“Okay,” she finally said. “We know you had the wallets. We also found the camera of one of the other victims…”

His eyes darted to her briefly at the mention of the camera, but then he quickly tried hard to not make his interest noticeable and let his eyes fall.

“Now, we could sit here all day until you finally tell us the truth, but this will all go a lot quicker and smoother if you just tell us where the people are that you took these things from,” she said.

“Like I said, I don’t know why those things were in my house.” His voice now shook slightly.

Tara picked the wallet up again. “James, we know you met these people,” she said shaking the wallet in her hand while she spoke. “You were spotted at the info center, speaking with two of them.”

His face turned a deep shade of red.

“Who told you that,” he barked back, as he violently jolted his body forward, like a threatened dog, until his handcuffs clanked the rails of his hospital bed.

Tara ignored his question. “We also know you were at the trail too recently, when two younger girls went missing,” she added. “One of them owned this camera that you happened to have in your home but don’t seem to have any recollection of.”

He clenched his teeth, as his face grew redder. He’s just about to boil over, Tara thought.

“Don’t you see why it’s a bit hard for me to believe that you don’t know anything?” She waited for a response, but one didn’t come. “Did you murder these people?” she finally asked.

“No!” he finally blurted. “I don’t know! I don’t remember!”

“What do you mean you don’t remember?”

“I remember the wallets,” he said, trying to contain his emotion. “I stole them, okay?…At the info center. They put their bags down while they used the bathroom and I just took them.” He then looked up at Tara with watery eyes. “But I honestly don’t even remember taking that camera.”

Tara couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth. He was so unpredictable and she couldn’t quite tell if it was all an act. But there was one more piece of evidence she needed to show him—she needed to see his reaction—and she reached into the evidence bag one last time, grabbing hold of a compass.

“Does this look familiar to you?” she asked.

He looked up and studied what Tara held.

“No, I’ve never seen that before,” he said with a furrowed brow as he gained composure and wiped a tear from under his eye. “I don’t think I have.”

Tara rolled her eyes. “James, you better have something more to say than you don’t remember, or we’re going to sit here all night,” she said, now raising her voice.

“I swear!” he yelled. “Something’s wrong with me!” His voice was now shaking uncontrollably as he tried to maintain his composure.

“What do you mean something’s wrong with you?” Tara asked.