with Andy pushed and prodded in front of him through the police station doors. “Little asshole has something to tell you,” Clive told the desk constable and marched out.
Andy Blair’s hair and clothes hadn’t settled back into shape after whatever shaking he’d just received. Leith sat down with him in the nastiest of the Terrace interview rooms and said, “What is it your dad wants you to tell me, Andy?”
“Nothing. He thinks I’ve been taking cars off the lot without permission and joyriding. Not true. I grew out of joyriding long time ago.”
“Oh, so your dad’s just assumed you’re the Pickup Killer for no reason, is that right? You have nothing to say to that except he’s wrong?”
“He didn’t say I’m the Pickup Killer. He said I have something to tell you. Which I have not. That’s where he’s wrong.”
Leith chose to lose his patience at this point, a faster escalation than usual, but he didn’t have the luxury of time. “I’m here investigating the Pickup Killer,” he blasted. “And your father knows it. He’s not going to turn you in for some minor infraction, is he? What’s it about, Andy? You need a lawyer? You want me to get you a lawyer so we can get to the truth without fucking around here?”
Blair’s eyes widened. “Oh, c’mon. I didn’t do anything.”
“Is that what your father’s going to tell me?”
Blair’s thumbs twiddled fast, like whirligigs in a storm. “I maybe helped out a friend once or twice, let him take a truck out. Not the good ones. The trade-in junk from the back of the lot. And it wasn’t for any killing sprees, that I can swear to.” He lifted the left hand in oath and switched swiftly to the right, and grinned, not a criminal, just a charming brat.
Leith sat for a moment, looking at the brat, wondering. Blair could be a sociopath, but he didn’t think so. “Who’s the friend?”
He expected more waffling and instead got a straight-up answer, at least a partial. “John. Not a friend, really. Just an acquaintance.”
“John’s got a last name?”
“I don’t know. Knew him on first-name basis only.”
Leith stood with purpose, and Blair said, “No, wait, I remember. John Portman. No, Porter. No, Potter. Yeah, Potter. John Potter.”
Leith was back in his chair, asking who exactly John Potter was and where he lived. The name was familiar in only the foggiest way, one name of thousands he’d maybe read on a list in the course of the investigation. But that was good; if the name were on a list, they’d find him. They’d drag him into the light and scrutinize him, if this was actually going anywhere.
Blair said he didn’t know where Potter lived, but he had the feeling it wasn’t close. Or what he did for a living. Some kind of a contractor, he believed.
Leith said, “So you helped him out. Go on.”
“He wanted to buy this old trade-in truck, it was a 2004 Tacoma, I think, not in good shape, which I told him so. But I slapped on the plates and let him take it for the spin. Around the block, he said. It must have been a pretty big block, ’cause he brought it back about a week later. So we had a fight about it and came to terms. It was a misunderstanding, okay? A miscommunication. He acknowledged that and paid me under the table for the inconvenience. Which I declared on my income tax as ‘other,’ by the way. You can check.”
Leith didn’t care about the payoff at this point. He wanted more on Mr. Potter, and he wanted to tread softly now. Treading softly wasn’t his forte, so he did as Blair did, twiddled his thumbs. Not fast, but slow, a kind of metronome. “You grabbed a copy of the guy’s BCDL, I take it, before he took the truck out?”
Blair seemed to gaze into the past. “Hell, I must have at least looked at his driver’s licence. Might not have copied it. Not for a spin around the block.” He flung up both hands in surrender. “I know, I know, it’s the law. But I spent my week in hell. Learned my lesson. Never cut corners again. Dad never found out, ’cause I’m in charge of inventory. So in the end I thought, hey, no harm done. No big deal, right?”
“Can we narrow it down to a date, when Potter took this Tacoma?”
Blair smiled. “Nope, sorry.”
But he was nervous, Leith could tell. No longer twiddling, but twitchy and damp. “So why’d you let him take a vehicle a second time, if he caused you so much trouble on the first one?”
“Huh? What second time? I never said there was a second time.”
“You said once or twice.”
“Manner of speaking. I meant once.”
Leith stood again, this time with no show of threat. “Hang on a moment. Be right back. You want a coffee?”
In the case room, he sat down with Bosko and told him what he had. “He’s lying. He thinks he’s a smooth operator, but he’s a fool. It lights up in flashing neon across his forehead, I’m lying now. He’s always been like this, cocky but scared. The fact he’s scared is interesting, because there’s no paper trail, and we can’t prove anything. So whatever it is he’s covering up, it’s serious. I think he’s trapped into this lie. I think he wants out, but he can’t make a move. The question is, should I charge him now so I can lean on him properly? Or keep cajoling.”
“Keep cajoling,” Bosko said. “In the long run, it’ll be faster.”
Leith was eying diagrams in the air. The diagrams were vague, maybe cryptic, and he was trying not to look lost. “I don’t agree. If I suspect for one moment he’s in on the killing, I’ll have to charge him. And then we’re stuck. I just don’t want to waste time playing ball for nothing, if we’re going to end up going the long way round anyway.” With warrants and waiting, he meant. Lawyers and stone walls.
“I don’t think he’s in on the killing,” Bosko said, and briefly Leith wondered how he could reach that conclusion with such limited info and seem so sure about it. He crossed his arms, said nothing, and Bosko went on in his firmly meandering way. “And the worst you’ll get him for is conspiracy after the fact, and that’s not your focus. Let him know that conspiracy after the fact is nothing compared to what he’ll be facing if another girl dies because of him holding back. Sounds like you’ve hit pay dirt, but dig with care.” Bosko had his phone out and was making a call. “I’m going to get the team on to Potter right now. Get the video set up for the rest of the interview, and I’ll monitor, just to add a second set of eyes.”
Leith arranged for video and then filled two cups of coffee and returned to the interview room. Blair focussed on sweetening his coffee, and Leith, sitting once more across from him, did as Bosko had suggested, cajoled and warned in the same breath. Then he asked, “So, how many times in all did you let Potter take trucks out?”
Blair was maybe too smart to insist on his “once” statement and dithered about for a while before recalling that yes, there was a second time, maybe the next summer.
“With all the paperwork done up this time?” Leith asked.
“Well, no,” Blair admitted, losing his veneer. “I knew him now, so I agreed to kind of a handshake deal.”
“Details.”
