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Michael and Faith sat across from Kevin MacGregor, arms folded. Kevin had spent the first hour of his incarceration screaming and struggling, only calming when Derek threatened to have him sedated. The two police officers were behind the two-way mirror now, their two hours of questioning establishing nothing more than Kevin’s fervent insistence that they needed a warrant.
He sniffled and once more said, “You don’t have a warrant. You need a warrant.”
“No,” Michael said, “we don’t. You ran from my partner on the street when our K9 positively identified you as the murderer, and when we came to your house to talk to you, you assaulted me. Frankly, the assault is enough. We can keep you here indefinitely just for that.”
That wasn’t true at all, but lying to suspects was an unfortunately common part of interrogation, especially with flight risks. If Kevin didn’t buy it, they could charge him with assault, but then it would become a long, drawn-out process involving attorneys and court dates and officially taking him into Tucson PD custody. If they could avoid that and get answers now, it could save them time and trouble. If Kevin turned out not to be their killer, it could save lives too.
“I assaulted you because you tried to arrest me without a warrant!”
“No,” Michael said, “we didn’t. We arrested you after you assaulted me. Now look, I’m a reasonable guy. I haven’t pressed charges yet, and I don’t have to. If you talk to us honestly now, then I don’t need to bring you up for assault on a FBI agent.”
If he were in his right mind, Kevin would have easily understood that confessing to murder would land him in far more trouble than confessing to assault, but the more agitated he became, the clearer it was to Faith that he wasn’t in his right mind. She knew that often times, patients weren’t truly rehabilitated but managed to a state of compliance that would allow the facility to convincingly take them off of the public’s expense and free a bed for a private citizen whose families could be convinced to pay far more than the government would.
And that’s how killers made it back to the streets.
“I’ll take your silence as a sign you want to work with us,” Michael said, “which is just fantastic. To start, can you tell me where you were on the night of September eighteenth?”
Kevin sniffled and stuck his lip out in a pout. “I was at home,” he said.
“What time did you get home?” Michael asked.
Kevin shrugged. “I don’t know, seven or eight.”
“When did you leave work?”
His eyes shifted. “My shift ended at five.”
“Ah, but you left before then, didn’t you?”
“No,” he said, wiping his nose. “I left at five.”
“Really? That’s interesting. When I talked to Darla, she said you left hours earlier. In fact, she said you never came back from lunch. Now when would that break be? One? Two? That leaves six hours from the time you left work to the time you got home. What might you have been doing with your time?”
“I don’t know,” Kevin said. He began to fold his arms over his chest and rock back and forth in his chair.
“I think you do,” Michael continued. “I think you know exactly what you were doing. I think you went to Elmore Holland’s place and stabbed him to death, then stole his wedding ring.”
Kevin shook his head from side to side in an almost childish manner. “Nope,” he said. “No, I didn’t. No sir.”
“Hmm,” Michael said. “How about the night of the fourteenth? What were you doing then?”
“I was home,” he said. “Got there at five-thirty, right after my shift.”
Faith checked her email. Darla had sent Kevin’s attendance record as asked. She showed the record to Michael, and Michael shook his head. He lifted his hand and let it drop. “Kevin, why are you lying to me? You know we talked to your boss.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, no, no.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Michael said, “and what do you know? You left early again, this time even earlier. Eleven a.m. So, let’s say you’re telling me the truth, and you got home at five-thirty. Once more, that’s six hours plus unaccounted for. It’s also the night Amanda Montgomery was killed in her bathroom. Her wedding ring was stolen too. You like rings, Kevin.”
“Nope,” Kevin said, putting his hands over his ears and rocking harder. “No, I didn’t kill her.”
“I think you did,” Michael said. “I think you killed her, and I think on September ninth when you left work—he glanced at the phone—make that didn’t show up to work at all, I think you killed Katherine Navarro too.”
Kevin started humming under his breath, refusing to make eye contact with Michael. “I didn’t kill anyone,” he said in between hums. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Sure you didn’t,” Michael said. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. We’re going to charge you with murder. We’re going to match your DNA to the DNA found at the crime scene. We’re going to search your house, and unless you’re smart enough that you ditched the rings in a public trash can, we’re going to find them, and you’re going to spend the rest of your life somewhere you can’t hurt anyone else.”
“I didn’t kill my wife,” Kevin said, still hugging his chest and rocking back and forth. “I didn’t kill those women. No sir.”
