Paul Melko - The Walls of the Universe

Duderstadt shrugged his shoulders at the cop, said to Prime, “He’s a comedian, Eckart is. He finds this funny. Me, I take murder very seriously. The people of Findlay take it very seriously. How do you take murder, Rayburn?”

“Ask my lawyer,” Prime said. His throat, dry after the booking, the mug shot, and the hour in the hot room alone, broke his voice.

Duderstadt laughed. “Apparently you do find this humorous too. Your lawyer isn’t here, at least not for the next twenty-three hours.”

“Twenty-two hours and thirty minutes, hoss,” Eckart said.

“Right. Law says we can hold you incommunicado for twenty-four hours until we let you see your lawyer.”

Prime shrugged. The laws of arrest, interrogation, and trial varied slightly and constantly from universe to universe.

“I have nothing to say,” Prime said.

“I’d expect so, if you were guilty,” Duderstadt said. “I’d say very little if I were guilty, eh, Eckart? I’d not want to incriminate myself.”

“If they don’t speak, it means they’re guilty,” Eckart said. “First rule they teach in detective school.”

“Ah, yes,” Duderstadt said. “Silence equals guilt. We’re just going to assume you’re guilty when you don’t talk.”

“I want my lawyer,” Prime said.

“He’ll be here, he’ll be here in what?”

“Twenty-two hours and twenty-eight minutes,” Eckart finished.

“So, my throat is going to get a little dry if I do all the talking during that time. But I’m willing to start us off. I’m willing to explain why you’re here. You just jump in when I get it wrong.”

“Lawyer.”

“Here’s how we see it. Ever since this expulsion thing in high school. What? A year ago?”

“About that,” Eckart said.

“And how about that? High school student to president of some crazy toy company. And here you’re throwing it all away over some punk. I can’t fathom it. I can’t fathom why you’d do it.”

“Because I wouldn’t,” Prime said, instantly regretting.

“Ah, yes, but this all started before you were rich and famous. This all started when you were just a punk yourself. Two punks, with a grudge. The end is always bad for two punks and a grudge.”

“Black eye, broken leg, punctured lung,” Eckart said, ticking off his fingers. “Gunshot to the leg.”

Duderstadt turned back to Prime. “And that was all this week!” He took his coffee off the table, sipped it slowly. There’d been no offer of coffee to Prime. “Two punks and a grudge. Never works out. So, Carson comes to work during the summer with his dad. He sees his old nemesis. Tempers flare. Words are exchanged. He insults your wife. You accuse him of torturing animals.” Duderstadt paused. “How did you know that, by the way? How did you know that bit of information? Ted Carson, animal torturer. That’s perplexing, unless you were in league with him.”

Prime’s face jerked up, but he held his tongue.

“Ah, perhaps not. Perhaps you knew, and you feared for your wife’s life, because you knew what he could do. You knew you had to act to save your family, so when he came to your apartment, threatening you, you did what you had to do. You did the only thing possible. You killed him before he could kill you.”

Prime met Duderstadt’s eyes but remained mute. The detective was too close to the truth, but Prime wouldn’t let him know how close.

“It was probably justifiable. It’ll make it easier on you if it was. The boy had it coming. No doubt about. I’ll stand up in court and let the judge know about his… activities. You might get no jail time at all. You might be back to that beautiful family of yours before Christmas.” Duderstadt looked him square in the face, the perfect confidant, the perfect friend to help a wayward soul through turmoil.

“I think you want to tell me what happened, Rayburn. I think you do.”

Prime opened his mouth, closed it again.

“Come on; you’ll feel better when you do.”

Prime nodded. “Go fuck your fag buddy, and get me my goddamn lawyer.”

Eckart actually laughed. Duderstadt’s face turned purple, and he slammed the back of his fist against Prime’s cheek.

Prime grinned and let the blood flood over his lips and onto his shirt.

“You’ll have to explain that to my lawyer too,” Prime said. He grinned with what he hoped were ghoulishly bloody teeth.

“You were already worked over when you got here,” Duderstadt said.

“By your patrolmen,” Prime said. “What a lawsuit I have.”

Duderstadt grunted and stood. “You’ll wish you confessed. You’ll wish you confessed before this is all over. Keeping all that inside you, Rayburn, it hurts. I’ve seen what a good confession will do for a man. I feel just like a priest sometimes.”

Prime bit down on his first response. He wanted to tell Duderstadt to piss off and let him sleep. But the bastard was right; how much better he would feel if he just confessed.

To get it all off his chest-

“No confession today, Father Duderstadt. Why don’t you go and let me sleep.”

The detective stared at him, then nodded to Eckart. They left, slamming the door behind them.

Prime awoke with a start. Duderstadt had slammed the door. Prime glanced at the clock. He’d slept in the uncomfortable chair for three hours, an amazing feat considered how worked up he’d been after the questioning. But the fight with Carson, the trip in the back of the patrol car to Findlay, the hours of tension had drained him of energy.

Prime relaxed his face, forced himself to yawn.

Duderstadt slapped a pile of papers down onto the table.

“What is this shit?” Duderstadt said.

“What?” Prime asked.

“Even your wife didn’t have the combination,” Duderstadt said. “We had to get a cracker in from Detroit to open it.”

Prime stared at the pile of paper. He saw the newspaper clippings; one from the Findlay Bee was on top. In this universe the Findlay newspaper was called the Gazette.

“Articles on the mayor, on the council members, plans for crap, bric-a-brac, toys.” Duderstadt spread the material across the table. “And here’s the file I care about, one on Ted Carson. Clippings of him being arrested for killing a cat. Only this never happened.” Duderstadt shook the paper in Prime’s face. “What is this shit?”

Prime couldn’t help it. He started laughing. “You broke into my safe for some old fake newspaper clippings? What a bunch of idiots.”

“Fake? These look real.”

“Real? Whoever heard of the Findlay Sentinel ?”

“What are these for?” Duderstadt cried. He was a deep shade of purple.

Prime grinned. “A book,” he said. “I’m also a writer. A science fiction murder mystery.”

“A book.”

“There’ll be a police detective character, but I think he’ll die early in the narrative.”

Duderstadt glared at Prime. Then he swept up the materials into his arms and pulled open the door. Eckart stood there.

“Send him to the pit,” Duderstadt said. “Let him rot there until his lawyer comes and gets him tomorrow.”

“You got it, hoss,” Eckart said.

Prime relaxed. Now he could get some more sleep.

“Hey, Duderstadt,” Prime said.

The detective turned.

“Just throw all that junk away,” Prime said. “I don’t need it anymore.”

Kyle set up interviews with three lawyers before Christmas, but though all were sympathetic and believed the cases were winnable, none had time to work on them. Though John was depressed, Kyle assured him that someone would take the case.

“There’s a requirement for pro bono work,” Kyle said. “We just have to find the right lawyer who has the right time to work on this.”