“Marcus isn’t a killer, Ms. Swain. Bet if I start digging into who arrested him, I’ll find something.”
She nodded, lips pursed. “Well, okay then… Good luck to you, counsellor. Try to show some sensitivity to the Singh family; this is a small town, sometimes, for such a big city, and some of us have known them a long time. They don’t deserve the third degree.”
“Noted.”
“I’ll see you at arraignment and bail on Monday.”
She turned and left. Behind the counter, Sgt. Dyche looked impressed. “Margaret Swain, bringer of pain,” he intoned. “She has a 98% conviction rate.”
Bob nodded. “Good. It just proves that nobody’s perfect.”
“You sounded a little more enthusiastic with her than your initial introduction,” the older cop said.
“Yeah… well, like I said… this is a favor,” Bob suggested, getting back into sleazy character. “I could be in Malibu sucking on a Mai Thai right now.”
“Uh huh.”
The sergeant hit a button on his desk. A few moments later, the steel door behind him and to his left swung open, another officer stepping into the atrium. “Officer Carbajal here will take you down to Room C, so you can talk in private. Don’t worry about the camera. It does not have sound on.”
They followed the hall to the end. The interview room was sterile, whitewashed, with just a desk, two chairs and an observation window. There were doors on two walls.
Bob stood and waited for fifteen minutes before they finally led Marcus in. The boy’s eyes widened when he saw his friend. Bob quickly raised a finger to his lips and nodded towards the guard.
The guard led Marcus to the table and sat him down. He cuffed one of the boy’s wrists and looped the other cuff around a steel ring set into the tabletop, then locked it.
“Just ring the buzzer on the table when you need me,” he said before leaving.
Bob sat down opposite him. “You okay?”
Marcus nodded. “It’s good to see you.” He frowned. “They questioned me for hours before you got here. That’s illegal, isn’t it?”
“No, but they know anything you gave them could probably get tossed. They do it to soften a suspect up, see if he’ll spill something big before he gets help, something they can follow up that’s evidentiary, so the statement itself doesn’t matter.”
“It’s scary in here.” Marcus glanced around the interview room. “Last night was… man, I never tried so hard to keep my eyes open.”
“Jails tend to be like that, even holding cells. And… it’s good to see you, too, although we sure could’ve met somewhere nicer. Are you going to give me the quick version, or is there a long, complicated version Dawn hasn’t told me? She just said you’d been arrested for shooting a guy.”
“Yeah… There’s not much more to it than that. I was on my work placement at Jenkins. I decided to walk my regular route back to the motel.”
“About that… Why the Feeney Motor Lodge? Aren’t you here for three months?”
“It was cheap. It’s tough finding room rentals here for a short time. The apartments all wanted a six-month lease.”
“And last night?”
“I cut through an alley and a car was parked with the door open and the alarm going off. So I looked inside and found a dead guy. I was about to call the cops and they pulled up and arrested me.”
“That can’t be it, surely?” Bob asked.
Marcus’s eyes rolled up as he stared at the ceiling. “They also say they found the murder weapon on me, and they have security footage from the alley proving no one else entered it after Mr. Singh and me.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s what the deputy said when they were booking me. He said…” Marcus affected his best drawl, “… ‘How’re you going to explain away having the gun what done it, smart boy? How’re you going to prove someone else did it when there weren’t no one else there?’ Something like that.”
“You… weren’t carrying, I take it?”
Marcus shot him a dry look. “Really?”
“Point taken.” But it complicated everything. “Marcus… if they’re claiming they have direct evidence taken off you, this is a frame-up.”
Marcus’s head sank. “So… what does that mean, exactly?”
“It means someone involved, maybe one the deputies who arrested you, has some sort of stake in this man’s death. Whether out of convenience or plan, they’ve picked you to take the rap for it. Young man, in town temporarily, from the big city from their perspective. You’ve got no clout here, which makes you a good patsy.”
“That’s… Man… That’s bad.”
“Yeah. But… we can work with it.”
“Huh?”
“If they need you as a patsy, they’ll want to keep you alive, at least for now. When you’re arraigned on Monday, the district attorney’s office will likely ask for no bail, at the officers’ request, because they don’t want you disappearing or working to disprove the narrative.”
“And you’re going to… what? Figure out who actually did this?”
“If that’s what it takes. As long as they need you, you won’t have much to worry about, as long as you keep your head down. Guys awaiting trial, for the most part, don’t want to dig the hole they’re in any deeper. So you’re safer here than it feels. And the cops will need a conviction, or someone might keep digging away.”
“But…” Marcus leaned in, his voice a murmur. “You’re not a lawyer! What about the actual case?”
