Callahan And McLane: Targeted Part 19

"He's twenty," supplied Zander. "Name's Micah Zuch."

Mason studied the slouching young man at the table. He had dyed his unruly hair an impenetrable black and wore black skinny jeans, a ripped black s.h.i.+rt, and a black jacket. He was thin to the point that Mason wanted to order him a Big Mac. Two of them.

"Street kid?" he asked.

Zander shook his head. "I have a home address from southeast Portland. His mother lives there. No father in the picture."

"He's twenty and lives at home?" Mason asked. Although his son Jake was nearly twenty, and he still lived at home when he wasn't in school. Micah didn't look like a college student.

"I think it's more common these days than when we were twenty," said Zander. "It's cheaper to live at home. Cost of living is higher now."

Only because kids today believe the cost of living includes an iPhone, a new car, and a big-screen TV.

"At first he told us he was homeless," Nora said. "He told the detective he lived on the streets with some of the other homeless kids but eventually admitted he went home to sleep. Sounds like he spends a lot of his time on the streets, though."

"A street kid wannabe," Mason murmured. "What type of person wants to pa.s.s himself off as one of them?"

"They're edgy. Independent," said Zander.

"They're also hard up to find a place to shower and sleep. Many of them resort to crime to fund their drug habits or meals."

"There's got to be a misguided admiration on his part," suggested Zander. "Why don't kids look up to real leaders?"

"Beats me," said Mason.

"He knew about the masks," said Nora, pulling them back on topic. "He told the detective which masks were at each scene. We've kept that completely to ourselves."

Mason shot her a sharp look. "Did he include Vance Weldon? Even the press isn't aware of that case."

Nora looked at her notepad. "He said the first guy wore a Freddy Krueger mask." She exchanged a look with Zander and Mason. "I'd say he knows a lot about our cases."

"You're a.s.suming he's telling the truth," said Zander. "We've had a half-dozen people call to claim they killed Denny Schefte. Up until now it's been easy to eliminate them." He looked at Micah. "I have the feeling this isn't our guy-no matter what he knows. He's a toothpick. Do you really think he had the arm strength to lift Samuelson up on that wall in his living room?"

"Maybe he wasn't alone," said Nora. "But he claims he acted alone."

Someone rapped on the observation room door and Ava stuck her head in before anyone could move. "Sorry I'm late." She stepped inside and looked through the window. "He's so young!"

Mason felt justified. It wasn't his age that'd made him see Micah Zuch as young; Ava was twelve years younger than he. Nora brought her up to date.

"I'd like to go in first," said Zander. "I don't see the point in easing our way into his good graces. I want to know if we're wasting our time. That shouldn't be too hard to figure out."

Nora agreed, and Zander stepped out of the observation room.

Mason bit his tongue, remembering his promise to stay silent.

Zander appeared in the interview area and placed a notepad on the table as he sat across from Micah. "I'm Special Agent Zander Wells. I understand you have information on some murders." He clicked his pen, positioned it over the notepad, and looked at Micah expectantly.

Micah stared back. "Special agent? Like as in the FBI?"

"Yes." Zander offered no more explanation.

"Can I see some ID?" Micah hadn't moved from his slouch.

Zander silently held out his identification. The young man looked at it and nodded. "Why is the FBI here? Isn't this a Portland police building?"

"I'll ask the questions. Do you have something to share with us or not?" Zander glanced at his watch.

Micah straightened in his chair and lifted his chin. "I killed those cops."

"Which ones?"

"The guy at the coast. The one in southeast. The one last night and the one up in Vancouver."

Zander didn't write down anything. "What are their names?"

He recited four names, which Zander listed across the top of his pad.

Mason didn't get excited. All that information could have been found online. Except the information about Vance Weldon.

"How did you kill Special Agent Weldon?" Zander emphasized his t.i.tle.

"I hung him," he said simply.

Zander wrote something under Vance's name and looked hard at Micah. "Vance was a big guy. How'd you do that?"

The young man snorted. "Don't you know anything about engineering? Ever hear of a pulley?"

"There wasn't a pulley at the scene."

"I took it with me."

"What was Special Agent Weldon wearing?"

Micah described the man's clothing perfectly, including his shoes and the type of mask he'd had on.

Optimism swept through Mason. Had their killer walked in off the street?

"Why'd you kill Special Agent Weldon?" Zander asked as he wrote down the articles of clothing under Vance's name.

"No reason."

Zander looked at him for several seconds.

No reason? Mason exchanged a look with Ava and Nora.

"How did you kill Captain Denny Schefte?" Zander moved on as if Micah's answer didn't matter. Mason knew he wouldn't feed the man's ego. An answer like "No reason" was a clear request for more questions about his motive. Zander neatly stepped on it by setting the question aside as if it held no consequence.

"I cut his neck. But first I hit him on the head."

"What did you hit him with?"

"A baseball bat."

"Where did this take place?"

"A cabin outside of Depoe Bay." He went on to perfectly describe what Denny had been wearing that night.

Mason listened, seeing the clothing in his mind's eye. He was disturbed by the monotonous delivery of Micah's answers. The man sounded like a robot. He sat perfectly still in his chair, having moved only when he'd first realized the FBI was interviewing him. That appeared to be the one element he hadn't been prepared for. He'd had ready answers for every question and didn't hold back. Except when questioned about motive.

Again he answered, "No reason," when Zander asked why he'd killed the captain.

"He could have gotten all this information from photographs or police reports," Ava whispered. "Could we have a leak somewhere?"

"But that still doesn't explain why he's confessing," Nora said.

"It could take a team of psychiatrists to answer that," said Ava. "I don't like his behavior. It's unnatural. He doesn't move, there's no inflections in his voice." She rubbed at the back of her neck as she frowned. "It's like he's been programmed. Is someone pulling his history?"

"Yes. I have a staff member digging right now," said Nora.

Zander continued with identical questions about Louis Samuelson and Lucien Fujioka. Micah answered perfectly.

Zander stood, thanked him, and started to leave.

"Wait!" said Micah, looking startled. "Now what?"

The three investigators in the side room leaned closer to the window.

Zander frowned. "You just confessed to four murders of cops. You go to prison."

Nora snorted as Mason and Ava grinned at Zander's exaggeration.

"But . . . what about a trial and stuff?"

"Don't you know anything about crimes?" Zander asked, throwing Micah's earlier words back in his face. "You just confessed. Prison." He scowled at the man. "Or are you changing your story now?"

Mason couldn't read the young man's face. He seemed torn. Whatever he'd expected would happen after he'd confessed hadn't happened.

"Don't you need to take my fingerprints? My DNA? And compare it to your evidence?"

Zander waved a hand. "Later. They'll take all that when they process you at the prison. Your confession is solid. You got all the facts right. Only someone who'd killed these men could have told me everything you just did."

"I did kill them!" he said earnestly.

"Did I say you didn't?" asked Zander. "I just wrote down your confession. We're good with this. I don't think I have any more questions." He moved toward the door. "I'll send in an officer."

Micah stood. "Wait a minute. This can't be all!"

"Oh, s.h.i.+t," muttered Mason. "This isn't right. Why's he trying to convince us?"

"He may have not killed them, but he was there, or else he has access to the facts of these cases," said Nora.

"I think he's glory-seeking," said Ava. "He wants to be questioned more. He's not a killer."

The door to the observation room opened and a female officer stepped in with a file. Zander entered right behind her. She handed the file to Nora and excused herself. Zander waited until the door closed and then looked at the three of them. "I don't know what to think about that kid," he stated. "Yes, he knows everything, but he's not acting right. He's involved somehow, but I don't believe I was sitting across from a cop killer. It felt as if I was interviewing someone who plays a lot of video games and has never caused real violence." He shook his head. "Something is off with him."

"He wanted you to question him more," Ava said. "Why would he do that?"

"I have no idea." Zander turned to look at Micah through the gla.s.s. "What do we know about him?" Micah now paced back and forth in the interview room, a fixed scowl on his face, waves of frustration rolling off him.

Nora frowned as she scanned the file. "Oh brother."

"What is it?" Mason asked.

"His background is a mess and I'm only looking at two years of it. This report started when he turned eighteen, and I suspect there's more from when he was younger. He was expelled from high school his senior year after planting a fake bomb and calling in a threat. Portland police responded, and the bomb was a mishmash of harmless pipes and powder. Before that he'd been kicked out of another school for bringing two knives and an unloaded gun to school."

"All that since he turned eighteen?" Ava asked.

"Yes. Looks like he was eighteen before he started his senior year . . . a bit older than the other students. He's been busy. There's a statement from a teacher that says she'd seen a disturbing pattern of overreaction to situations and it made her very nervous to be around him. The slightest thing would set him off in the cla.s.sroom. He'd take offense if someone looked at him wrong or said something rude. She thinks that's why he brought the knives and gun-on the same day-to the school. He felt he had something to prove."

"What about his home life?" asked Zander.

"Doesn't say. It lists the same address he gave earlier. Oh, wait. Here's a report. His mother filed a report with local police that twice someone had left a dead cat on her porch. The responding officers questioned her son and Micah confessed that he'd done it."

"What? That's disgusting," said Ava, wrinkling her nose. "Then what happened?"

"I can't tell. That was pretty recent. I imagine he has a court date coming up. This report says the mother tried to stop the officers from pressing charges, saying that she didn't want her son arrested, but it was out of her control by then. If he admitted to it, he's going to be charged."

"If my kid was killing cats, I'd want the police involved," Ava said slowly. "I don't think I'd try to protect him. Clearly he needs some sort of mental help."

"It's hard when it's your kid," Mason stated. "I'd murder Jake if I caught him doing that. But would I want him thrown in jail? I think I'd drag him to a shrink first."

"What if he confessed to the cats like he just confessed to the murders?" Ava asked. "What do they call that, when someone continually confesses to things they didn't do?"

"It's called needing a kick in their a.s.s," muttered Mason. Ava poked him in the ribs.

"I wonder if he's seen a psychiatrist," Nora asked. "I'd like his doctor's opinion on this. Do you think Micah would tell us if he's had mental health treatment?"

"Can't hurt to ask," said Zander. "Even though he knows a lot of facts from those murders, I don't think he did it. I do think he knows who committed them."

"Could he want to impress some street kids?" murmured Ava. "Maybe he's stepped forward to steal their thunder or protect some of them."

"These weren't sloppy murders," Zander pointed out. "Not something I'd expect a group of street kids to do. He's confessing for a reason, but we don't know what it is yet."

"No one here thinks he's our killer?" asked Nora. Silence met her question.

"Dammit."