Sucker Punch

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “You can’t kill Muriel and Todd in custody,” Duke said.

  “Technically the warrant would allow it,” Edward said.

  “No,” Duke said.

  “No,” Livingston said.

  “This isn’t why I became a marshal,” Newman said.

  “We have complete discretion on how we complete the letter of the law on a warrant,” I said.

  “Like I said, you are not killing them,” Duke said.

  “Them dead may not save Bobby. Them alive to confess will,” I said.

  “I don’t think Muriel is going to break,” Duke said.

  “Everyone breaks eventually, Sheriff,” Edward said.

  “Do I really have to say out loud that you can’t torture anyone under my care?”

  “You can say whatever you want, but legally we can use the level of force we deem necessary to complete our task,” Edward said.

  “Do you normally torture your prisoners before you kill them?” Livingston said.

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes,” Olaf said.

  “It depends,” Edward said.

  “You guys are fucking creepy. You know that?” Duke said.

  The three of us nodded. We knew.

  71

  OLAF, EDWARD, AND I headed over to the larger jail where Muriel and Todd Babington were being held. I didn’t know if we could get a confession out of either of them, but that was the one way the judge had told Duke we could stop the clock on the warrant. It wouldn’t vacate it, because there was no system in place to do that, but it was a start. I really hoped we could get a confession out of Todd without having to torture him for real. Threats. I was good with threats, but I didn’t ever want to help Olaf torture another suspect for real. Yeah, the one in Florida had been a shapeshifter and all the parts had grown back, but the fact that I could do it at all had scared me. I wasn’t afraid of Olaf at that moment, but of me and what I’d done and what I might be willing to do again.

  The moment I saw Todd Babington sitting in the interrogation room, I was almost certain we wouldn’t have to torture him; guilt might be enough. He looked ten years older than when I’d met him at the Marchand mansion less than twenty-four hours ago. His shoulders were rounded and hunched around himself as if he were trying to hug himself as much as the handcuffs attached to the table would allow. Normally one of the leading citizens of the town would probably not have been handcuffed like that, but he’d been taken in on suspicion of not just murder but a brutal murder. Everything about him said defeat. Perfect.

  Edward and I sat across the table from him. Olaf took up his post in the corner so he could loom when needed. Newman had gone to the hospital to see what he could learn about Carmichael. It was the gaming equivalent of sending the paladin around the hill while you looted the bodies, except that Newman knew we might have to do bad things to get a confession. He might not have been able to be there while we did it, but he wanted Bobby alive more than he wanted to keep his sense of moral outrage intact. We’d agreed on our division of labor. Now we just had to live up to it.

  The three of us had bought only one thing into the room with us that we normally wouldn’t have had: a manila folder with pictures in it. The insurance pictures were on the top of the pile. After that it was crime scene photos. We’d start with shocking visuals before threats—conservation of energy and all that. I laid the folder on the table in front of me, closed and neutral. Anything could have been in it. Todd’s glance slid to it. Then he gave quick nervous looks at all of us and then went back to staring at the tabletop.

  “Was the murder your wife’s idea or yours, Todd?” I asked.

  He raised his head enough to look at me for a second, eyes wide and startled as if he hadn’t expected the question. He should have expected it. It was why he was in handcuffs, but I had caught him off guard. If we were smart and didn’t push him too hard at first, he’d talk to us. Muriel Babington had already called for her lawyer, but we weren’t giving in to her yet, because technically she was on my warrant. The warrant of execution stripped you of the right to legal representation. It really was a civil rights nightmare. They’d used that nightmare to try to kill their nephew. Using it against them now was poetic justice . . . or poetic injustice.

  Todd shook his head and stared at me with those large startled eyes. He was like a deer in the headlights. I waited for him to say something. I’d have settled for a noise, but he just sat there staring at me with his mouth slightly open, eyes full of nothing but shock and fear. It was like he’d been emptied of anything else, and there was nothing left to answer my question. In that second, I realized that pushing him too hard could shut him down if he hadn’t already. I hadn’t anticipated that and wasn’t sure how to go forward. Subtle and soft weren’t my speed.

  I glanced at Edward. He flashed that big friendly Ted smile and then aimed it at the man across the table from us. “Hello, Todd. How are you doing?”

  Todd turned and stared at him with those big scared eyes.

  “Weird day for you, huh, Todd?” Edward just radiated that good-ol’-boy charm.

  “Yes,” he said in a small, uncertain voice. He blinked, but when he opened his eyes, there was more in them than just panic.

  “Todd, you don’t strike me as someone who goes around planning murders.”

  “I’m not.” He sat up a little straighter until the handcuffs brought him up short, and then his shoulders rounded again, but not as badly. “I mean, I didn’t. We didn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Your brother-in-law Ray was more than hurt.”

  He shook his head fast and too many times. “We had nothing to do with what happened to Ray. We are not murderers.” He managed to sound insulted.

  “We found the murder weapon in your house, Todd. How did it get there if you didn’t use it to kill Ray?”

  “I don’t know, but I assure you that we did not have it in our possession.”

  “Then how did it get in your house?”

  “If Muriel were here, she’d say you planted it.”

  “Your wife isn’t here. What do you say, Todd?”

  “I’m not accusing the police of planting it in our house, but I swear to you that I have never seen that thing out of its display case. Are you seriously saying that it was used to kill Ray?” He looked so earnest, and he kept using Ray’s name. Usually murderers try to distance themselves from their victims, and one way to do that is to avoid naming them.

  “That is exactly what we’re saying, Todd.”

  He went pale and had to swallow hard before he said in a breathy voice, “I didn’t want to believe that Bobby could hurt Ray, but to think of someone using that . . . thing on him.” He swallowed hard again, breathing through his nose. I hoped he wouldn’t throw up, because that would have made the rest of the interrogation unpleasant for all of us.

  “It’s called a bagh nakha,” Edward said in his Ted accent, but pronouncing the foreign-sounding phrase perfectly so that it was like the down-home accent disappeared on the last two words.

  I opened the manila folder and got out the insurance pictures that showed all that shiny gold and the gems flashing in the light. When I got to the one that showed the curved claws, Todd looked away. Was it a sign of guilt or just squeamishness?

  “Look at it, Todd,” I said.

  He shook his head without looking.

  “You used it to slice Ray Marchand to pieces, and now you can’t even look at it?”

  He looked at me then. His eyes were startled, but not as afraid as before. “I told you, I have never touched that thing, never seen it out of its case.”

  “Then why was it in your house?” I asked.

  “You did not find it in our house.” He sounded very certain.

  “But we did,” I said.

  “Where?” he asked, indignant again.

  “Wher
e what?” Edward asked.

  “Where in our house did you find it?”

  “In the shed out back,” Edward said.

  Todd looked arrogant. “The shed where we store the lawn mower and the gardening equipment? The shed that we don’t even bother locking so that anyone in the neighborhood could walk in and steal it?”

  Olaf spoke, surprising all three of us, I think. “Your nephew is going to die in less than a day.”

  Todd turned those startled eyes toward Olaf. “But you found the murder weapon. You know that Bobby is innocent now.”

  “The judge won’t vacate the warrant unless we can find the real murderer,” I said.

  He frowned at me, then at all of us in turn. “But you think that Muriel and I are the murderers. You’ve found the murder weapon. Isn’t that enough to save Bobby?”

  “We thought it would be, too, Todd,” Edward said, “but the execution warrants for supernatural crimes . . . well, they aren’t set up to let people live.”

  “Are you saying that you’ll still kill Bobby, knowing that he’s innocent?”

  “I don’t want to do it,” I said.

  “You’d do it?”

  “Marshal Newman signed the warrant over to me, so yes.”

  “But he’s innocent. You said so.”

  “I believe he is, but the judge won’t give us any more time on the warrant. The local police will continue to gather evidence to prove you and Muriel killed Ray Marchand, but by then it’ll be too late to save Bobby.”

  “That’s . . . that’s . . . that’s monstrous,” Todd said.

  “Ironic choice of words, Todd, since we kill the monsters.”

  “But you know he’s innocent.”

  “But we can’t prove it in time.” Edward shook his head sadly, looking younger and strangely innocently disappointed.

  God, he could act. I’d never be that good, but I did my best to play up the whole female-and-small thing. To save Bobby’s life, I’d bat my big brown eyes at his uncle.

  “You can save Bobby, Todd,” I said, and debated whether touching his hand would be too much and finally decided against it. I could kill suspects, but holding hands was frowned on.

  “How?” he asked.

  “Confess.”

  “I’ll confess that we stole things and were going to steal more.”

  “Like you stole the murder weapon?” Olaf said.

  Todd glared up at him, indignant again. It seemed like one of his go-to emotions. “I told you, we did not take it, and if we had, we would not have put it in the garden shed. Something that valuable would need to go someplace much more secure.”

  “Like where?” I asked, and widened my eyes at him, leaning in a little closer. I could play to my outward appearance in a good cause.

  “If I tell you where we would hide things, will that help Bobby?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “We have a safe in the house.”

  “It got opened today before they found the bagh nakha,” Edward said.

  “Not the safe in the master bedroom. The one in the basement.”

  I looked at Edward, but he shook his head. “There was no safe in the basement, Todd,” I said.

  “But there is. I promise you it’s there.”

  “What’s inside it?” Olaf asked.

  “Small things, but not that boc whatever. I have never seen it outside of Ray’s study before.”

  “Did Carmichael help you steal the small things?” I asked.

  Todd nodded. “Ray barred Muriel from the house after she said some unfortunate things to Bobby about his condition.”

  “Why would Carmichael risk his job for the two of you?”

  “For the money. For his cut of the money when we sold the items.”

  “Do you have a list of everything you sold and how much you got for it?”

  “We do, and I’ll give it all to you. Is that enough to save Bobby?”

  “I’m afraid not, Todd,” Edward said softly, gently, like a friend who’s come to tell you your pet died.

  “What will save him?”

  “Absolute proof that someone else committed the crime,” I said.

  “There is no time for that,” Olaf said from the wall. “We need a confession.”

  “But I didn’t do it. We did not hurt Ray.”

  “Then Bobby dies while we look for other suspects,” I said.

  “God, that’s monstrous. It’s not justice. It’s legal murder.”

  “I feel the same way you do. I don’t want to pull the trigger on Bobby, but legally I have to do it before the time limit runs out.”

  “If I confess, then what happens?”

  “If you confess to the murder, then that will get Bobby off the hook,” I said.

  “I’ll confess, then.”

  “To murder?” I asked.

  “Yes, if it will save Bobby. I should have fought Muriel years ago and taken him in. He should have been our son, not Ray’s, and then he’d have never gone on that damn safari and gotten attacked by that witch doctor leopard. He’d be ours, and I’d have a son, but instead I let Muriel have her way like I always do, and now here we are.”

  He confessed to killing Ray Marchand. He would not implicate his wife. When Edward pressed him, he said, “I love Muriel. I’ve always loved her.”

  By the time we’d heard his confession, I couldn’t decide if Muriel had committed the murder without him, or if neither of them had done it. Either way, I knew Todd hadn’t, but we took his confession anyway. It would save Bobby’s life, and because Todd was human, they’d have to collect evidence before his murder trial. He had time, and he’d get a lawyer, which was something that most supernaturals never got. The lawyer Micah had recommended for Bobby was still on a plane trying to get here, though she had been filing paperwork on Bobby’s behalf. None of it would have been in time to save his life, though she was trying to use it as a jumping-off point for some sort of legal precedent to help the next supernatural citizen caught in the warrant system. Legal precedents are great, but they often don’t save the person involved at the beginning of the fight.

  We’d meet Leduc back at his office, because legally I had to let Bobby out of the cage since it was currently my warrant. The warrant wouldn’t even be canceled. It would just be postponed while the legal sides of the equation argued among themselves.

  My phone rang, and the caller ID said it was Newman, so I answered. “How’s Carmichael?”

  “Dead. He never woke up from the drug overdose. Did you get enough from Babington to save Bobby?”

  “Full confession,” I said.

  “Thank God. Thank God.” He sounded beyond exhausted, and it was as if hearing his voice let me suddenly feel how tired I was, too.

  “We’re going to give Bobby the good news,” I said.

  “He’s free, but his uncle killed his father, so is that good news?”

  “I don’t have to kill him, so yeah, that’s good news, or at least the best we’re going to get out of this mess.”

  Newman sighed on his end of the phone. “The doctor wants to talk to me. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Do you want me to wait for you to let Bobby out?”

  “No, it’s your warrant now, Blake. You do the honors. I’d like to drive him home though.”

  “Understood.”

  “Gotta go,” Newman said, and hung up.

  I turned to Olaf and Edward. “Carmichael’s suicide attempt was a success apparently.”

  “Two dead,” Edward said.

  “At least it’s not three. Let’s go tell Bobby he’s a free wereleopard.”

  “We’re not going to get to kill anyone, are we?” Olaf asked. He sounded sullen.

  Edward and I both told him no. You wouldn’t think that someone who’s nea
rly seven feet tall could pout, but you’d be wrong. Olaf pouted all the way back to Hanuman.

  72

  WE COULD HEAR Leduc yelling at someone when the three of us stepped up onto the little porch outside the office.

  “The lawyer is here,” Olaf said.

  “You can hear what he’s saying?” I asked.

  “And what she is saying.”

  “I believe you can hear it’s a woman, but how do you know the woman is the lawyer?” I asked.

  “She is saying things that only lawyers would say.”

  I’d have asked for more details, but I’d listened to enough lawyers to know exactly what he meant. Edward opened the door to the office to a woman’s voice threatening to sue Leduc, his department, the city of Hanuman, and I think she mentioned the state cops when Edward and Olaf stepped far enough into the room for me to see the person who went with the voice. She was about Edward’s height, though about two inches of that was the heels peeking out from her pants suit. Her makeup was understated. Her dark hair was cut short and styled so that all the waves in it had been tamed. I could never get my hair to do that.

  Milligan and Custer were watching the argument like it was a tennis match. Angel was standing in the doorway to the cells, one hip leaning against the doorjamb so that the swell of her hips was more pronounced, or maybe it was the pencil skirt. I’d have wanted to take off the high heels that went with it by now, but I knew that Angel would wear them all day. It was an outfit, and she wouldn’t ruin it by changing shoes.

  “I’m following the letter of the law,” Leduc said.

  “Sheriff Leduc, are you really telling me that you’re fine with following this particular law to its conclusion?”

  “My job is to uphold the law, and that is exactly what I intend to do,” he said.

  “Oh, come on, Dukie. Don’t be such a hard case,” Angel said from the doorway.

  Dukie? I thought.

  Angel put a smile on her crimson lips that made Duke almost smile back at her. Then he seemed to catch himself and aimed a frown back at the lawyer. I was betting if I called him Dukie, he’d have included me in the argument.

  “What are we arguing about?” I asked.