event. You wouldn’t need Sarah Martinez’s address because you knew that she would be at the South Bay Community Center every Tuesday night.
It wouldn’t take much work to figure out that she parked on the tenth floor so she didn’t have to interact with other people when she left the session. ”
Rebecca pointed a finger at Faith’s nose. “This conversation is over. Screw both of you. Damned power-tripping asshole cops.”
“Quite the temper you have,” Faith observed.
Rebecca threw her hands in the air and shook her head at the ceiling as though to ask Heaven, are you hearing this? She turned on her heel and took two steps toward the door when Michael said, “Hey, Rebecca, why did you leave the San Leandro School for the Deaf?”
Rebecca froze and stiffened. Faith lifted an eyebrow and leaned forward. “Rebecca?”
Her lips trembled. She lifted a hand toward the handle but stopped before she grabbed it.
“Would it help if I said that I already know?” Michael asked.
She lowered her hand and turned toward them. Her face was white as a sheet. “If you already know, then why are you asking me?”
She looked like she meant that to be forceful, but her voice was thin and trembling when she asked that question.
Michael kept his own tone gentle but his expression firm.
“I’d like to know if we can count on your honesty.
Otherwise, we’ll proceed with charges and go through the process of gathering hard evidence. ”
Faith controlled her reaction. Michael was bluffing—rather dangerously in Faith’s opinion. They didn’t have remotely enough to charge Rebecca with a crime. Michael was banking that Rebecca’s anxiety would cause her to want to talk to them and get this over with as soon as possible.
And his bluff paid off. Rebecca took a shuddering breath and said, “I was fired for assault—I got into a fight with another teacher.”
Michael nodded. “That’s what I see here too.”
“What was the fight about?” Faith asked.
Rebecca rolled her eyes. Now that she had decided to talk, some of her anxiety had receded, replaced with anger. “She and I disagreed on the necessity of cochlear implants for the hearing impaired.”
Faith raised her eyebrows and shared a look with Michael. Marcus Wolfe had caused trouble at the support group because of his frustration at being unable to procure those implants. “What was the disagreement? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Rebecca sighed. “She believed that the more advanced systems could eventually eliminate hearing impairment. The word she used was ‘cure.’”
Her lip curled slightly upward when she said that. “And you didn’t agree?” Faith prompted.
“I don’t agree that deaf people need to be cured,” Rebecca replied. “I don’t even like calling them impaired. An impairment is something that makes it difficult for you to function in your everyday life.”
“You don’t think being unable to hear well qualifies?”
“It shouldn’t. I mean, it’s so easy to make the world accessible to deaf people. You know those crosswalks that speak so that blind people can hear when to cross?”
“I’m familiar,” Faith said.
"Well, we can do the same for deaf people, and it would be even easier.
Sight is already the most important of our senses.
So, just make things visible. Require subtitles or closed captioning for all news broadcasts.
Send emergency notifications by text. Use flashing lights and vibration for alarms instead of just sound. "
“We already have all of those things, don’t we?” Michael reminded her.
“We do, but it’s not as ubiquitous as it should be,” Rebecca replied.
Her anxiety was completely gone now, focused as she was on an issue she was passionate about and not the fact that two FBI agents were questioning her about multiple murders.
“But even so, that supports my point. Deaf people can live perfectly ordinary lives. That was the whole point of the career fair. Hearing loss isn’t an impairment.
It’s not a disability. It’s not a syndrome .
It's like how some people can see without glasses, and some people need glasses.
Do we call those people visually impaired? "
“Yes.”
Rebecca’s jaw tightened. She really did have trouble controlling her temper, especially when people disagreed with her.
Faith could easily imagine another teacher pointing out a flaw in her argument and Rebecca losing control.
She wondered what would be happening right now if they weren’t FBI agents.
"My point is that I think it's unhelpful to teach people with hearing loss as though they're less than.
Instead of spending all of this money trying to make them like us, why don't we spend the money teaching society to accept them for who they are?
It's not even about cochlear implants. It's about treating people like they're human even if they aren't exactly the same as we are. "
“Bit of a stretch to call them a protected class, don’t you think?” Michael asked.
“Oh, are you deaf?” Rebecca asked sarcastically. “Do you know what they go through?”
“Are you deaf?” Faith replied coldly. “Do you know what it’s like to be able to hear one day, then not hear the next?”
Rebecca blinked. “Well… That’s… I mean, hearing loss is different from deafness.”
“We’re getting off track here,” Michael said. “Do you have an alibi for last night or no.”
Rebecca shook her head and looked up at the ceiling. She opened her mouth to respond, but just then, Faith’s ears began to whine. This one was far worse than the past events, powerful enough that Faith winced and brought a hand to her ear.
She noticed Rebecca and Michael both looking at her with concern. Michael said something, but the whine was still too powerful for Faith to hear through.
Then Turk barked. Faith knew he did because she saw his mouth open, but she didn’t hear the sound at all. Turk, like most German Shepherds, had a loud, powerful bark that carried for dozens of yards. Faith didn’t hear it at all.
Fear gripped her, twisting her spine and driving the air from her lungs. Before she was entirely aware of what she was doing, she was on her feet and rushing from the hotel room.
Her heart thumped, and the sensation of it pounding in her chest was close enough to sound that she clung to it as she reached the elevator. She pressed the button several times, but when she saw the floor indicator showing that the elevator was ten floors below her, she took the stairs instead.
The pounding of her feet as she descended was like sound too, but not really. Nothing was like sound. Sound was like sound. That was it.
Faith knew then that she had taken sound for granted her entire life. She had an idea now what Marcus Wolfe must have felt as he picked himself up from that gas explosion and realized that the ringing in his ears was the last thing he was ever going to hear.
She sobbed, the noise a gasp as much as a cry.
When she realized that she had heard that sound and not just felt it, she sobbed again—this time with relief—and collapsed on a landing.
She heard Turk barking, and a moment later, he pressed himself against her.
She held him tightly, clinging to his warmth and the softness of his fur, breathing deeply until her own heart calmed.
Her phone was ringing. Michael.
Seeing his name, embarrassment started to set in. She had lost her hearing for a few minutes and collapsed into a nervous wreck. It was just a little tinnitus, and it had just started. There was time to deal with it. She’d see a doctor as soon as she got home.
Get your shit together, Faith.
She answered, and Michael asked, “What’s going on? Are you all right?”
“Yeah, sorry,” she said. “I got a headache all of a sudden.”
“That’s not a headache. You ran from the room and down the stairs. If it hurts that bad, you need to get to the hospital stat.”
“No, it’s…” she rolled her eyes. “Look, my ears started ringing, okay?”
Michael was quiet for a moment before he said, “Your ears started ringing ?”
His attitude cut her. “It was scary, all right? I couldn’t hear for a minute.
” Her voice sounded plaintive and weak, and she felt a surge of anger.
“I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I freaked out, and I didn’t think about what I was doing.
Let me take a moment to calm down, and then we can keep interviewing Rebecca. ”
“I finished interviewing her. She has an alibi for last night.”
“You finished her? That quickly?”
“She gave one to both of us,” Michael said. “You’re tinnitus must have started off when she gave us that information. When you didn’t answer my first three phone calls, I confirmed the alibi before calling again. She’s clean.”
Faith slumped forward and sighed. “Right. Okay. Let’s go talk to Wolfe.”
“Okay,” Michael replied. “No problem. Call me when you’re on your way back to the room.”
He hung up, and Faith buried her face in her hands. She didn’t weep this time, but the burning she felt on her cheeks wasn’t much better.
This was now a race to see which would break first: the case or Faith’s hearing.