Practice to Deceive

just be another phone call with everyone calling Brenna and that she would understand and know Peggy didn’t want to overwhelm her with more phone calls.”
    Mark Plumberg asked Jim if he would be willing to accompany them—voluntarily—to the Punta Gorda police station to provide a full statement on tape. The suspect agreed to that and immediately started putting on his shoes.
    “You do know that you’re not under arrest,” Plumberg reminded him one more time, “and you don’t have to go with us.”
    “I know,” Huden said. “I’ll go.”
    “Even though I told him many times that he wasn’t under arrest,” the Island County detective recalled, “it seemed to me that he thought he was in custody.”
    A Punta Gorda police officer drove Jim Huden to the precinct, and Mark Plumberg prepared to follow them.
    Before Plumberg left the house, however, he spoke with Jean Huden, telling her that Jim was willing to go with them.
    “Has Jim ever owned a gun?” he asked casually.
    “No! Jim hates guns. Is Jim under arrest?”
    “No, ma’am, he’s not. He’s voluntarily going to give us a statement.”
    Jean didn’t ask why Jim might be in trouble or why he would be arrested. Commander Mike Beech and Detective Mark Plumberg had never before encountered a homicide probe where the people they interviewed asked fewer questions or who reacted with such little emotion. Particularly Jim Huden. Was it because Jim and Jean were in shock?
    Or perhaps their demeanor was so flat because they already knew the answers.
    * * *
    A S THEY WAITED FOR audiotapes and a video camera to be set up in an air-conditioned interview room at the Punta Gorda police headquarters, Plumberg and Huden made small talk. The suspect was hard to read. He didn’t seem particularly nervous; his mien was more one of calm acceptance.
    When the tapes started to roll, the detective read Jim his Miranda rights once again.
    Jim began to answer questions, and he confirmed several major points on the record, knowing that one day his voice, image, and statements might indeed be used against him in a court of law.
    Plumberg jotted down the salient points, filling about ten pages of his yellow legal pad, and he watched Jim’s reactions to certain questions:
1. During the Christmas holidays in 2003, Jim Huden had driven Peggy Sue Thomas’s Lexus from Las Vegas to Seattle. At the same time, Peggy flew from Vegas to Sea-Tac Airport.
2. Jim and Peggy stayed at Dick Deposit’s home on Whidbey Island from Friday, December 19, until Monday or Tuesday, December 22 or 23.
3. Jim said he went alone to Russel Douglas’s apartment in Renton to drop off a present for Brenna—either on that Monday or on Tuesday.
4. There were apparently several phone calls between Peggy and Russel arranging the present delivery on the day Jim said he took it to Russel.
5. Jim drove Peggy’s Lexus to Russel’s apartment.
6. Peggy did not accompany Jim, but stayed at the hotel because she was “tired” after cutting hair all day.
7. Jim’s relationship with Brenna Douglas was because she was Peggy’s friend. “They have a telephone relationship,” he said. “And I’m kinda just a guy in the room.”
8. Peggy’s mother called them in Las Vegas days after the murder to tell them that Russel was dead.
9. Jim Huden and Peggy Thomas were both in deep debt on their credit cards—just as Bill Hill had told detectives earlier.
10. Huden confirmed that Bill Hill was a friend of his and that they had lunch on the Monday before the current interview. “I told him I needed to get back to Peggy in Vegas.”
    Who delivered the Christmas gift for Brenna from Peggy—and if indeed there was a gift—might not seem important. But it was. One or both of the two suspects was either failing to recall the details—or lying.
    Mike Beech told Jim Huden that his own best friend, Bill Hill, had called the Island County Sheriff’s Department and told Beech himself that Jim had confessed to him.
    Huden wilted when he heard that. Until now, he had not asked directly just why he was being questioned. Surely he knew from the direction of the questioning, but he seemed reluctant to say anything specifically, even after Mark Plumberg accused him of being the shooter.
    Within a very short time, Jim asked for an attorney. Plumberg assumed he would want to be taken home where he could contact a lawyer, but he remained in the police station, dialing a number of law offices. He had no luck. It was