House Rules Read online

  Whatever words I am using, though, are falling short, since Detective Matson doesn't understand me. So I decide to take a drastic step, to show him the inside of my mind right here and right now. I take a deep breath, and then I stare directly into his eyes.

  It's like having strips of my skin pulled off from the inside. Like needles in every nerve center of the brain.

  God, it hurts.

  --That was an accident,|| I whisper. --But I saved it. I put it in her pocket.||

  Another truth, but one that makes him jump in his seat. I'm sure he can hear my pulse as loudly as I can. That's a sign of arrhythmia. I hope I do not die right here in Detective Matson's office.

  My eyes slide to his left, his right, and then up--anywhere so that I don't have to see him directly again. That's when I notice the clock, and realize that it's 4:17.

  Without any traffic it takes sixteen minutes to get from the police station to my house. That means we will not get home till 4:33, and CrimeBusters begins at 4:30. I stand up, both of my hands fluttering in front of my chest like hummingbirds, but I don't even care anymore about trying to stop them. It feels like the moment on the TV show when the perp finally caves in and falls to the metal table, sobbing with guilt. I want to be watching that TV show, instead of living it. --Are we done now?|| I ask. --Because I really have to go.||

  Detective Matson gets up, and I think he might open the door for me, but instead he blocks my exit and leans closer, until he is too close for me to breathe, because what if I wind up with some of the air that he exhaled? --Did you know you fractured her skull?|| he says. --Did that happen at the same time you knocked out her tooth?||

  I close my eyes. --I don't know.||

  --What about her underwear? You put it on backward, didn't you?||

  At that, my head whips up. --It was on backward?|| How was I supposed to know?

  There were no labels, like there are in my boxer shorts. Shouldn't the graphic of the butterfly have gone on the front, rather than back?

  --Did you take her underwear off her, too?||

  --No, you just said it was on her ...||

  --Did you try to have sex with her, Jacob?|| the detective asks.

  I am utterly silent. Just thinking about that makes my tongue swell up like a monkey's fist knot.

  --Answer me, goddammit!|| he yells.

  I scramble for words, any words, because I do not want him to yell at me again. I will tell him that I had sex with Jess eighty times that night if that's what he needs to hear, if that makes him open the door.

  --You moved her after she died, Jacob, didn't you?||

  --Yes! Of course I moved her!|| Isn't that obvious?

  --Why?||

  --I needed to set up the crime scene, and that's where she had to be.|| He, of all people, should understand.

  Detective Matson tilts his head. --Is that why you did this? You wanted to commit a crime and see if you could get away with it?||

  --No, that's not why--||

  --Then what is?|| he interrupts.

  I try to find a way to put into words all the reasons I have done what I did. But if there is one subject I do not understand--not internally, much less externally--it's the ties that bind us to each other. --Love means never having to say you're sorry,|| I mutter.

  --Is this a joke to you? Some big joke? Because I don't see it that way. A girl's dead, and there's nothing funny about that.|| He comes closer, until his arm is brushing mine, and I can barely concentrate because of the buzzing in my head. --Tell me, Jacob,|| he says.

  --Tell me why you killed Jess.||

  Suddenly the door slams open, striking him in the shoulder. --Don't answer that,|| a strange man yells. Behind him stands my mother, and behind her are two uniformed officers, who have just raced down the hall, too.

  --Who the hell are you?|| Detective Matson asks.

  --I'm Jacob's attorney.||

  --Oh, really,|| he says. --Jacob, is this your lawyer?||

  I glance at the man. He's wearing khaki pants and a dress shirt but no tie. He has sandy hair that reminds me of Theo's and looks too young to be a real lawyer. --No,|| I reply.

  The detective smiles triumphantly. --He's eighteen years old, Counselor. He says you're not his lawyer, and he hasn't asked for one.||

  I am not stupid. I've watched enough CrimeBusters to know where this is headed. --I want a lawyer,|| I announce.

  Detective Matson throws up his hands.

  --We're leaving now.|| My mother elbows her way closer. I reach for my coat, which is still draped over the back of the chair.

  --Mr. ... what's your name?|| the detective asks.

  --Bond,|| my new lawyer says. --Oliver Bond.|| He grins at me.

  --Mr. Bond, your client is being charged with the murder of Jessica Ogilvy,||

  Detective Matson says. --He's not going anywhere.||

  CASE 5: THE NOT-SO-GOOD DOCTOR

  Kay Sybers was fifty-two years old and, by anyone's standards, unhealthy. She'd been a smoker years ago; she was overweight. But she didn't show signs of medical problems until one evening in 1991, when (after a dinner of prime rib and Chardonnay) she had trouble breathing and developed shooting pain down her left arm. Those are classic signs of a heart attack--something her husband, Bill, should have recognized. After all, he was a Florida physician who doubled as the county coroner. Instead of calling an ambulance or whisking her to the ER, though, he attempted to draw blood from her arm. He wanted to run a few tests that day at work, he said. Yet hours later, Kay was dead. Concluding that she had died from a coronary, Bill Sybers decided against an autopsy.

  A day later, based on an anonymous tip of suspicious activity, Kay Sybers was scheduled for autopsy. The toxicology reports came back inconclusive, and Kay was buried. However, suspicions arose again when rumors circulated that Bill Sybers was sleeping with a lab technician at his workplace. Kay's body was exhumed, and forensic toxicologist Kevin Ballard screened for succinylcholine, a drug that increases the release of potassium and paralyzes the muscles, including the diaphragm. In the tissues, he discovered succinylmonocholine, a by-product of succinylcholine and proof of the poison's presence in Kay's body.

  Ironically, although Bill Sybers seemed in a hurry to bury his wife and hide the evidence, the embalming process helped preserve the succinylmonocholine and made it easier to detect.

  5

  Rich

  The minute after I arrest Jacob Hunt, all hell breaks loose. His mother cries out and starts shouting at the same moment that I put my hand on Jacob's shoulder to lead him back to the room where we do our fingerprints and mug shots--but from his reaction, you would have thought I'd just run him through with a sword. He takes a swing at me, which sets off his lawyer, who--being a lawyer--is no doubt already wondering how to keep his client from being charged for assault on an officer as well. --Jacob!|| his mother shrieks, and then she grabs my arm. --Don't touch him. He doesn't like to be touched.||

  I gingerly test my jaw where he's decked me. --Yeah, well, I don't like to be punched,|| I mutter, and I twist Jacob's arms behind his back and handcuff him. --I need to type up some paperwork for your son. Then we'll drive him down to the courthouse for his arraignment.||

  --He can't handle all this,|| Emma argues. --At least let me stay with him, so that he knows it's going to be all right--||

  --You can't,|| I say flatly.

  --You wouldn't interrogate someone deaf without an interpreter!||

  --With all due respect, ma'am, your son isn't deaf.|| I meet her gaze. --If you don't leave, I'm going to arrest you as well.||

  --Emma,|| the lawyer murmurs, taking her arm.

  --Let go of me,|| she says, shaking him off. She takes a step toward her flailing son, but one of the other officers stops her.

  --Get them out of here,|| I order as I start to drag Jacob down the hall to the processing room.

  It's like trying to wrestle a bull into the backseat of a car. --Look,|| I say, --you just have to relax.|| But he is s