Free Revelations by Laurel Dewey Page B

?”
    Jordan looked like he wanted to jump across the table and kill Bo. Instead, the convicted felon just sat seething, his eyes purposely turned away from Lowry. “I…blacked…out…by… the…river.” Jordan said, in measured syncopation.
    “ Blacked out ? Well, you sure picked one helluva time to do that, Jordan!”

    Jordan collected his thoughts and turned to Bo. “I am the ruler of shovels. I have a double. I am as thin as a knife. I have a wife. What am I?”
    On the tape, Bo sat back in his chair. “What in the hell are you jabberin’ about?”
    Jordan let a smug snigger.
    Bo looked at Weyler. “He’s just a bubble shy of bein’ level, eh, Beanie?” Bo asked Vi to fast forward to the section where Jordan is given a polygraph. “I was hopin’ that if I went knee-to-knee with him, I’d get a confession. But that was a big ol’ 10-74. So, we put him on the box.” Bo looked at Vi. “Ready?”
    Vi nodded and hit the PLAY button again. Jordan was strapped to a lie detector. Across the table, a polygraph expert asked him questions and jotted down notes.
    “Is your name Jordan Richard Copeland?” the man asked Jordan.
    “Yes.” Jordan answered quietly.
    “Do you live in Midas, Colorado?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you have a beard and mustache?”
    Jordan shifted slightly in his chair. “Yes.”
    Jane watched the tape carefully. The first questions were controls, used to ascertain a baseline response line that, when stressed, could determine a possible lie. The way that skilled criminals “beat the box” is to use the control questions so that the peak comparison values on later pertinent questions—questions that can determine guilt or innocence—don’t equate. This could be done a variety of ways: inserting a tack into your shoe and pressing your toe on it during a control question, squeezing your anus together on the question or varying one’s breathing techniques to create artificial stress. It was for this reason that Jane watched Jordan more closely when he shifted in his chair when he answered “yes” to a simple question about his beard and mustache.
    “Are you the son of Richard and Joanna Copeland?”

    “Yes.” Jordan stared straight ahead, his voice extremely modulated.
    Jane leaned closer to the monitor, looking for a tell but the poor quality of the video didn’t allow for reading the minutia.
    The questions continued with the expected, “Did you kidnap Jake Van Gorden?” “Did you have any knowledge of Jake Van Gorden’s kidnapping?” and “Are you connected in any way with Jake Van Gorden’s kidnapping?” The clincher came in the form of “Did you kill Jake Van Gorden?”
    Bo motioned for Vi to shut off the video, thanked her for her help and then told her she could go. “So, see, between the fact that he beat the box and we didn’t find any dead bodies inside his little log shack or around his property, we had to cut the Trash Bag loose.” He sucked a hard drag off his cigar. “I could pick him up again on some trumped up charge. You know, aggravated mopery or P.O.P.O., but if I can’t get him to sing, it’s a goddamn waste of time!” Jane recognized P.O.P.O. as Pissing Off the PO-lice , a sometimes-common charge used by cock-of-thewalk cops who like to flaunt their muscle with a perp they don’t like but don’t have enough ammo to hang. Bo set the cigar in an ashtray, leaned forward, clasping his hands together and looked at Weyler. “This is a tough one, Beanie. Ain’t no way to Gomez this case away.”
    “’Gomez?’” Jane said, incredulously. “I’ve never heard that one.”
    Weyler turned to her, a sly look on his face. “Really? It’s an old school term.”
    Bo shared a private glance with Weyler.
    “My dad was a cop,” Jane offered. “I heard them all. But I never heard to Gomez something away.”
    “Yeah, well, maybe you ain’t as smart as you think you are!” Bo chortled in a satisfied manner. “Back to ol’ Trash Bag, it’s worth