POLICE INTERVIEW WITH PAIGE DUBRE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY SEBASTIAN PAUL

CONDUCTED BY: SSA Z. BERHANU; DET. J. ALBI

1/02/2023

The interview takes place in an interrogation room. Zebedee Berhanu and Jameson “James” Albi sit on one side of the metal table, with Sebastian and Paige on the other side. There is a microphone in the center of the table. A red light is blinking, indicating it is recording audio. Paige looks nervous; Sebastian appears irritated and distrustful.

BERHANU: Thank you for coming, Miss Dubre. I know this hasn’t been easy for you.

PAUL: I would like to remind you that my client is here of her own volition. She is understandably traumatized by the whole ordeal. If at any point the conversation steers in a direction I see as worsening her mental state, I am calling it off.

BERHANU: Understood. We will respect her needs. Paige, are you ready to speak with us?

DUBRE: I am. You still have Rowan in custody. If anything I say can help her, I’ll do it.

BERHANU: Very well. We know from the security footage at your workplace that Miss Baker visited you there on more than one occasion. How would you characterize your relationship?

DUBRE: We’re friends now—good friends. It’s not that simple, though. It took a while to earn her trust and build up the relationship we have. The first day we met, all I did was pay for her groceries. I wanted to show her I was a safe person, and it seemed to have worked. I offered her a pamphlet, but I guess it was too early for her to be ready to accept any more help from me.

After my shift, I called the Thatchers for advice.

ALBI: Conrad and Melinda.

DUBRE: Yep! They’re Mimi and Pops to me, the way they were like surrogate grandparents. They were ecstatic to hear I had found a potential recruit for the youth center they run. Ran. Helping Hands did a lot of good before you came in, you know?

BERHANU: We had to shut down Helping Hands’ operations for the course of the investigation, yes. I’m sure you made a positive impact there; we aren’t casting any judgment on you.

PAUL: You better not be.

ALBI: We’re not. Honest. We’ve worked with the Thatchers before. They’re decent people.

BERHANU: Exactly. We respect the work they did. We simply need to know what changed that led to the massacre.

Sebastian and Detective Berhanu exchange daring glances.

BERHANU: What did you and the Thatchers discuss on that call?

DUBRE: Nothing over the phone. Pops said we’d talk when I came in that afternoon. At the time, I had no clue what the conversation would entail, but I was hyped for it. Rowan would end up being my first solo recruit, you know? My first attempt clearly didn’t go well, so I was willing to accept all the help I could get.

When I walked in, Mimi was already in the lobby waiting for me. She bounced when she saw me, then she took me by the arm and led me down the hall to Pops’s office where he, too, stood in wait. He wasn’t one for showing enthusiasm like Mimi, but I could still tell; he straightened his posture when I walked in, and I think I even saw him smile. They definitely had something in store for me—I could feel it.

BERHANU: And what did they have planned?

DUBRE: Pops said to me, “We’re going to practice talking to this Rowan girl. You need to know what you’re doing when you talk to her.” I was a tad offended when he insinuated I didn’t know what he was doing, but he was right to feel that way. This was so far outside of my comfort zone, and I needed his guidance.

I played Rowan, and Pops played me. He wanted to show me what he would say to her in my position that would make her want to join Helping Hands. It was really cool to see.

ALBI: What exactly did he coach you to say?

PAUL: What is this line of questioning?

Detective Albi looks to Detective Berhanu, unsure how to answer. Berhanu thinks a moment, then answers for him.

BERHANU: It will help us understand both Rowan’s and the Thatchers’ motivations. We’ll know what Rowan was told about your group, and we’ll get some insight into what Conrad Thatcher’s intentions were with Rowan. Is that fair enough, Mr. Paul?

PAUL: Sighs. Yes.

Sebastian Paul nods for Paige to continue speaking.

DUBRE: Mimi confirmed what I already knew—that I was too forward with Rowan at first. I needed to ease my way into her life rather than try to force it all at once onto her. From there, me and Pops roleplayed conversations. He showed me how to ask questions that would make her more comfortable opening up to me. Since I was playing Rowan, I can say it worked on me. The way he asked about my life, I myself almost wanted to bare my soul to him!

We switched roles at some point, and it was my turn to try to get ‘Rowan’ interested in the Center.

“Remember,” Pops said, “get her talking about herself and her dreams. Help her see that they are within reach and that we can help her get there. Make her see that we won’t ask anything of her in return, just that she give us a shot if she wants to make her goals a reality.”

And that’s exactly what I did. I asked the questions just like Pops did, and I listened to his responses, and I mean really listened. Mimi said that the best way to convince someone you care is to show it, and you show it by listening to every word they say. She also gave me the advice to ‘mirror’ as she called it. Basically, you listen to what the other person is saying, and you start using similar language to them. It helps the other person feel more comfortable in the conversation. She said it makes them subconsciously feel like they are talking to an equal who understands what they are thinking. It’s really interesting stuff, you know?

ALBI: Interesting indeed. How did it go?

DUBRE: Well, I didn’t get it at first. I mirrored too directly that it sounded unnatural. And I kept forgetting details Pops gave, so I had to keep asking him to repeat himself. There’s a real art to outreach. As difficult as it was, it was also a lot of fun for me, learning how to make Rowan more comfortable. Pops told me that it would be a process, and that I shouldn’t do this all at once. He wanted me to continue getting to know her and use some of the tips for getting her to open up the next time I saw her, and wait until she was ‘primed’ to lead into the sell.

BERHANU: I see. Did any of this seem odd to you?

Sebastian scowls at Detective Berhanu.

DUBRE: Not really, no. Pops taught this stuff as a class for all the outreach individuals. I had already taken the class, but I definitely needed the one-on-one to really start to grasp it.

From then on, I put what Pops taught me into practice. Each time Rowan came in, I tried out a new technique on her. It was nice seeing her guard lower over the time we spoke. After those interactions, I’d return to the Center and tell Pops how it went. He’d then give me pointers on what I did well and what I could do to improve for the next time. It was like I was really learning how to communicate and be a better friend as a whole. I loved it.

BERHANU: Did you learn anything about Rowan in this period?

PAIGE: Oh, for sure! One time she came in, I could tell she was off. Mimi taught me to look for subtle cues in her face that could tell me what she was feeling before her words would. That day, her eyes were red and puffy, she was more fidgety than usual, and she wouldn’t look at me directly. This was not like her at all. There were no customers in the store, so I took the opportunity to strike up a conversation with her.

I started by asking more general questions. Had she seen anything cool downtown lately, stuff like that. Neither of us really cared about it; the point was to get her talking about anything so she’d at least be speaking to me. Then, I shifted the conversation. “You seem upset about something. Is everything okay? You don’t have to tell me everything, I just want to know if you’re alright.” I remember Mimi telling me not to ask if she wants to talk about it because that would give her the option to say no. She told me to phrase it this way to “give the illusion” of choice.

Rowan looked at me, then looked down at her shoes, then back to me, and sighed. “I’m just missing home. Today is my dad’s birthday, and I have never missed it before.” She didn’t know it, but she gave me an opening.

“You were close with your dad, I’m guessing?”

“It has always been him and me. When we had nothing else, at least we had each other. Now, I am alone, and so is he.”

I was amazed. She was actually opening up to me. I didn’t know if I should continue prodding for information or if I should just let it be at that. Probing too far could push her further away, so I decided to lay off a bit and take a more careful approach.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure he is okay.” Strike one.

“He must be freaking out. I’ve been gone for, what, a week now? Apologies, you don’t need to worry about all this.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I like getting to hear about my customers’ lives. It sounds like you two were close. Why did you leave, if I may ask?” Strike two. Rowan shut down, stopped making eye contact with me.

“It just was not working out back home. I needed a fresh start is all.”

I offered to pay for her groceries again, but she refused to let me. She walked out without buying anything. I felt defeated. I failed at the one job I had been working toward my whole life. No help from Mimi and Pops would make me better at talking to her. That’s what I believed then, anyway.

I called Mimi on my break, and she lifted my spirits some. She reminded me, “Recruitment is a process. It comes with ups and downs. Sometimes, people just aren’t ready to accept that there are people who genuinely want to help, and that’s okay. We meet them where they are and wait until they are ready.” She was right; besides, I didn’t come out of the conversation completely empty-handed. I had learned she was the only child of a single father. That can be very isolating. He probably raised her to be hyper-independent, so it makes sense she was so reserved. The fact I was able to get that out of her was an accomplishment in and of itself, you know?

ALBI: How long was it before you broached the youth center topic again?

DUBRE: A while, maybe another week or two. We had a long way to go before reaching that point.