THE INTERVIEW..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
It was called an interview, though Norman knew better. Yes, he was mentally challenged, but he wasn't a halfwit for Christ's sake, he just had a speech impediment mainly. The Police had to pin the rap on somebody and fast, because this was in the Police Chief's best interest. And besides, the small town of Feather Falls wouldn't settle for anything less than a public hanging, and why shouldn't they, a small girl who everyone knew and loved was found floating in the town pond face down under the old dock last Sunday morning.
Mary-Lou was only five, and made her way from door-to-door on a daily basis asking for cookies before she come up missing. She was Earl and Linda's Stanton's daughter--- a slender girl who wore thick glasses, and held a book beneath her arm wherever she went, a talisman if you will; Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Fox in Socks, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. She was quite the Dr. Seuss enthusiast.
Norman was forty-one years old, a mental misfit to the working world, and that's why he would receive a social security check each month. A couple fries short of a Happy Meal---that's what people in town say. There goes ol' Norman, a couple fries short of a Happy Meal! It was mostly only the kids though; the adults were a bit more polite about his condition and they'd whisper amongst themselves when they'd seen him. The only kid in town that would even talk to ol' Norman was Mary-Lou. She had a heart of gold, and now she was gone. But that was okay by Norman though, because from here we go to heaven, after all Earl wasn't too nice to Mary-Lou according to Linda.
Mary-Lou would sneak over to Norman's house in the middle of the night after Earl woke her from her bed and done bad things when he was drunk. A while later Linda would knock on the front door and thank Norman for taking Mary-Lou in for a spell. Mary-Lou never wanted to leave, she liked Norman's house just fine. Last night it wasn't Mary-Lou knocking at Norman's door, it was Ben, a nice young Police man who asked him to step out onto the porch and put his hands behind his head. Norman thought Ben seemed like a nice enough guy, so he did as he was instructed. Ben drove him down to the Oroville Police station about thirty-minutes away where he gave Norman doughnuts and milk. Norman only ate one bear claw because his stomach still hurt with sorrow for Mary-Lou. Ben reluctantly said that a Homicide detective wanted to interview him. I know that this is not an interview---no---this is an interrogation, Norman thought.
Norman sat in the interrogation room. A room with walls constructed of cool cinder blocks painted white, and there were no windows. Norman hated rooms with no windows,( it reminded him of his own bathroom, where he sat to relieve himself holding his breath from his own ruin) they made him feel like he couldn't breathe…like he was wearing a tight long-sleeved turtle neck covered with a thick down jacket with a hood. The only refuge Norman found was a portrait of a man, and a long mirror across the room which gave him a sense of the room being larger than it was. Norman really felt warm, and the room seemed to be warming by the minute. He tried several times to breathe slowly but couldn't, so he panted through his mouth and nose like an overheated dog. There was one door to the far right side of the small room, and it opened.
A man with a nice suit walked in halfway, waved to his friends outside the door as if to say everything was fine, and then resumed to enter the room.
"Are you a Detective?" Norman asked.
The man continued without acknowledging Norman.
Norman figured it must've been time for the tall pale man to get his wax removed from his ears because he didn't hear him---Norman gets his wax removed two times a year.
"Is it that time, mister?" Norman asked.
"That time for what?" the pale man asked.
"To git yer ears cleaned out, mister. My doctor says that when I get mine done I could hear a fly fart on a bull's ass half-mile away if I like. What does yers say?"
The pale man turned his head and looked down leafing through his paperwork in disgust, and then stopped and focused again on Norman.
"One time I walked outside after my ears were cleaned and listened fer a fly fart fer three hours," Norman shook his head in dismay. "But I didn't hear nothin. Prolly cause the wind was blowin that day."
"Cut the shit, Norman," the pale man said. "What happened to Mary-Lou?"
"How should I know?"
"You and Mary-Lou were friends---at least, that's what her daddy says."
"Sure we were, we were special friends," Norman said.
"Her father also says that you would have Mary-Lou at your house late at night. Why was that?" The pale man shot Norman a condescending glare he didn't understand.
"Because Mary-Lou was my special friend," Norman explained. He looked about and felt the walls closing in…the damn room was getting hotter.
"WHY WAS SHE AT YOUR HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!" the pale man slammed his hand flat on the table and stood up tipping his chair backwards crashing it to the floor.
Mary-Lou told Norman to never-ever talk about why she was over at his house. The police wouldn't understand, Norman. They wouldn't, and then they would send mommy to jail. Norman could hear Mary-Lou's voice in his head clear as day. You can't tell a soul, Norman. You just can't. Norman pinky-promised, and swore not to tell a soul, but Norman couldn't remember the details of what he promised not to say, he just remembered the pinky-swear. "I SWORE I WOULDN'T TELL A SOUL!" Norman sprang from his chair like he'd been stuck in the ass with a sharp fork. The pale man flinched in a cowardly fashion as Norman towered over him, and then hesitantly reinstated his position over the table.
"Listen here you halfwit, if you don't tell me what that girl was doing at your house in the middle of the goddam night, you are going to fucking jail for a long time!"
Norman was getting mad, "It's none of yer g…g…goddam business, mister!" he stuttered.
"You getting nervous boy? You can't tell us what you done to that poor girl?"
"Her name is…is…is Mary–Lou!"
"You nervous-N…N…Nelly," the pale man mimicked.
Norman plopped back on his chair mad as hell that God gave him a stutter. God made Norman a halfwit in societies eyes.
"Now listen to me, you sick fuck, and listen good. You better tell me what happened to that girl or I'm gonna see to it personally that you get the goddam chair!"
Norman looked at the chair he was sitting on, his eyes shifting nervously, and it wasn't anything that he would want. He had plenty of good furniture at his house. "I don't want yer g…g…goddam chair."
The pale man thought about laying one on Norman as he raised his hand, and Norman was quick to duck. It reminded Norman of his own abusive father at supper time. He used to nail him good if he didn't finish his chores by sundown. Blackened both eyes and loosen a tooth or two on more than one occasion, and then sent him to bed hungry.
Norman's eyes fluttered back and forth nervously.
"Now I'm gonna ask you one more time," the pale man asked rigidly. "What did you do to that little girl?"
"HER NAME IS…IS…IS MARY-LOU, YOU F…F…FUCKER-ASS!"
The pale man punched Norman in the eye just like his father used to, and then grabbed his shirt wrinkling it into his fists pulling him up to his level, and then hollered back.
"Her name was Mary-Lou. SHE'S DEAD!" The pale man shook his sore hand like he was trying to get something sticky off of it. The pale man figured it was broken.
"She's not dead…Linda said she's in heaven now. She's not dead she's in heaven," Norman tried to keep from crying, but couldn't evade the tears completely and a single stream spilled from one eye and trailed down his unshaven cheek.
The pale man stood up straight and asked. "Just what the hell do you know about Linda?"
"She's Mary-Lou's mama. She'd come to pick her up at breakfast time. I always made Mary-Lou her favorite dish…waffles with Aunt Jemima syrup, and glass of two-percent milk," Norman said proudly. "I'd buy it every week at the market."
"Now why would young Mary-Lou be at your house all night long?" the pale man leaned threateningly across the table again, but this time propped his weight only on his good hand, his left.
"She would run to my house when her…" Norman laughed comically and shook his index finger back and forth. "Oh, no you don't, mister! Mary-Lou made me promise not to tell." Norman really couldn't remember what it was that she said.
The pale man looked back at the mirror, held his hand to his head and moved his mouth like he was talking to somebody on the phone, and then turned back to Norman and smiled. But there was nothing genuine about this smile. Norman could tell that the pale man was still heated.
"I'll be back," the pale man said. He swiped a card over a HID, and when he heard a high-pitched beep, pulled the thick door open, and exited.
He entered the room but moments later.
"You mentioned Mary-Lou being in heaven," the pale man said pulling a Camel from a pack and offering one to Norman.
Norman just looked at the cigarettes and nodded in concurrence to what was said.
"Well she ain't gonna go to heaven unless we find her killer. God don't allow murdered people into His heaven unless we can prove that little Mary-Lou didn't deserve to be killed," the pale man said raising his eyebrows. "You follow me, Norman?"
"Mary-Lou didn't deserve to get kilt! Mary-Lou was a good girl. The best ever good girl I ever knew!"
"Well if we can't find Mary-Lou's killer, she ain't gettin into heaven," the pale man flashed a thin grin and set a tape recorder on the table. "Now if you admit to killing Mary-Lou," he paused, "and she didn't deserve it, well then, she can go into heaven just fine. All you have to do is say, what'cha did. Can you do that for poor little Mary-Lou…so she can go to heaven and see Jesus?"
"That's all I have to do and Mary-Lou'll go into heaven with God, fer sure?"
"That's it. Pretty simple, huh?" This time the pale man's smile was sincere.
Norman looked at his folded hands which thumb-wrestled on the table. I can do that for Mary-Lou! He thought.
"Are you sure she'll get to Jesus? You are fer sure, fer sure!"
"Sure I am. Jesus wants to make certain she didn't deserve to get killed, because then she might not get into heaven." The pale man was very animated waving arms and looking about the room.
"Okay," Norman said exhaling a deep breath and smiling with a sense of relief. "If that's what it takes to get Mary-Lou into heaven, then HOT-DOG, that's wh…wh…what I'mm'gonna do."
"Atta boy," the pale man said clicking the record button on a cheap cassette player that the station had bought for interrogations ten years ago, and then nodding at Norman to begin.
"Okay, okay, do you think I should speak up?" he asked grinning and looking wide-eyed at the recorder.
"You're doing fine."
"Okay," Norman smiled while thinking of all the good he was doing. "I kilt Mary-Lou."
"What's yer name?" the pale man waved his fingers inward like he smelled a freshly cooked apple pie.
"Norman…my name is Norman."
"Last name?" His fingers still working in anticipation.
Norman reached up and touched his head. "My eye hurts from where you socked me."
The pale man turned off the recorder abruptly and stared at Norman like he was looking through him.
The door on the far wall suddenly opened just as the pale man had planned and Linda marched right over to the desk, picked up the cassette recorder and threw it to the floor smashing it into several pieces on the floor. Norman felt one piece hit his leg. And the pale man recoiled from the sudden crash a lot like Norman's father would do when his mother entered the room on what his father called, the curse.
"You leave Norman Waters, out of this!" she demanded. "I called you Seth on several different nights about Earl's problem…about the way he'd get drunk and lock himself in the room with Mary-Lou, but you wouldn't help…you promised but you would never show up…you protected Earl over an innocent five-year-old girl!" her last words a condemning whisper.
"Earl has been with the force twenty-two years, Mrs. Stanton, and you have the goddam gall to march into this interview room and…"
"Int…int.. interrogation roooom. That's wh…wh…what this is," Norman corrected in a deep, dumb voice.
The pale man pitched Norman a spiteful glare, and then refocused on Linda, and continued. "…the goddam gall, to march into this interview room and make ridiculing remarks about the Chief of Police…your own husband for fifteen years God help your soul. You should be ashamed of yourself!"
Linda became unleashed poking her indexed finger into the pale man's fragile bony chest pushing him back into the far corner of the room. "You let the goddam bastard continue to abuse my little girl even though I called time-and-time again, and now you're gonna try to pin this shit on Norman…Norman Waters?" she flashed the pale man a look of misbelieve. "He wouldn't hurt a goddam fly!"
The pale man raised his hands to Linda as if he was going to backhand her, and she ducked frantically spilling half the contents of her large purse onto the floor. Norman fell immediately from a sitting position on the chair, to his knees and began picking up Linda's personal items on all fours.
"LEAVE IT ALONE YA HALFWIT!" the pale man barked, kicking Linda's belongings across the floor, and missing Norman's head with his boot by a half an inch.
Norman stood up, towering over the pale skinny man, and asked in a grim serious voice, "What did you say, mister?"
"I SAID…"
The door on the far wall opened with a crash and three men charged into the breadbox shaped room and surrounded Norman, the one in the center holding a Tazer.
"CALM DOWN. Don't hurt 'em!" Linda held her hands flat at the man with the Tazer and fell to her knees. "He didn't do it…Norman wouldn't hurt Mary-Lou!" she bolstered. "For Christ's sake in heaven, Mary-Lou is dead because you didn't have the balls to go after your own goddam Captain on child-porn charges. YOU ALL ARE A FUCKIN DISCRACE!"
The pale man stepped forward cautiously shaking his head, and waving a hand back and forth to settle the tension of his colleagues. They obeyed falling away from Norman with vigilant eyes.
"Linda," he said calmly as he approached her. "You told me nothing of Earl's involvement in kiddy-porn." The scowl on his face suggested he was concealing more than he let on to Linda. "Didn't you tell me that Earl filed for divorce, and that you needed to act fast if you were going to get a piece of his pension?"
"That was before," she began sobbing…trying to make the pale man understand her unique dilemma. "Before I CAUGHT HIM CHEATING WITH THAT BITCH, MELISA!" she squelched like a demon stuck in a flute.
"So, he hasn't been home in some time?"
"NO!" Linda continued to sob, but was still ready for combat. "He moved out with that blonde slut!"
"And you started selling your daughter on the weekends to the highest bidder," the pale man was smooth. "To make ends meet!" he nodded like he understood!
"NO!" she grunted with her teeth clenched. "I prostituted myself because Earl wasn't giving me any support, and I don't have a job!" she glared at the pale man.
The pale man grabbed tissue paper from the far end of the table and casually offered it to Linda. She slapped his hand away spilling the tissue to the floor.
"And then…after your daughter's night was through, you would drop her off at Norman's doorstep and tell her that her daddy made you take her to those bad places. And told Mary-Lou that she had to make Norman promise not to say a word about why she was spending the night at his house," the pale man's mouth twisted shark-like, ready to attack. "The very words you recited with her time-and-time again. My daddy made my mommy take me to have sex with men to pay for our bills. Does this sound familiar?" the pale man walked around the table to Norman's side and then stood there.
Norman stood in astonishment looking from the pale man and back to Linda…his slow mind reeling frantically to process the long line of information.
"But it was not Mary-Lou's father who killed her," the pale man continued, "It was you who did this to Mary-Lou?"
"I DID NOT!" she barked.
Norman's eyes narrowed as he digested the line of information. "You were hurting Mary-Lou…Mary-Lou my special friend?" Norman stood and took an aggressive step toward Linda, but was stopped by when two of the three men who were still in the room grabbed each of his arms.
"I took my daughter to Norman's house so I could walk the goddam streets, and have a free babysitter!"
Norman swallowed a dry swallow and tugged his bottom lip with his teeth as the two officers continued to squeeze his large biceps.
"I sent her to your house so Earl and his pedophile friends wouldn't find her. I just knew that they were going to steal her, and you were the only decent person in this little shithole town that I could trust with her."
Norman looked down as if he'd done something bad, and then said in a low disturbing voice, "I saw something."
Everyone in the cramped room attention was immediately on Norman.
"You didn't see shit. And if ya did you'd be too dumb to remember," the pale man grinned.
"I did, I…I saw something."
Two more men wearing suits and ties entered the room, men of which the pale man was unfamiliar.
"Let him talk!" Linda hollered, and then looked at Norman. "Norman…honey, go'on and tell us what ya saw," Linda pushed herself from the floor to a standing position.
Norman slowly looked up and gazed into the stone mounted in the ring that the pale man was wearing. The pale man pursed his lips and stood visibly uneasy, squirming like a mouse cornered by a large tomcat.
Norman drifted as he recounted the events that took place the night before Mary-Lou was reported missing. There was a hammering at Norman's front door that woke him immediately from the ripped up Lazy boy chair he fell asleep in. (Norman would always give Mary-Lou his bed when she visited and she would read him three Dr. Seuss books before Norman would finally fall asleep. 'Someday Norman, I will teach you how to read.' Mary-Lou told him…he couldn't wait to read the stories to Mary-Lou.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Norman woke quickly and was briefly hung up in a big armrest gash that his hand managed to find its way into during slumber, but managed to get to Mary-Lou, and his book-spangled bed in seconds.
'We know you're in there, Norman! Best open up the goddam door and let us in, b'fer we have to kick it in!'
'Mary-Lou, we have to go hide,' Norman said, but she didn't wake.
Norman picked Mary-Lou up like a doll, covered her to make sure she wouldn't be cold, and then trotted to the kitchen where he had a false floor.
'We gotta hide down here, Mary-Lou! There are bad guys at the door, and your momma always says don't answer the door to anyone while you are here.'
Norman closed the hatch to the false floor, and sat on the bottom steps with Mary-Lou still cuddling in his arms. He peered through the cracks of the floorboards rocking her back and forth with wide unblinking-eyes.
CRASH! Norman's flimsy front door was kicked off the hinges and slid to a slow stop on his living room floor.
Norman looked down at Mary-Lou who was still fast asleep despite all of the commotion. He heard hard foot-falls across his worn pine floor as he looked through the cracks circumspectly. One of the intruders turned on the kitchen light sending straight lines of radiance though the floorboards, across Norman's unblinking eyes, and across the damp concrete floor in the basement. Sweat formed in spangled formation across Norman's forehead as he tried to glimpse the faces of the men who were now going through his refrigerator.
'Goddam retard ain't even got a cold one. Boy, he sure is dumb!'
'Never mind a beer asshole. We are here to git that girl, not git drunk. Like you ain't had enough already, you tard.'
'What the fuck does tard mean?'
'Means retard you dumb-fuck!'
The other man was mute for a bit then laughed. 'I get it. That's a good un, Seth!'
Norman heard a sharp 'smack'. Hand to skin. 'I told you not to use m' name asshole! See how I use a code name fer you…asshole'.
Now Norman could see as a tall man came into view by the card table and the brown folding chairs.
Norman's eyes opened wide with revelation as he looked at the pale man. The pale man glared back at Norman with eyes of ice.
The small window to the basement opened with the dull sound of scraping of wood-on-wood and a person climbed in. Norman watched in astonishment until a man he never saw before managed the tiny window and then dropped to the floor. He hushed Norman immediately with his meaty index finger over his lips, scooted across the concrete floor with Redwing boots, and then gestured with one hand that he relinquishes Mary-Lou to him. Norman handed a slumbering Mary-Lou to the man with no questions asked. Norman was too afraid to ask questions.
Mary-Lou rustled from the exchange and then became audible. 'Da…'
The man placed a firm hand over Mary-Lou's mouth and nose to keep her quiet. Mary-Lou struggled briefly, kicking and flailing arms and legs in a desperate attempt to breathe. She kicked the side of Norman's mouth bloodying his lip, and he looked upward to see if the intruders had heard the clamor.
'Did you hear that? I'll bet that goddam retard is hiding here.'
The man tightened his grip in fear that Mary-Lou's convulsing chest would stir curiousity from the men above, and her arms, legs, and eyes shuttered rapidly…and then came to a sudden stop.
Norman's eyes widened in trepidation as his special friend went limp. He looked at Mary-Lou's eyes as they rolled vacantly upward, and then reached for her hand.
The man pulled her from Norman and then pushed words from his mouth, in a forced whisper, 'She fell asleep.'
Norman took that lie, and swallowed it as a cactus ball of truth.
'I have to go or they'll find my Mary-Lou,' he whispered.
Norman watched the man carry his only special friend to the window, shove her through it like an old sack of potatoes, and then quickly followed. A tear ran down Norman's face just as the trap door was lifted abruptly opened and two men with guns quickly skipped down the wooden stairs.
The first man's face entered into the small amount of light that the floorboards were allowing to pass, but his features were hidden by the defiant stare of the flashlight he held. Norman shielded his eyes with one hand and ran the fingers of his other over his bleeding lip.
'Where's Mary-Lou!' a voice demanded.
Though Norman tried with all his might to see passed the bright light he couldn't. He could only make out the hand of the person holding the light…and he had on a big bright ruby and gold class ring.
Norman's vacant eyes slowly came into focus, and his vision cleared as he lifted his hand and pointed to a photograph on the wall, just behind the pale man.
"IT WAS H…H…HIM. THAT'S WHO TOOK MARY-LOU!"
The people in the room turned and looked at the portrait of a man sitting behind a desk, but before the American flag. The large mahogany desk was shiny and the cigar in the man's mouth smoldered between smiling teeth. The balding man wore an officer's uniform and age had planted many map-like wrinkles in his weathered face. Below the portrait, on the frame and etched in a fancy gold plate read EARL STANTON: CHIEF of POLICE.
2:03 AM
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