by Blake Pierce
Aleister dug his hands into his coat pockets and began to sway. His shoulders twitched as he spoke.
“Once. But I went back and said sorry. I made a mistake.”
“Can you tell me what happened?” Ella asked. She double-checked her pistol and handcuffs were within grabbing distance. Something told her that this man had an aggressive side to him, and it was only a matter of time before it rose to the surface.
“I asked Jimmy to keep an item for me. He said he would, but when I went to buy it, he’d sold it to someone else. The other buyer offered him more money. It broke my heart. I really wanted the item.”
Aleister’s language appeared very clinical, almost rehearsed. Ella wasn’t sure if this was how he always behaved or whether it was an act. The psychopath’s mask only slipped when they were backed into a corner.
“What was it, this item?” she asked.
“A coin. A really great one. I collect them. This one would have completed my 1942 Soviet collection.”
“Mr. Black, are you aware that rare coins were discovered at each crime scene? Given your previous encounter with Jimmy Loveridge, you can see why we have a need to question you,” Ella said.
Byford slowly walked over to the scene and stood behind the suspect. Aleister sensed him, turned around, then began retreating back towards the apartment building.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Byford said. “Stay right there.”
Aleister froze in place then held up his palms to the agents. “Please, I don’t like being surrounded. Can you back away a few steps please?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re wanted in regard to a murder investigation. We can’t take this lightly. Please can you come with us?”
Dammit, Byford, Ella thought. I had this under control. She wished he’d read the room a little bit before jumping right in with protocol. Sometimes, protocol wasn’t all it was cracked up to be
“No,” Aleister said as he backtracked further. “I’m not going with you. You can’t make me.”
“Please, Aleister, let’s relax a little here. We’re not…”
“Get away from me, both of you.” His twitches became more intense, losing balance as he tried to out-maneuver the agents. Suddenly, Aleister tripped and stumbled into Ella. She grabbed him to hold him upright, but Aleister pushed her hard against the streetlamp. Her spine cracked against it, taking the wind out of her, and seeing what he’d done, the suspect took flight.
His intended direction was across the road, but Byford was immediately on the man. He shoulder-tackled Aleister to the ground with a sickening crack, all while Aleister desperately clawed at his attacker. Ella worked through the pain, running over to the theater of conflict to help her partner. Aleister wormed his way out of Byford’s grip, but Ella was waiting for him. She took him by the wrist, twisted it behind his back and extended the shoulder to the point of discomfort. For some reason, maybe a deep-rooted sympathy, she didn’t want to hurt this man.
“Aleister, we need to take you into custody, okay?”
“No. Please don’t. I haven’t done anything wrong,” he cried. “Please don’t handcuff me. I don’t like being restrained.”
“I won’t, if you promise to come with us, okay?” She relieved the pressure, keeping him pressed against the floor with her knee. “We’re not arresting you. We just need to talk.”
Aleister pushed his forehead against the cold ground. “Okay. I will.”
But as Ella took a step back, Byford jumped in place. Before she could protest, he’d locked handcuffs on the suspect’s wrists. Aleister’s response was a full-blown breakdown, lashing his feet out and screaming deafening cries.
“Nigel, why?” Ella asked. “You didn’t need to do that.”
Byford pulled the suspect up, doing nothing to quench his outburst. Ella looked around and saw all of the residents standing outside the apartment building, watching in awe.
“He’s a murder suspect. I’m not naïve enough to trust him.” Byford hauled the man into the back of their car and locked him in. Aleister’s screaming stopped, but through the glass, Ella saw him hyperventilating.
She didn’t have a good feeling about this. Something was going on, but something was very strange about it. Back at the precinct, they needed to have a long talk with Aleister Black.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Watching him through the two-way mirror of the interrogation room, Aleister Black reminded Ella of a child. His mannerisms, his outbursts, his inability to regulate his emotions. But even so, did that mean he was innocent? A mentally stunted individual is still capable of committing atrocities, and besides, there was no guarantee this wasn’t all just an Oscar-worthy performance.
Sheriff Hunter approached Ella, stale smoke lingering on his clothes. “Do you think this is our guy?”
Ella didn’t quite know how to respond. If she had to make a guess, the scales tipped in favor of guilty, but there was enough reasonable doubt to second-guess her assumption. “It’s a coin flip,” she said. She suddenly gasped at her error. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Easy mistake to make, given the circumstances. What do you have on this fella?”
“What don’t we have? He’s a coin collector. He has a history of criminal activity. He got into a fight with Jimmy Loveridge. He works for the same company Barry Windham did. He even spent time in Japan, the same part where the coins at a crime scene came from.”
Sheriff Hunter’s mouth fell open. “Well, shit. I think any judge in the world would put that guy behind bars in a second.”
“It doesn’t look good for him, I’ll admit. It’s just…”
“What? You don’t think it’s him?”
“Cops always told me about that gut feeling they had. Like, they can just look at a suspect and know they’re either guilty or innocent.”
“Oh yeah. I know that. It’s a real double-edger.”
“Yeah, well I always thought that was just bullcrap. But now I’m in this job, I get the same feeling.”
“It’s called intuition,” Hunter said. “We pick up on things outside of the usual; our brains just don’t understand it.”
A simplified version, Ella thought, but pretty accurate. “Yeah. There’s something about him that I just don’t get. He’s impossible to read. I have my doubts, I’ll be honest.”
Byford joined them with a coffee in hand. He hadn’t gotten Ella one and she was getting desperate for a caffeine hit by now. She’d hadn’t had one today and the withdrawal symptoms were starting to show.
“Shall we?” he asked.
The coffee would have to wait. “Okay. Let’s present him with the evidence.”
“No, let’s accuse him of being the murderer,” Byford said. “We might as well start as we mean to go on.”
Byford was showing his time served, Ella thought. Immediate accusations were the old school approach to FBI interrogations, but that method had long been replaced by a more natural, conversational approach.
“The accusation style died out years ago,” Ella said. “It’s not a viable interrogation style anymore.”
“Yes, it is. It’s advised in situations with ample evidence, which we have.”
“We don’t have ample evidence. We have a few tangible links. Nothing solid connects Aleister Black to these crime scenes.”
Byford conceded. “Alright, let’s do it your way. Come on.”
Ella couldn’t believe her partner wanted to use that technique. It had been considered outdated during her entire time at the FBI. Maybe Byford needed a refresher course. With a little tension between them, the two agents entered the room to a cowering suspect. Aleister Black’s arms folded right around his body, like a child clutching an invisible teddy. The two agents took a seat opposite him.
“Mr. Black, we’re sorry for bringing you in like this, but you understand why, don’t you?” said Ella.
Aleister nodded. His head jerked to the left. A new twitch Ella hadn’t seen yet. This anxiety must have been hell
for him.
“Can you tell us about your fight with Mr. Loveridge? What happened exactly?”
“I just screamed at him. I didn’t hit him. I apologized the next day.”
“Right. And what about your attack on the dealer in New Castle? It says in your record that you assaulted him.”
“That was the man who bought the coin off Jimmy. I just punched him in the nose, but I didn’t do any damage. A guy like me doesn’t punch so good.”
Ella did notice the distinct lack of muscle tone in the man. Combined with the color of his skin, malnutrition was a safe bet.
“Okay, and your file says you lived in Okinawa, Japan, for a while? Can you tell us about that?”
Aleister smiled for the first time since they met. Maybe he had some good memories of his time there, memories that he remembered through his coin collection, perhaps.
“Yes, I did. I wanted to get away. People in this country aren’t so nice to people like me. But in Japan, no one batted an eyelid to me. I felt like I belonged there, so I stayed as long as I could. But you need a Visa to live there, and I didn’t have one. After nine months, I had to come back.”
“Did you happen to bring any coins back for your collection?” asked Byford.
“Yes. Lots. Rare ones too. Japan has lots of great coins.”
Ella saw in Byford’s expression that he saw this as a gotcha moment, but Ella didn’t feel the same way. A guilty man, regardless of their naivety, wouldn’t mention such a thing.
“Mr. Black, a rare Japanese coin was found at the home of one of our victims. What do you have to say about that?”
Aleister looked up from the table for the first time since he entered the room. “What type of coin was it?”
“One thousand yen. Okinawa 1964. Mean anything to you?”
“It means a lot, but it’s not rare. You can find those things very easily.”
“Do you have any in your collection?” asked Byford.
“Several. Every collector does.”
Again, with the admission. Ella was really struggling to see the light here. “Mr. Black, what do you do for work?” she asked.
“Warehouse.”
“You work for an electrical company, is that right?”
“Yes. Quanta. Why?”
“How long have you been there?” Ella asked.
“In total, ten years. I worked there for seven years, then I left to go to Japan. Then I started working there when I came home.”
“So, you must be pretty familiar with some of the other employees there,” said Byford, catching on to Ella’s thought process.
“I know everybody. It’s a big place, but I know all the names and faces. Part of my Asperger’s. I can’t forget something once I’ve committed it to memory.”
Ella knew all about that. Lots of things she wished she’d forget, she couldn’t. Not even tragic things, just minor things like a random stranger’s birth date. “You have a photographic memory?” she asked. She’d never met anyone else with one before.
“Not exactly. I just have a compulsion to commit every detail I come across to memory. I see my brain as a filing cabinet that constantly grows, even when I don’t want it to.”
Ella wanted to go on, but Byford took the lead. “So, you must be familiar with a gentleman named Barry Windham. I believe he retired a few years ago, but he worked at Quanta for a while.”
“Barry,” Aleister smiled. “He was my favorite. He treated me like a son.”
Ella and Byford shared the same expression, a hybrid of suspicion and uncertainty. Each one waited for the other to go in with the killing blow. Byford took charge again. He reached down under the table, pulled out a brown folder and opened it up. He slid a crime scene photo across to the suspect.
“Did he look like this when you knew him?” Byford asked.
Aleister eyed the picture with bewilderment at first. Ella watched him closely for any signs of guilt or detachment or familiarity. The person who committed the murder would react strongly to it, especially considering mistakes were made at the scene. Presenting crime scene photos to suspects was presenting them a challenge.
But this suspect reacted like no other she’d seen before. Aleister Black planted his head on the interrogation room table and began to cry. His sobbing began lightly at first, then grew into violent moans not unlike that of a toddler who’d just broken his best toy.
“Mr. Black, why are you upset?” Byford asked.
Aleister cried for another full minute before sitting back in his chair and shutting his eyes tightly. “He’s dead. I can’t believe he’s dead,” Aleister called.
“You knew Mr. Windham, then?” Ella asked. “Please tell us the truth, Aleister. This is very important.”
Aleister wiped his face with his sleeve, drenching his arm in various bodily fluids. “I knew Barry very well. He was so good to me. A lot of people at work make fun of me, but Barry was so kind. He always helped me when I needed it. He wanted to train me as an electrician to get me out of the warehouse, but…” Aleister held up his hands for a moment. His right hand twitched violently. “I can’t do something like that with my condition.”
He cried again, more forcefully this time, shaking his head as though it might undo the reality of Barry’s death. His intense cries filled the room and Ella’s eardrums, and by the look on Byford’s face, even he was beginning to doubt this man’s guilt.
“Aleister, we don’t think you did this,” Ella said. Byford went to interject but Ella quickly grabbed his arm in a trust me motion. “Well, to be clear, I don’t think you did this.”
The declaration did nothing to cease the suspect’s tears. They came in floods, confirming to Ella that the display in front of her was one of genuine emotion. As far as she was concerned, Aleister Black wasn’t their killer. The realization was both disappointing and welcome. This man had enough hardships without being a suspected murderer too.
“Don’t you?” he asked finally.
“No. But you need to tell us where you were on the nights of these people’s deaths, okay?”
“I can do that,” he said between heavy breaths.
“April 27, April 30 and May 1. Between midnight and one am on all of them. Can you do that?”
“At home. On all of them. I promise.”
“Can anyone verify that?” asked Ella.
Aleister shook his head as more tears welled up. “No. I live alone. But I might have some gaming logs that prove I was online. Does that count?”
The truth was that it would be a tricky sell in a court of law, but it was better than nothing. “Yes, it would. Anything you have would be great.”
“I’ll get them. I will. Please catch whoever did this to Barry.”
“Trust us,” Ella said. “We’re sorry you had to find out this way. We’re going to leave you in the hands of some other officers now. They’ll get you out of here. Will you be okay?”
Aleister looked her in the eye and nodded silently. His crying stopped when he realized his ordeal was coming to an end.
“If you need anything, call the NDPD and ask for Agent Dark, alright?”
The agents left the room and joined Sheriff Hunter on the other side. Ella breathed a heavy sigh, feeling like she’d just stepped out of a boxing ring with a world champion. These interviews chipped away at your soul, she thought. Every time you saw an innocent person grieve, it killed you a little more on the inside.
“If he’s an actor, he’s a damn good one,” the sheriff said.
“I don’t think he did this,” added Byford. “At first I thought he was our guy, but he’s not capable of this. There’s no killer instinct there. Just a troubled kid.”
Ella rested her forehead against the two-way mirror, observing the broken man inside. She thought about her own problems and wondered how they compared to his. This guy was a loner, mentally struggling and now a murder suspect. To top it off, he’d just found one of the few people who treated him right was dead. Which one of them had
it worse, she thought. Him or her?
“Ella, are you alright?” asked Byford. He came up beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. As far as she could remember, it was the first physical contact they’d had.
“Been better, but thank you for asking. Are you okay?”
“Don’t worry about me. Why don’t you go grab breakfast or something? You look like you need a break.”
She wasn’t hungry, but a break was welcome. “Good idea. Do you want anything?”
“No, I’m fine. Take your time.”
Byford and Hunter took their leave. Two officers unlocked the interrogation room and walked inside. Once again, Aleister cowered like he was about to be tortured by the Spanish Inquisition. Ella suddenly thought of Mia and wondered how she’d have reacted to this suspect. Would she have followed the circumstantial evidence, or would she have analyzed Aleister’s outburst of emotion and come to the same conclusion she had?
No, Ella laughed to herself. It wouldn’t have gone down that way at all. If Ella knew Mia, and she believed she did, Mia would have known the guy was innocent from the moment she laid eyes on him.
No one with trembling hands like that could make the accurate incisions their killer did.
***
After an hour-long video call with the director, Mia Ripley packed up her things in her Manhattan office and prepared to head home. Melissa, having barely said a word since their ordeal at the gas station, did the same at a much slower pace. Their suspects had been caught by local police.
The director had spent the majority of their call speaking through the cracks in his fingertips. He’d heard about the disaster before Mia even had a chance to tell him; something that always riled Edis up no matter the situation. He’d chewed the agents out like cheap tobacco and even left Melissa in tears. Mia, not so much. She’d seen it all before, but her penalty had been more than she expected: two weeks suspension. In reality, Mia hadn’t done a whole lot wrong, but Melissa’s actions were hers to own.
Melissa’s punishment had been much worse. Mia had explained everything in full detail, much to Melissa’s disapproval. From the reluctance to leave her vehicle to shooting a fleeing suspect to causing two-hundred thousand dollars’ worth of damages. For all that, Melissa had been relegated back to her desk job. Her career in the field started and ended on the same day.