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The clock ticks on, darkness falls outside the station, and now, Fletch and I sit inside Interview Room Two and face Gage Steerer.
After the first couple of hours talking with Garret, I realized he’s here for a long time, not a good time, so Fletch and I decided to switch things up and move between rooms. We’d talk to Garret for an hour, and then we’d talk to Gage.
The second, while a little older, is clearly the shakier of the two.
“So we went upstairs.” He holds a tissue between his fingers and plucks bits off to ball up and leave on the table. “I was carrying a piece of steel from the back of Garret’s car.”
“A piece of steel?” Fletch leans forward and rests his elbows on the table as he waits for Gage’s blue eyes. “Can you describe it exactly?”
“Um…” His voice cracks on that single syllable, while just on the other side of the four walls surrounding us, the pit hums with activity as the next shift comes on and the previous one packs away for the day. “L-like, a tire wrench,” he stammers. Balling the tissue in his palm, he opens his hands and holds them about a foot apart. “Maybe, like, two feet long, with the pronged end.” He looks at me and blinks owlishly. “It was maybe an inch thick all the way around.”
“Alright.” I write shorthand in a notebook—not to help me keep track of information I’m perfectly capable of locking in my brain, but to ease off the guy pissing his pants on the other side of the table.
I rarely look at the book when running a case, but it helps Gage when I’m not staring deep into his soul while he tries to speak.
“What was Garret carrying?” I ask.
“His axe.”
“Big one?” Fletch inserts. “Small one?”
We already got Garret’s description of the axe. But who the fuck brutally murders a guy and then immediately turns themselves in? Whatever angle these guys are working, we’ll find the catch in the small details.
“Was it long?” Fletch continues. “Short?”
“It was kinda small-ish,” Gage murmurs. “Not the kind you’d take out to chop wood for the winter, but it wasn’t tiny either.”
“Can you tell us how big the blade was?” I stare down at my scribbles again to take pressure off the guy. “The steel part of Garret’s axe. How big was it?”
“I-I dunno.” He pauses and clears his throat. “Um… maybe three inches for the tip of the axe. Probably six inches long.”
“And the handle?” Fletch presses. “How long was the handle?”
“Two and half feet. Maybe three.”
“Alright.” Glancing up, I gently smile for the guy who will spend his life in prison—because he’s going away, of that, I’m sure, but he’s just a pup, and he’s scared. “So you and Garret entered Mr. McGregor’s home through the front door, right?”
Gage only nods.
“Did you close the door or leave it open?”
“Closed it,” he answers immediately. “Garret closed it.”
“Did you go upstairs right away, or stay downstairs?”
“We stayed down for just a minute.” Lowering his hands to the table, he goes back to shredding the tissue. “Just a minute so we could talk.”
“What did you talk about?” Fletch asks. “Who spoke, and what was said?”
“Garret asked me if I was okay. And then he said I didn’t have to go through with it. He said I could go outside and not get involved.”
“Those were his exact words?” I set my pen on top of my notebook and wait for his eyes. “Were those his exact words?”
“No, I…” He quivers under my study. “No. I don’t remember his exact words anymore. But he was s-saying I could go away and not be involved.”
“So why’d you stay?” Fletch pushes up to stand and makes his way to the water cooler in the corner of the room.
