Authors: Ross Harrison
Well…shit.
FOUR
| OLD MISTAKES
I didn’t know what to think, let
alone what to say. All of this looked bad for me. More than bad. Saying it was
bad was like saying getting fried in the electric chair was going to sting.
There were rumours in
the criminal underworld that the cops in Harem still used the chair for special
cases. It was illegal. But so were a lot of things the Harem PD did.
‘Wait,’ I said. I
opened my mouth before I’d finished thinking. ‘Who called you?’
‘What?’
‘If I killed her in
my apartment, then who tipped you off about it? My neighbour leaves for work
before the sun’s up and you said yourself the old lady was asleep until you
arrived. So who called it in?’
Lawrence just
looked at me. He tried to hide it, but I could see the same question had been
going round and round his square head.
‘You did.’ He tried
to sound confident. He wasn’t. ‘You couldn’t think how to get rid of the body
so you called it in. You thought you could outsmart me again. Talk your way out
of it. Again. But not this time.’
It was weak and he
knew it. He had no doubt I’d done it, of course. He just couldn’t make sense of
the tip off. With all his evidence, it didn’t matter. Shouldn’t matter. But it
bothered him.
‘So your theory is
that I knocked out the son of the most powerful and dangerous man in the city
and abducted a girl. Both in front of dozens of witnesses. Then took her to my
own apartment and killed her. Left the murder weapon lying there. Then went out
for a stroll and gave you a call. And brought myself right back into your
welcoming arms. Yeah, that’s a flawless theory, Detective.’
‘Don’t worry about it.
We’re not concerned with what happened before the murder. We won’t push
premeditation. I think we’ll go with “crime of passion”. Makes more sense then,
don’t it? She made you angry, you killed her and then thought you could get
away with it with this ingenious story about going out for food.’
Again, I didn’t
know what to think. Let alone what to say.
The scanner would
detect the slowing of my heart. Strange. At a time like this, you’d think my
heart would be hammering harder than ever. But I saw no way out. It looked like
justice had finally caught up with me. I think some part of me had resigned to
that already. Maybe longed for it, in a way.
Lawrence told the
recording that he was concluding the interview. He pressed his thumb to a patch
on the table. The timer froze. Flashed a few times before the entire display
disappeared. Fifty-seven minutes and six seconds. He’d taken his time. Savoured
it. Felt like five minutes.
‘We’ve got you dead
to rights, Jack.’
He’d said the same
little pun the last time I sat here. This time he was right. This time they had
a body. The evidence against me was both mountainous and solid. This time I’d
burn.
He leaned slowly
back. The chair creaked. He stared at me with a satisfied smile on his prematurely
creased face. He looked like a hunter sitting back to cast a proud eye over the
newly-mounted head on the wall.
‘Our cells are full
at the moment, so you’re gonna have to just sit here for a while. Can I get you
anything to make your stay more comfortable? No? Well you just come and knock
on the door if you need anything, Jack.’
Lawrence gathered
the evidence back into the box. Put the datapad on top and shoved the whole
thing under one arm. He screeched the chair out from the table. Smiled at me
one last time and left the room.
I finished running
through the night again for about the hundredth time. I hadn’t missed anything
out. There were no other witnesses to help me. Nothing I’d seen myself that
could help. I couldn’t see a way out of this one.
Whoever cut her up must
have gone in right after I left. I wasn’t gone for long, and the cops had to
get there too. Must have been no more than a minute after I walked out. Had
they waited until I was gone? Or was it just a twist of fate? The girl was a
barmaid. Who’d want her dead? The most likely scenario was that they were there
for me and found the girl. There weren’t many people who wanted me dead. At the
moment, Little Dick was at the top of my list.
Little Dick! I
remembered seeing him on the way to the precinct. He was standing outside the
club like he was waiting for me to pass. He hadn’t looked surprised. Hadn’t
looked curious. He looked like he’d expected me. Bastard. He’d probably had
someone follow us to my apartment. Wanted to teach us both a lesson.
But I didn’t know
why they’d waited so long to come in. That made no sense. I was sure Little
Dick was to blame for all of this though. I might have considered that it was
his plan to have me take the fall. To be put down for the killing of the girl
I’d saved from him. Some kind of poetry I guessed. But he wasn’t that smart.
Another thing I
couldn’t explain was that in the short time I’d been with the girl, I’d become
convinced she knew more about the Websters and their dealings than I’d first
assumed. Had they wanted to shut her up, in case she told me something?
I guessed it didn’t
really matter now. Whatever had happened, I was sitting here waiting to be
dragged out to Anshan. ‘Ans-han’, not that anyone pronounced it right. I’d
never known what the name meant or where it came from. Sounded alien to me. All
I knew was that it was practically on the other side of the world, in the
middle of an ice desert a half-dozen million square kilometres. That was where
some of the worst humanity had to offer were sent. That’s where I’d be sent.
I didn’t want to
think about that place. I gazed around the room, trying to focus on the present
again. There was a camera in the far corner. On it, a red light blinked lazily.
Like the pattering rain earlier, the calm, relaxed blinking only made me more
nervous.
My eyes returned to
the table. Lawrence had left the cream folder. I guessed what was in it. He
wasn’t allowed to talk to me about our first run in. He’d left the folder to
remind me. To let me know he hadn’t forgotten. That he’d come at me for that as
well as this morning. To tell me that I might only be charged for this
morning’s murder, but I was being put to death for them both.
The folder wasn’t
far from my hands, but Lawrence had left them restrained. My finger came within
a centimetre. I carefully stood as much as I could, wondering if I was going to
be shocked for leaving the chair. Nothing happened, so I bent down and used my
face to push the folder to my hand.
I sat again and
pulled the thick paper open. There she was. Lucy. On the left-hand page, she
stared at me with beautiful blue eyes. In my mind, there was too much blood to
see her eyes.
On the other pages
were transcripts of interrogations with the prime suspect. Me. Lawrence wasn’t
completely unprofessional. He’d made sure to remove the transcripts for the other
suspects. Not that there were many. Removed anything pertaining to them, or to
family and friends. He just wanted me to remember. To relive it.
On the
second-to-last page was me. I stared up at me with distant brown eyes on either
side of a familiar, slightly crooked nose. My dark hair was all over the place
where I’d been pulling at it most of the way through the unofficial
interrogation in the car. My face was a little fuller then. The jaw seemed squarer.
Probably wasn’t. Beside the picture were all my details. 5’10” and 165lb. I was
pretty sure I was still five-ten, but the weight had probably gone up a bit. Muscle
though, not fat. I didn’t have the money to get fat.
At the back was a
handwritten note:
Without
so much as a body, we can’t prove there was even a murder, let alone that Jack
Mason is the killer. All the evidence we have is inadmissible because Mason was
the victim’s lover, giving him suitable excuses for fingerprints, late night
phone calls and visits, etc. If this case is ever reopened, let it be known
that every instinct I’ve developed over 25 years of police work tells me that
Mason IS the killer. DO NOT let him slip out of your hands like I did.
Lucy. In the picture,
she was happy. In a static image, she lacked the sparkle in her eyes and the little
twitch of her nose. In the picture, the most perfect creature in the universe
smiled up at me for the first time in ten years. In my mind, she lay dead in a
pool of blood.
The door clicked
open behind me. It couldn’t be time for Anshan yet. Besides, the door opened
too quietly. This was someone who didn’t want to be noticed coming in. Was it
time for my pre-punishment punishment?
There was some kind
of quick out-breath. Like the opposite of a sniff. I was willing to bet it
accompanied a smirk. Now I knew who it was, I knew what was coming.
Knowing didn’t
quite prepare me for the stabbing all over my body. The sudden muscle spasms
that made me throw myself backwards and nearly dislocate my elbows. If I weren’t
strapped to the table, I’d have hit the wall and probably split my skull. I
tasted metal. My teeth felt like they were wriggling out of my gums.
Holt smirked. He
pressed his thumb on the green circle and the restraints slid off my wrists and
back into the table. I tried to stand, but my legs had ideas of their own. I
fell back down. Hit the chair awkwardly and bounced off onto the floor. My arms
decided not to help me out. My face hit the floor and I felt something gritty
stick to my cheek and lips. I didn’t know if the shudder was from that, or from
the shock stick.
Holt stood beside
the table. Waited for the spasms to wear off. I was glad I hadn’t been given
anything to drink all morning.
Finally, I was able
to climb back to my feet. I’d warned Holt about shocking me again. Tried to,
anyway. It’s the thought that counts. I wiped the grit off my face and turned
to Holt. He looked nervous. Probably because he was alone in a room with a deranged
killer. He clearly liked the exhilaration. The danger. I’d have taken him for a
complete coward. Someone who’d leave me cuffed to the table while he beat me.
That would have been the wise thing to do.
His mistake to make,
I supposed.
It didn’t take long
for Holt to lose patience. I could wait all day. He had to get back out of the
room before Lawrence or his partner came back. He held the shock stick at his
side. Most people might have held it out in front of them as though it would
fight for them. Most people would have it pulled out of their hands in seconds.
Holt would wait until the last moment and then shock me again. I had no way of
telling where he’d aim for.
He may have thought
I wouldn’t fight back, since he was a cop. I was going to be put to death.
Assault on an officer wouldn’t make much difference to me. Besides, I felt
obliged. He may not have heard my earlier warning, but I couldn’t allow it to
be an empty threat. That would be untrue to myself.
I smiled at that. It
made Holt hesitate. I took the opportunity.
I threw the
handcuffs at his face. I was strapped to the table, so Lawrence hadn’t taken
the cuffs with him. Holt hadn’t noticed that my grounded fish act knocked them off
the chair with me. Hadn’t noticed me lift them when I stood.
He was in mid step
when he tried to dodge. That resulted in him stumbling towards the wall. I took
a couple of quick steps forward. He raised his arm to stop himself and hit the
wall side on. To reduce the risk of getting shocked again, I used my feet. I
kicked his wrist. Caught between my shoe and the wall, he dropped the shock
stick.
Holt had barely
finished his yelp of pain when he swung the other fist at me. I was too far
away. The fist breezed past my face without about five inches to spare. As soon
as it was passed, I grabbed it with one hand. Punched him in the kidney with
the other.
The pain caused him
to nearly double over and bring his arm back in to his side. I used that to
push it up behind his back. Then I twirled him around to the table and cracked
his head on the top.
Crack was an
exaggeration. I banged his forehead a little bit. Didn’t even knock him out or
break his nose. Just dazed him.
I pulled the power
cell out of the shock stick. Threw both parts into opposite corners of the
room. Then I stood back, behind my chair. Put my hands on my head and prepared
to be bashed about and probably shocked again. But not by Holt.
No one came through
the door.
I waited nearly a
minute. No one came. There weren’t even any sounds outside beyond the usual noise
of an office. I glanced up at the camera in the corner. Someone must have seen
what happened.
The light was off.
Of course. Holt had turned off the camera so his fun wouldn’t be recorded.
He finally climbed
to his feet. Looked for the shock stick but couldn’t see it. I think I knew
before he did what he’d go for next. It was stupid of me not to take his gun
too. I was too far away to stop him now. If he went for it, there was a good
chance he’d have the self-control to not shoot me. If I struggled with him for
it, there was a good chance I’d get shot.
As his hand reached
for the gun, the door burst open. Two guys with shard guns rushed in. They
weren’t cops.
They wore baggy
clothes and carried backpacks. Probably weighted. Helmets hid their heads and
faces. Gloves and scarves meant their skin colour was unknowable. The soles of
their boots were too thick. The boots were probably too big for them as well.
They’d come prepared. There was no way any details about them could be
discerned. Body shape, gender, colour, species, height, shoe size, weight. No
chance of them being identified. Their own mothers wouldn’t know them.
One went straight
for Holt, who hadn’t even unholstered his gun yet. He thrust the shard gun into
Holt’s chest and the cop collapsed to the floor, flailing around like…well,
like I had been half the morning. I saw then that the hood had a shock stick
attached to the gun’s barrel.