Motive, would have been her answer before. Good guys did violent deeds to protect society, bad guys did them for selfish reasons. But this was selfish.
So what? She’d been selfless her whole goddamn life. How dare they judge her, or Starr for that matter? She glanced in the direction of the FBI van. She could also go put bullets into the heads of the agents inside it. That would put an end to their cozy little created reality, where people with violent tendencies were "redeemable" and "still human."
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
How To Sell An Emotional Moment
JOHN
John glanced in and did a double-take. Nick was sitting with legs over the edge of the bunk, one finger at the base of his chin like a thoughtful statue. Perfectly balanced on the top of his head were the three books they'd allowed in with the poor guy.
John unbolted the wicket. "Not bored or anything, are you?"
"Of course not," said Nick, grinning.
"Why would I think such a thing?" asked John, rolling his eyes at Nick as he closed the wicket in response to the impatient look of the officer he was working with.
Doing cell checks every fifteen minutes to make sure the residents were still breathing, escorting them to and from the exercise area and showers, talking to them in the hope that they might not completely lose their minds, distributing and collecting laundry and library books.... The inmates might be bored out of their skulls, but John's legs were pleading for a break and he was longing for even five minutes to relax and talk to Nick.
Nick was standing next to the window next time John passed, scowling with one hand on his hip. John opened the wicket. "What?"
“Excuse me, God?” Nick arched his eyebrows. “I demand to be taken to a better waiting room.” He tapped one foot impatiently.
"Sorry, pal," said John in a not-at-all-sorry voice. "Rainbows and harps are on backorder, unicorns are out of production. Also, we no longer serve refreshments in limbo due to cost-cutting measures." He shot the wicket closed and hurried to catch up to the other officer.
DAN FISHER
Dan Fisher and NYPD Captain Luke Monroe listened intently to the audio feed, and Fisher thanked his one remaining lucky star that they’d loaded the drugs for real. He was uneasy about Vineil, who was terrified and unstable despite their best efforts. If she tipped him, at least they had more than enough for an arrest.
But an arrest might not be good enough to protect Aster, if Starr stood a chance of making bail….and he did, for anything short of iron-clad murder for hire.
Monroe sensed his unease. “What?” the Captain asked softly.
“We need Starr alive,” said Fisher, following the tickling at the back of his neck back to its source. “We need him alive, and charged up big-time, so we can get him to ID the people he sent away that are most likely innocent.”
Monroe’s eyes narrowed, instantly zeroing in on Fisher’s train of thought. “You think she might murder-suicide him?”
“She’s angry. She’s borderline suicidal, and she’s guilty,” said Fisher. “Her frame of reference for where she’s going to spend the rest of her life is one of the most violent and inhumane jails in the country.”
“She’s also a murderer,” said Monroe. “She might turn her sights on us, for her blaze of glory. We’re the ones that have her pinned.”
Fisher tightened his jaw, and drew his gun.
JOHN
John slid the bolt back and opened the wicket at Nick’s insistent tapping of the window.
"What?" John's very real aggravation with the other inmates carried through into his voice, but Nick took it for the affectionate abuse that it was and scrunched his nose at John.
"This hotel lacks amenities.”
"The customer is always wrong," said John. He closed the wicket, grinning, and controlled his flinch when Nick's neighbor bellowed through the door at him.
"I want my muffin! You didn't give me my muffin this morning!"
"What, is there some muffin entitlement program I'm not aware of?" muttered John.
THEO
Theo slid closer to Vineil, who was almost shaking in guilt-fueled rage. This thing was about one minute from going violently sideways, and his Feds could be on the firing line just as easily as Starr.
Starr smirked at the results of the drug test, his grin showing teeth Theo could swear were pointed. “I guess I won’t kill you,” he said casually. “Unless our boy in Sing Sing lets down his end of the bargain, or I find out you’re getting friendly with Internal Affairs.”
Theo gave him an affronted glare. “I don’t do business with people who let me down, because they don’t tend to survive my eccentric means of ‘firing’ them.” He slid his hand up Vineil’s back, and to the back of her head where he gripped her hair tightly. “And I don’t do business with cops without collateral. Some friends will be quite hospitable to her until the operation is carried out.”
He twisted her hair hard to distract her, and whipped a pistol out of his pocket. “Everybody away from my truck,” ordered Theo. "I'm eccentric and I have an untraceable pink Beretta nine millimeter in my twitchy hand."
JOHN
John glanced into the cell and saw Nick intensely focused, scribbling on a yellow legal pad. “How you doing?” he asked.
Nick looked sideways at him and frowned. “I could really use a brush for my arm hair.”
"Use your eyebrow brush, you prima donna." John rolled his eyes. "Jeez."
Lyle Evans didn’t try to hide his smile as they walked away.
He glanced at John. “I’ve had some really pleasant guys in here, and seen a million ways for inmates to entertain themselves. Aster’s the only one who just embraces the absurd and tries to make this more fun for all of us. He could write a book on how to get your prison guard to just fucking adore you.”
John had to smile. "That's Nick, all right. It's a relief to see him like this again.”
A cloud of intense sadness crossed Sergeant Evans’ face. He tried to shove it away quickly. “He heals.”
THEO
Theo plunked Vineil face-down in the Fedmobile feeling rather like a cat depositing a mouse on their doorstep. He was more than a little impressed to have had the door opened for them as they approached and Fisher’s gun trained on her head. Monroe pinned and cuffed her effortlessly despite his prosthetic leg.
“WHAT. THE. FUCK!” bellowed a furious Vineil.
“Somehow, you managed to make all three of us jumpy at once,” said Fisher. “Care to comment as to why?”
Silence.
Fisher holstered his gun and helped her sit up before sitting cross-legged on the floor of the van facing her. “It sickened me to see an inmate in misery, because I always imagined what it would be like to be in their shoes. How did it affect you?”
She sulked silently for several minutes, but Fisher didn’t move or speak. “It was satisfying,” she said finally.
“You never thought about how easily it could be you, or someone you loved?” asked Fisher.
“No!” Her upper lip curled. “These are criminals, not puppies. They lost the right to sympathy when they proved their own complete lack of it.”
“You’re a murderer,” said Fisher. “Why do you think I’m sitting here with the goal of easing your fear?”
“Because you’re naive,” she snapped. “Because you don’t know I was this close to blowing your head off and enjoying it.”
“I do know,” corrected Fisher. “Did you think the guns and cuffs were for fun? And how exactly is a guy who’s interrogated the most dangerous terrorists of our time, witnessed torture, and been left for dead in a cell with a mass murderer naive?”
She actually looked him over with personal curiosity for the first time. “I suppose you can’t be.”
“You’re bush league, Missy,” said Fisher. “The last guy I chatted with before I shipped back to the US beheaded twenty people.’”
“Yippee for you, what the hell does it have to do with me?”
Fisher looked at her evenly. “Did you get into this line of work because you were a sadist?”
“What — no, of course not!” Vineil looked genuinely affronted.
“What happened, then?” asked Fisher.
“I was a very small woman, in a violent men’s jail, with the good old boys club in full effect. Do the math.”
“Violence begets violence?” asked Fisher. “You were filled with rage, and hated anyone capable of the violence inflicted on you, and wanted to punish or kill them so they wouldn’t do it again? Maybe to a civilian?”
“Something like that.” Vineil shrugged, and shifted her legs into a more comfortable position.
“Given your own reaction to assault, do you think any of the inmates you ‘punished’ went on to be better or less violent when they were released?”
“Violent people only respect violence,” said Vineil. “I think they went on to think twice about the consequences before they hurt anyone again.”
Fisher shook his head. “They had the same rage you did. They learned even the good guys solve their problems with violence, and you made it so that when they’re cornered, they’ll kill officers and themselves before risking jail again.”
“Bullshit,” snapped Vineil.
Fisher smirked. “What were you about to do just now? Murder us and kill yourself rather than go to prison.”
JOHN
Nick was under the bunk, barely visible in the shadows. Two fingers emerged like antennae, waving in exploration as they emerged. Encountering no danger, a nose followed and his head emerged. He looked at them, eyes wide.
The antennae froze and recoiled, and his head vanished.
“Get out here, I’m not going to pour salt on you,” said John.
Nick crawled out and with the slowness of a man nursing his injuries, stood.
“Your turn to go ‘outside,’” said John. “I’m gonna have Sergeant Evans do the whole strip search thing, if you don’t mind.”
Nick nodded, and John stepped away. “I want a muffin!” yelled the inmate next door to Nick at the top of his lungs. It was only the hundredth time that day.
John sighed. “It’s not muffin day, sir. Like I said before, you can’t have a muffin because the kitchen didn’t make any.”
“I want my muffin,” said the inmate stubbornly.
“You don’t get a muffin today,” said John. “There are no muffins. No muffins for you.”
“Give me my fucking muffin. You’re stealing my muffins, and I won’t fall for it.”
Sergeant Evan’s beckoned John back to the cell. “Done. Your turn.”
Nick put his arms as far behind his back as he could manage, took a deep breath, and stood stock still. John's stomach soured at the tremor of pain he felt when he pulled Nick's hands together, but had him cuffed in a matter of seconds. "Okay?" he asked quietly, so that nobody but Nick and Kasdan could hear.
Nick nodded.
John got the leg irons on and pulled open the door, fighting a powerful urge to hug Nick the minute he stepped out. "Hi," he said instead.
"Hi," responded Nick with a wry little grin, wrinkling his nose adorably at John. He'd seen that John wanted to hug him, and it'd delighted him.
Kasdan passed John a bulletproof, stab-resistant vest, much heavier, bulkier, and more effective than the ones usually worn under clothing. John put the vest over Nick’s head carefully, tucked the back between and under his cuffed arms, and took care not to tug or poke at his friend while adjusting and smoothing down the Velcro straps. Thought about how he would feel, restrained like this and being geared up like he was a horse being tacked up.
He met Nick’s eyes, to express what nonverbal sympathy he could. But Nick looked relaxed, even happy. Unless John was much mistaken, he was enjoying the attention. John held up a riot helmet and waggled it enticingly.
Nick rolled his eyes, and grinned while John put the thing on him. Then Nick was staring downward at his chained ankles. “Something’s wrong,” he said seriously. “I don’t think those are Windows 10 compatible.”
“We’ve upgraded since you were last here,” said John. “They’re Mac now.”
“Siri, how do I pick handcuffs?” When he didn’t get a response, Nick cleared his throat. “Siri, is there cyanide in the meatloaf?”
“Cut it out, or I’ll walk you like a cat,” said Lyle Evans.
Nick grinned, and John glanced between them, looking for the inside joke. “You take a dog for a walk,” explained Nick. “You take the cat for a drag.”
“Oh.” John glanced away. Maybe not for Nick. But it was too soon for him to chuckle at the hilarious image of prison guards dragging his chained-up friend.
“Cruel humor ....” Lyle was giving John an understanding and sober look. “....isn’t always. It can be a way to acknowledge the existence of horrible things -”
“And in doing so reassure someone they’re not likely to happen,” said John.
Lyle gave both John and Nick a relieved look. “I saw the video of Nick being dragged. I can’t even imagine - Jesus that had to hurt.” He squeezed Nick's elbow in compassion.
They started their painfully slow shuffle down the hallway, John holding Nick's wrist with one hand and his upper arm with the other. Nick had no way to regain his balance or break his fall should one of his hobbles trip him, so it was up to John to catch him if he fell.
I've been trying to fall far enough for you to catch me.
John gulped and tightened his grip. I've got you, Nick.
And I'm in awe of you, he wanted to add a few yards further down. He'd been through this now with other inmates, and observed the two general ways they dealt with the routine but fundamentally humiliating ritual of being chained up so that they couldn't even take a full step.
The tough-guy approach, clenched fists and squared shoulders and an attempted swagger indicating the chains were the only thing keeping them from killing the officers with their bare fists. For some of them, it wasn't an act.
The other was trying to hold their head high and look un-bothered as they cowered internally from the humiliation and discomfort. Their eyes were always elsewhere and their shoulders hunched as though they wished they could vanish.
Nick....
He had his hands folded together behind him in a posture so natural and elegant, one had to look twice to see that he was cuffed. He looked like he was at a black tie dinner party. He struggled as much as the other inmates with having his steps cut short; probably more so because every time he overstepped and jerked the chain, it had to hurt.
But he walked not in a hesitant, depressed shuffle but in an easy, relaxed amble. Like he was strolling through a beautiful sunlit meadow, savoring the scents and sights and sounds of a spring day with his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes half closed in appreciation.
It struck John that he'd never seen such true dignity. Nick had taken something humiliating and awkJohn, and stripped it of all its power. He was submissive and gentle and in absolute, elegant control. He might as well be wearing Armani, not handcuffs.
John glanced at Kasdan, walking to Nick's left, and saw similar awe and respect on the agent's stressed face. This was brutal, taking a naive and kind geek and throwing him into one of the cruelest, most dangerous environments John had ever experienced. But he was handling it with impressive fortitude. Even Wash and Kelly looked like they were walking off a battlefield when they got off the night shift.
Sergeant Evans lead the way walking directly in front of Nick, and Gary Wills walked behind him. As terrifyingly helpless as Nick must feel, at least he was surrounded on all sides by caring and competent people. They were being monitored on camera, they had wireless emergency beacons, and FBI agents were waiting in the wings.
John released Nick into the miserable little high-walled, cement-floored "yard" and removed his restraints through the gate. Sgt. Evans spoke quietly to John. "If you two want to speak in private, this is where to do it. We close th
at door behind you, you're in the sally port blocked from inmate view or hearing."
"Please," said John, casting him a grateful glance.
After the door shut, Nick no longer looked so calm. His fists were clenched, and he was taking slow, deep, deliberate breaths as if to keep himself from hyperventilating. He wouldn't meet John's eyes, and his jaw was set hard. An outside observer would peg him as furious. John saw rattled and scared.
Broken Blue Lines: Love. Hate. Criminal Justice.: An FBI Crime Drama / LGBT+ Love Story Page 45
