you’ve closed. Did you bring one, Sergeant Henderson?”
“My partner’s got it.” Henderson glanced at the affable-looking sandy-haired man sitting on his left. “You remember to bring it?”
“Yeah.” The toothpick stuck in the corner of the man’s mouth bobbed with the word. While he reached inside his sport coat, Paige checked her chart. Steve Kidd. He pulled out a piece of paper, passed it to a cop at the table in front of him.
Paige moved around the podium to take the paper. “Sergeant Kidd, give me a quick summary of who wrote this statement.”
“A guy called 911, claimed he got home from work and found his wife dead,” Kidd said around the toothpick. “This statement is all we got before he had an emotional breakdown and his doctor had to sedate him.”
Paige unfolded the paper. The statement was just ten lines. She read the statement, using a pencil to circle certain words, underline and connect others, and drew a box around specific ones.
When she finished her analysis, she said, “Again, I’m approaching this with the belief that the husband is telling the truth. I’ll read his statement out loud, then give you my take on what happened.”
“Sure thing,” Henderson said, then shot McCall a smug look. Paige noticed the look was wasted, since McCall was intensely focused on her.
Paige began to read.
“‘I came home. I noticed that the house is very quiet. I kept wondering where Mary was. I knew she had to be somewheres. I started trying to find her. I walked into her bedroom and there she was. All I could do is stand and wonder what to do now and finally decided to call 911 and tell them when I got home I found that someone had killed my wife. When you guys showed up you saw all the blood and everything in such a mess. Whoever killed her made her suffer, that is for sure.’”
Paige leaned an elbow on the podium. “In the first line the husband wrote ‘I came home.’ Later he told the police dispatcher that ‘I got home.’ It’s significant that the subject uses different verbs to describe the same activity.”
“How?” asked the female cop with the dark braid. “What difference does that make?”
Paige glanced at the seating chart. The woman’s name was Tia Alvarado, a sergeant in OCPD’s Vice detail. “We’re creatures of habit. When we do something alone, we habitually use one verb to describe a specific activity. But when someone is with us, we use a different verb when talking about that same activity. It’s an unconscious thing. So this shift in word usage can determine if there’s a change in the number of people present at any given time in a statement.”
Henderson shifted in his chair. “How does that tell you if our guy was alone or not?”
“In this case it doesn’t because his statement is so brief. If this were an open case, I would recommend that when you and Sergeant Kidd reinterview the husband, you ask him how he spent the day prior to his wife’s murder. Then the day before that, and so on. It would soon be clear which verb he habitually uses when he talks about being with Mary. And if every day he came home and found her alive, it would be a good bet she was still alive when he came home on the day she died.”
Paige studied her audience. A few were exchanging looks.
“The husband tells us he ‘noticed that the house is very quiet.’ He’s switched to present tense. That’s a red flag because there’s a good chance that part of the story isn’t coming from memory. That he’s making it up.”
People had begun jotting notes.
“The subject writes that he started trying to find his wife, yet he went straight to her bedroom where her body was. Her bedroom. Not sharing a bedroom is unusual for a husband and wife. I would want to ask him about his and Mary’s relationship.
“He then tells us ‘I finally decided to call 911.’ What’s to decide? He claims he came home and found his wife dead, so calling 911 should have been automatic. Could be he was wondering if he had let enough time go by to call the police.”
“Every word,” Alvarado said. “You do look at every word.”
Paige nodded. “A person gives him or herself away unconsciously because they’re focused on hiding information. Patterns can be detected if you know what to look for.”
She referred back to the statement. “In his third sentence the husband calls Mary by name. Later he refers to her only as ‘my wife’ and ‘her.’ He’s trying to depersonalize Mary.”
“Because by that point she’s dead?” someone asked.
“I’d say so. A depersonalization is common in homicide cases when one spouse murders the other.” Paige skimmed her gaze to the end of the statement. “The last sentence is the kicker. ‘Whoever killed her made her suffer, that is for sure.’ If I were working this case, I’d be sure to ask how he knows that.”
She shifted her gaze to Henderson and Kidd. Both had their eyes trained on her. “In my opinion,” she said, “the husband is as guilty as homemade sin. Is that how things turned out?”
“Man,” Henderson said, shaking his head. “Man, oh, man.”
“Yeah.” Kidd pulled the toothpick out of his mouth. Paige saw that it was a plastic one with a curve on one end that held a length of dental floss. “It took us a couple of days, but we got a confession out of him.” Kidd paused. “Did you read about this case in the papers, Ms. Carmichael?”
“I live in Dallas, Sergeant Kidd. Our media doesn’t cover most crimes that occur in Oklahoma.”
“Guess not.” He slid the toothpick into the inside pocket of his sport coat.
“Statement analysis can be used in areas other than criminal investigations.” Paige moved to the table beside the podium and picked up the stack of assignments. “Let’s take a look at one of these.” She fanned through the pages, spotted McCall’s handwriting, plucked out the sheet and began to read.
“‘I woke up, showered, shaved, got dressed, then drove across town and picked up a friend. We went to Nick’s for champagne brunch. We left Nick’s and drove to a movie. After the movie we stopped and had a drink. Then she and I went to a mall, did some shopping. Later I took her back to her condo. She unlocked the door, I turned on the lights. I went home not long after that. I worked on my car, watched TV, then read for a while.’”
Paige glanced up. Because several cops were sending knowing looks in McCall’s direction, she figured Nick’s must be a well-known hangout of his.
“I’m guessing this was written by a male since the author mentioned shaving and working on a car.” She met McCall’s gaze for an instant before looking back at the paper. “The author didn’t introduce his lady friend by name. The norm for healthy relationships is a clear introduction. For example, ‘My friend, Sally.’ But in tumultuous relationships, introductions often are missing. Still, there’s a sense of togetherness in that the author uses the word we in his initial description of his and his friend’s activities. We went to Nick’s, we left there, we drove to the movie, we stopped to have a drink.”
“Hey, McCall,” Henderson said, sending his coworker a leering look. “Just how much togetherness went on?”
Muted
