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She asked, “How are you feeling, Mr. Hudson?”
“Like dog shit. How are you?”
A penciled eyebrow arched. She glanced at Perkins, who didn’t react at all. When she came back to Calder, she said, “I don’t think that response needs elaboration.”
“What’s CID?”
“Criminal Investigations Division.”
“You’re here to ask me about the shooting?”
“A necessary evil. Perkins and I understand how difficult this is.”
“So why put me through it now?”
“This is only a preliminary interview. We’ll keep it brief.”
Calder gave a terse nod. He wanted them gone, but he’d been haunted by a question he had to ask. “How many casualties were there?”
“Counting you, twelve wounded, three of those are in critical condition. Five fatalities including the suspect. He died at the scene. Self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
Good, Calder thought but didn’t say it out loud. “Who was he? What was his beef?”
“We haven’t yet released his name, because he was a minor.”
“A minor?”
“Sixteen.”
“Shit.”
“But he’d been booked twice for breaking and entering, once for petty theft, once for selling pot to his friends in middle school. He served two stints in juvie and officially dropped out of high school last year. The day before yesterday, he was hired by the fair to work one of the games on the midway.”
Speaking for the first time, Perkins added a footnote. “As to what his beef was, we’re trying to determine that.”
“Maybe he didn’t need a beef,” Calder said with scorn. The guy sounded like a loser wanting to generate some respect and recognition for himself, so he went on a shooting spree, killing four people and counting. Calder wished he could peel the skin off the son of a bitch inch by inch. “Was he whacked out on drugs?”
“The autopsy will tell,” Compton said. “But he had to pass a drug test before he was hired.”
“Those can be rigged.”
The agents nodded in grim agreement. Compton said, “We’re trying to ascertain what his motivation was, so we need to talk to anybody who might have seen or heard something that would give us a hint. Like if you saw him beforehand in an altercation with someone.”
“I didn’t make it as far as the midway, and I didn’t see an altercation of any kind.”
“I was just using that as an example,” she said. “Talk us through your experience.”
“Now?”
“We’ll keep it brief.”
So she’d said, but already this preliminary interview had lasted too long. His head was killing him, so was his arm, and his stomach was still queasy. Maybe he should have submitted to the suppository.
He despised being utterly helpless. The detectives had the leverage, the authority, and their facial expressions were as implacable as those on Mount Rushmore, so he had just as well recount what he remembered and get it over with.
“I got to the fairground about—”
Perkins cut him off. “We’d like some background on you first.”
