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“You understand how this looks, given why we’re here, right?” she said.
But he said nothing. Williams shook his head and looked down to his handcuffs.
“Mr. Williams,” Sullivan said. “You took a swing at a detective and we spent a grand total of five minutes in your house and already found other things that, quite frankly, don’t look good for you. I suggest you start talking now, or we can do it in an interrogation room down at the station."
He looked to them with an expression Rachel was pretty sure was supposed to look defiant, but there was too much sadness in his eyes to pull it off.
“Well, what are we waiting for then?” he said, still trying to look stubborn and determined. “Let’s get to the station.”
***
“Still don’t want to talk to us, Mr. Williams?” Sullivan asked as he drove them back to the station.
“No.”
“Would you like to tell us about the email you sent to the Department of Health and Human Services? It was quite professional, but very angry.”
His face tightened, and she was certain she would get some sort of comment out of him, but he bit his tongue. He remained quiet as they finished the ride to the station. Night had fallen over the city, the streets glistening in the day's rainfall. Sullivan parked behind the station and led Rachel through a back door while escorting the still-cuffed Gary Williams along.
The back door opened up onto a hallway that ran along the back of the building. Sullivan took an immediate tight upon coming through the door. He walked about halfway down the hall and came to a stop at the first of three doors. It opened up onto a generic-looking interrogation room: basic white, tiled floors, a two-way mirror on the left, and a glaring white light overhead. The table sitting against the back wall with just enough room between it and the wall for a single chair looked very old, showing the wear and tear of countless conversations that had come before.
“Okay, we’re here,” Sullivan said. “And now things get a bit more complicated for you…depending on whether or not you cooperate.”
“I’ve already told you! All you need to know is—”
“Is that your son is dead,” Rachel interrupted. “Yes, we know. We know because we saw it in the reports we were looking through. And if that’s the only reasoning you have for having sent that barbed email to the Department of Health and Human Services and a list of doctors that includes two who have been recently murdered, things are going to get very bad for you. So I suggest you talk. Our questions are very simple if you’d take the time to listen.”
“She’s right,” Sullivan said. “I don’t know if you understand just how much potential trouble you could be in if you continue to be difficult. Two doctors are dead. One of them had you and your son’s name in their records. And now we have a list taken from your home with the names of two dead women…women who worked in a field you’re blaming for your son’s death.”
Both Rachel and Sullivan fell quiet, letting the weight of the situation sink in. Williams looked slightly rocked, his eyes and mouth unable to decide on a singular emotion.
“I didn’t kill those women,” he said.
“In the email I read in your house,” Rachel said, “you referred to any research having to do with stem cells as, and I quote, ‘a deplorable afront to God where doctors and scientists are more concerned with breaking new ground and raising donations and finds rather than saving actual human lives.’ Do you still believe that?”
“Yes,” he said in a near whisper. Tears had started to form and pool up on his eyes.
Rachel stepped closer to the table and made sure to lower her voice in a respectful tone. “What happened with your son?”
Williams blinked the tears loose and wiped them away. “He had…he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma at the age of seven. It’s a rare condition where cancer pops up in plasma cells and multiplies. By the time we had any real answers, his kidneys were almost entirely shot. We were referred to two specialists, one of whom was right here in town…Dr. Adler. She didn’t waste any time…”
He stopped for a moment, sneering at the memory as he wiped more tears away. "She didn't waste any time pushing us toward stem-cell treatments. To her credit, I do believe that she firmly believed it would work, and all of the research and studies she presented were almost too good to be true. So that's what we did. Blake underwent stem-cell treatment. About a month later, all of his tests came back looking very promising. He was more active and happier than I'd seen him in months. Two more weeks, the news was even better. And then there was a night…about nine weeks after the treatments, when he woke up screaming. He said he was in tremendous pain, horrible pain. So I called for an ambulance, and we went to the hospital. Three days later, his kidneys were shot. Dr. Adler and some of her assistants came in and out of the room as his immune system also started to fail.
"He was dead four days later after arriving at the hospital. I never got straight answers from Adler about why it happened. All I got was a lot of I don’t know, and this just doesn’t make sense. But she sure as hell asked if she could take blood samples to try to figure it out. She claimed it could help them make improvements…could prevent this from happening to anyone else.”
"And did you allow it?" Rachel asked.
“Hell no. That was thirteen months ago, and I’ve been fighting against the use of stem-cells ever since. Petitions, writing letters to the government like the one you found. That list was the names of doctors I’d found online…doctors in the state of Washington who specialize in stem-cells and stem-cell research.”
“Have you had any contact with Dr. Adler since your son’s passing?” Sullivan asked.
With an almost embarrassed look on his face, Williams said, “I called her offices several times at the start…when things were bad. My wife…she…she OD’ed after Blake died. I refuse to think she killed herself, but…but that’s how it seems. And when I lost her, I…I snapped. Yeah, I made some calls I shouldn’t have. I rode by the offices and on one occasion had an altercation with security guards. But, no…I never actually saw or spoke to Dr. Adler.”
The flow and emotion of the entire story had Rachel thinking there was no way this man was capable of murder. He was simply hurting and emotionally drained. He’d been living alone in that cabin for a year, nursing the loss of a son and wife. And she was starting to think that maybe he’d wanted them to arrest him and bring him in. She’d seen it before; sometimes suspects wanted that attention in the hopes that their beliefs or cause would get the same level of spotlight.
So no…she didn’t think Gary Williams killed Emma Willis and Jane Adler. And she also knew there was a very easy way to find out.
"Mr. Williams, can you tell us where you were and what you were doing toe nights ago—preferably between ten and eleven-thirty?"
