by J. S. Morin
I’d led a pretty sheltered life, the kind where I didn’t have much cause to learn how squeamish I was over blood, at least not more than a nosebleed or a kitchen mishap. I covered my nose and retreated to the window.
Even though I was the only one there, I played it off as stepping back to take in the room as a whole.
There were picture frames along the wall over her desk. I filled in details from memory.
Martinez had her degrees on the wall. There were also pictures of her family, one of her shaking hands with President Carter when she was probably about my age, and a framed letter from her publisher offering her $2,000 for the rights to the first Shadowblood book.
To her credit, unlike many academics, Martinez didn’t brush off her commercial success.
She wasn’t a pack rat, either. Aside from purely functional items, there wasn’t much else left in the office. Edging over so that I didn’t touch the desk, I leaned over and pulled the picture frames back, using a quick burst from the flashlight to check whether there was anything hidden behind them.
Taking a deep breath, I opened the desk drawers one by one. There was the usual array of seldom-used office supplies: staples, paperclips, ink cartridges for a nice pen, a bottle of superglue.
The glue caught my eye since it wasn’t something you saw in every desk. Sure, plenty of people kept some around the house to fix things, but I’d never figured Patricia Martinez as the fix-it sort.
Twisting the top, I held the bottle up to the light. The tip had been cut, but it was still nearly full to the top, and there wasn’t the crusty layer of hardened cyanoacrylate that built up over time. I knew that crusty layer well, from years of assembling Warhammer 40k miniatures.
There was, of course, no laptop.
As possibly the key piece of evidence at a crime scene, the police would have scooped that up like a wallet on the sidewalk. Still, I’d held out a vague hope that maybe the Boston PD had left it behind, maybe keeping the scene as-is for documentation purposes.
Taking a closer look at the desk, there was a 90-degree notch taken out of the blood puddle. That’s where the laptop had been. I wasn’t a forensic expert to say how long the blood would have needed to dry to leave so clean an edge.
I heard footsteps and shut the flashlight off.
With any luck, it was just another dedicated professor calling it a night and stopping by to quote Hamlet at a crime scene.
I crept to the door and ducked from view of anyone peeking inside, using my body as a doorstop in case anyone tried to open it. Catching a glint by the streetlight’s glow, I noticed the twist-tab that could lock it from the inside. I did so, hoping the creators of those footsteps didn’t hear.
The two pairs of footsteps stopped outside the door. “I saw a light inside the office,” a woman’s voice said.
There was a rattle of someone trying the knob. “You sure, ma’am? Door’s still locked.” The second voice was male, businesslike, probably campus security.
Shit.
“And look, there’s light coming though the blinds. Those were closed. And… and we haven’t been locking the door.”
Double shit.
“Whoever’s in there, come on out. This is no place for pranks.”
Keep quiet. Keep calm. If I didn’t say anything, maybe they would go away. I mean, with murder-fueled fear spreading across the city, campus security had to have been getting crackpots all day and night.
“Come out or I’ll break this door down.”
“You can’t!” the woman exclaimed. “This building is a historical society landmark. That door’s probably worth more than both of us make in a year. I’ll get the master key.”
Already racing, my heart picked up its pace. If I didn’t think of something, I was going to jail.
“You can make it easy on yourself if you give yourself up. Judges go light on fine upstanding young men who make a mistake. If I have to break in there, you’re going to be sorry.”
Regrets flooded in. I’d found nothing. No laptop of secrets from Martinez. No real-world equivalent to the invisible scroll. I’d planned on having hours in the office, sweeping it top to bottom. I’d barely had 15 minutes, and I wasn’t ready to admit it was a dead end. But my adventure was ending now. Right now.
I edged away from the door, but without my weight against it, it settled against the frame with a soft thud.
“I know you’re in there!” A hand tried the door, more violently than the last, tentative turn.
I blurted the first thing that came to mind. “You can’t break that door down! John Freakin’ Kennedy donated it!” It was either Teddy Roosevelt or him, and I played the percentages by picking the homegrown president.
There had to be a way out. There was no closet, no side door linking adjacent offices. A swirl of shadow mesmerized me, despite the dire circumstances—or possibly because of them. A tendril stretched out, just a dark blot against the invading streetlight, and pointed to the window.
I hated heights. Get me two or three flights up an open stairwell and I’d shy from the railing. The idea of crashing through a window action hero style just wasn’t happening. As if sensing my trepidation, the shadowy tendril became more specific. It pointed to the mid-point of the window, where a latch separated the double-hung panes. I yanked the cord of the blinds an unlatched the window. Fortunately the windows at the Barker Center were massive. I could have crouched upright beneath the open pane. A wave of vertigo hit me as I looked down.
The shadow snaked past me and pointed down. I looked again, and the more rational part of my brain estimated the drop at ten or twelve feet, and there were some small, decorative shrubs to break my fall. I heard the footsteps returning in the hall.
“He’s in there. Hurry up!”
My heart froze. That wasn’t a campus police car parked not five spaces from Tim’s. That was a Boston PD cruiser. My prospects for getting out of this without handcuffs were plummeting. But plummeting was exactly what I didn’t want to be doing. Visions of cracking my skull or breaking an ankle consumed my thoughts.
“You fool. Just jump.”
I’d managed to push aside thoughts of my haunting companion. The sudden return of the voice put a chill through me that nearly made me fall from the open window.
“I can’t,” I whispered.
“It’s ten feet. Can’t be worse than the city dungeon.”
More like twelve feet, maybe fifteen. Might as well have been a hundred, because my hands weren’t releasing their grip on the ledge. Sad to say, but my split personality was the rational one right then.
A key slid into the lock of the office door.
“This doesn’t satisfy our deal. She hid something, and you failed to find it. Taking the coward’s way won’t—”
“SHUT UP!”
“I got him,” a voice from the street called out. “You there. Stay right where you are.”
A cop with a gun shined a flashlight that blinded me. I almost lost my grip and gave the whisper just what it was goading me into.
The office door burst open, and a second flashlight pinned me with no place to look.
Within seconds, I was dragged bodily back into the office.
Within minutes, I was handcuffed and riding in the back of a police cruiser.
A whispered sigh tickled the edge of my hearing. “You should have listened.”
Chapter Six
I was a cow being led to the slaughter. Uncuffed and prodded through the cell door, I didn’t look at anyone above chest level.
Never having been arrested before, I expected the holding cell to look like every cop drama I’d ever seen. There would have been guys from street gangs with arms tatted up with skulls and flames. At least a couple would look like tweakers still burning a meth high. A huge, bare-armed guy with biceps the size of my head would back me against the bars and make vaguely sexual threats.
Instead, I got the waiting room for missed child support payments. Unshaved, underdressed, and
moping accounted for most of the holding cell’s occupants. All the bench seats were taken, so I found a gap along the wall between a guy holding a crucifix and muttering to himself in Spanish and a tubby guy in a faded Pats championship t-shirt that didn’t quite cover his stomach.
Since the only guy talking was right next to me, I eavesdropped and tried to pick out bits and pieces of Spanish. I’d never taken a class, but there were just some words that sounded too much like English or Latin to overlook, plus some words everyone knew: hola, gracias, adios, that sort of stuff. But that was when actors or media people were talking. In casual conversation, I wasn’t getting any of it until it ended with “amen.”
I didn’t mean to look.
Every rational synapse in my head was telling me to watch the floor. But instinct and curiosity got the better of me, and I spared a glance his way. I could see white all around those brown eyes that looked back. The guy still had his crucifix in hand, knuckles white.
“Who are you?” he whispered in a thick accent.
Shying away, I leaned into the overweight Pats fan, who shoved me back with an elbow. “I—I’m Matt. Hi.”
“Who. ARE YOU?” he screamed and backed away.
The other prisoners cleared a path as the crazy religious guy found the farthest corner of the cell and crammed himself against the wall.
“What’d you say to that guy?” the Pats shirt guy asked in a South Boston brogue.
“Nothing.” I shrugged and hunched with my hands tucked behind crossed arms.
For a minute, I thought I might have gotten myself some space to breathe. The cell stank of sweat and alcohol, along with cigarette smoke that was seeping from someone’s clothes like they’d been fumigated with it.
Who cared if some kook who’d gotten thrown in lockup was paranoid enough to be scared of me, possibly the least threatening specimen in the cell? Extra space was extra space.
The gap beside me filled up with horn-rimmed glasses, a greasy comb-over, and a reek of drug-store cologne.
They weren’t even people, the petty criminals the cops had locked me in with. They were just nameless piles of traits with various levels of threat associated.
Comb-over wasn’t going to rape me or steal my shoes, but the insides of my nostrils were burning. If I’d been half the badass the praying loony thought I was, I’d have told comb-over to buzz off.
Before I permanently lost my sense of smell, one of the duty officers came by with a clipboard. “Lee, Matthew,” he called out.
I leaned forward from the wall and raised a tentative hand like the only kid in class who knew the answer.
The duty officer unlocked the cell. Without making eye contact with anyone along the way, I hustled out. I didn’t ask where we were going. Boston Massachusetts doesn’t have the death penalty. Short of that, I didn’t think there was anyplace worse this guy could be taking me. Handcuffs were a small price to pay to get out of the holding cell.
When I saw the door labeled “Interview Room,” my mind instantly translated it as “Interrogation.” With a swallow, I crept inside and wondered if maybe a day when my mind was on the fritz wasn’t the best time to be talking to police detectives.
Chapter Seven
They left me alone in the interrogation room.
Alone and private weren’t the same thing, I knew. The ominous red light on the spy camera in the corner of the room boasted that Mitchell and DuBois could still see every move I made. Or the two of them could have run out for coffee and donuts. I didn’t get to know the difference.
Everything was right out of a cops-and-robbers serial drama. The only differences were that I was on the wrong side of the screen, and no one cut to commercial to skip the boring parts.
Then the red light winked out.
A trick. The mic didn’t have anything to show whether it was on or not. There was a switch, but from this side of the table, I couldn’t see it.
When the door opened, I expected it to be my interrogators. Instead, a plainclothes officer of Chinese descent stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
“Mr. Lee, I’m sorry you’ve been in here so long,” the officer said with a shallow bow. “You should have requested legal counsel immediately.”
I sighed. The weight of the day washed over me. I closed my eyes and almost fell asleep sitting there. “I just wanted it over with. I didn’t think your pals were going to railroad me.”
“Mr. Lee, I just want you to know that everything is being handled. Just keep quiet, avoid answering anything incriminating, and this will all sort itself out.”
I blinked a few times to clear my vision. Either the whispers in my head were getting creative with their hallucinatory buddies, or this was a detective throwing me a lifeline.
“What gives?” I asked. “You playing good cop today? ‘Cause I got stuck with two guys playing bad cop.”
The detective slid into a chair opposite me and leaned across the table. “Mr. Lee, please understand that anything you say here may have repercussions. Your family lawyer is, for the moment, unavailable and shall remain unavailable for as long as need be. Say nothing. Wait. Exercise patience.”
Something wasn’t adding up here. “Who the hell are you?”
A smile twitched at the edges of the detective’s lips, gone before I could be sure it was there. “My name is Greg Lin. My… my family is from Shanghai.”
Only the handcuffs kept me from reaching up and grabbing Detective Lin by the collar. I kept my voice a low snarl. “Tell my father to keep out of this.”
My mom had kept coy about Dad’s business trips to China up until I was twelve or so. That was when she finally came clean.
Shanghai wasn’t the business trip for Li Zhujiu, San Jose was. Granddad’s business needed someone trustworthy in the US, and my dad had an MBA from Stanford. He spent most of his time in this country but made regular trips back to the mainland, as he called it.
Officially, Dad worked in real estate acquisitions and property management—shopping centers, condos, that sort of thing.
Unofficially, my dad was Michael Corleone with a slight Mandarin accent.
Detective Lin stood and took a nervous glance at his watch. “Mr. Lee, I assure you, you have nothing to worry about. Just… sit tight.”
With that, the cop who knew my father ducked out of the room.
When Mitchell and DuBois returned with matching Styrofoam coffee cups, they told me my lawyer wasn’t available until the morning. I had to swallow back a sick lump in my throat, knowing that meant I was heading right back into lockup.
Chapter Eight
The interrogation room had that old building smell—sweat, coffee, and a vague mustiness. One side of the table had a single chair; the other had two. I knew which side I belonged on and took the single.
The duty officer unlocked one half of my cuffs. Just when I had my hopes up, he threaded them through a bar attached to the tabletop and snapped them back on my other wrist.
“Funny. I never get locked up anywhere.”
“Shut up,” I muttered through gritted teeth. The last thing I needed was to get caught on closed-circuit camera arguing with myself.
“They can’t hear me.”
If that was supposed to be reassuring… well, maybe it was. All I had to do was ignore the voice. After all, it really wasn’t there.
Two plainclothes officers entered after they let me cool off for ten minutes or so.
“Mr. Lee, I’m Detective Mitchell, and this is Detective Dubois. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Mitchell was mid-forties, balding, with that doughy build you get from eating junk and working on your feet but never really exercising. Dubois had a chiseled jaw and stubble that looked chronic; he probably played in an over-thirty basketball league.
That’s how I would have written them, anyway, if they were in my Keith Damon novels.
They read me my Miranda rights, which felt a little condescending to someone who’d attended Ha
rvard. My ex-roommate was only a year away from taking the bar. The idea that I wouldn’t understand my rights lumped me in with the child-support dregs back in the cell.
“Yeah, I understand my rights,” I replied, making an effort not to sound like a know-it-all.
“Cup of coffee?” Dubois offered.
I could have been a smartass and ordered my usual iced macchiato with skim from Dunk’s. But I knew they were liable to keep me a while, and coffee went right through me. “Nah, I’m good.”
Mitchell slapped down a manila folder. I jumped at the sound.
It gave me a great sense of confidence in modern criminal justice that they hadn’t heard of smartphones or tablets yet.
Mitchell flipped it open, and I noticed that it had my name on it, along with a case number. That… concerned me. “Can you please state your full name, for the record?”
Mitchell had a pen and a yellow legal pad. It seemed pointless with the closed-circuit camera on us and the microphone that would be recording the whole thing.
“Matthew Stanford Lee. I know, it’s funny because I ended up at Harvard, but—”
“Mr. Lee, can you describe your activities on the day of October 21st?”
I guessed that my parents naming me for my father’s alma mater wasn’t exactly pertinent, but it was still a dick move cutting me off mid sentence. Had to keep cool, though.
“Sure, that was the night of the Shadowblood season finale,” I replied without stopping to think. “Wait… what’s this all about? I thought I was in here for breaking and entering?”
Mitchell put his elbows on the table and leaned across. I couldn’t back away with my hands cuffed to the table. “Mr. Lee, we’re investigating the Patricia Martinez murder case.”
“I had nothing to do with that,” I protested, stunned.
“We’re just asking questions,” DuBois butted in. They were double-teaming me.
“The arresting officer mentioned you to us,” Mitchell said. “Strange thing was, we had a note on you in the case file. Minor association. Potential motive but your expulsion was a while back. We’d have been grasping at straws before we even thought to send a unit out to interview you.”
