Take the Fourth by Jeffrey Walton Read Free Book Online

for straws as to his predicament, as to why he was sitting in the room down at the police station. Detective Lynch was starting to question himself as well and stopped with the questions for a few moments while he gathered his thoughts. Charles glanced at his yellow pad of paper and his notes from the previous interviews, he flipped a few pages, flipped again… and looked at the table and again at his notes. His notes from the last interview stated a man with a red baseball cap was seen at the playground—on the table in front of the twenty year old, laid a Philadelphia Phillies baseball cap, bright red, with a white “P”. He was ready to start questioning again.
    “When you rode around, where else did you go?”
    “Just to the mall I said, I wanted to get new sneaks, but didn’t have enough money, they were like eighty dollars. I even parked the car way out of the way as it wouldn’t get scratched or something.”
    “How much were the sneakers?”
    “Eighty dollars.”
    “Wow, that’s a lot for sneakers… Did you drive around the vicinity of Ash and Georgia?”
    “I don’t know where that is… I might have… I don’t know.”
    “So you just went to the mall and nowhere else, you didn’t stop for a hot dog, or watch kids play at the park, or stop and get gas?”
    “No, none of that.”
    “What if I were to tell you, that this car was seen at the playground by Ash and Georgia?”
    “I said before, it’s possible, I don’t know where that is.”
    “Your car was last seen at Ash and Georgia, a playground is nearby, a young child was taken, kidnapped, a five year old.”
    He was grabbing for air, he didn’t know how to respond . . “I… I…”
    “Have you seen her? Did you take her! Where is she? Where, where is she!,” as Lynch stood up and was pounding on the table, letting his emotions get the better part of him and he knew he just made a grave mistake in the interview process. He let it slipped that the victim was a girl.
    “I… I… . don’t, . . . don’t know… what you are talking about,” as his voice started to grow shaky and scared.
    “Damn it you, you better come clean, right now, goddamnit, right now!” in a voice that could be heard down the hall.
    “I… I… I . .swear to you… I swear,” with the last part barely audible over breathless sobs.
    Detective Lynch watched his reaction and eased back into his chair. He was beginning to think he was on a wild goose chase, his gut told him so, and he always listened to his gut… not just because it was the biggest part of him. He glanced over his yellow tablet again and didn’t say a word; he was just about to write the time down on his yellow pad indicating the interview was over when he glanced at the contents of the pockets.
    “You said you were at the mall.”
    A very quiet “Yes,” was heard.
    “You were going to buy sneakers,” more of a statement of facts then a question
    “Yes,” shaking his head at the same time.
    “You said, they were eighty dollars and you didn’t have enough money.”
    “Yes,” again shaking his head at the same time.
    “Curious, why didn’t you buy them?”
    “I didn’t have enough money, I was short a few bucks.”
    “You bad at math?”
    “Huh, . . . bad at math . .no, no, not that bad, I measure angles, square footage and stuff like that.”
    “Well, on the table you have eighty-seven dollars and some change… that’s clearly enough for your sneaks, expensive as they may be.”
    “At the time I was going to buy them I didn’t have enough money.”
    “Did you raid your dad’s… I mean step dad’s cookie jar when you got back home?”
    “No.”
    “Visit an atm machine on your way home?”
    “No.”
    “Just curious, then where did you get the extra money?”
    “Some guy.”
    “What do you mean some guy?”
    “Some guy came up to me at a stop sign and asked what year my car was, he said seventy-four was the same year as his old one, then he handed me ten