Karen mused, “It’s possible you were with the person who did it and maybe—”
“No,” Lloyd said, abruptly.
But Karen continued with the thought: “—you didn’t know that’s what they were going to do?”
“No. I wasn’t with nobody.” He said he wanted a new immunity agreement, which had the effect of undermining what he’d just said—if he had been by himself and had nothing more to offer, then why seek broader immunity?
Katie shifted gears again. She commiserated with Lloyd, suggesting that Mark Janney’s veiled threat to release Lloyd’s name to the press had been heavy-handed.
“I thought he was a little strong,” she said. “I didn’t think that was fair.” (This comment, too, would later haunt Pete Feeney, who had to guard against anyone overstepping the state’s strict interrogation guidelines. Katie was admitting that Mark had threatened Lloyd.) Then she effectively repeated the same threat, only phrasing it as a show of sympathy: “If they do put that information out there to get leads, that might be detrimental to you. That’s why I’m concerned. I don’t want people to paint you as a monster.”
“I’ve already been painted as a monster with my family.”
“I don’t think you’re a monster,” offered Karen.
“I mean with my mom and my niece and my sisters. I’m considered the monster of the family now.”
Lloyd complained that his sister and niece had stopped visiting him.
“That’s something that can be rectified,” said Karen.
“I think there was a good person at the mall that day who saw something that he didn’t like. Would you have stepped in?” Katie asked. “Because I’m wondering if maybe you tried to step in and that’s how you got hemmed up in all this? Because I think you’re a good guy.”
“What did I tell you?” said Lloyd.
Katie ran with this. What if Lloyd saw something bad happening and tried to step in and save the girls?
“If that’s the case,” she said, “you need to tell us so we can fix the situation with your family. We’re the two girls who can advocate for that.” She rephrased this idea as Lloyd listened intently. “You’re not shaking your head, so I know I’m onto something,” she said.
Lloyd laughed.
“I’m listening to you,” he said.
So Katie continued this line of reasoning. After all, Lloyd was just “a kid” back then. He lacked the confidence he would have today. Karen suggested that Lloyd might have found himself caught up in something bad and panicked.
“I want to believe the rapport you and I established,” said Katie. “I want to believe that I am not a fool, that I should go back to Police 101 because I’ve just been had. I believe there’s a reason and that it’s in there somewhere. I believe wholeheartedly in that.”
The women worked him every which way. They told him how smart he was. What a good guy he was. They said they understood his fears, and his need to protect himself. But both told him that they now knew he had been involved. As they went on, Lloyd grew increasingly irate, so Katie zeroed in on that.
“Prior to Karen coming in, you and I had a very pleasant exchange. Your whole demeanor and body language and eye contact has changed.”
“Because I’m tired! I’ve been working all night long. I’ve had two hours of sleep.”
“You’re getting a little pissed off, which I get,” said Katie. “I mean, I don’t feel like this is the same person I’ve been in here talking to. So it’s easy for you to change demeanor. I mean, am I an asshole for thinking you are a good guy?”
“No, I’m still a good guy,” said Lloyd, calming down. “I’m just getting tired. I’ve been sitting here in the same spot for, what? Four hours?”
It went on. At one point Lloyd said “My mind’s dropped down, whatever. You know? I’d be happy to tell you something I knew, but I don’t. Maybe I ought to start seeing a psychiatrist here.”
Then Lloyd accused Katie of fudging the test results. She got angry, or feigned anger. There was no separating the fake from the real; Katie was playing a role, and as with anyone good at it, the role had begun to play her.
“I believe you saw him take those girls away, and I know that you know him,” she said, referring to Mileski. She told him she believed he panicked when he realized that what Mileski was doing was “fucked up” and left. “Maybe that’s where the guilt comes from. Maybe that’s where the test [result] comes from. If there’s something locked in there—and you’re not saying unequivocally no—something could be locked in. Is it possible you have seen them again since then?”
“I can’t say yes or no on that,” said Lloyd—a curious answer. “You can interpret it any way you want.”
“I’m not interpreting,” protested Katie.
“No, I’m saying you can interpret it any way you want with your college education, your background. All I can say is, I know nothing about it.”
“No! What you just said is, you can’t say yes or no.”
“Yeah, but I can’t!” Lloyd complained, loudly.
“Again, that’s like being KIND OF PREGNANT!” Katie matched Lloyd’s raised volume. “It’s not an answer! It has nothing to do with my college education. You’re probably smarter than me, to be honest with you, because you’ve lived a lot of life, okay? The bottom line is, it can’t be both ways. I’m asking you is there a possibility that you have seen those girls?”
“Why are you raising your voice?” he asked.
“Because you’re raising your voice at me, and you know why? Because I went out and I stuck up for you, and I look like a stupid fuck right now because I believed in you and I thought you were being honest!”
“I thought I was being honest, too! I think you all did something to that test, took it out and did something to it!”
“That’s absurd,” she said. “That’s absurd!”
Lloyd said she could have falsified the results if she wanted to. “That’s what you do. You can change anything on it.”
“I don’t even know how to sign on the damned thing. How am I going to switch something?”
“Well, that’s my opinion,” said Lloyd. “I thought we were having a good conversation and stuff like that, but when you started getting mad I started getting mad.”
“No,” said Katie. “You got mad first. I’m just defending myself.” Katie stepped out of the room to cool off.
Karen tried to calm Lloyd and then offered him a way out of the standoff. He listened intently.
“I actually think you are still the nice person we thought you were,” she said. “I don’t think you are the person who would hurt those girls. I don’t think that’s what happened. I don’t. I really don’t. I don’t think that you kidnapped those girls to do something bad. I think those girls went with you guys, whoever was involved, and I think something went wrong, and you got scared. And that’s completely understandable, because you were a kid back then. The people that you were with should have done better by you and not gotten you involved with something like this to begin with. But here we are now. We know that you are involved. I just want to know how involved you were. That’s it, Lloyd. You are not going to convince me that you were not involved. And it’s not just a matter of the test. We can disregard that test.”