Keith DeCandido - Four Walls

"More like seven eighths," Lindsay said. "I remember when I first moved here, I thought everyone was depressed all the time." She smirked. "They don't wear that much black in Montana."

"Still," Stella said, taking the report from Adam, "at least we know our killer was wearing a black sweatshirt. If we find a suspect who was wearing one, it gives us something to work with." She looked at Adam. "What's the good news?"

Looking sheepish, Adam said, "Er, well, I lied. There is no good news."

"Swell."

The sound of a twelve-bar blues song emitted from Stella's jacket pocket. Reaching inside, she pulled out her Treo, which displayed the words DETECTIVE JENNIFER ANGELL and Angell's cell number. She touched the screen to answer the phone and put it to her ear. "Heya, Jen."

"Stell. Listen, I got good news and bad news."

"Do you really have good news, or are you and Adam using the same gag writer?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind-what's up?"

"Well, I just spent ten minutes on the phone with Jack Morgenstern's lawyer, Courtney Bracey. That's ten minutes I'll be begging for on my deathbed. I've decided to beat the Christmas rush and start hating her now. They're coming in this afternoon, and it looks to be as much fun as root canal."

"Sounds like a blast. What's the good news?"

"I left a message for our vic's boyfriend, Bobby DelVecchio? He called me back while I was going ten rounds with Bracey. He's also coming in this afternoon, and he says he knows who the killer is."

MAC TAYLOR WALKED THOUGHTFULLY across the prison yard, contemplating the life of Malik Washburne.

He'd been born with the name Gregory Washburne, and he'd been a uniformed cop, assigned to the one-oh-eight in Long Island City, the neighborhood in Queens where he grew up. Mac had met him once or twice, and he'd struck Mac as a good, conscientious cop. He always made sure that crime scenes were preserved and took some of the best notes of any uniform Mac had worked with.

Mac also knew that he, like far too many cops, was fighting alcohol addiction. He'd worn an AA pin on his uniform, which was against regulations, but his sergeant let him get away with it in light of his good work.

Four years ago, though, he had been instrumental in nailing a drug gang working out of the Robinsfield Houses. The gang had been led by one of Washburne's childhood friends.

Mac knew how difficult that could be.

Once the trial ended and Washburne's friend was convicted, Washburne handed in his shield and his weapon and became a community activist. He'd already converted to Islam, mainly because of its provisions against drinking alcohol, and after resigning from the department, he also changed his first name to Malik. He'd been doing good work helping to keep Long Island City clean after the arrest of their main drug gang. Last Mac had heard, he was volunteering at the Kinson Rehab Center on Queens Boulevard.

Turning to the CO escorting him-Flack's friend Sullivan-Mac asked, "How did Washburne wind up in here?"

Sullivan shrugged. "Fell off the wagon. Way he told it, one of the kids he was workin' with at that rehab center in Queens he volunteered at OD'd on him. He just lost it. Went to a liquor store, bought the first bottle he could grab off the shelf, and started guzzlin'. Then he got behind the wheel, ran a red light, and killed two people."

"That's a damn shame." And Mac meant it. Washburne was a good man, and it saddened him to see such a man brought so low by his addiction.

"Model prisoner, though," Sullivan said. "He did lotsa mediatin' between the Muslims and the skinheads. Honestly, he did more good than the damn ball game did."

The pair of them had now walked most of the way across the yard and were heading into the long building that housed Jack Mulroney.

"It's funny, Detective, me and Donnie were just talkin' about you today."

"Oh?" That surprised Mac.

"Yeah, we had breakfast-catchin' up, y'know? He told me you were the best."

"That was good of him." Mac knew the words sounded inadequate, but taking compliments had never been his strong suit. Besides, lately he didn't really feel like the best. How much of that was due to the way he lost control with Clay Dobson and how much was due to the way he was stumbling through his relationship with Peyton Driscoll, he couldn't say.

"Look, Donnie don't pay compliments that don't mean nothin'. He's got sincerity oozin' outta those blue eyes of his. So if he says you're the best, I'm inclined to believe him." He hesitated. "Which is good-'cause I can take or leave Barker, but Washburne was a good guy."

"We'll find out who killed him, Officer." Those words were said with more confidence. Barker's stabbing had distracted attention from Washburne, but Mac knew the evidence would point to his killer.

Just as Sullivan moved to open the door to A Block, the door opened from the inside. Another CO, a small, pale man with a large hook nose, was escorting a prisoner outside. Said prisoner was in leg irons. Mac was surprised a medium-security prison even had leg irons, since those were generally reserved for maximum-security facilities.

"Jesus, Grabowski, we were just comin' to see this asshole."

"This Mulroney?" Mac asked.

The other CO, Grabowski, said, "Yeah. I was told to bring him to interrogation."

"Perfect timing," Mac said. Mulroney's right arm was covered in blood. "Hold him still, please." He held up his camera and took several pictures. "I'm gonna need those clothes. I'll clear it with Flack," he added quickly when Grabowski started to object. "Just take us to where he can change. I'll bag his clothes, he can change into fresh ones, and then we'll talk to him."

Grabowski shrugged. "Fine, whatever."

Mulroney was quiet throughout these proceedings. He wasn't smiling, exactly, but he wasn't frowning either. Based on what Sullivan had said earlier, this was Mulroney's first kill. Mac remembered the first time he was responsible for taking a human life, when he served in the Marines in Beirut. He hadn't thought it would be a big deal-they'd trained him in this, after all-but the image of the bullets from his M16A1 slicing into an enemy soldier's body had been seared on his brain ever since. He didn't sleep for several nights after that.

Killing a person changed you. Jack Mulroney was about to learn that lesson the hard way.

But while Mac had taken a life in the service of his country, Mulroney had done so for personal reasons. He would be punished. Mac would see to that.

The procedure took several minutes: Mulroney had to have the leg irons removed, the dickies were taken off his person and put in one of Mac's evidence bags, Mulroney put on fresh dickies, and then Grabowski reapplied the leg irons. Sullivan and Grabowski then escorted them both to interrogation, where Flack and Ursitti were waiting.

The interrogation room was a bland room that they got to by walking down a bland corridor. Most municipal buildings in New York City had a similar look to them: off-white brick walls, brown or green molding (brown, in this case), and filthy linoleum floors. RHCF was no different.

Sullivan and Grabowski led them through a wooden door into a small room that had a Formica table with one chair on one side and two chairs on the other. It looked like most every other interrogation room in the world: no clocks, no windows, no hint that there was a world beyond the room, aside from a small video camera in the corner. (Thanks to television, everyone knew that there was somebody watching on the other side of the two-way mirror, so most places had abandoned the pretense and lost the mirror, just sticking with a camera to record the interview. Besides, having a recording made things easier at the trial phase.)

Grabowski sat Mulroney down, leaving the leg irons on. A single handcuff was attached to the table, but the leg irons made that redundant.