Chapter 143: Helping the Police with Their Inquiries

Thursday, April 28, 2005 (Continued)

The trip to the station took only a few minutes. The cops made casual conversation with me, most of their comments being casual questions about recent events. I said nothing.

I was escorted to the interview room and had to wait a little while until my lawyer and parents arrived.

Soon we were ready to start. With pen poised, Mr. Walker said, "Start at the beginning, Mark. Go slowly and give me as much detail as you can."

"You want all the details?"

"Yes. You never know what might be important."

"That's going to take a long time. Wouldn't it be better for me to give you an overview first, so you can ask me details about important parts of it?"

"Let's do it my way, shall we."

"Okay. You asked for it."

I started. "I'll start with a little background material first. A couple of days ago Katelin and I ... You know who Katelin is, don't you? The daughter. The larger of the two girls sitting on my lap in the kitchen when you arrived."

"If I don't know something, I'll ask. You just describe what happened."

"Okay. A couple of days ago Katelin and I were talking. I have extremely good relationships with my sisters, and Katelin wanted better relationships with her brothers. I agreed to help her try to achieve that. I gave her a little bit of advice and I suggested I pop in to see her family briefly. Just to get a feel for them, so that when she talked about them to me I'd have a face to put the name to, and an idea of what sort of people they were. My intention was to have nothing to do with her family after that, beyond being someone she could talk with about them, as a non-participating source of advice.

^-- "This afternoon, half an hour before dinner, is when we arranged for me to pop in..." I'd been deliberately vague during the background, but I went on to give him EVERY detail I could remember from the moment I arrived at the Eatons' home. I could remember a LOT of details! I ordinarily have three extremely good active memories these days, and I'd been concentrating very hard on remembering everything during my visit because I'd believed it'd be a short one and I'd been worried about not getting enough information from her family to form useful impressions about them. It took me five minutes to get from the first spoken sentence (Katelin's, "Come on! I can't wait to introduce you to my family."), to the second (Gunner's, "Haha! I wondered whether my stupid sister's latest BOY-friend was you. 'Martial arts expert' - ha! You're a pussy."). I described the house's exterior, their cars, the house's interior in the rooms I'd walked through, where I'd met the family, their expressions upon seeing me, my prior knowledge of Gunner and Wayne from school.

I gave him all of the conversation before the introductions started, and during the introductions themselves. I gave him my thoughts as they had occurred to me, such as not thinking highly of the parents for allowing Gunner to insult me the way he did. I included Junior's hand squeeze of course, as well as the lack of normal social etiquette as exampled by my having to be asked to be introduced, not asked to sit, and not offered a drink.

The introduction was taking a LONG time to recount. Before I got to Wayne calling me "Egg", the lawyer stopped me, saying, "Are you honestly remembering this level of detail?"

"Sure. I have a very good memory."

Mom chuckled.

"This is going to take a long time, isn't it?"

"It's taking me about four times longer to describe than it took in reality. Later on things get more complicated, so let's assume an overall six-to-one ratio. Probably ten to twelve hours to tell you, plus however long it takes to answer your questions."

"Okay. You've made your point. You'll have to speed it up."

I resisted making a joke about his "you never know what details will be important." Instead I said, "I'll give you an overview then."

I sped up considerably. I soon got to Wayne recognizing me as "Egg", and I had to mention it because there was a great deal of animosity from the boys after that, especially during our "Graceful" discussion.

He questioned my being a genius. "You're a genius?"

"Yes."

"Very intelligent?"

Several facetious answers occurred to each of my minds, but he was on my side, so I just said, "Yes. Very."

"Do you do well at school?"

"Yes. Is there a reason we are hung up on this point? How does my intelligence have any relevance to what happened?"

"If you're doing well at school I'll have more leverage with the DA, if it comes down to that."

"Early last school year I was advanced from 8th to 9th grade. This year I am doing 10th and 11th grades simultaneously, as well as several college courses toward a Bachelor in Mathematics. Next year I'll do 12th grade and finish my bachelor's. I'm on schedule to finish school and a four-year college degree at the age of sixteen, six years ahead of normal. Will that impress the DA?"

"I imagine it will. That's very impressive."

"Good. Shall I carry on?"

"Please."

I quickly skimmed through the constant insults I'd been given, until I got to the point where I had announced that I was leaving, and the boys had physically blocked the door and refused to let me out. They'd ranted and raved at me, and I quoted some of the things they'd said, especially quotes that included their violent refusal to let me leave the room.

"Are those the exact words they used?"

This wasn't the first time he'd asked me the same question, so I answered more firmly this time, "If I quote someone, you can always assume it's 100% accurate. If I'm paraphrasing or I'm not sure of my accuracy, then I'll let you know."

I continued, and my lawyer particularly liked my asking, "Mr. Eaton. Are you going to tell your sons not to kidnap me, or do I have to fight my way out?" And his answer, "You're a big mouthed smart-ass, kid. This's your own fuckin' fault."

I also made a big deal about Katelin's running around the room, begging everyone to leave me alone, and how roughly she'd been turned down, including by her father.

I skipped all the goading I'd given her brothers, to save time and because it was obviously not relevant. Instead I said, "I was standing unaggressively in the center of the room, still drinking the glass of milk I'd had to request for myself. I told them that I'd finish the milk then call my parents to come get me. The boys reacted very badly to that, and Don, Junior and Gunner all attacked me. When the three attackers got close enough to me I dealt with each of them as quickly and cleanly as I could. Don was the oldest and scariest, so I poked him in the eyeballs hard enough to hurt him but not enough to injure. That temporarily blinded him, and he dropped from the pain. I dodged Junior's attack and punched him once on the side of the head, which knocked him out. Then I dodged Gunner's attack and I punched him once on the side of the head too, also knocking him out.

^-- "That was it. All over in three blows. I didn't touch them after that. Mr. Eaton leaped out of his chair, and was about to attack me, but I managed to talk him into sitting down again. Wayne never moved, and he also helped me convince his father to sit down. He's the only nice brother."

My lawyer asked incredulously, "You knocked out Don, Junior AND Gunner Eaton?"

"Yes to Junior and Gunner; Don I poked in the eyes. He was conscious but out of action for a while. Not long enough, as it turned out."

"What did they do to you?"

"They attacked me. Are you asking what blows they landed on me?"

"Yes."

"None. I told you what happened. They attacked, and I dropped them one by one. None of them touched me. They TRIED to, but they failed. Katelin and Wayne can confirm that their brothers were attacking me though, so I was defending myself. I was standing in the center of the room drinking my glass of milk, they yelled violent threats and obscenities at me, and then charged me. I was talking calmly and quietly, the same as I am now. They attacked me, and I did the bare minimum I could to protect myself. As soon as I was safe, I even asked Mrs. Eaton to check Don's eyes because I was worried about them. They were fine though; fine enough that he could attack me several more times later on."

"Three guys attacked you, and none of them landed a blow, and you 'dropped them'?"

"Yes. And in answer to your next obvious question, No, I am not an experienced fighter. This is the first time I have tried to hit anyone in years. I've been attacked by bullies at school, even badly assaulted by them sometimes - the police will have records of some recent attacks on my by the school's football team that you should probably read up on - but I've never fought back before today. I had no choice today because those guys weren't going to be content with slapping me around and flushing my head in the toilet. They were violently angry and intending to seriously hurt me, as Don's stabbing of Gunner later proved. Don mistook Gunner for me, by the way. I HAD to do what I could to defend myself."

"So how did you win the fight so easily then? You don't expect anyone to believe you got that lucky, do you?"

"I've had three lessons from an Aikido instructor. Aikido is a martial art. It's purely defensive and doesn't have any punches, kicks or all the usual stuff you associate with martial arts. Aikido is more spiritual and mental than physical. I used my new Aikido skills. Unfortunately, none of the Aikido lessons I've had included what to do about more than one attacker, so I had to decide what to do for myself, and knocking them out seemed the quickest and safest way to end the fight. And - in answer to your next question - yes, THREE Aikido lessons taught me a great deal. I am a very, very quick study. I'm a genius, remember? As I see it, aren't the only really important facts that they attacked me and I defended myself by doing the least I possibly could?"

"Those are important, yes. But so is having a believable story. Yours is not believable."

"Katelin and Wayne will verify it. Call up my Aikido instructor and ask him how quick I learn. I can give you his number whenever you want. The only reason you don't believe me is because you've never dealt with anyone who learns as fast as I do before. I'm unusual, so my accomplishments seem so unlikely that they're unbelievable. How likely is it that a 16-year old boy will graduate college next year? Professor Williams is my girlfriend's father, and he's probably in the waiting room now. He's a professor of Mathematics at OSU who can confirm that I'm on schedule to achieve that. My beating three guys with so little training and zero experience is not likely either, but I did it. Regardless of any of that, THEY attacked ME!"

Dad said, "I have no doubt that everything Mark said is the truth. He is a physical genius as well as a mental one. He bowled 300 last Sunday, for instance. If anyone could learn how to defend himself from three attackers in three lessons, then it's Mark."

Mr. Walker said, "Why did Gunner Eaton deride your being a martial arts expert when you first arrived at the house?"

"Good question. Katelin's brothers and father all do martial arts. They're a very aggressive family. Katelin tried to build me up to her family by telling them something she thought they'd be impressed by. Unfortunately, with their being aggressively competitive macho idiots, all it did was make them want to attack me even more."

"So you beat three experienced martial artists without their landing a blow on you?"

"Yes. I wouldn't be impressed by that as I'm pretty sure none of them are any good at their martial arts. I knocked out Junior and Gunner with exactly the same technique: I stepped to their side as they were running toward me, and punched them on the side of the head. It wasn't exactly rocket science. When the father attacked me, I stepped to his side and punched him the same way. When Don attacked me with the knife, I stepped to his side and punched him exactly the same. They were so angry, violent and stupid that they simply charged at me time after time. I kept doing exactly the same thing and it kept working. I have a feeling that if I hadn't called the cops, I'd still be there knocking them out one-by-one, in the same manner over and over again. They really are an incredibly stupid bunch of people. What I did wasn't very impressive: I simply found something that worked, and I kept using it."

#1: <Look at the expression on his face. Mr. Walker has no trouble at all believing how stupid several people can be; he just can't believe how smart one person can be. He obviously spends too much time with stupid criminals, haha.>

#2: <Statistically speaking, it'd be the stupid criminals that get caught and need his services. He'll never get to meet really smart criminals.>

#1: <Good point. If we have to tell this story again - and we're bound to have to explain it to the police, probably twenty times over given the way they repeat their questions - let's explain our winning the fights because the Eatons were so stupid rather than we're so smart. I'm sure policemen won't believe anyone is intelligent either. A family like the Eatons is probably an instantly believable stupidity cliché for the police.>

#2: <Agreed.>

Mr. Walker said, "Let's move along. What happened next?"

I skipped over the irrelevant catching of flies and balancing a glass of milk on my foot tricks. I said, "I was worried about Don Eaton's eyes, and I thought I'd likely knocked all the aggression out of the boys, so I waited to see how Don was. Mr. Eaton was still very aggressive though, and he got worked up. Soon he hit upon the brilliant idea of waiting until his boys all woke up then calling the police and charging me with assaulting them. I pointed out that the whole family would have to lie to the police and maybe in court, and he said, 'Been there, done that.' I'm pretty sure he was telling the truth too."

"Really? What were the exact words?"

"I said, 'The only way I could possibly be in any trouble at all, would be if all your family lied to the police, swore false statements, perjured yourselves in court, and that sort of thing.' And he said, 'Been there, done that, smart-ass!', then he laughed. I'm pretty sure he was telling the truth, because both he and Don attacked me to get the tape recording back. Before you ask, that's the next thing to tell you. I'll get to that in a second.

^-- "When Mr. Eaton said 'Been there, done that, ' I decided that my previous reason for visiting this family - to get to know them well enough to be a good listener for Katelin - was now unimportant. If the Eatons had really lied to the police and maybe the court, there could be someone innocent in jail. I wanted to go home immediately to talk with my parents about what to do next. Almost certainly we'd then call the police to report what I'd learned.

^-- "I got up to leave, but I worried that if I called the police from home and sent them to the Eatons, the Eatons would just lie again. They could easily say that I was making up the whole thing, and maybe they'd even file assault charges against me and all lie to the police about that. Their word against mine when there was so many of them was a worry. So I had an idea which would help the police find out the truth about whatever the 'Been there, done that' meant, and would also protect me from the Eatons lying about me attacking them. In the center of the room, I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket. I'm very agile and dexterous, so I was able to turn on the tape recording function on my cellphone while I was pulling it out, but in a way they wouldn't have seen. I held it up in the air, theatrically keeping my fingers away from the buttons. I asked Katelin to read the screen, and she called out, 'Recording'. I told Mr. Eaton that it'd been recording for fifteen minutes, and that I had all the yelled threats from his sons, their refusing to let me leave, his encouraging them, their attacks on me, and his saying that he'd previously lied to the police and courts, so there was no way I was scared of his threat to falsely accuse me.

^-- "My idea was to tell the police that I had the fifteen minute recording, even though I'd only started it fifteen seconds earlier, and the police would be able to fake Mr. Eaton out." I could see that Mr. Walker was very interested in this development. I continued. "Having made Mr. Eaton believe that I had a tape recording of everything, I told him that I was leaving, but he reacted by charging out of his chair and screaming straight at me, demanding that I give him my phone. I yelled at him to stop, but he didn't. I didn't think I'd be able to run away because he was already moving fast and I was standing still. I was caught flatfooted because I NEVER expected to be attacked by a father. Katelin's brothers' attacks were not so surprising as they're just stupid boys really, even though Don is over twenty, but Mr. Eaton's was a complete shock to me.

^-- "Anyway, it was almost certainly impossible for me to get away, so I stepped to the side and punched him on the side of the head, just like always works with the Eatons. I knocked him out, thank God! Do you want me to keep talking, and tell you what happened for the rest of the time, or shall we try to listen to the recording? I haven't had a chance to do so yet, so I don't know what sort of quality it is."

Mr. Walker had no doubts, "The recording please. If you've got a recording of Mr. Eaton Senior's attacking you, then that changes things considerably. His version of this afternoon's events is considerably different than yours."

"Okay." I pulled out my cellphone, and had to play around a bit to find the function again. Under "Voice Recorder" there were two choices: "Record" and "Recordings list". I selected the latter option and three lines displayed:

Recording
04-28-2005
3:00

The "3:00" worried me. Judging by its being below the date, it looked like the time the recording started (i.e., 3pm), except that I'd started it well after 3:00. Leaving that aside, I found the "Playback" option, and selected it.

We heard my voice saying, "I realized a long time ago, Mr. Eaton, that everyone here was your family and that there was only one of me. Junior attacked me before I'd been in the house a minute, and Gunner was clearly spoiling for a fight too. You did nothing to stop them. In fact, you later encouraged their violence. Long before the first time I was attacked I turned on the tape recorder function of my phone."

I hit the 'Stop' button. I said, "We've got a problem. The phone displayed what I though was the time the recording started. It said today's date and 'three, colon, zero, zero.' I thought it was 3pm, which was the wrong time. I was watching the display just now, and it was counting down from three minutes. I think the whole recording is probably only three minutes long! If that's the case, we're not going to get much."

Mr. Walker said, "There's nothing we can do about that now. Play what you've got please."

"Okay." I looked for a "Continue" or "Resume" button, but there wasn't one, only "Play", which started from the beginning again.

My voice repeated, "I realized a long time ago, Mr. Eaton, that everyone here was your family and that there was only one of me. Junior attacked me before I'd been in the house a minute, and Gunner was clearly spoiling for a fight too. You did nothing to stop them. In fact, you later encouraged their violence. Long before the first time I was attacked I turned on the tape recorder function of my phone."

There was a small pause, as I'd been moving the phone closer to Katelin for her to read, then my more distant voice asking, "Katelin, what does the display read?"

Katelin answering, "Recording."

My voice, "Recording for fifteen minutes and some seconds. I've got all your boys' taunts and threats, their attacks on me, our discussion of their attacks, your threat to lie in court about what happened today, and your boast that you've already lied to the police. So, please Mr. Eaton, feel free to call the police about what happened here today. I'm leaving now..."

The next couple of seconds were filled with the sound of Mr. Eaton's roars and his charge across the room. You could make out his demanding the phone.

My voice yelling, "STOP Mr. Eaton!" The sound quality muffled halfway through that, as I'd put the phone in my pocket.

We could all hear that Mr. Eaton did not stop. In fact, his roars got dramatically louder as he got closer to the phone.

A second later there was the loud <thwack> of the impact of my fist on the side of Mr. Eaton's head, closely followed by the thump and groan of his body landing on top of Don.

Because I thought it was cool, I said, "He landed on top of Don. That was Don's groan."

A couple of seconds later my quite badly muffled voice, "Does this normally happen when you bring your boyfriends home, Katelin?" My little audience laughed at my joke. All four of us in the interview room were in a MUCH better mood now. I picked up my phone and found a way to turn the volume up the max, as the muffling was quite bad.

"No. I don't bring boys home anymore."

"Imagine my surprise. Wayne, I feel I should walk over there and knock you out too because you're ruining my completing the whole set, haha. I'm joking, of course, I'd never attack anyone; I'll only defend myself.

^-- "I can't believe how STUPID your family is. I don't even have to vary my technique! I knock them out one after the other in exactly the same way. You live in an unbelievably stupid and violent family. To be serious now though, I'm going to leave shortly, but I'm worried about what's going to happen to Katelin while I'm away. Katelin invited me here, and I can easily imagine her getting blamed for this clusterfuck, even though ALL the violence was started by members of your family. Will Katelin be safe when these morons wake up?"

Mom noted my use of the 'cluster' word. Dad uses it VERY occasionally, and he's learned not to use it around Mom. I had no doubt I was going to learn the same lesson soon too. On the other hand, I believed my sincere concern for Katelin came over wonderfully.

Wayne's very muffled and distant voice, "Nothing like this has happened before, so I don't know. Maybe she should go with you?"

Katelin's voice, "I think I should go with you. Just to play safe. Dad's got a bad temper, and I don't want to be around when he wakes up." I LOVED Katelin's, "Dad's got a bad temper" comment!

"I'd let you come with me, but I'll also suggest another alternative: go somewhere else, to one of your girlfriend's houses probably. When I came here, I came in friendship and with an honest desire to help. You shouldn't be blamed for any part of what happened, Katelin, but if you leave with me now, then you're leaving with someone your father and brothers are probably going to consider as an enemy. I'm going home to talk with my parents about this, play them what my phone recorded, and get their advice. If they say, 'Call the police, ' I will do that. There could be a great deal of trouble in this house, and if you've gone off with the person these morons think caused the trouble, then you'll be an enemy too. It might be better if you go to a neutral place, but it's up to you?"

"I want to go with you."

Wayne said, "Katie, somewhere else would be better. You'd anger Dad, maybe even make an enemy out of him. It's not worth it just for a few hours of hiding. Go somewhere else."

I said, "Do you want a lift to someone's place, Katelin, or will you take your bike?"

"It doesn't seem right to leave you."

"I'm not some sort of Prince Charming who has slain the wicked dragon and rescued the princess. You're not my girlfriend, and even if you want to be, I somehow don't think your parents will be giving..."

I'd been watching the display, and the counter had reached 0:00 exactly as the playback stopped. I said, "That's it. That's all we got. There's NOTHING about Don's attacks, damn!"

#1: <On the other hand, there's no catch-the-flies, hide-the-hair, and boasting about how fast we are. I think what we've got is PERFECT, the bloody knife with Don's fingerprints on it should be convincing enough to take care of Don. Look at the smile on Mr. Walker's face.>

[A little explanation for you: My family is cautious with money, so Dad had bought me a cheap cellphone. It had no camera and only a three-minute audio recording limit.]

Mr. Walker said, "First thing, let's get a copy of that." He pulled a Dictaphone out of his briefcase, dictated a description: "Copy of recording obtained from Mark Anderson's cellphone, April 28, 2005, of incident at the Eaton household."

He paused his recording, then told me, "I'll turn on my recorder, then you play that again please Mark. Would everyone stay quiet please, so it's an accurate copy."

We did as he asked, listening quietly to the whole recording again, smiling widely.

At the end, Mr. Walker checked his recording, which was fine. He said to us, "Mr. Eaton's version of events is totally at odds with that recording. Which means he is - as you described him - stupid, because you showed him that you were recording him. That's even why he attacked you. I'm not going to inform the police about this recording immediately, not until I know that Mr. Eaton has committed himself in writing. Once he's done that, any retraction and new accusation against Mark will have no credibility. I cannot imagine how you could possibly be in any trouble now, Mark."

The Andersons whooped it up, in our fairly quiet way. A great deal of smiling and congratulating of me ensued.

Mr. Walker said, "Mr. Eaton, in the excitement of the moment, seems to have forgotten about that tape. If he hasn't already, he'll shortly be signing his statement and I expect also making a formal complaint against Mark, as his story is full of accusations. If I have it pictured properly, Junior and Gunner Eaton were unconscious when you revealed that you were recording your visit, yes?"

"That's correct. Don was awake. I think that's why he attacked me so viciously, to get the recording back. Wayne told me later that the thing that Mr. Eaton had lied to the police about involved Don, so naturally Don would want to destroy the recording. Mrs. Eaton was awake, of course. She's a pathetic woman, as I said during my description of the introductions. She got worse as things turned ugly. I've got no idea whether she'll remember the recording, or think to tell anyone in her family."

"Don't worry about that. As I understand the situation, it's mainly Don Eaton and Mr. Eaton Senior that matter. Junior and Gunner Eaton won't get more than a slap on the wrist. Neither of them actually struck a blow on you, at any time, did they?"

"Not really, no. Junior squeezed my hand extremely hard when I arrived. Otherwise they only tried to attack me the once, and I knocked them both out before they did anything more than verbally threaten me."

"Is your memory of the words spoken so accurate that your quotes could be presented to the Eatons as a believable transcript of a tape recording?"

"I would think my memory is pretty much word perfect. I was paying a lot of attention to what was going on, and I have an extraordinarily good memory. If I'm a word or two off, I doubt any of the Eatons would detect the inaccuracy, if that's what you're thinking of?"

"Yes. With your permission I'll give the police a copy of some of your juicier quotes. They might want to use them to, 'fake out' - using your term - Mr. Eaton, to find out what he'd lied about previously. He's going to be highly vulnerable when they play him his assault on you, as they'll claim it to be an extract of the much longer recording you told him you'd made. A few well-placed quotes from elsewhere in the 'transcript', and he should collapse. None of that will work if he has a lawyer, but people like he seems to be often don't think they need one. For now, go on with your story please."

"Okay. After knocking Mr. Eaton out, I talked to Katelin and Wayne for a while. I thought I was safe, because the only bad Eaton who wasn't unconscious was Don, and I erroneously assumed he was just a stupid egotist who would stop his competitive posturing after seeing that I'd dealt with four of his family so easily. While I was talking to Katelin and Wayne, Don got to his feet and stumbled weakly toward us. I invited him to join our discussion, and he limped around to do so. He walked behind me, and when he was in the right position - right behind me - he viciously attacked again. No warning and from behind. Even his limping had been an act. He's a vicious coward. His attacks - a nasty punch and a hard swinging kick - would've been extremely painful if they'd landed." [They would've been a lot worse than that, but I didn't know that at this time.]