Read Online Dark Web by T. J. Brearton - Free Book Online Page B

posture; the chair protested beneath his weight. “So, you said you wanted to see these characters one at a time. Two of them are juveniles, as you know. So for them we’ve got the video as well as the audio recorder in the room. I didn’t know who you wanted first, so I gave you the Asian kid.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    Tuggey swung open the door into the interrogation room. A frail-looking kid with stringy black hair, olive skin, and almond-shaped eyes turned his head to look back at them. He seemed terrified. He was maybe sixteen, and wore a track suit, black, with red-piping. Swift could smell the fear, like sweat and battery acid combined.
    “Thank you,” said Swift.
    Tuggey promptly closed the door. Swift turned and looked at the kid, who looked down. Swift walked around the table where the video camera was mounted on a tripod. He looked it over for a moment before finding the record button. He fumbled with the DAT recorder for a second before turning it on. Finally he took a chair across from the kid. Once he was seated, he pulled out a notepad and pen from his inner pocket. He set these on the table and folded his hands in front of him.
    “Hi,” he said. “I’m Detective John Swift.”
    The kid looked up. His eyes were dark, but his face was open. He was obviously petrified. This thing could be over before Swift knew it. Things were looking up.
    “Have you been given your Miranda Warning?”
    “Yes,” answered the kid, his voice so light and quiet it was almost inaudible.
    “You understand you have a right to counsel. Would you like to contact an attorney at this time?”
    “No.”
    Probably didn’t want his parents to find out what was going on, Swift thought. He couldn’t know that the troopers had already called them when he was brought in. His driver’s license had been run, and the parents’ number came up right away. If anyone was going to call a lawyer, it would be them. But the interview was on tape. Who knew what could happen down the line? All you needed was a sharp defense attorney claiming his client asked for a lawyer and didn’t get one, and you could have an entire confession thrown out of court.
    “Can you state your name and age, please?”
    “Your name sounds fake.”
    Swift blinked and put on a smile. “My name? No, it’s real.”
    “Sounds like a character.”
    “Oh I’m a character. Just ask my ex-wife. You want to know what? I’m actually John Swift the Third. And, get this, you want to know something even worse?”
    Swift waited until the kid said, “What?”
    “My middle name is Leslie. John Leslie Swift the third.”
    The kid was silent.
    “But there’s a good reason. My great grandfather was named Leslie. Back then, you could name your son Leslie and no one thought two ways about it. And he was a good man too. Know who he was?”
    “No.”
    “Yeah, silly question. I’ll tell you, real quick, just so you know how crazy this gets. He was one of the very first State Police Detectives; joined way back in 1925. Just seven years after the State Police were first founded. So. There’s this guy named Sam Howell was murdered down in Westchester County. He was foreman of a construction company. But there was no local police department to investigate, so the state legislature put together the troopers. Just like here, in New Brighton, there’s no local department. There’s a Sheriff’s Department, and sometimes they handle stuff like this, if they have detectives. But this one doesn’t. That’s why I’m here.”
    Swift sat back and fixed the kid with a level gaze.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Hideo Miko.” He pronounced it Hid-aye-oh Mee-koh .
    “That’s different, too.”
    “It’s Japanese.”
    Swift gave him another smile. “Is it Hideo Miko the third?”
    “No. My father named me after a Japanese baseball player. Hideo Nomo.”
    “Oh. Very cool. Your father a big baseball fan?”
    “He’s crazy over it.”
    “You get along with your father?”
    The