Excerpts & Stories

Alleged Suspect

“Do you know why you’re here?”

The heat in the room was stuffy and they had left him no water. A light flickered above every now and again, almost as if someone were controlling it from outside. The walls of the cramped room were a reflective white–the kind of white that wore on the eyes over time. The hard, ugly carpet on the floor might as well have been hard wood. The room was set up to intimidate subjects and piss off suspects. Even the air he breathed seemed to be different from normal air.

“Obviously.”

“Would you mind speaking it aloud? Just for the record’s sake.”

“You think I killed Emily Henderson.”

“We believe you are a suspect, yes.”

“On what grounds.”

The man placed his elbows atop the stainless steel table and leaned forward, clasping his fingers together and extended out his thumbs to his mouth. He stared with eyes hard from experience, unsympathetic to suspects and offenders.

“Emily Henderson was found dead at the bottom of the stairs of her town home. Her body had multiple cuts from a knife. Long cuts.”

The man opened the manila folder that he had brought in and flopped down atop the table just before the first question. He pulled out four blown up photos of the body. Long, deep lacerations were all along Ms. Henderson’s naked front, some going from her waist up to her neck. It was a ghastly sight. She hardly looked human.

“It seems that whoever was at the scene was very pissed off.” The man placed the last photo of her cut up face in front of him. “We found your DNA at the scene, Nathan.”

“She was my girlfriend,” he replied without looking at the man. “I was over there all the time. You know how it is, David.”

“That’s Detective David. We found blood, Nathan.”

Nathan pulled out his lip to expose the stitches he had received recently. “We got into an argument. She punched me.”

“What was the fight about?”

“Argument. She’s the jealous type. She sees me talking to another woman and goes off the wall.”

“And she punched you?”

“Yep.”

“That must have pissed you off.”

Nathan nodded admittedly. “I told her we were through and I left.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Detective David stared at Nathan over his knuckles. “So you’re telling me that you and Emily got into a fight over you speaking to another woman, she punches you hard enough to knock the blood from your mouth, and you just walk away?”

Nathan shrugged. “I guess you’d have had to be there.”

The detective was staring again; a gaze steady, piercing. It was as if he could see the crime on Nathan’s forehead and was waiting for it all to play out. Nathan readjusted in the hard chair as he sat across from the detective.

The detective sat back in his chair. His crisp navy blue suit and dark gray shirt that went well with the bold tie ruffled as he eased backward. His dark hair was neatly combed back, and the light glinted off his sharp features.

“I know you know something, Nathan.”

“What do you want from me, Detective? I told you everything I know.”

“No you haven’t.”

“How would you know?”

“When you do this for as long as I have, you get to know when people are holding something back.” He leaned forward slightly. “You’re holding back, Nathan.”

Nathan finally gave the detective a sidelong glance. “From the police or from you?”

That caught the detective’s attention. His hard stare went emotionless as he eased back to the back of the chair.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

Nathan’s eyes narrowed slightly. “It means that I know. I know that you don’t think I killed Emily. I know that this “interrogation” is not being recorded. I know that you are interested in other things.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, why the blood did not match. And since the blood didn’t match, that means that whoever this,” Nathan tapped one of the photos on the desk, “is, isn’t who you’re looking for.”

Detective David remained silent.

“So let’s cut the bullshit,” Nathan continued. “We both know this isn’t Emily. Who is this?”

The stare returned, interested, impressed. The detective’s clasped hands returned to the table.

“She was targeted. Someone who was after the real Emily Henderson.” He nodded slightly toward the photos. “This woman was paid three thousand dollars to take on Emily’s identity.”

“So she could get away.”

“There is no trace of her ever being in this city. Everything comes back to this woman.”

“So…why am I here, Detective?”

“We believe you know where Emily is.”

“You mean you believe I know where Emily is.”

“Are you saying you do?”

“I’m just saying.” Nathan glanced around the room in thought before returning his gaze to the detective. “What’s in it for me?”

The detective’s brows rose. “You don’t get charged with this woman’s murder.”

“I told you I didn’t kill her.”

Detective David shook his head. “You are withholding information, impeding a criminal investigation. I believe that falls under Obstruction of Justice. You should know that. If you’re lying about knowing where she is, who’s to say you aren’t lying about killing her?”

“You’ll need more than that.”

“This woman is dead and your DNA is at the scene. It’s all the proof I need. Everything else will be up to the jury.” The detective leaned forward and smiled slightly. “Unless there is something you can tell me?”

Nathan lowered his eyes back down to the photographs. He shook his head slowly, looking off.

“I don’t know where she is.”

“Bullshit.”

Detective David said it calmly as if he knew Nathan was going to lie. Somehow it was more intimidating than if he had screamed it.

“If you really want to go to jail for this, that’s fine with me,” Detective David said, rising from the chair. “It’s a real shame for a man with your reputation. Think about it.”

“Alright,” Nathan said, with a sigh. “Alright.”

Detective David sat back down, clasping his hands together with the hard stare again. Nathan sighed a second time.

“Santa Fe.”

“New Mexico?”

Nathan nodded. “Her flight leaves tomorrow morning.”

“Did she tell you anything else?”

Nathan shook his head at first, then lifted his brows. “Actually, yes. ‘He’ll show himself.’”

“What?”

“That’s all she said: ‘He’ll show himself’.”

“By ‘he’, she means the killer?”

“I’m assuming so. You know Emily, she doesn’t explain anything.”

“Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think you do.”

The detective rose once again to leave the room.

“Maybe not,” Nathan said, “but she knows your wife better than you do.”

The detective stopped half way to the door. There was a moment of silence before his reply came.

“What are you talking about?”

“I think you know,” Nathan pressed. “How long had it been going on? Two months?”

The detective’s silence was all the answer he needed.

“That must have been embarrassing for you,” Nathan continued. “Looking in her eyes and seeing the emptiness you couldn’t fill. We all have our limits and desires. I guess she just doesn’t like men.”

The detective whirled and angrily strode up to him. Nathan did nothing to move or protect himself. Detective David seized him by his shirt and easily lifted him out of the chair. The chair clattered to the floor as he was forced up against the wall. He was strong for a lean man.

“Where is she!” he demanded.

“I told you, Santa Fe tomorrow,” Nathan said, frantically.

He was just able to brace himself as the detective’s fist came around. The impact blurred his vision.

“I’ll fucking kill you right here if you don’t tell me!”

Nathan’s eyes flashed over to the table. “Like you killed her?”

“And I’ll do it again!”

“Alright alright alright!”

The rage in the detective’s eyes did not subside as he waited for an answer. Nathan could see the muscles on the edge of his jaw line clenched in frustration. 

“She’s at the Holiday off Trexel,” Nathan said.

Recognition flashed in his eyes. “The one on the corner.”

“Yeah. Room 425.”

Detective David shoved Nathan to the side and turned to leave the room. Nathan was just able to catch himself before he fell to the ground.

“There is one other thing you should know,” Nathan said.

Detective David froze. Nathan pulled his sidearm from the concealed holster in his waistband.

“You’re under arrest for the murder to Nancy Cummings.”

The detective casually strode to the door. “You have nothing, Nathan. Your DNA at the scene buries you.”

As he opened the door, he was met with a ring of loaded .45 Glocks. Officers of the Tenaple City Police Department screamed at him to get on the ground. Nathan wisely moved to the other corner of the room in case Detective David decided not to comply. No need to be caught in the crossfire. Detective David took a hesitant step backward. Confusion and fear were all that occupied his features. Nathan smiled.

“One last you should know, Detective,” he said. “This interrogation was recorded.”

Nathan lifted his brows with a slight cringe when officers tackled him and wrestled him to the ground. Nathan walked toward the opening in the door when they had him under control.

“How?” Detective David asked when the officers lifted his face from the floor.

Nathan turned slightly. “When you have a reputation like mine, all they need is a nod.”

The officers forced him out of the room after Nathan walked out. Captain Zinger, a tall, heavy-set man with a balding head, a sleepy gaze, and no neck was waiting for him outside. He had long ago traded the uniform for the shirt and tie of his rank. Nathan smiled knowingly. Zinger shook his head in wonder and disgust, an annoyed look on his wide features.

“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it,” he said.

“I only do what’s in my job description, Captain.”

“Will you stop saying that every time you solve a case? It’s pissing me off.”

“That’s what now? Six?”

“Five. The four-year-old’s confession doesn’t count.”

Nathan scowled over his shoulder as the officers muscled Detective David toward the exit.

“How did you know, Nathan?” Zinger asked.

“When he showed me the photos, he said whoever did it was pissed off. Normally, crimes of passion with the knife is repetitive stabbing, not slicing, and not like that. He wanted Emily to suffer. It was a crime of revenge. Then learning about his wife…it was easy.”

 “You pressing charges?” Zinger asked.

Nathan shook his head. “Nah. It’d just get dropped, but I am going home.”

“Just one more thing, Detective. Where is Emily Henderson?”

Nathan turned. “Santa Fe. Her plane left an hour ago.”

“You let her get away? Even after this.”

“I had to in order to catch this guy.”

“But we could have had her.”

Nathan shook his head again. “Any officers that went to arrest her would have been killed. You know that. S.W.A.T. can’t even handle her.”

The captain was silent for a moment.

“I’m sorry, Nathan,” he said, suddenly. “About Nancy, I mean.”

“Wouldn’t have happened if I’dda known.”

Zinger grunted. “She was brave to agree to something like this.”

“Yeah, well, Emily has another body on her conscience. If she even has one.”

“You caught the guy, though.”

“Emily still caused this. I don’t know what Nancy was thinking…”

“Emily’s not perfect. She’ll make a mistake one day.”

Private Investigator Nathan Lee turned to walk away. “No…she won’t.”