CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Nora followed Sheriff Sanger into the county jail. Since the FBI didn’t have detention facilities, she’d been here many times over the years to interview suspects. After arraignment, the accused generally stayed in county jail until trial; then, if convicted, they were transported to a federal penitentiary.
Nora didn’t like how Sanger had made a snap judgment on the suicides. The three could certainly have killed themselves out of guilt, but she needed more. And she needed more than Sanger’s theory that Cole was the instigator. Evidence and motive for a start.
None of this fit in with her experience. And if she couldn’t rely on her experience, what good was she on the squad?
Did she want to be right so badly that she was jeopardizing the case? She didn’t think so, but at the same time she’d had the very strong and very instant reaction that these suicides didn’t fit the mold. And while human behavior certainly couldn’t always be predicted, when someone went way off the reservation, Nora couldn’t help but question it.
“Please bring Cole to interview room two,” Sanger ordered the desk sergeant.
“He’s with his attorney in interview four.”
“It’s better this way,” Nora said.
“How the hell is it better?” growled Sanger.
She motioned for the sheriff to follow her, and the desk sergeant buzzed them into room two.
Nora faced Sanger and leaned against the table. It was better not to be too aggressive with him, but she couldn’t deny she was in a fighting mood. “Cole has never spoken to us without his attorney present. You think he’s going to suddenly open up after you arrest him?”
“I’ve known Leif Cole for years. I can get him to talk.”
“Great. Talk about conflict of interest.”
“What’s your point?”
“You and Cole have a history.”
“That has nothing to do with this.”
“Maybe not,” she said, not believing him, “but we still need information and evidence. If you honestly believe that Cole is responsible, then we need to find that evidence, because he’s sure as hell not going to confess when we have nothing.”
“But he doesn’t know what we do or don’t have.”
“If you play him wrong, he’ll never talk. He would love to bring the ACLU down on your ass, Lance. And neither you nor I want to spend our limited resources battling that giant.”
“You know what I think?” Lance said. “I think that they killed themselves to protect Leif Cole and that maybe he was the one who told them to kill Payne. Payne was a thorn in his side for years.”
If Leif Cole was guilty, Nora had been working off the wrong profile from the beginning. That was a poor excuse.
Any decent profiler knew that a psychological assessment of a suspect when you didn’t have a suspect was nothing more than a guideline; it wasn’t rigid. She’d adapted when she learned Payne had been tortured—adding in the psychopathic factor. Was Cole a psychopath? If so, she’d missed it during their previous interviews. If not, which of the three students had killed Payne? Had they been in it together? Who had been the instigator? Groups behaved differently from individuals, and anarchist cells had a small-group mentality, each member goading the others into acts of civil disobedience and felonies.
“Maybe you’re right.”
Sanger was surprised. “I didn’t think you would cave that easily. You were certain he wasn’t responsible.”
“I said maybe and what I’ve always said is that Leif Cole wasn’t involved in the arsons, but that he suspected who was. Sean Rogan said Professor Cole was involved with the student Anya Ballard.”
“We’ll have a hard time getting that admitted into court. His defense will argue that it’s hearsay.”
“Sean Rogan will make a good witness on that point,” Nora said. “Let me be the lead on this, okay?”
Lance didn’t want to cede control—Nora saw it in his face and posture—but he reluctantly relented. “All right. I wouldn’t mind seeing you in action, anyway.”
Before she could respond to that surprising statement, Leif Cole walked in with his attorney. The lawyer introduced himself as Gavin Shepherd.
Shepherd got right to the point. “My client may or may not answer your questions, depending on whether he believes it’s relevant to determining what happened to the three students in question. You should also know that I am petitioning the court for immediate release for false arrest.”
Sanger said, “False arrest? He refused to answer questions at the college, and I offered to interview him at the station. He got in my face, so I arrested him for attempting to intimidate a police officer.”
That was interesting, Nora thought. Sanger hadn’t told her the charges. And Nora thought Shepherd had a point, especially if Sanger told the judge that Cole “got in his face.” Intimidation wasn’t the same as assault, and Sanger had forty pounds and two inches on the professor.
Leif Cole slammed his palm on the table. “I asked you one simple question and you refused to answer.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Sanger said. “I ask the questions, you answer—or refuse to answer.”
Nora cleared her throat while Gavin admonished his client. “Professor, what was your question?”
“Is Anya okay? She was taken away in an ambulance. I just want to know if she’s going to be okay.”
Sanger shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Nora realized the importance Sean Rogan’s observations yesterday had on why that information was important to Cole.
She said, “I’m sorry, Professor. She died en route to the hospital.”
Cole’s body shook, his hands fisted, and his jaw moved, trying to prevent a sob from escaping. He lost that battle and the gut-wrenching cry that was pulled from his heart brought goose bumps to Nora’s skin.
She waited a long moment to give Cole time for initial grief. Her opinion about the propriety of a professor’s relationship with a student was put on the back burner; there was no doubt in her mind that Leif Cole cared deeply about Anya. This was no act.
“Why?” Cole asked, his voice rough. “Why would she kill herself?”
“Professor,” Nora said gently. “I’d like to ask you some questions about Anya and the others.”
He didn’t respond.
She plunged in. “I have a witness who said that you and Anya had an intimate relationship. Is that true?”
“That has nothing to do with this,” Shepherd said. “It is irrelevant whether my client had a sexual relationship or not with Ms. Ballard.”
“I’m trying to establish the relationship between Professor Cole and a student who died under suspicious circumstances. Let me ask it this way: Did you know Anya, Chris, and Scott outside of the classroom?”
“Yes,” Cole said.
“Did you ever think for a minute that one of them was contemplating suicide?”
“Never. Especially not Anya.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I did have a relationship with her. I loved her. She was going to move in after graduation. I know what you’re thinking, I’m forty-two and she’s twenty-two, but it worked.”
Sanger shifted in his seat and Nora shot him a look. He’d better not blow this.
“When was the last time you spoke with Anya?” Nora asked.
“Monday afternoon. In the organic garden. I tried calling her later that night, about ten or ten-thirty, after I got home from the meeting, and she didn’t answer. I knew—I didn’t think anything of it.”
“How was her disposition in the garden?” Nora asked.
“She was upset about something.”
“Do you know what?”
He didn’t answer.
Shepherd said, “My client doesn’t have to answer that.”
“If Professor Cole has information on why Anya Ballard killed herself, then yes, I think he should answer it.”
“Should is not a compelling reason,” Shepherd said.
“Did you know that Anya and the two boys were arsonists?”
“We’re not going to answer that,” the lawyer jumped in.
“Did you know that there was a fatality in the Butcher-Payne fire? That Dr. Jonah Payne died?”
Cole said, “A reporter called me Monday morning and told me about that.”
“Why would a reporter call you?” asked Nora.
“Because of you,” Cole snapped. “Your investigation keeps sniffing around me, and I’ve told you time and time again that I had nothing to do with the arsons, and I certainly had nothing to do with the Butcher-Payne arson or the death of Dr. Payne.”
“When did you find out he was murdered?”
“We’re not going to answer—” Shepherd began, but Cole cut him off.
“You would be hard-pressed to get first-degree murder from an accidental death,” Cole said.
“In acts of domestic terrorism, yes I damn well can get first-degree murder,” Nora stated evenly. “But Jonah Payne’s death wasn’t an accident.”
“What the hell are you talking about? The reporter said that Dr. Payne died in his office. I assumed he’d been working or fallen asleep there when the fire started.”
Professor Cole’s frustration seemed genuine. Nora assessed Professor Cole’s posture and eyes and she believed he believed Payne’s death had been an accident. It seemed that the first Cole had heard of Payne’s death was indeed when the reporter phoned. Things began to click into place for Nora.
“Dr. Payne’s horrible death was no accident. It was cold-blooded, premeditated murder. Payne was tortured prior to bleeding slowly to death.”
“You’re lying through your teeth, and you know it,” Cole objected. “I’m not playing these games with you, Agent English.” He began to stand, but Nora waved him down as she pulled files from her briefcase. Without comment, she laid several of the crime-scene and autopsy photos in front of him. Again, the shock on his face wasn’t faked. Leif Cole looked ill.
“You’re a smart man,” she said when she’d finished laying out the gruesome pictures. She tapped the photo of Dr. Payne in his office, lying on his back. “He wasn’t killed here in his office. He was killed—” She turned her cell phone around and displayed a photo that the evidence response team had emailed her of the blood evidence in Payne’s Lake Tahoe bedroom. “—here.”
The digital image of dark red on the white sheets was stark. It had the desired effect on Cole.
“The M.E.’s preliminary report,” she said, gesturing toward several autopsy photos, “indicates that Dr. Payne bled to death”—she held up her phone again —“and was transported in a covered pickup truck eighty miles to his office. The research lab was doused with accelerant and set on fire. The sprinkler system was disabled in order to cause maximum damage, very likely to destroy evidence on the body. Or to make Dr. Payne’s death appear to be something that it wasn’t.”
Though that didn’t explain why the killers didn’t pour fuel onto his body, it did explain why they had disabled the sprinklers. Had Dr. Payne’s body been burned for a longer period of time, the authorities wouldn’t have discovered that he’d bled to death. Perhaps the arsonists had run out of 151 vodka. Or maybe they were running short on time. Or maybe the killer didn’t want the others to know about the cut-up corpse.
Ever since the autopsy, Nora had felt that Payne’s murder was personal, but still in some way related to his professional position. But maybe it had nothing to do with the fact that he was a biotech scientist. Maybe he’d been killed for other reasons and the arson had been merely a convenient distraction.
It explained the time gap between fires. Anarchists generally escalated, the time between attacks coming closer as the players relished the idea of getting away with it. But in this case, the hits had grown farther apart.
According to Sean Rogan, who was truly the only impartial observer, Anya Ballard was cheerful and generally happy when they had lunch together. Yet Sean saw that she had been upset in the garden …
Nora looked Cole straight in the eye. “Professor, when you were in the garden with Anya, did you tell her about Jonah Payne’s death?”
Cole considered his response before answering. “Yes. I told her that a reporter called with the news.”
“And what was her reaction?”
No comment.
Nora was getting irritated with his selective answers.
“Professor, let me explain something. Accelerant that is a likely match to the arsons was found in Anya Ballard’s dorm room, as well as the exact same spray paint used on the exterior of the target business. We have a thumbprint from the Nexum arson that I’d bet my pension belongs to one of the three suicides. And I have a suicide note that takes credit for the fires and expresses remorse for Dr. Payne’s death.” She was exaggerating the last point, but there was no law saying she couldn’t lie to suspects while in questioning.
Cole’s face remained impassive, his eyes never leaving her face.
Nora continued, “This is what I think: Anya, Chris, and Scott took what you preached and put it to action—”
As if on cue, the attorney objected, “Professor Cole has never advocated arson or murder.”
Nora frowned and glared. “I’m not out to get your client, and I never was. I don’t think he’s a killer. I don’t think that he burned down Butcher-Payne. What I think is that he knows damn well who did and out of a misguided sense of loyalty or guilt, he has kept quiet. Why? Because, up until two days ago, no one had been killed. Things, not people, were destroyed.” She turned to Cole. “I’ve read everything you’ve written, Professor,” she said, staring Leif in the eye. He was clearly surprised by her statement, and she continued. “And in your writings, you have an incredibly strong theme of preserving human life. You wouldn’t condone murder, and you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you didn’t do something to stop it.”
Nora continued. “Maybe at first you didn’t know about Anya and the boys. But you’ve admitted to a relationship with Anya, and you probably figured it out. If I had to guess …” She mentally ran through the three previous arsons. “… I’d say it was after the security guard was injured at Sac State. Anya would have been distraught at hurting a human being. She probably confessed everything, or hinted enough so you knew—and you told her to say no more. So she kept quiet about her other activities.”
Nora raised an eyebrow. “I have doubts as to whether those three kids killed themselves. Maybe it was a murder-suicide.” Nora wasn’t about to let on that the suicide note had been written by a woman.
She watched the professor’s mind working, as he tried to figure out how to talk to her without incriminating himself.
“I would say—”
Shepherd cleared his throat. “Leif, I need to advise you to—”
Cole shook his head and continued. “There are many truths in your story.”
She’d nailed it. He didn’t incriminate himself, but gave her what she needed—information.
“If Anya learned that she had accidentally killed someone,” Cole said cautiously, “she would have been extremely upset. But never have I imagined that she could be suicidal. She loved—” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “She loved everything. The outdoors, flowers, animals. She valued life, all life, human and animal and plant.”
“What about Chris and Scott?”
“Chris is a hothead and his academic work is hit-or-miss, and Scott’s quiet, restrained, a solid student. Chris is the one who speaks up in class, Scott never raises his hand. But I don’t see either of them killing Anya. They loved her.”
Lance Sanger spoke up for the first time since the beginning of the interrogation. “Maybe,” Sanger said, “they disliked your relationship with her. Maybe we’re dealing with a love triangle.”
Nora refrained from shaking her head. That didn’t fit, though she couldn’t articulate exactly why.
It ticked off Cole. “That’s bullshit and you know it, Lance. Chris and Scott were Anya’s best friends, and they knew about us. Have for a long time. And Scott had a girlfriend. He wasn’t thinking about Anya like that.”
Nora’s ears practically twitched like a cat. “Who’s Scott’s girlfriend?”
“Maggie O’Dell, Anya’s former roommate.”
Cole’s eyes widened at the same time Nora had the sense that she’d just heard something crucial to her case.
“Who’s Maggie O’Dell?” Nora asked. “Anya doesn’t have a roommate this year.”
“Maggie left last Christmas.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Anya didn’t know, Maggie simply told her she was dropping out of college.”
“Was Maggie one of the gang?”
“Don’t answer that, Leif,” his attorney said.
Cole said, “Where Anya went, Maggie went. They were inseparable. I heard she was back.”
“I want my client released immediately,” Shepherd said.
He glanced at his attorney, then said, “Where’s Anya now?”
“I don’t know,” Nora said. “Possibly the hospital or maybe she’s been transported to the morgue. You don’t want to go in there.”
“I want to see her. Please.”
Nora glanced at Sanger. They really had no reason to hold Cole. Yes, he knew about the arsons and was an accessory after the fact, but he hadn’t said anything that could be used against him. He had been forthcoming without being self-incriminating, a great trick if you were a criminal with information cops needed.
“I’ll take you,” Sanger said.
“I’ll take him,” Shepherd insisted.
Sanger glared at him. “I’ll do it.” He said to Cole, “I’ll let you out if you promise to stay in town. No major trips for the next couple weeks.”
Cole wanted to argue. Then he flipped like a switch. “I understand. Thank you, Lance.”