‘Yes, Doc, I can hear you, but only just,’
Marshall squinted and closed a palm over one ear, trying desperately to listen.
‘A woman. Can you repeat that? Are you sure?'
Marshall looked at Alison and the bag that she was carrying.
‘I can believe you Doc. And I think I know who it is,’
Marshall unclipped the clasp that helps his gun in place and made ready to draw it.
‘But it’s still his blood? You’re sure about that Doc?’
The gun remained in its holster.
Marshall ended the call, looked at the clump of black hair in the plastic bag, and then stared at McIntosh, who looked shook.
‘Where did you take the sample of blood from Mc? The one we sent for analysis. Be very specific about your answer.’ Marshall asked.
McIntosh blew out some air but answered quickly.
‘The arm. There was some blood on the arm that looked clean and hadn't been in the dirt. And there was the blood that Simon Brotherton found, over by the trees.’
Dr. Randall had confirmed as such. The blood from both areas was a match, and both sets belonged to Brian Tomlinson, but the body was someone else’s.
Detective Marshall ordered James McIntosh off the roof of the hospital and when down on the firm ground, marched him to the front doors of the hospital. He placed him in the back seat of a black and white squad car and quietly arrested him on a charge of obstructing justice. A beat Cop drove both himself and McIntosh the short distance from the hospital towards the Police station.
He placed Alison in charge of bringing the evidence to Dr. Alvin Randall, and to wait with him until he reassigned her. He called and checked that she had done, as she was told, and then let her go.
As Marshall moved to leave the car, his phone vibrated again. It was Lindsay.
‘Tomlinson is alive,’ He spoke into the receiver and then listened. Furrowing his brow, he replied,
‘I can't.’ He said and waited as she ended the call.
MAYORLY BUSINESS
Marshall tried to think as the car slowly pulled off, what his next move was going to be. He knew what he needed to do, but the time to do it was quickly running out. It was just too much of a coincidence to think, that whoever had asked McIntosh to go slow, was not in some way implicated in the deaths of three people. It couldn't be one thing and then another. Marshall wondered was life ever that shitty.
He thought about the time that it was going to take to book in McIntosh and to get him processed. Then before talking to him, he would need to see the Chief, to tell him what was happening. It was protocol, especially if you questioned a CSI. Even challenging one, might have led to the opening of a can of worms on some other case that McIntosh had been involved in. Simply put, Marshall didn't have the time, not after what Lindsay Dawn had just said on the phone.
So, he left McIntosh with the beat cop and asked him to place him in an interview room and to sit on him, but not to process him yet. He could postpone that shit storm for the time being. Besides, it would be best to deliver both sets of bad news to the Chief at the same time, what with Lindsay Dawn on the way to the Mayor's office.
Marshall took the black and white, and drove it hard, making for City Hall, on the South Side of Metro City. It was a fifteen-minute drive, through a part of town where the cars were shinier, and the people walked a little more upright. The streets were lined with tall beech trees, and the houses went from higher rise tenements, on the outskirts of the City, to grand old Georgian style Townhouses.
City Hall itself was a big red-bricked Townhouse, located on a slice of the street, that curved in a bend around a sliver of grass that resembled a little park. The only people who used the Park were dog users, and their business was rudimentary.
The entire building itself had been converted from two grand houses, into one big building. The Mayor lived in one such door, and City Hall was located in the other door. They were such that you could easily tell which was which, so the mistake of trying one entry over another, was something that never really happened. The first door, was almost, always closed, was red and had a significant brass number One, in the middle of it, while the lower windows had seasonal flowers hanging in little boxes outside of it.
The other door was black, was mostly open, and had no number, though everyone knew it as Number Two, Crescent Row. It was easy to tell them apart, but this afternoon, one had a blue Subaru Impreza parked outside.
Marshall double parked on the curb and ran up the steps, and pushed in at the Red door, praying to God that Lindsay had left it open.
All was quiet as Marshall eased it open, and this made him place a hand on his jacket, hoping not to use the weapon he had concealed, but fully prepared to do so.
He resisted the urge to call out, and instead, stepped carefully around the soft carpet, and listened for his partners softer tones of speech. It was deathly quiet, and it was clear that there was no one about the place. Marshall took this as a sign and began to slowly, creep up the spiral staircase, that stood a few feet inside the front door. As he climbed, he noticed an open door on the ground floor and a desk behind the door, unmanned, but with papers strewn about it.
Someone had been hard at work, before Lindsay had come through the door, and had removed themselves from it, as she barged in. He wondered had they tried to stop her. Up ten steps, and he began to hear muffled voices, from a door, down the corridor and away from the stairs. Marshall leaned down and tried to ascertain the levels of danger that were present.
It seemed to be a conversation, calm and orderly, and this allowed the Detective to ease up on holding a palm near his gun. He straightened up, and climbed the last seven steps, around, until he got to the landing.
Marshall walked by two doors on the left and one on the right, and came to the second door on the right, from where the noise was coming from. Slowly he moved the handle down, and pushed in, unprepared for the scene that stood before him.
Lindsay Dawn sat, on an Ottoman with her long legs crossed, and sipped from a tumbler of clear liquid, that looked like water. She looked like coolness personified, and winked at Marshall, as she took a drink. He looked beyond her, to a second chair, and noticed Father Sean looking up to the ceiling but holding his hands to his face. He was in the middle of a massive nosebleed, and said little, as he held a white handkerchief, that had upon it, layers of fresh blood, up to his nostrils.
Ahead of the two Detectives, and the priest, sat an older man behind a large mahogany desk. His face was the color of the blood that oozed from Father Sean's nose, and his eyes were bulging and wet. His face was contorted into a mixture of pain and confusion, and it was clear from the outset that he was trying very hard to mourn the death of his nephew.
Lindsay was drinking, and Father Sean was holding his face together, which left just the Mayor and Marshall to speak to one another.
‘Arrest this woman, Detective Marshall.’ The Mayor pointed across the desk at Lindsay, who calmly smiled and then swallowed some water.
Across on the desk, stood a three-quarters full pitcher of Ice water, and a coaster, devoid of its tumbler. Lindsay, at some point, had reached across and took the Mayor's water glass. It was hardly grounds for an arrest.
‘On what charge?’ Marshall looked at Lindsay who was nodding at Father Sean.
‘Assault.’ was the reply from the Mayor.
‘Did you hit him?’ Marshall asked Lindsay.
‘You would have hit him harder, trust me.’ She replied.
And he might have. Marshall would have had a lot of hurt in that fist of his, and if it came out, would have given the young priest more than a bleeding nose.
‘Is it broken?’ He asked of Lindsay.
‘Nah. I socked him in the car. Checked him out, and he is fine.’
Father Sean was trying to speak, and it was either fear or pain that was causing his silence, but he was awful quiet.
‘No arrest here then,’ The Mayor snort
ed.
‘So,’ He looked away. ‘What news of my poor nephew? Have you arrested anyone yet?’
Marshall thought about the optics of bringing a sitting Mayor into the Police Station for questioning. He thought long and hard about, and it only took a few seconds to make a decision.
He would have had a Mayor in one room, and a priest in another. Then, one of the city's best crime scene investigators in another room. The three of them would be so well lawyered up, he wouldn't have gotten a chance to question all three before one would have been turned loose. To do this, it would have to be off books. Raw. Unfiltered. And he would have to do it quickly.
Marshall leaned down towards Lindsay and whispered.
‘We don’t have much time. I need the Mayor alone, for a few minutes and then Father Sean. One by one. I need to know what they know, but quickly.’
She whispered back.
‘We work them together. I take one, and you take the other. We don’t have time for anything else.’
Marshall trusted Lindsay, but he didn’t want the fleas, and right now, he didn’t know who was the dog and who was the tail.
‘I will take Father Sean.’ Lindsay said.
And that threw Lance because right then he knew that Father Sean had said something that had deserved a thump. And he couldn't have it happen again, in case he earned it more, and she really did break his nose the next time.
‘Can’t put you two in a room, alone and together, sorry.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Lindsay spoke, a little louder now.
‘He mentioned your wife.’
Marshall got to his feet, moving to the big desk and put two hands on it, trying to lift it out. It was a show of strength, and he wanted to put some fear into the Mayor. He barely moved it, but enough to have the Mayor sit back and then push himself up out of the chair he was sitting on.
‘You,’ He said, pointing to the Mayor. ‘Out and into the next room with Detective Dawn. Now.’
The Mayor backed up, but shuffled to the side and away from the desk, back up toward the door where Lindsay was waiting. She had her palms out and was nodding in the negative that Marshall had made the wrong call.
‘Lance, don’t do anything stupid.’
Marshall just sat against the angled desk and waited until Detective Dawn was outside and the door was closed. He remained until it was only the two of them, and all he could hear was the sound of a busted sinus, and the heavy heartbeat of a terrified man.
THE RUN AROUND
Lindsay didn't have much to go on, but she had spoken to liars before, and she knew the drill more than anyone. You let them talk, and they just keep telling themselves into more and more trouble. But, it means that your concentration levels need to be at their highest, to listen for inconsistencies that you need to jump on. What doesn’t help, is that you have to listen out for your partner in the next room and when a chair is kicked, it makes you reset the mood.
She ordered Mayor Tomlinson to sit down, in what must have been an open waiting room, for those who needed to see the Mayor in his personal office. Though, if you needed to understand the Mayor, and you had gained access through the red door, you walked straight in, so this small space was empty of everything, bar some old news magazines.
‘Your nephew is alive.’
She came straight out with it and watched his face.
‘Alive? Are you sure? How can you be sure?’
He gave nothing away, apart from the responses. They sounded off, like a fire alarm.
‘What were you doing with Father Sean, in the park, in an active crime scene? Who gave you access?’
Two questions, difficult ones, to see if he can keep the lie going, simultaneously.
He struggled with that one, pausing and stuttering.
‘The Chief of Police allowed me to walk in the Park, via the Church, to ascertain if the office of the Mayor could intervene. I was being accompanied by Father Sean.’
Lindsay watched him and saw that there were grains of truth in what he was saying. It stood to reason, that the Mayor would want to poke his beak around in a crime scene, and that he would use the Chief of Police to do so. And it made sense, to follow the twisted logic, that he would find access through the Church. The Hospital needed you to sign a register, and the Police Station was full of eyes, and according to Marshall, the Nursing home access was blocked off from the park. Everything he was saying, made some sort of sense to Lindsay, and it was then, that she realized, he was leading her on an intricate dance, and there was absolutely nothing, that she could do about it.
Marshall watched the door close as he sat against the desk and gripped it with all of his might until he couldn't even feel the tips of his fingers anymore. He made sure that Father Sean could see his shoulders hulking up, and his face going red, as she squeezed even tighter. He wanted to look like he was holding himself back, and as soon as he left that desk, that a pressure build-up was being released. He wanted the young priest to feel some fear, and to think that he was in the room with an un-caged animal.
He left the desk and met a chair with a firm boot, sending it skirting across the floor and into the wall. Father Sean shook and moved the tissue from his nose. The bleeding had stopped, but his nostrils were flared and red and compacted with dried blood. He was breathing through his mouth, and it sounded heavy and shaken.
‘What were you doing in the park with the Mayor?’
Marshall went for singular questions, and he wanted definitive answers before he moved onto the next one.
‘The Mayor wanted to see if there was anything he could do, so he arranged, with the assistance of the Chief of Police, for him to visit, under my supervision.’
God-Damn Edwards thought Marshall. My own chief was discrediting the investigation.
‘So what were you two talking about?’
Marshall hoped that the two stories, between the Mayor and the priest, wouldn’t chain up.
‘The tragedy of life, and the pointlessness of murder.’
He wore a smug grin.
‘And what about my wife?’ Marshall asked.
The grin came down, and the tissue went back up.
‘You’re talking with my wife again?’ Marshall asked and stepped closer.
‘Didn’t we all agree, that you wouldn’t speak to her again?’
He moved right over the priest until his shadow crept up his body and under his bloody nose.
‘She called me,’ He blurted out.
Lance Marshall hadn’t spoken to his wife in six months, so the idea that she was calling Sean O’Driscoll, was one that disturbed the Detective.
‘About Emma,’
Marshall raised a fist, and Father Sean spoke in a rapid volley of words as he lifted his arms and dropped his head.
‘She is living in the city somewhere, and she asked me to keep an eye out, that's all. She is coming to try and find her soon, but that's all I know. I promise.'
Marshall withdrew his fists and reeled, turning towards the desk, and planting his palms upon it.
He had last heard from his daughter, two years ago, when she had moved to Europe. Their last words had been anything but friendly, but she had shared that animosity with her mother. Six months ago, Samantha had told Lance, that she hadn’t heard from Emma, since she touched down in London, and that was only by text message.
‘Why you? Why not call me?’
He asked, to both himself and the priest. Why call a priest, when a Cop has the key to the City?
‘She wanted money. Samantha. That’s why she called you.’
He turned around, and things started to make sense.
‘I don’t have any money.’ Father Sean turned his palms out.
‘That's right you don't. And you couldn't have gotten access to any unless you borrowed it,’ He trailed off, but kept a close eye on the body language of the man sitting down. He didn't react.
‘But she didn’t want money. She wanted a place to stay, while she moved in
and out of the city, looking for Emma,’ Then he reacted. His little eyes darted left and then right.
‘Of course. She wanted an apartment somewhere. Somewhere nice. Like near the Mayor. So, you met the Mayor, and asked him for a favor.’
The eyes stopped moving and a weight lifted from the chair at the back of the room. Marshall was close. He had felt it. He had felt the hairs on Father Sean's leg rising up as if he were twanging on his soul like piano strings. There was something in there, something of an agenda.
‘That’s preposterous. I don’t want to speak anymore without a lawyer present. Not when you are making such ludicrous statements.’
Father Sean replied, and jerked himself about the chair, standing up.
Marshall hoped that Lindsay had hooked into her fish as well as he had.
She was in the next room, but the questioning was going nowhere.
‘What about Officer Tomlinson? You had him assigned to the case, to follow both myself, and Detective Marshall, and then he goes missing. All very convenient, Mr. Mayor, don’t you think?’
Lindsay had nothing, and she knew it. It was a matter of time before the Mayor grew tired of her questioning and decided that he wanted some legal representation present. The only reason, he was still here, and that she was again asking questions, was because he thought that he was better than her.
‘I am, of course, most relieved that my nephew seems to be unharmed, but yet, you cannot tell me where he is. And yet, here you are, questioning me.'
He was a professional, and she was an amateur. He danced, and she fell, and still, he kept on dancing, leaving her on the ground, far behind him.
‘I just need something to tell Detective Marshall, that’s all. You know that I needed to ask you? Don’t you? It’s my job.’
Lindsay pulled the handbrake up on her own line of questioning and realized that she was never going to win, by playing it straight.
‘Of course, you are only doing your job Detective. And I understand that. I do. But violence is not something that I can condone.’
‘I know, And I am sorry about that, I really am. It's just that,' She looked away but continued to speak. ‘The Detective and his wife, and Father Sean, well it's complicated, and I am worried about her.'
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