CHAPTER 18 - Rita

CHAPTER 18RitaFORBIDDING GRAY BUILDINGS TOWER OVER THE LANDSCAPE, TUCKED behind concrete walls topped with razor wire. The surrounding fields are winter bare, and a steady wind tosses the skeletal branches of trees as we approach the prison.Dr. Bradley had asked and been granted permission to talk to an inmate named Tyler White. He’s twenty-six years old and has been at the facility for three years. Prior to his present incarceration, he had an extensive juvie record that included drug use and theft, but nothing violent or disturbing that anyone knew about. When he was twenty-one, his mother had him committed to a psychiatric treatment center, claiming he was delusional and had threatened her and had hit her on several occasions. He was treated for six months and released. He went back to live with her and seemed to be, according to the records, adjusting well. On a warm June day, when she returned from work, Tyler told his mother that their dog, a blind lab named Lady, had gotten out and had run off into the forest behind their house. While Louise White traipsed through the wooded acres, calling for her dog, her son tracked her until they were deep in the forest. He called her name, and when she turned to face him, he shot her with a bow and arrow, killing her. He returned to the house, where Lady was sleeping soundly in his bedroom. Tyler lived happily for six days, ordering pizza and playing video games, before police found Louise White’s body resting against a pine tree, one arrow protruding from her chest, another wedged in her right eye.It turned out that Tyler had also killed two teenage runaways who’d disappeared four months earlier and whose bodies were also found in the same woods.I don’t know that we’ll get anything useful from him, but so far, we’re not getting anywhere in the investigation, and that makes me antsy.The room is built from cinder blocks and painted an institutional gray. There are no windows, just a scratched metal table with three chairs. A paunchy, blond guard escorts a handcuffed Tyler White into the room, where he sits heavily in the chair opposite us. He’s thin as a rail with bony arms covered in homemade tattoos. His dull blue eyes gaze vacantly at the wall, and I figure he’s medicated. One eye looks off to the side, as though it has wandered of its own accord. His hair lies thin and lank, a nondescript brown that doesn’t look like it’s been cut in a few months.“Mr. White,” I begin, and his good eye rolls in my direction, “thanks for meeting with us.” I introduce myself and Chase. He doesn’t respond, so I keep going. “You spoke with a man, Dr. Bradley, last week. Do you remember that?”He snorts derisively. “Yeah. I’m not a retard.” Spittle clings in the corners of his cracked lips.“Didn’t mean to imply anything,” I say. Chase clears his throat, automatically reaches in his pocket for his phone to take notes, but quickly realizes his phone was confiscated back at the intake desk.“Why did you agree to see him?”Tyler shifts in his chair, stretches his back, as though he’s just waking up. “He’s writing a book. He asked if he could interview me for it.”“You agreed?”“Obviously, since I talked to him.” He rubs his fingertips together. Then studies them as if he’d touched something interesting. “Nothing else to do in this place.”“What did you talk about?”Tyler takes a deep breath. “All the same stuff the other doctors want to know about. Did I decide to kill my mother because of my shitty childhood.”“What did you tell him?”“I told him the truth.” He stabs the table with his index finger. “I killed Louise in self-defense.”“How’s that?”“She beat the shit out of me my whole life. Every goddamn thing was my fault.” His eye meets mine. “She had some kinda powers too.”“Powers?”His head droops and his voice falters. “She knew things. Secret things. I can’t describe it.” Silence fills the room. The clock high on the wall ticks. Finally, Tyler sits up, glares at me and Chase, and whispers, “She was going to kill me. I heard her talking to someone. She was always talking to someone where I couldn’t see her.”“Who was she talking to?”His bottom lip trembles slightly. “How the hell should I know? I never saw him.” Tyler makes a strange, low sound in his throat before meeting my gaze. “So it was her or me.”“So you had no choice?”“No. I had no choice. No choice. That’s what I keep telling them.” He shakes his head like he’s trying to dislodge something stuck in his brain.“Uh huh. What else did Dr. Bradley ask you about?”“Let me think a minute.” He closes his eyes, and a slow smile spreads across his face. His good eye pops open and pins me in my seat. “He wanted to know when the switch flipped.”“What do you mean?”“When I went from being a regular guy to a killer. What changed?” He looks off at the wall, his eyes fixed and unblinking. “Like I knew. I didn’t change. I’ve always been the same person. I didn’t know what he was getting at, if you want to know the truth. Then he asked me if I fantasized about killing my mother before I did it.”“Did you?”He shrugs one thin shoulder. “I don’t want to talk about that. I told him that was private. A person’s fantasies should be private, don’t you think? What goes on in your head is nobody’s business.”I don’t know that this is getting us anywhere. “Did he say that he’d interviewed other people for his book?”Tyler’s thin lips turn up in a smile. “He said I was the first. He picked me first.”I lean back in my chair, glance at the clock. “Did you know that someone killed Dr. Bradley last Saturday night?”“You’re shitting me.” He grins, practically bounces in his chair, and his body odor wafts over me. “They know who did it?”“No. You have any idea? He mention anything to you about someone he was afraid of maybe?” This is a long shot, but who knows?Tyler leans back and folds his hands, cuffs jangling. He nods his head as though he’s thinking. “Nope. He didn’t say nothing like that.” Suddenly, he’s animated again, like his medicine just wore off. “That’s a trip, huh? He’s researching murderers, and he ends up getting murdered. That’s fucking crazy. So he’s dead? Well, shit.”“Yes. Ironic. What else did you two talk about?”Tyler takes a deep breath and drums his fingers on the table, tapping a metallic melody. He’s getting bored. “So I’m not going to be in his book then?”“I don’t know. Maybe his colleague will finish it,” I say, hoping to regain his interest.He nods, turns to the guard.“Tyler?” He looks back at me. “Did he ask you about the two girls they found in the woods behind your house?”His brow furls. “I don’t want to talk about them. I had nothing to do with that.”“Okay. Anything else you can remember from your conversation with Dr. Bradley?”He shrugs again, both shoulders this time. “It’s nearly dinnertime,” he says. “Pizza night.”“We’re almost done. Anything at all you remember Dr. Bradley saying about other people?”Tyler gets to his feet, and the guard walks quickly to his side. “I’m ready to go back.”“Wait, Tyler. Anything else you remember from the interview?”He shakes his head and turns to the guard. “Chocolate pudding tonight, Tom. With sprinkles.” And they’re gone.