Four Walls

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Gerrard asked, "We have anything like a suspect?"

  "We might," Hawkes said. "The weight that caused the head wound had a lot of smudged prints, but one was clear-guy named Jorge Melendez. Flack's questioning him now." Hawkes thought it more politic to only mention Flack, who had served under Gerrard's command, rather than Mac. "He was in the yard at the time, and he was probably the last person to touch the weight that smashed Washburne's head in. But we're a long way from proving that," he added quickly, so as not to get Gerrard's hopes up.

  But Gerrard, as he had so snidely pointed out, had been a cop for a while now. He nodded as they got to the elevator bank. "Good. Keep me posted, Hawkes. I don't want this one getting screwed up."

  "We're on it."

  "That's what worries me," Gerrard muttered.

  Hawkes managed to force himself not to say anything. He knew the best revenge would be to put the case down, and soon.

  * * *

  Jorge Melendez really had no idea that the guy was an undercover cop.

  He'd thought he'd had good cop radar. Twice, he'd figured some junkie for a UC, and he'd been right both times. Two of his hermanos, Pablo and Jimmy, had gotten popped selling to the same guy that Jorge wouldn't go near.

  Jorge was strictly independent. He didn't want to get caught up in that gang shit. He had a source that sold him decent shit for a decent price. It wasn't nothing huge, wasn't nothing he could build an empire with, but it allowed him to make himself a living, and in this world, what more could you ask for, really?

  Mostly he sold to college kids. Some years he figured he could just sell during finals week and he'd be able to pay the rent for six months. The best part about selling to students was that he had turnover. Meant the cops couldn't find patterns, at least not without looking too hard. Plus, they were all focused on the gangs. They usually left a smalltime entrepreneur like Jorge alone.

  Then he found out the hard way that the cops knew all about him, they just didn't give much of a damn-which suited him fine-until they needed someone to drop a dime on someone called Ray-Ray. Jorge had heard about Ray-Ray-ran heroin out of Alphabet City, but that was all he knew. The cops had figured they'd bust Jorge, get him to flip on Ray-Ray. But he didn't have anything to flip.

  Nothing pissed off cops more than messing with their plans. Since they couldn't use Jorge to trade up to Ray-Ray, they went crazy on him. He couldn't afford a good lawyer, so he got stuck with some white chick of a public defender who didn't know her skinny ass from her bony elbows and landed Jorge in RHCF.

  His only hope was parole. Then he'd be back on the streets before his hair went gray. He figured the best way to do that was to go all Malcolm X and become a Muslim. When he saw that one of the other cons-dude named Malik Washburne-was offering a Koran class, he figured that was the best way to start.

  But just like the UC cop, Jorge misjudged seriously on that one.

  Now, after both Washburne and Vance got themselves iced in the weight yard, the whole place had gone into lockdown. That meant everyone was in his dorm, and the TVs were only showing one thing. Jorge hated it. Only thing he ever watched on TV outside was pay-per-view porn, and they didn't let them watch anything that good inside, so Jorge mostly ignored it.

  Then one of the COs-Jorge didn't know his name on purpose; bastards didn't deserve names, they were just bullies with nightsticks-took him out to talk to a detective.

  Actually, he was talking to two detectives. They both had dark hair. The one in the suit who was sitting had blue eyes and smirked a lot. The other one was standing up, wearing just a suit jacket and button-down shirt without the tie, and he looked like he scowled all the time. They introduced themselves as Detective Flack and Mac Taylor.

  "Flack and Mac," Jorge said. "That's cute. You two should go onna road or somethin'."

  "Glad you approve," Flack said. "So tell me, Jorge-what were you doing in the weight yard yesterday?"

  If the questions were all this stupid, this might actually wind up being fun. There was a CO in the room, too, but Jorge ignored him like he did the COs most of the time. "Liftin' weights."

  "Anything else?"

  "Not till one of them skinheads shivved Vance."

  "What about Malik Washburne?"

  "What about him?"

  "You see him die?"

  "Saw him on the ground. Shit, I was the one told the COs he got iced."

  Flack-or was it Mac? Jorge had already lost track-smiled. "And damn neighborly of you that was, too. Did you interact with him at all prior to that?"

  "Yeah, I used the bench 'fore he did." Jorge was glad they were just talking about the yard. As long as they didn't talk about the damn Koran class, he was okay.

  "Before him, huh?" Flack said. "You figure you could get back into his Koran class if you gave up the bench for him?"

  Shit. "I don't know what you mean."

  "Yeah, you do. You signed up for Washburne's Koran class. Probably figured if you wore a dashiki and knelt to Allah a few times, the parole board would go easy on you."

  Jorge snarled. "That's interferin' with my religious rights, yo!"

  Mac talked for the first time. "Which way do you kneel when you pray to Allah?"

  Suddenly, Jorge got nervous. He was pretty sure he knew that one. Had something to do with the sun, he thought. "East-the way the sun rises."

  "Actually," Mac said with a smile, "it's toward Mecca. Nice try, though."

  Flack was holding a folder and was flipping through it. "I got a report here from Officer Sullivan. He said that yesterday, during Malik Washburne's Koran class, he informed you that trying to fake a religious conversion to improve your parole chances was, and I quote, 'an insult to Allah.'"

  "And that was when you hit him," Mac said.

  It wasn't like he could deny it, so Jorge said, "Yeah, I took a swing at him, but I didn't hit him or nothin'. He hit me, though. Pendejo got me right in the nose!"

  "According to the infirmary report," Mac said, "it wasn't broken, but it did bleed a lot. Some of that blood got on Washburne, and we found it on his body."

  "Yeah, so we got into it, so what? That don't mean I killed him."

  "And yet," Flack said, "you got the trifecta: means, motive, and opportunity. We got your prints on the weight that killed him."

  "I told you I used that weight right before he did! And yeah, I figured I'd suck up to his sorry ass so I could get back in the Koran class. There ain't nobody but Allah in my life now."

  Flack looked up at Mac. Unless it was the other way around. "You can just feel the religious fervor, can'tcha?"

  "Oozing out of his pores," Mac said. Then he leaned forward and stared at him with his scary-ass eyes. "The evidence is piling up against you, Jorge. Malik Washburne had a lot of friends in here. It'd go easier if you confess now."

  Jorge was no fool. Cops only said that when they didn't have anything. If they were sure, they'd arrest him. Not that it mattered that much-he wasn't going anywhere for another two years, and then only if he made parole-but he wasn't making their lives easier, either. "Screw you, cop. I didn't kill Washburne. I ain't a killer."

  "Yeah, well," Flack said, "neither was Jack Mulroney."

  "Yeah, but white folks is crazy. I'm just a businessman bidin' his time in the service of Allah."

  Flack and Mac looked at each other, then Mac said, "We're done here. For now, anyhow."

  As the CO took Jorge back to his dorm, he wondered what would happen next. He was nothing but a wannabe Muslim, and el-Jabbar had been giving him static on the subject. Getting into it with Washburne didn't help. If word got out that he was prime suspect number one, he was seriously screwed.

  Luckily, cops weren't the type to go gossiping. Jorge figured he was safe as long as the cops didn't say anything, and they wouldn't unless and until they actually had something. If that happened, they'd arrest whoever they had, and he'd be safe then.

  At least, Jorge hoped that would be how it worked.

  * * *
>
  After Melendez was taken out, Mac asked who was next on the list.

  Ursitti consulted his clipboard. "Karl Fischer. He's-"

  "I know what he's in for." Mac shook his head. Fischer had shot three young men in a subway car, killing one, leaving one in a coma, and paralyzing the third for life. All three were African-American. "What the hell's he doing here?"

  Holding up a hand, Ursitti said, "I know, Detective, I know, but his lawyer made a motion and the judge granted it-as long as his case is on appeal, he gets to stay in medium. And he carries a lotta weight around here."

  "Using the system for his own benefit," Mac said with disgust. Of course, Mac himself had done something similar to get Gerrard and Sinclair off his back, but that was only because his back was against the wall.

  Besides which, Mac was on the side of right there. When Clay Dobson was first arrested, the officers failed to secure his belt. Dobson tried to hang himself with that belt. Gerrard, then a lieutenant, covered up both the failure to secure and the suicide attempt. Mac hadn't wanted to use that against Gerrard and Sinclair (who was the inspector in charge of the precinct at the time of Dobson's arrest), but he had little choice. While the DA's office had cleared Mac of any wrongdoing in Dobson's death, Sinclair had started an internal investigation to please the media and raise his own profile, no doubt in an attempt to make his bid for the commissioner's chair more realistic.

  Mac had thought him to be a fool in any case. Gerrard, at least, used to be a good police. Sinclair, though, was a political animal with delusions of grandeur-and also no sense of history. Most NYPD commissioners were brought in from outside, and the job tended to chew people up and spit them out. Theodore Roosevelt had one of the most distinguished careers of anyone in American history, a successful soldier, a well-regarded New York State governor, a popular vice president and president. The one failure in his entire career was his disastrous tenure as the commissioner of the NYPD.

  Sinclair was no Teddy Roosevelt. Thoughts like that kept Mac warm at night.

  And sights like Karl Fischer kept him up at night. One of the COs Mac hadn't seen before brought Fischer in. He was shorter than Mac was expecting him to be, with a monk's fringe of hair that was part blond, part silver; a hook nose; and wide, penetrating blue eyes. They were the same color as Flack's.

  Most of the inmates who'd come into this room were either defiant or overly solicitous. The former were the harder criminals who didn't give a damn about anything; the latter were the ones who were doing everything they could to be model citizens in order to make parole.

  Fischer didn't fit either one of those types. He had a superiority complex about him, a vibe Mac hadn't gotten off any of the other inmates so far. "Detective Flack, Detective Taylor," he said in a bourbon-smooth voice with just a hint of a Southern accent, "what can I do to help y'all today?"

  Where others had asked that question as if eager to please, Fischer was acting as if he were doling out indulgences. Neither detective had introduced himself; Fischer must have gotten their names from one of the other inmates, a neat trick with the place in lockdown. Obviously, he wanted to show off how good his information network was.

  Mac found he couldn't help himself. "How'd you swing getting remanded here? You were convicted of, among other things, first-degree murder."

  "That's arguable, Detective Taylor. You see, the law says I'm entitled to a jury of my peers. That jury was pretty much all my inferiors." He smiled. "Pity that particular nuance doesn't carry much weight with New York judges, but I've got other things to base my appeal on. For one thing, the evidence was truly spotty. Obviously, Detective Taylor, you weren't the one on the case. I can't imagine you allowing an arrest to proceed with the pissant evidence they had on me. If'n you were, I daresay this would've had a much better end for all concerned."

  "Somehow I doubt that," Mac said tightly.

  "Don't sell yourself short, Detective. I've been hearin' about your trials and tribulations with that Dobson fella. Now there's a hardcore sumbitch, if you'll pardon my French. It's a travesty of justice that a man like him gets to go free while an innocent man such as myself rots away in prison."

  Flack got the interview back on track, for which Mac was grateful. "What can you tell us about the two murders that happened this morning?"

  "Not a thing, sorry to say, Detective. They both happened in the weight yard when I was not present in that facility."

  "So you didn't know that it was Jack Mulroney who killed Vance Barker."

  "I was deep in conversation with Mr. William Cox. We were discussing the Gospel according to St. John and the discrepancies between it and the other three Gospels, which I attribute to John actually being present."

  Mac raised an eyebrow. "Really? Most religious scholars have come to the conclusion that John was actually the farthest removed from the lifetime of Jesus Christ and that Mark was the most likely to be an eyewitness. That's a very old-fashioned viewpoint you have, Fischer."

  "Well, I'm an old-fashioned kinda guy. I'm surprised to hear an officer of the law espousing knowledge of scripture, particularly from a scholarly perspective." He smiled, an expression that was wholly without warmth. "But then, you were a Marine, weren'tcha, Detective? I guess it's true that there are no atheists in foxholes, huh?"

  Cursing himself for allowing Fischer to direct the interview, Mac saved Flack the trouble of getting them back on track. "What did you see?"

  "I'm afraid that I was sufficiently engrossed in my spiritual discourse with William to see much of anything. I only noticed something was going on when the, ah, gentlemen in the weight yard started screaming obscenities. I noticed that there was a considerable amount of blood on the fence, but beyond that, I'm afraid I didn't notice any particulars."

  Ursitti stepped in for the first time. "So Mulroney didn't come to you? Asking permission?"

  "I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about, Lieutenant. Nobody in this prison needs my permission to do anything. I'm just an inmate hereabouts."

  "Cut the crap, Fischer," Ursitti said, "everybody knows you run the white people here."

  "That's an unsubstantiated allegation, Lieutenant. And I'd say it's slanderous besides. Within the confines of the regulations of this facility, Jack Mulroney is free to do whatever he wishes with or without my consent."

  "So the fact that he talked to you in the mess right after he stole his razor blade is just a coincidence."

  Fischer looked studiously thoughtful. Mac felt nauseated all of a sudden.

  "I do recall," Fischer finally said, "that Jack and I had a conversation over breakfast. I believe it was about the unfairness of Mr. Vance Barker's takeout slide during yesterday's baseball game."

  Flack asked, "Did Mulroney mention retribution?"

  "In fact, he did, but I cautioned him against it. Such retribution, as you call it, very rarely has any kind of good end. It would seem he didn't follow my advice-assuming he was the one who stabbed Mr. Barker. As I said, I didn't see it."

  This was getting them nowhere. Besides, Mulroney had confessed, and they had physical evidence to back it up. While trying to nail Fischer on conspiracy to commit murder would have given Mac great joy, he doubted someone who'd finagled remanding to medium security while appealing a murder charge would have any trouble sliding out of additional charges here. So Mac moved on to the other case. "What about Malik Washburne?"

  "What about him?"

  "Did you see who killed him?"

  "Again, Detective, he was in the weight yard. I wasn't. And I don't much pay attention to the comings and goings of heathens. They'll all get theirs when the Kingdom of Heaven arrives, worry not."

  "I wasn't worried," Mac said.

  Flack asked, "Were you aware of any disagreements Washburne may have had with any of the other inmates?"

  "Far as I could tell, folks seemed to like him well enough. So did I, truth be told. He was a decent sort of fella-for a heathen, leastaways. Whoever killed him will surely burn
in the fires of hell for his sin." Again, the smile. "Not that most of those imprisoned here were likely to avoid that destination in the first place."

  "Except you, of course," Mac said, "being innocent and all."

  "Perfection is God's prerogative, Detective Taylor. We mortals can only aspire to it, and that means that sometimes mistakes will be made, such as my incarceration. It is a mistake that I will rectify, worry not."

  "Still not worried." Mac looked at Flack. "We're done here."

  "Definitely."

  Fischer stood up. "I'm sorry I couldn't have been more help, gentlemen. I hope you find both of the murderers in our midst."

  After Fischer left, Flack started looking at the floor on either side of the table.

  "What're you looking for, Don?"

  Flack looked up at Mac. "I figure after all the manure that was being shoveled, we oughta be seeing a rose pop out of the floor any second now."

  Mac chuckled. Ursitti didn't. The lieutenant said, "Fischer's no laughing matter, Detective. I really hope his appeal finishes, one way or the other, soon, 'cause the sooner he's out of here, the smoother everything'll go around here." He sighed. "It's no coincidence that our first DIC in two decades is while that asshole's here. El-Jabbar's bad enough, but at least he keeps things together, y'know? Fischer's just bad news. Usually the white guys here keep their heads down, but he's got 'em all riled up. And I'll tell you something else, no way Mulroney even thinks about doing what he did without runnin' it by Fischer first."

  "Unfortunately," Mac said with a sigh, "the only evidence we have points to Mulroney acting alone."

  "Yeah." Ursitti shook his head and looked at his clipboard to see who the next interview was.

  12

  SERVING THE WARRANT ON Jack Morgenstern's house hadn't been nearly as painful as Stella had feared it would be.