CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: The Upper Hand
The little, wooden table in front of Blair had one short leg, so consequently it rocked back and forth whenever he leaned against it. The chair he was sitting in alone was enough to make a man talk; it was as uncomfortable as hell. Staple ends stuck up from the seat and the backrest, feeling a lot like an acupuncture treatment. Oh yes, and the chair had a short leg, too. Blair figured that the city could spring for much better than this.
There were about a dozen lockers along one of the walls, and Blair was surprised to see that the only window in the room didn’t have bars on it. An empty coffee pot was on a shelf, and yet there was no coffee maker in sight. Bulletin boards had articles about recent arrests and fugitives still on the loose pinned to them. Blair was happy to see that his mug hadn’t been included among the others already hanging there.
Blair looked at his image in that two-way mirror covering half of the wall and shook his head; he looked red-faced and very frayed around the edges. Thomas’s clothes weren’t really able to help him look better, not unless he decided to throw them over his head. He hadn’t gotten any sleep last night, and boy, did it show. A man as sharp as Detective Connery had to have already noticed and had probably written his observation down in that little black book of his.
Connery came into the room and closed the door. A cup of coffee was in his hand. “Black?” he asked, and so Blair nodded.
“Thanks.” Blair took the Styrofoam cup and tested the temperature of the coffee against his lips. It was piping hot, so he swallowed all of it at once. Without alcohol, he would take whatever boost he could get and from wherever he could find one.
“Would you like some more?” Connery asked him, smiling a little.
Blair shrugged. “Maybe later, right before I leave.”
“Sure,” Connery said, sitting down in a chair on the opposite side of the table. His blue eyes seemed to absorb every inch of Blair in just a few glances. Efficiency, cunning…. He cased Blair as he would case a crime scene.
“Now, tell me about last night,” he said.
“What do you want to know?”
“Where were you?”
Blair shrugged again. “Out on the streets, stoned. I could’ve been anywhere.”
“Were you at Thomas Abbott’s house?”
“Briefly. He was nice enough to lend me a change of clothes for Cynthia’s wake.”
“That explains the old Armani suit we found in a hamper. I thought it looked like the one you’d been wearing.” Connery paused. “Did you go back to Thomas’s house after the viewing?”
“Yes, but I left after a couple of hours.”
“Thomas didn’t offer to put you up for the night? After all, you didn’t have anyplace to go home to.”
“He might have suggested it, but I didn’t stay. Ingrid never liked having outsiders cramping her style.”
“Even when they came bearing gifts?” Connery said, and Blair looked at him with a surprised pause.
“What gifts? I can’t even afford a cup of coffee. How could I bring them anything?”
“How did their liquor cabinet get broken?”
“I did that,” Blair admitted. “I needed a drink.”
“You broke into the cabinet right in front of them?”
“No, they were….”
“They were what? In bed, maybe? Asleep?”
Blair didn’t answer.
“Someone also broke into Kevin Massey’s apartment last night.” Connery shook his head as he rubbed his clean-shaven chin. Obviously he liked having the upper hand. “It was a busy night for somebody.”
“What did Kevin do for a living? Flip burgers? Sweep floors? What could he possibly have that people would want to steal?”
“I think he might have had something very valuable in that apartment. Just because he didn’t earn much money doesn’t mean he didn’t own anything of value.”
“People are usually judged by the status of their occupations,” Blair said. It had been eons since he’d last sounded so snooty.
“Well, you’re a dentist who lives on the street,” Connery said, emphasizing the point by stretching out his hands. “Why can’t Kevin Massey be a fast food worker who owned something of value?”
Blair was getting steamed, but he tried not to show it. “You’ve got a point,” he said, fidgeting a little. Getting the hell out of there and as fast as he could was his top priority. After resting his hands on the table, he watched it rock back and forth again.
“We lifted a nice set of prints off the doorknob of the guest bedroom in Thomas’s house.” Connery looked down at the table where Blair’s hands were resting. “I wonder if those prints will match the ones on this table.”
Blair took his hands away and put them on his lap. Staring out of the window beside him, he wasn’t able to see very much because it faced the brick wall of the building right next to it. “Why don’t you lift my prints and see if you have a match?”
“Why don’t you just tell me if I have a match.”
Sighing, Blair ran his fingers through his coarse, brown hair. “You do,” he said, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I was in the room and I had been invited to stay, but I didn’t.”
“You made it into the guest room. What changed your mind at that point?”
Silence ensued because Blair didn’t know how to answer.
“Perhaps witnessing a couple of murders changed your mind. I know it would change mine.”
“Admitting that a fine, upstanding officer of the law is guilty of conspiracy and murder wouldn’t be very good for my health, now would it?”
“Which officer?”
“Detective Smith, the guy with a whole new face. You know, the ode to blood and torn flesh. And Quentin Latrice skewered like a shish kebab and then left there to bleed out.”
Connery looked amazed. “So you were there. That information hasn’t been released yet.”
“I don’t doubt it. Is Latrice still alive?”
“Yes. Paramedics arrived on the scene in time to save him. Someone dialed 911 from Thomas’s house and then left the phone off the hook.”
“That’s right,” Blair said. “I did that.”
“Latrice is in critical condition, but the doctors say he’ll make it.”
“Too bad.”
“Is it?”
“From where I’m sitting, it’s a crying shame,” Blair said. “Do you think thugs should receive our best healthcare?”
As Connery sat forward in his chair, it creaked a little. He folded his hands against the table. “We need to put you up somewhere.”
“What do you mean?”
“Police protection will provide….”
“You can just keep your police protection. I’ve seen a lot of good men get themselves killed because they thought they were being protected.”
“I wish you’d reconsider.”
“No, thank you.”
Connery rubbed his chin again. “Something else hasn’t been released to the media yet,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“We found the weapon which had been used to kill Cynthia and Kevin. It was a rock pick.” Getting up and opening a drawer, Connery lifted up the rock pick. Blair could see it well through the clear plastic bag it was in. “This is it. Kevin’s name is scratched in the steel right here next to the handle.” He pointed to the spot.
“Where did you find it?”
“In Kevin Massey’s apartment,” Connery told him. “It was stashed inside his bedroom closet.”
Blair was surprised to hear that. It was the first time he’d ever caught Connery in a lie, and it was fascinating to see him do it with such ease. “Do tell,” Blair said. “Now that’s very interesting.”
“Why do you find that interesting?”
“I thought the murder weapon had been left at the scene.”
Connery didn’t comment right away. Finally, he said, “No, it wasn’t recovered at the scene,” and then let it go at
that. Blair could’ve sworn he’d seen Latrice drop it, but maybe he had been mistaken.
“Drunks distort facts,” Blair said more to himself than to anyone else. “It’s the nature of the drink.”
“Now the astonishing thing is, the same fingerprints that we found in the guest room at Thomas’s house, we also found on this weapon.”
Understandably, Blair got a little flustered on remembering that he’d handled the tool while in Kevin’s bedroom.
“And you say that those prints in the guest room are yours,” Connery said. “Now, how do you explain that?”
Blair didn’t answer right away. He was trying to think up a lie, but Connery had caught him unawares. The peace officer was very good at doing that.
“And the same set of fingerprints was also found on three beer cans in Kevin’s apartment, and around the glass door where entry into the apartment had been made,” Connery said. “Now, please fill in the empty spaces for me.”
Blair sighed. Forgetting about the short leg on the chair he was sitting in, it rocked forward and startled him. Afterward, he felt silly for acting so surprised by it. “I went snooping around Kevin’s apartment, but I didn’t find much of anything.”
“What were you looking for?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“The lying should end right here and now, Blair. Not being straight with me only digs you in deeper.”
“Pardon me, but theft is against the law.”
“Breaking and entering is against the law, too. So is murder. Right now it doesn’t look good for you. It’s obvious that you’re involved in what’s going on here. If you don’t help us now, you may be sorry later. My partner thinks you killed Cynthia and Kevin, and he also believes that you had something to do with the murders of Thomas Abbott and Ingrid Deitweiler.”
“Are you going to arrest me?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Connery sat back again, rapping one set of fingers against the table. His unpretentious good looks and furrowed brow were a contrast of sorts, the latter adding age to his less than forty years. He impressed Blair as an intelligent man who intended to do his job well.