The arrest of Dr. Kelty at his Madison Park home was anticlimactic. Anderson stayed in the unmarked Dodge with Wallace and Creighton as the whole thing went down.
The choice of how to proceed was given to Wozcynski, so Dr. Kelty lost two doors in the bargain. His boyfriend came to the door screaming as the police took the doctor away. The whole operation took no more than 30 seconds and then Kelty was in a cruiser and they were on their way downtown.
Creighton was silent in the passenger seat and Anderson assumed he was practicing his “I had nothing to do with it” announcement for the next day's news cycle. Anderson watched rain streak the car window as they drove into the city.
“What about the fact that he's gay?” Wallace asked.
Anderson turned to the detective.
“What?”
“The fact that the doctor is a fag, that makes him less of a suspect, too, doesn't it?”
“I hadn't thought about it. Why do you say that?”
Wallace gave a small shrug. “Dunno. Just occurred to me. You were giving us all these reasons why the doc wasn't our guy, and it seemed to fit.”
“There's nothing to go on that reveals anything sexual about the unsub one way or another.”
“Weren't you taking one of the vics apart with Steele?”
“Yes.”
“Sexual trauma?”
“Uh, no.”
“Well there you go!” Wallace seemed satisfied with his logic.
“Sex and murder together are not as common as you'd think. The media has glamorized them, and it's what they put in the movies and on TV because its sexy and kinky, but most of these guys derive complete satisfaction from the act itself without adding any particularly sexualized behavior.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I never heard that.”
They pulled into the cops-only parking garage under building that held both the King County Courthouse, holding cells, and the offices of Seattle P.D. Anderson felt it hard to believe she had been eating lunch when she received the call only...what had it been? Ten hours ago?” She looked at her phone. It was after midnight now. At least ten hours ago. Seemed like a lot longer and a lot less at the same time.
The three of them got out, put their badges on display, and rode up in an elevator to the level with the holding cells and interview tanks. The elevator opened onto an empty lobby and slapped his wallet against a gray panel, springing the electronic locks.
It was easy to find where they were going by the crowd. There was a large observation room that ran the length of the interview rooms, with panels of one-way glass. The observation lounge, in turn, had windows that opened onto the corridor. The interview rooms opened on the far side into the locked down portion of the building. The observation lounge was crowded with men, not a woman among them, Anderson noted, and she caught a few odd glances when she entered with the commander and the detective. There were a couple of the SWAT guys with less armor and armament, some uniformed cops who no doubt had happened to be in the building at the right time, and a handful of men in street clothes, no doubt more detectives or building staff. She knew what they were all there for: A glimpse of a monster, a scary story to tell friends over beers, the day they saw the guy who would soon be listed alongside of Bundy and Gacy.
Chief Pounds was there as well and he made a beeline for Anderson, shaking her hand.
“So, you think we got the guy?”
Inside, T.K. winced. No doubt Wozcynski had built up his case and was telling everyone that their freak was already off the streets. “I'm afraid not, sir.”
“No?”
“They found his wallet at the crime scene and I just can't imagine that our unsub is that careless.”
“What about the fact that he's a psychologist?”
“Psychologists aren't always the most well-adjusted people, but the idea that they like to prey on the weak is largely a creation of fiction.”
“And he's gay.”
“So I heard.”
Pounds stood there expectantly. “So you really don't think it's him?”
“No, I don't.”
Pounds looked like briefly like a sad, oversized child. He grunted in thought and then went to sit down.
Anderson wandered over to the one-way glass, where nothing much was happening. Wozcynski was sitting in room with the doctor, waiting for him to talk.
“What's going on?” Anderson asked one of the bystanders.
“Skeeze lawyered up, so they're just waiting. Pretty sick shit, huh?”
“That's what they tell me.”
The police would view Kelty's move as indicative of his guilt, of course, but Anderson put it as another mark in the innocent column. It's what a good citizen who could afford it would do under the circumstances. To Kelty, it must certainly feel like he was being railroaded. She wondered what the poor bastard had been told so far. The trouble was, the case still basically had no specific evidence, just a mass grave, so even if the psychologist was innocent, how would he prove it? Wozcynski wouldn't be having any of it anyway.
Anderson wandered away, went to the bathroom, and then found a coffee machine and got a hot chocolate. By the time she got back, the lawyer had arrived, which was what good lawyers did for rich people. They would have the “charge or release” argument, and then Kelty would be tossed in a cell for what was left of the night. Wozcynski shouted out a final profanity and left the interview room to the lawyer and his client.
“Guess that's that,” a cop said, and left the observation room.
Anderson agreed and left to go find something to eat and a place to sleep. She was tempted to find a dark office to squat in, but she was not on her home turf and she maintained hope that with a hotel room and blackout curtains she might be able to sleep in a bit. She knew it was likely a futile hope.
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