The Genesis Illusion

Chapter 42

"Inspector you need to come down to the interrogation room we've captured the man who assaulted Maria Koh," a voice on the office intercom said.

"I'll be right down," Inspector Nara said. This is the first good break we've had. Inspector Nara entered the viewing area behind a one-way mirror looking in at the interrogation. The narrow observation room only had four wooden chairs and a lawyer from the prosecutor's office occupied one. Nara settled into another. The suspect sat behind a small table facing the mirror and the interviewing officer, with his back to the observers. Speakers amplified the sound from the questioning so observers could hear.

"Do you speak English?" the interviewing officer said.

"Sure, man," the suspect said. "You think I'm stupid?" It was English, but he wasn't a native speaker.

Several preliminary questions established the identity of the suspect, Joe Chew, his employment or lack of, and living arrangements- mooching off friends. Although he answered these questions eventually, the officer struggled to pry responses for each one. Then he told the suspect, "We have you on surveillance video at the apartment of Lee and Maria Koh."

The suspect said, "Yeah, I think. Maybe?" Then like turning on a switch he blurted out a shocking statement. "I went to the apartment to get Paul Jacobs."

Nara leaned forward in his chair as if he couldn't hear well. The prosecutor also tilted in Nara's direction, his eyebrows raised. Look at his eyes. They are darting around detached from the conversation. Visiting his terminally ill wife in the hospital, he noticed the same desperate eyes when a tracheotomy prevented her from talking. She was a person trapped in her own body wanting to communicate but meeting an impregnable barrier.

"Can you repeat that?"

"I went to the apartment to get Paul Jacobs." He said the exact same words with no emotion. It sounded rigid like it was a memorized line and he was reciting it. Nara concentrated on his eyes even more than before. There it is again. I know it.

Additional questions extracted curt but revealing responses. The suspect explained he received a message for the job. He was to tell Paul Jacobs, the Man wants to talk. He then would take him to the corner of Maxwell and Hope Street, where a pickup man would be waiting. The pickup would pay him in cash after he had Paul. While describing the caper, he kept saying the phrase- I went to the apartment to get Paul Jacobs.

Nara and the prosecutor sitting in the observation area, gazed at each other. Nara shook his head. "He's just repeating what someone told him to say. It could be a drug, but his speech isn't slurred."

"Repeating a phrase over and over," the prosecutor said. "That's not normal. Can you keep him for a few days?"

"Yes, if he's on a drug, it will wear off and we can interview him again."

"How did you find him?"

"He was in his apartment. According to the arresting officer's report he was sitting in his living room. The officer wrote that he appeared to be waiting."

I'm not sure anything he said was the truth. It sounded rehearsed. Nara marched out ofthe observation room frustrated that they didn't find out more. The perpetrator confirmed Maria's story all right, but his admission sounded rehearsed. If he was on a drug, the effect wasn't like anything Nara had seen.