This isn’t his first rodeo. The detective has interrogated plenty of sickos, but generally they aren’t women. And they never look like this one—bald, barefoot, a hospital gown on top, sweats on the bottom. He sits and nods to the detectives and officers ogling behind the glass. There are four of them, and they know he’s the best at prying loose confessions. When it’s over, they’ll slap him on the back and call him “boss.”
He’s in a hurry this morning but can’t let on. Looking at the woman, he mutters into his lapel mic, “Christ, somebody get a shirt for this lady before something gets exposed.” The way she clutches the gown, fists locked at the neckline, reminds him of his wife. Different hair, though. He glances up at the camera in the corner and sees it recording.
“My name is Detective Marc Saxton,” he says, trying to make eye contact, but she keeps her gaze on the table. He pats a folder in front of him but doesn’t look at it. “Says here you are Pamela Nelson, age 42. This is October 27, 2022, and it’s—”he looks at his smartwatch—”3:31 p.m. For the record, can you state your name and date of birth?”
Her brows furrow. “What’s wrong with you people? Why would you take my wig? You think I’m gonna braid it into a Rapunzel rope and hang myself?” She keeps staring at the table.
He hates when they answer a question with a question. It reminds him of his wife. A simple question like, “Do you want to pick up the groceries?” And his wife says something like, “Do YOU want me to pick up the groceries?” Why can’t she just say yes or no? To Pamela he says, “Yeah, sorry about the wig, Pamela—it’s the rules. We even had to take the artificial leg off a guy last week. He was piping mad. But I totally understand why you would be upset.”
Her tone softens. “That last cop didn’t care a bit.” She sniffles. “He demanded I remove my hair before he took my picture. And he didn’t give it back. He just put these cuffs on and left. Can you take them off?”
She lets go of the gown and places her cuffed wrists on the table.
Pamela has been here before, although she doubts this detective knows it.
The other time, they just let her go—without paperwork—because back then only one fellow student claimed Pamela pushed the Barbie look-alike with the snooty attitude into an oncoming car. The snitch was a Goth girl, smelled like dirt, and no one believed her. She was an attention seeker, with her purple-and-black hair.
The Barbie girl had died—but Pamela hadn’t planned that. It was fortuitous. In the video, it really did look like an accident. She totally got why bullied kids went bonkers, although she’d been more ignored than bullied in high school.
The detective sees there’s still blood on the woman’s face. He doubts she knows. Little splatters, like flickers from a paint roller. “Sorry about Officer Newman—he’s a newbie. Insecure, if you know what I mean, follows protocol to the…” The detective hesitates; the last word dropped like an egg. Gone. He needs to stay focused. “Officer Newman follows protocol,” he says, recovering. “Lean toward me and I’ll cut them off.”
The detective cuts the zip ties with the snippers tucked in his pocket, the ones Newman handed to him on the way in. It’s a set-up, of course. “Officer” Newman isn’t actually a newbie—he’s Sergeant Newman. To make a criminal believe you give a fuck, you side with them on the small stuff. Take away something so you can give it back. It’s a tactic in the detective’s favorite book, The Art of War—a ploy to break the enemy’s resistance.
“Thanks,” she mutters, shaking her hands free. The cuffs were too tight; he can see it as she rubs her wrists, then grabs the gown’s neckline again. “It’s not like I’m gonna leap over the table and strangle you, right?”
The detective nods.
Pamela abruptly stands and lunges forward, bellowing some god-awful, cat-in-heat shriek. She folds in half, upper body on the table, head lifted like a viper, hands reaching for him.
He’s standing now, legs apart in a ready stance, gun steady in his extended arms—left hand bracing his killer right. He doesn’t recall standing or unsnapping the gun case on his hip; it’s automatic behavior after a dozen years on the force. He’s ready to blow her away before he remembers she’s cuffed at the ankles. He’s pissed now—she spooked him, made him look like a dolt.
Pamela laughs. “Look at you, Mr. Macho Man Cop.” She keeps laughing, a mocking, chittering squirrel.
Before he holsters his weapon, she sits back down, and he rights the chair that tumbled in the turmoil. He knows Newman and the others behind the glass are pissing their pants laughing. He knows that video clip of him leaping backward and pulling his gun on the crazy bald lady will be making the rounds in the squad for months—probably with a zoom-in on his face (in profile—he hates his chin in profile). He wants to nail this bitch.
The detective sits, lips tight, eyes narrowed. He’s ready to get things back on track. “Pamela, for the record, can you state your name, please?”
“Sure, it’s Pamela Nelson.” Then she adds, “Thank you.” She knows she has messed up already. It’s in How to Win Friends and Influence People, a book she listens to every night on Audible since it hit the free-listening section last month. The author, Dale Carnegie, says to always begin in a friendly way, with please and thank you. Dale also says to dramatize your ideas, use showmanship to get your point across. She’s not sure about her point exactly, but the drama has been accomplished.
“And for the record,” says Saxton, “are you speaking to me voluntarily?”
“Yes, of course. It’s not like you’re holding a gun to my head.” Pamela is screwing up again. “Thank you.” It comes out sarcastic. She needs to give him a compliment but can’t think of one.
Pamela’s sarcasm also reminds the detective of his wife. He’ll ask her something like, “Are you cooking tonight?” And his wife will respond, “Has hell frozen over?” To Pamela, he just says, “Let’s talk about why you are here.”
Pamela thinks he’s emotionally stunted but, at least, doesn’t rattle easily. She could say, “You are so calm and smart.” But she thinks he’s a little dense, doesn’t get her humor or sarcasm. He’s like the fourth graders she used to teach, before those tattletales got her fired. She made those kids eat the spitballs, and guess what—no more spitballs after that. Little shits.
The detective seems nice enough; he did cut off the cuffs. Or maybe he’s playing the good-cop game. She remembers Dale’s fifth principle is to smile. And she does.
Then she remembers the Fifth Commandment—thou shalt not kill. Finally, she says, “Did she die? Is that the reason I’m here?”
Detective Saxton knows right off that Pamela is a loony-tune nutcase. He can tell by her darting eyes. But her competency is not his concern; the attorneys and shrinks can battle that one out. He continues, “Can you tell me what happened?” Then he opens his evidence folder and looks carefully at some photographs.
They’re photos of a smashed jewelry-store window—the crime-scene shots from Pamela’s case aren’t ready yet, because lazy-ass Alice was on her break, and she never—never—misses or shortens her precious breaks. Not since she went after Chief Larson for gender favoritism. The detective can’t believe he once found Alice attractive.
“Do you think I should wait for my attorney?” Pamela is trying to show respect for the other person’s opinions.
“You have the right to remain silent. Officer Newman read your Miranda rights, right?”
She nods and thinks it’s time to display sympathy. Dale says three-fourths of the people you meet hunger for sympathy. The detective interrupts her thoughts.
“You shouldn’t say anything you don’t want to, Pamela.” He shuffles through the photos she can’t see. “I was just looking at these crime scene photos, and it looks like things got intense.”
“You are so perceptive,” Pamela says, but it comes out more sarcastic than complimentary. “I know I may have made some unwise choices, but that woman was freaking nuts, and I’m not going to take the blame for this one. It’s possible I may have provoked her a bit”—she’s talking about her own mistakes before criticizing others— “but she came at me over and over. I thought she would stop, but it just kept getting worse.”
Pamela tries to coax tears into her eyes, but all that Haldol dries her eyes and mouth. She manages to sniffle.
First, she asks about a lawyer, and then she offers a confession. Dumb as a box of rocks. They never know when to stop talking. Like his wife when she says, I’m not saying one more thing about it. His wife just has to get in one more word, the last word. Shut the fuck up, he mouths to his absent wife, angling his face away from the camera.
Pamela doesn’t seem to notice.
Why didn’t Linda just shut her hole last night? No, she just had to threaten him.
I’m leaving. I’m getting an order of protection. And you will never see Billy again.
He hadn’t hit her that hard—in the head, not the face. If she has bruises, they won’t show. It’ll be her word against his. He needs to smooth things over, there wasn’t time this morning.
Pamela is just like his wife.
Aching to blab. He prompts her, “So this other woman kept coming, and you felt you had to kill her to stop her?”
“I haven’t said I killed her. Is she dead? I defended myself against her attacks. If she died, it’s a result of her own actions. You cops are always trying to put words into people’s mouths, which is why you have such a bad rep—why people won’t talk to you without attorneys.” She has messed up again.
He’s trying to get her to confess, but she’s no idiot. They’ll let her go like the last time, when she outsmarted them. Women can’t let other women bully them—not nasty-ass kids or their uptight parents, or the customers who come in to buy cigarettes. Not scummy roommates. She thinks about Dale—Make them think it was their idea. “You are right, she did keep coming at me, and I had to stop her, or she would have killed me. It was self-defense.”
“Right,” he says, “but you said you might have provoked her a bit?” He thinks provocation should be a legitimate defense. You can’t let people run over you—not the women at work and not your wife, who should be on your side. And she’s turning Billy against him, turning him into a mama’s boy. People who provoke deserve what they get; they’re asking for it. Here before him is a provocateur.
“Yes, you are right,” she says. “I’d had enough. I provoked her after she provoked me—with dirty dishes everywhere. And filthy bugs.” Pamela couldn’t bring herself to say cockroaches, but they were everywhere. She turned the glasses upside down so she wouldn’t get them in her morning coffee.
This lady disgusts him.
Even if her gown opened and her tits popped out, she would still disgust him. He imagines her tits lopsided, covered in the stretch marks his wife got after Billy was born. He notices Pamela has spittle in the corners of her mouth—tiny white bubbles—and that she’s always licking her lips. He wants to vomit. For sure she’s a sexual deviant. He can imagine her with a whip. Now he wants to see her lopsided tits.
The detective is tired of playing dumb. He’s going with Sun’s principle of becoming strategically superior. He outsmarts people all the time, and he knows—although he never says it—that he’s a genius. His mother told him this as a child. She also told him not to be a braggart.
“Oh, Pamela, I’m so sorry. I bet that made you really angry. Is that what happened with the victim? Did she leave dirty dishes everywhere?”
Pamela doesn’t like how this feels. He’s leading her into a dark corner. “Look, I appreciate everything you’re trying to do for me, but maybe I should talk with an attorney?” This time, she means it.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll have Newman bring you back to lockup.” He stands.
Pamela can’t go to lock up again. She can see the devil in there, clinging to those people like barnacles. She has to keep talking. Dale said to avoid arguments. She rubs her smooth, bald head. “I was only 21 when I first noticed a small bald spot on my head, right here. I just parted my hair on the other side and tried to ignore it. But about a month later, I noticed another spot and had to go with a middle part. By 25, I was totally bald. It’s called alopecia.” Pamela wants to cry for real this time.
He needs to re-read the Miranda rights again because she said “lawyer.” When he finishes and asks if she understands, she nods. He asks her to say yes or no aloud. He thinks her demeanor has changed. Her face is scrunching, but he’s not sure if she’s going to blow a gasket or cry. He wants to say what his mother always said to him: if you want sympathy, you can find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.
She says, “Yes, I understand I have the right to remain silent. Anything I say can be held against me. I have the right to an attorney.” She wants to ask if he watches CSI.
“Wow, impressive. Maybe when this misunderstanding is resolved, you can join the force.”
She doesn’t get his tone.
He thinks he could call her a dumb, horny slut and she would just keep on prattling. He wonders if Alo-whatever affects her pussy and wants to ask if she’s bald everywhere.
“I got plenty of attention from men in my wigs, but it never—you know—progressed. They wanted it to, but what if my wig came off when we were, you know, doing it.”
He recognizes that she’s trying to steer the interrogation toward sex, trying to distract him. He keeps his gaze on her face, but one of her hands is below the table. He tries not to think about it. She’s clever, using sex to get at him. Is she evading the enemy? he wonders. What does Sun Tzu say about the response to an invading enemy? Do not swallow bait offered by the enemy.
“Hands on the table, please,” he says. He needs to let her know who’s in charge and waits for her to obey.
“You know, you’re getting a bit thin on top yourself,” she laughs. But he doesn’t. Then she remembers not to criticize, condemn, or complain—or, apparently, make a joke. He has no sense of humor.
“Yep, that’s what the wife says.” He feels like one of those TV cops with good comebacks. He just started using the Rogaine his wife purchased for him at Christmas. Such a thoughtful stocking stuffer. He wants to redirect the conversation.
Pamela laughs coyly at his musing.
That fake little laugh reminds him of his wife and her passive-aggressive bullshit. Now don’t take this the wrong way, but your belly is blooming. What does she think—that he wants to come home after a long day of homicide investigation and listen to her prattle on about Billy this and Billy that, then fix whatever the hell they broke, eat some plant-based meal, and watch a home-improvement show to get him motivated for a weekend of remodeling and working out at some expensive, trendy gym with her? He loves his kid. It’s all for Billy. If only his wife hadn’t turned out to be such a total bitch. He should never have taken her back after she whored around. But she was so sorry. I’m so sorry, I was lonely. It’s you I love. Think about Billy. He needs to focus.
“You know, I was fine with my life—my disability check and my two basset hounds.” Bernie and Burns were getting old, thirteen or so. They were all Pamela got in the custody battle, dogs in place of a baby. She had cried real tears then, but the baby had been too much, and sometimes she left him alone—even though Joe had written the note and posted it on the door and said over and over, Don’t leave the house without the baby.
“Disability check?” says the detective, because he wants her to keep talking—but then she clams up. In the silence, he’s wondering if his wife has slipped out of the cuffs. He hadn’t made them very tight; he didn’t want to hurt her. What if she’s filing a police report right this minute? Downstairs, blabbing to the victims’ advocacy people. He could say the cuffs were consensual sex games.
He was going to smooth things over right after he dropped Billy off at school. Then he got the call to come in and interrogate the suspect—or else Newman would do it. Newman wasn’t all that good at interrogation.
“So, is she dead?” asks Pamela.
“Who?” He needs to focus.
“Am I boring you?” There’s something wrong with this guy, Pamela thinks.
Again, with the sarcasm. He wants to slap her face. He wants to push her to the floor and strangle this bitch, see her eyes go round as plates and feel her struggle under him until she passes out like a limp fish. “Of course, you are not boring me.”
“I was mostly fine with my life, but then I let her move in. Life is all about choices. If life gives you lemons, you can make lemonade.”
He hates how long this chit-chatting is taking. “I heard that one before.”
“And stop and smell the roses, right?” She smiles; she’s getting good at Dale’s Principle Five.
“Heard that one too.” He needs to strike quickly, says Sun. “What happened with the woman?”
“You mean my attacker?” Pamela’s hand is tired. She lets go of the gown’s neckline, and it billows forward. Before she switches hands, she sees his eyes dip downward.
“I mean the dead woman.” She could tie the gown tighter if she wanted to; she lets it go on purpose. If he stood behind her, he could see her tits.
Pamela can see he’s still looking at her covered breasts. She wants to grab the neckline and hold it tight to her body, but she thinks: arouse in the other person an eager want. He disgusts her with his puffy face and tiny teeth. He’s probably a sexual predator. She wants a lawyer—but she wants to hear what he’ll say next. He isn’t saying anything.
He is waiting to see what she will say next. He thinks about Sun—avoid what is strong; strike at what is weak. He knows what is weak.
“It’s so hot in here,” she says, pulling at the gown’s neckline until the ties loosen a little. She smooths the fabric with her hands, rubbing over her breasts. “You are so right. I had to defend myself against a madwoman. I did what I had to do to survive.”
She smiles.
She hopes Principle Five isn’t poorly timed.
“It is hot in here,” he agrees. If the enemy believes you are no longer a threat, they will underestimate you, he thinks. The metal chair scrapes against the linoleum as he stands. The stark fluorescent bulbs glow and hum; the clanking fan pushes the hot air around and around. He walks to the thermostat behind Pamela, adjusts it, then moves slowly, deliberately, until he is standing behind her chair.
He gives a nod to the cops behind the glass. He guesses Newman the newbie is drinking his third cup of coffee by now. They are about to learn from a pro. Just watch me, he thinks.
Pamela begins to flap the neckline. “So hot, so hot.”
The detective is eyes-down, standing behind Pamela, catching glimpses of her tits as she flaps the neckline forward and back, teasing him.
He leans down.
The gun taps the metal chair.
His lips brush her ear. “So hot,” he whispers.
“That woman came after me. She wouldn’t stop. It was self-defense. You believe me, don’t you?”
All war is based on deception, he thinks. “Of course I do.”
She moves her head back, giving him a better view.
The gown is flapping, flapping, flapping.
“That hag thought she had me cornered. She came at me.” Pamela knew this wasn’t the truth—she had butchered the poor woman in her sleep.
The flapping is slower now, the glimpses bigger.
He thinks, hold out bait and wait. “She came at you. What could you do? It was self-defense. But if I’m going to help you, you must tell me—what did you really do, Pamela?”
“I cut out her tongue.” Pamela is pretty sure one of the principles is to use honesty. He would already know this from the crime-scene photos; she’s giving him a win. She didn’t tell him the devil was latched onto the woman’s tongue like a barnacle—it had to come out. “The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but a perverse tongue will be cut out.” She tilts her head to look up at the detective, who is looking down at her tits. “Heard that one?”
She is looking into his eyes for the first time.
“Nope. Where’s it from—the Bible?”
“Old Testament. Solomon’s Proverbs. My mother used to say that when she washed my mouth with soap.”
“Bad people should pay, Pamela. So, you cut out her tongue? Then what?” He wished he could cut out his wife’s tongue sometimes. This thought surprises him. What a sick thought. These sick people infect him. Then he thinks his wife might still be cuffed to the bed, might still have the tape on her mouth. She’s going to be so mad. She needs water. She needs to pee. Maybe she wet the bed. Christ. He needs to get home. Needs to fix things—for the family, for Billy—if it’s not too late.
Pamela is done with Dale. She’s said too much. It’s too late to ask for a lawyer, but she can go with the mentally ill angle. “I watched the evil blue mist seep out of her eyes and float through the crack at the bottom of our kitchen window. It blended perfectly into the sky—back into the world to land on someone else.” She sees barnacles popping up on the detective’s skin like boils. “Maybe the mist landed on you.”
Detective Saxton has her confession. He leans in, grins. He’s posing, imagining the cheers and high fives behind the glass.
Pamela unties the gown strings.
Slowly.
He wants to see if her tits are lopsided or scarred with stretch marks gone silver.
He feels the cold tip of the barrel of his own gun pressed under his chin. He looks at her face and catches a glimpse of her smile before the flash of heat burns a hole in his head.
He doesn’t fall at first, as if the bullet—traveling up through the underside of his face, through the top of his head and into the ceiling—is suspending him, as if connected by a taut thread.
It snaps.
He crashes beside Pamela.
The barnacles dissolve and run like rivers into the pooling blood. Pamela puts the gun on the table. There will be paperwork this time. Through the looking glass, to Newman and the others she can’t see, she says, “Can I get my wig back now?”
Then she practices Principle Five.
