THE BODY

The Polygraph

I had Danny call the usual polygraph guy. If the body doesn't appear soon with evidence on it linking Jose to the crime then we have nothing. Especially since some idiot neighbor saw a car leaving the neighborhood with what looked like Jo Ana in the passenger seat. I had not talked to the officer who talked to the neighbor yet but I would bet anything that he suggested that idea before the neighbor did. 

The earliest appointment for the polygraph was on Tuesday at 9 in the morning. I knew that would be the day. That would be the day I would get a confession and find the body. On that day Jose would take the polygraph and fail it. And when he does he will not be able to take it any longer. How do I know he will fail it? I know it because it doesn't matter whether he fails it or not. I will tell him he failed it, and when I tell him that he will believe he failed it because he is guilty. There will be no way out of it. 

Polygraphs are crap. They don't work. I used to think they worked but after years of using them I know they don't. And this is isn't just my observations. I have had polygraphers confide in me that the polygraph doesn't work. I have had cases where the suspects pass the polygraph and then confess to the crime afterwards. Or cases where they fail the polygraph and I find that someone else did it. It's a crap shoot. But it's 50-50 crap shoot so it is still useful. It doesn't work, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good tool. It's physical proof of lying to most people. So when they fail they know we now know what we had only guessed before. Sometimes all someone needs to confess is that little machine telling them they are lying. I guess they feel they can't argue with machines. I don't know why that is so. I argue with machines all the time.

I had already mentioned the polygraph to Jose the first day I met him in the office. I told him it was routine to have the last person who saw the missing person take a polygraph. It wasn't, of course, but he didn't know that. It is often used in cases for murdered spouses and stuff like that. Had Jo Ana had a boyfriend we would have for sure polygraphed him. Either way Jose had already agreed and I knew it would be hard for him to take that back. I had Danny call him and tell him we had set it up for Tuesday. 

Danny can talk anybody into just about anything. He's got that car salesman thing going on all the time. He's especially helpful for the Spanish speaking suspects. Danny sounds like one of those television anchormen on Telemundo. He just rattles away in blinding speed in such a way that you just agree with what he says because it sounds so right.  I think he almost believes all the crap he spews out sometimes. Regardless, I love watching him do it. I swear he could sell insurance to a dead person. 

We left the house. Heading back to the office we took an isolated route that took us along dirt roads, canals, and vast, empty fields. I don't know why. Sometimes when you have nothing else to do you run around hoping to get lucky. We knew that people tend to go with what they know. Something familiar will always beat out something new. Where ever he took the body was probably a place he knew. Either he had been there or by there at some time  or another. Fishing poles. I remembered the fishing poles by the side of the mobile home. If they were his then he probably had a nice hidden fishing spot somewhere close. There were miles of canals not far from his house with trees and other vegetation that you could hide a stolen car in (and people often do) so that it would not be found for months. A body might never be found.