“Mr. Chandonne.” Berger’s voice sounds at ease and in charge, as if she talks to mutant serial killers every day. “I’m going to start with introducing myself. I’m Jaime Berger, a prosecutor with the New York County district attorney’s office. In Manhattan.”
Chandonne raises a hand to lightly touch his bandages. The backs of his fingers are covered with downy pale hair, almost albino, colorless hair. It is maybe half an inch long, as if until recently he shaved the backs of his hands. I have flashbacks of those hands coming after me. His fingernails are long and filthy and for the first time, I catch the contours of powerful muscles, not thick and bulging like men who obsessively work out in the gym, but ropey and hard, the physical habitat of one who, like a wild animal, uses his body to feed, to fight and flee, to survive. His strength seems to contradict our assumption that he has lived a rather sedentary and useless life, hiding inside his family’s hotel particulier, as the elegant private houses on Ile Saint-Louis are called.
“You’ve already met Captain Marino,” Berger says to Chandonne. “Also present is Officer Escudero from my officehe’s the cameraman. And Special Agent Jay Talley with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.”
I feel Berger’s eyes touch me. I avoid looking. I refrain from interrupting to ask, Why? Why was Jay there? It streaks through my mind that she is exactly the sort of woman he would be attracted tointensely. I slip a tissue out of a jacket pocket and blot cold sweat off my brow.
“You know this is being videotaped, don’t you, and you have no objection to that,” Berger is saying on tape.
“Yes.” Chandonne takes a drag on the cigarette and picks a piece of tobacco off the tip of his tongue.
“Sir, I’m going to ask you some questions about the death of Susan Pless on December fifth, nineteen-ninety-seven.”
Chandonne has no reaction. He reaches for his Pepsi, finding the straw with his pink, uneven lips as Berger goes on to give him the victim’s address in New York’s Upper East Side. She tells him that before they can go any further, she wants to advise him of his rights, even though he has already been advised of them God knows how many times. Chandonne listens. Maybe it is my imagination, but he seems to be enjoying himself. He does not seem in pain or the least bit intimidated. He is quiet and courteous, his hairy, awful hands resting on top of the table or touching his bandages, as if to remind us of what wewhat Idid to him.
“Anything you say can be used against you in court,” Berger goes on. “Do you understand? And it would be helpful if you would say yes or no instead of nodding.”
“I understand.” He cooperates almost sweetly.
“You have a right to consult a lawyer now before any questioning or to have a lawyer present during any questioning. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“And if you don’t have a lawyer or can’t afford one, a lawyer will be provided to you free of charge. Do you understand?”
At this, Chandonne reaches for his Pepsi again. Berger relentlessly goes on making sure that he and all the world know this process is legal and fair and that Chandonne is completely informed and is talking to her of his own volition, freely, without any pressure of any sort. “Now that you have been advised of your rights,” she concludes her forceful, self-assured opening, “are you going to tell the truth about what happened?”
“I always tell the truth,” Chandonne replies softly.
“And you’ve been read these rights in front of Officer Es-cudero, Captain Marino and Special Agent Talley, and you understood these rights?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you just tell me in your own words what happened to Susan Pless?” Berger says.
“She was very nice,” Chandonne replies, to my amazement. “I am still made sick by it.”
“Yeah, I just bet you are,” Marino sardonically mutters inside my conference room.
Berger instantly hits the pause button. “Captain,” she fires at him, “no editorializing. Please.”
Marino’s sullenness is like a poisonous vapor. Berger points the remote control and on tape she is asking Chandonne how he and Susan Pless met. He replies that they met in a restaurant called Lumi on 70th Street, between Third and Lexington.