Nick Stephenson - Eight the Hard Way

“Ma’am.” The big guy smiled back before returning to his workstation.

“I’ll have some friends of mine check the bank account routing numbers,” said Leopold, firing off a text message on his cell phone as they left the room. “Shouldn’t take them long.”

“Just keep me out of it,” said Mary. “If you find any evidence we can’t use it directly. And I don’t want to know where it came from.”

“Agreed. We should have an answer soon. In the meantime, let’s go see Creed’s lawyer. See what he has to say about all this.”

Creed’s lawyer was unimpressed. “None of this links my client to the murder,” he said, getting up from behind the interview table. “You’re clutching at straws. Let Mr. Creed go and stop wasting everybody’s time.”

“Sit down, Mr. Osborne,” said Mary. “What we have is CCTV camera footage of your client at the scene of the murder. We have sensitive information exchanged between your client and the victim just hours before his death. We’ve also got a considerable amount of money deposited into Mr. Creed’s bank account shortly after Mr. Gordon was killed. That’s more than enough to file charges. Mr. Creed’s not going anywhere. I suggest you inform him.”

The lawyer picked up his suitcase. “You can expect me to fight this,” he said. “And if you think I won’t get bail, you’re very much mistaken.” He breezed out of the room without another word.

“God, I hate lawyers,” said Mary.

“Who doesn’t?” said Leopold.

Mr. Osborne returned less than twenty minutes later to find Mary and Leopold waiting for him outside the interview room.

“You done?” asked Mary.

“My client has been informed of the charges. When’s the bail hearing?”

“Judge Robertson, Monday morning.”

“I need to formally request the duty officer grant pretrial leave. Mr. Creed can be released on his own recognizance until then.”

“I’ll pass the request on. It will be denied.”

“Please send the confirmation to my office. I’ll see you in court.” The lawyer marched off, disappearing around the corner.

“I’m guessing Creed didn’t take the news too well,” said Leopold. “Maybe we should go find out how he’s doing.”

“We can’t. It would be ex parte,” said Mary. “We can’t speak to him without his lawyer.”

“Bullshit. We can speak to whomever we like. You need to loosen up a little. Come on, you said you needed more evidence—let’s go get some.”

The guard looking after the cells signed them in and led them through to the holding area. “You guys know his lawyer just left, right?” he said, fiddling with a giant set of keys.

“Yeah, we got it Jimmy,” said Mary. “Anyone else been down?”

“Just the guy bringing chow. The boys should have finished by now. Go on through.” He swung the heavy iron gate open and ushered them over the threshold. He followed, locking it behind him. “Just a couple more.”

After a few minutes, they reached the holding cells. The harsh neon lighting bounced off the white walls and floors, making Leopold squint. With no windows and the air conditioning shut off, the air in the room was thick with the smell of food. There were eight cells in total, each with solid metal doors. Jimmy the guard walked up to the farthest right and rapped a knuckle on the steel.

“Hey, yo. You got visitors,” he said.

No reply.

“Open it up, Jimmy,” said Mary, stepping forward. “You can wait for us outside, it’s not a problem.”

“Ma’am.” He nodded and slipped a key into the door lock. “Here you go.” He swung the door open.

“Good evening, Mr. Creed,” said Mary, stepping toward the empty cell. “You enjoying your stay at—” She stopped mid-sentence.

“Holy shit,” said Jimmy.

Leopold ran forward and peered past the others. Vincent Creed was slumped against the wall, his skin as white as porcelain, with one half of a prison fork protruding from his throat—his own hand still wrapped around the handle. Both carotid arteries appeared to have been punctured from several jabs to the soft flesh. There were dark bruises around the wounds, though there was very little blood on the body. Most of it had sprayed across the room and was dripping down the opposite wall.

“Holy shit,” Jimmy repeated. “What the hell happened?”

“You tell me,” said Mary. “You were supposed to be watching.”

Leopold pushed through and knelt by the body.

Jimmy held up his hands. “I can’t watch everyone at once, can I? I got other work to do, I can’t be expected—”

“Keep quiet, both of you,” said Leopold. “Who has had access to this cell today?”

“Just the guy’s lawyer. And the other guy bringing food. Damn, how the hell he do that with a spork?”

Leopold noticed something on the floor and bent down for a closer look. “Plastic shards. The cutlery was snapped in two, with one end filed down into a point against the wall.”

“Jesus.”

“And who said anything about him doing this to himself?”

“What, you think someone else broke in and killed him with a spork?” Mary said. “I don’t see any signs of a struggle here. No defensive wounds. The guy knew we were on to him; maybe prison was too much for him to face. It’s not unheard-of.”

Leopold sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”

“What smell?”

He turned to Jimmy. “You let people smoke in here?”

“Not since Bloomberg’s witch hunt. Why?”

“There’s the stink of tobacco smoke in here. You not getting it?”

“My sense of smell ain’t what it used to be. Two decades of industrial cleaning products will do that to you.”

Mary tipped her head and sniffed. “Yeah, I can smell it too. Kinda sweet. Not like cigarettes. Something else.”

Leopold froze. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He turned to Mary, his eyes wide.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I recognize the scent from before,” he said. “We’ve come across it twice already, and I never made the connection. The smell isn’t from cigarette smoke,” he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. “It’s from pipe tobacco.”

Leopold paced the office. Mary sat at her desk watching, nursing a mug of coffee.

“Want to run that by me again?” she said.

“Think, think, think,” he tapped his forehead with an index finger. “Tobacco smoke. The employee at the hotel reeked of it. At Biggs’ house, there was an old pipe spilling ash all over the place. Then again in the cells. All three times, the same smell.”

“Plenty of people smoke pipes.”

“You ever run into three different guys smoking the same flavored tobacco, all in the same day? Smelled like cherry to me.”

Mary blinked. “Okay, maybe not. Still, it’s not exactly groundbreaking evidence.”

“Not by itself. But sometimes the smaller things lead us to the bigger things. You checked Biggs’ file?”

“Yeah. Nothing much there we didn’t already know.”

“You got a photo?”

“The guy’s got no record. No photo, no prints, no DNA. Why?”