The Unknowing by Trey R. Barker

Author:Trey R. Barker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

Chapter 28

A few minutes after nine, about ten minutes after Merle Reed walked out of the jail and left Wes out of breath behind his desk, Darlene buzzed down that Mitchell Wilton was in the lobby. Wes ushered Mitchell through the squad room and downstairs to a small room with a single table and boxes stacked against the far wall. A short man—his name was Allard and Wes had used him a few times—had arrived a few minutes earlier and now sat next to what looked like a sleek silver briefcase with a mass of wires coming from it. A roll of paper spat out one end, and three thin arms, situated about the middle of the machine, hung over the middle of the paper. When Mitchell entered, Allard indicated the empty chair.

“Have you ever had a polygraph examination?” Allard asked, his tone strictly business.

“Yeah, morning to you, too, pal.” Mitchell sat heavily and crossed his legs tightly.

“Have you ever had a polygraph examination?”

“Nope.”

“Mitchell’s here to help us figure out who killed Suzanne.” Wes had let Allard read through the case file so he knew what was going on.

Allard looked from Wes to Mitchell, then back again. “So he’s not a suspect?”

“Not in the least. He’s one of the last people to see Suzanne alive.”

“Well, then.” Allard sat back, his body language soft and friendly suddenly. “That changes things, doesn’t it? Okay, lemme explain what we’ve got going on here. We’re going to try and determine veracity in regard to a series of questions. I’ll measure autonomic responses to such questions, including breathing, blood pressure, pulse, and skin conductivity.”

Mitchell swallowed. “And that’ll tell you if I’m lying.”

Allard shook his head. Wes had watched him work before. In cases like this, where someone was a suspect, but Wes needed as much cooperation as possible, Allard played his hand soft. He never referred to the suspect singly. It was always the plural pronoun. We and us. He did it to build a relationship of allies, men working together to find someone else who had committed a crime.

“It’s not a matter of lying, it’s a matter of probing memory and making sure that everything that can be remembered is remembered so that we can move our investigation forward. Sometimes people remember more than they realize.”

Mitchell looked at Wes, confusion as ripe as a sweet April nectarine. “This ain’t what I thought it was.”

“It’s just like I told you, Mitchell. This gets us to Suzanne’s killers…be it some random guy or like you said…Mama.”

“Mama your suspect?” Allard asked.

“Mama’s the doer,” Wes said with some heat.

“Then let’s get her ass.” Allard began moving wires about. “You and I are going to do a series of control questions. When I tell you to lie, I want you to lie.”

“Huh? I thought you wanted the truth.”

Grinning as though the two shared some risqué secret, Allard tapped the mass of wires. “Gotta make sure our magic box is working right.”

The questions to which Mitchell would lie were designed to measure Mitchell’s baseline responses.

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