The Fregoli Delusion Read Online Free Page B

he said to Truly.
    “No problem.”
    “We’re not getting anywhere,”
Karen said, stopping in front of Hank. “The lawyer’s here, and nothing they’re
saying is making any sense.”
    Hank looked over her shoulder at
Walter Parris. “You want a sidebar, Mr. Parris?”
    Walter nodded. “There are a few
things I need to explain.”
    “Come on in.”
    Karen pushed by him, fuming.
Walter followed, eyes down. Hank glanced at Truly, hesitated, then motioned
with his head for her to step inside. He closed the door behind her, sat down
at his desk, unclipped his holstered sidearm, locked it in a drawer, and looked
at Karen.
    “Is the witness being
uncooperative?”
    Karen screwed up her face. “That’s
what I’d call it.” She shifted on her chair to confront Walter. “Look, Mr.
Parris, with all due respect, your son says he knows the guy he saw leaving the
scene, but you and your lawyer won’t let him tell me who it is. I’d like to
lock the three of you up for obstruction and throw away the fucking key at this
point.”
    Walter opened his mouth but Hank
held up a hand. “Mr. Parris, just a moment.” He looked at Karen. “Walk me
through it.”
    “He says he was in the park this
morning, taking photographs. Apparently it’s about a ten-minute walk from his
house to where he was when he heard the shot. He gets up at dawn and likes to
go for a walk. He doesn’t have a job right now, he says, other than this
photography thing.”
    “He’s a freelance photographer,”
Walter said. “I can give you the name of his agent.”
    “Great.” Karen glared at him, then
turned back to Hank. “He was busy taking pictures of trees or whatever the hell
when the shot was fired. He didn’t have line of sight. The path curves and
there were trees between him and where Jarrett got it, so if we buy his story
then he didn’t see it happen. He said when he heard the shot he turned around
and looked back in that direction. After a moment he started walking back
toward the curve. At this point he says he saw a guy running toward a car
parked at the curb. He says he took pictures of the guy. The guy saw him, ran
over, grabbed his camera from him, and knocked him down. When he got up, the guy
had driven away. So he walked around the curve until he could see where Jarrett
was lying on the path. He walked up to him but says he didn’t touch him, just
saw the blood and called his father. Says his father told him to wait and not
touch anything, that he’d be right there. So he waited. Took a couple of
pictures of the vic with his cell phone while he was standing there. We have
the thing. Expensive, naturally. He let us test him for GSR, by the way. It was
negative.”
    The absence of gunshot residue on
Brett Parris lent strength to his story and suggested they could continue to
treat him as a witness rather than a suspect.
    “Okay,” Hank said. “What does he
say about the guy he saw running away?”
    “Zip,” Karen said. “That’s where
the roadblocks come up.”
    Hank looked at Walter. “What’s the
problem?”
    “I understand how serious this
is,” Walter said uncomfortably. “It’s not that we want him to be uncooperative.
It’s just that there’s … context that must be understood first.”
    “Context?” Karen snapped. “What
the hell does that mean?”
    Walter sighed and ran his hand
over his bare scalp. He was a short man, fifty-eight years old, and somewhat
stout. His hands were small and his fingers looked like little sausages. What
was left of his hair was gray stubble around the base of his skull from ear to
ear. He wore a yellow golf shirt, designer blue jeans, gray socks, and blue
Sperry deck shoes. He wore a gold wedding band on his left hand and an enormous
ring on his right hand that featured rubies and diamonds. His watch was a
Rolex. As chief financial officer of Jarrett Corporation, his annual income
would make Karen’s look like something you’d hand to a street person for a
sandwich at the