Four Walls

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  "Didn't find any prints or finger indentations on the neck." Sid walked to the big screen that hung over the table. Using a latex-gloved hand, he used the touch-screen interface to call up the X-rays of Maria's neck. "The anterior of her hyoid was splintered inward. There's also damage to the larynx, pharynx, thyroid, and two of the parathyroid glands. The pattern of the hyoid break and the collateral damage is consistent with an arm being wrapped around the neck and squeezing. Based on our victim's height, and based on the strength necessary to do this, I'm guessing our killer is a man who's taller than her and is right-handed."

  Staring at the screen, with the points of impact highlighted in green by Sid, Stella saw that the pattern of damage to Maria's neck was at a slight downward angle as you went right to left. She nodded. "It fits-our guy grabbed her in a headlock from behind and literally squeezed the life out of her."

  "I didn't find any trace on the neck, aside from that fiber you had in your report. Our guy was probably wearing a long-sleeved shirt when he did the deed."

  "Yeah. It was certainly chilly enough late last night. What about the bruises on her knuckles?"

  "They look to be antemortem. Safe bet that they're defensive wounds, though that's just between you and me until the labs come back on the blood. If it's hers, then I can't say for sure that the bruises had anything to do with the killer. If it's someone else's-"

  "Then we've got something to work with." Stella sighed. "Anything else?"

  Sid reattached his glasses over his nose and pointed at the area just above the Y-stitching. "Minor irritation of the skin in the pattern of a necklace, which tracks with the divot in her skin on the back of the neck. She definitely wore a necklace of some sort. It could've come off in the struggle."

  "Or we could be looking at a robbery." Again Stella sighed. Still too many questions, not enough answers. But not all the evidence had been examined yet. There was the trace on the knuckles and the fiber they had found. "Thanks, Sid. And watch what you eat."

  Chuckling, Sid said, "Always. Thanks, Stell. Oh, hey, listen, I'm having a cookout Saturday night. I'm going to start marinating the steaks on Friday."

  Stella felt her mouth water. Sid had given up a career as a chef in order to become a medical examiner-a career choice Stella had never entirely understood, considering his culinary talents-and his steak marinade was the stuff of legends. The only ingredients Stella knew for sure were Worcestershire sauce, white pepper, and olive oil, and she only knew those because she'd guessed them and Sid reluctantly admitted she was right. (She was especially proud of guessing the white pepper.) Danny had jokingly threatened to take a sample back to the lab and was deterred only by the threat of Sid putting all his autopsies at the bottom of the priority list. Mac expressed concern about Sid compromising the integrity of the lab, prompting Sid's fellow ME (and Mac's girlfriend) Peyton Driscoll to punch him playfully on the arm. Sid and Danny had assured Mac that they were both kidding.

  "Peyton and Mac are already coming, and so's Sheldon. Danny and Lindsay had to beg off, though. What about you?"

  "Wild horses couldn't keep me from your marinade, Sid. I'll be there with bells on."

  "Good, then I'll know you're coming," Sid said with a smile.

  Rolling her eyes, Stella departed the lab with the autopsy report in hand.

  Upstairs, she found Lindsay talking with Adam Ross. Both were wearing their white lab coats with NY: CRIME LAB stenciled on the breast.

  "Please, they don't know what winter is around here," Lindsay was saying. "They get a few inches of snow and everyone hides in their apartment like it's the second coming. We'd have to get four feet of accumulation in Bozeman before we'd even notice it's snowing."

  "Which is why I stay away from Montana," Adam said with a shudder. "People weren't meant to live in the cold. Remember, humanity started out in Africa, where it's nice and toasty." He smiled under his beard. "What I love is when they bitch when it goes over ninety. That's a cold snap where I come from in Arizona."

  As she approached the pair, Stella said, "Yeah, but it's a dry heat."

  "Which is as it should be," Adam said without missing a beat. "Humidity just messes with my hair."

  "Right," Lindsay said, "because hair care is at the top of your list of priorities."

  "Damn right." Adam couldn't hold the straight face. On a good day, he might remember to comb his unruly brown hair, and that was done in by his habit of running his hands through it.

  "If a native New Yorker can join this out-of-towner conversation about what weather wimps we are…" Stella said.

  Adam straightened, immediately all business. Or as all business as Adam ever got. He was the prototypical lab rat. Occasionally, Mac or Stella would drag him out into the field, usually kicking and screaming. He'd confided in Stella once on the subject. "Going into the field," he'd said, "makes it too real, you know? Out there, it's people being hurt. In here, it's a puzzle to be solved. I can focus better on puzzles."

  Now Adam said, "Well, I've got good news and bad news."

  With a sigh, Stella said, "Bad news first."

  "As usual." He held up a printout. "Ran the fiber and found a match almost instantly."

  Stella winced. Fast matches meant common matches. The bane of evidence-gathering was the common fiber, the standard shoe print, the fashionable piece of jewelry. The holy grail of the crime lab was finding something unique to the victim and/or the perp. To Adam, she said, "That's never good."

  "And today's not the exception. The fiber is a standard cotton/polyester blend. Nothing particularly unique about it, no trace of anything else-just black cotton/poly."

  Stella muttered a curse. "So our killer was wearing, on a cool night, a black sweatshirt."

  "Yup. I have officially narrowed the suspect list to three quarters of the population of New York City."

  "More like seven eighths," Lindsay said. "I remember when I first moved here, I thought everyone was depressed all the time." She smirked. "They don't wear that much black in Montana."

  "Still," Stella said, taking the report from Adam, "at least we know our killer was wearing a black sweatshirt. If we find a suspect who was wearing one, it gives us something to work with." She looked at Adam. "What's the good news?"

  Looking sheepish, Adam said, "Er, well, I lied. There is no good news."

  "Swell."

  The sound of a twelve-bar blues song emitted from Stella's jacket pocket. Reaching inside, she pulled out her Treo, which displayed the words DETECTIVE JENNIFER ANGELL and Angell's cell number. She touched the screen to answer the phone and put it to her ear. "Heya, Jen."

  "Stell. Listen, I got good news and bad news."

  "Do you really have good news, or are you and Adam using the same gag writer?"

  "Huh?"

  "Never mind-what's up?"

  "Well, I just spent ten minutes on the phone with Jack Morgenstern's lawyer, Courtney Bracey. That's ten minutes I'll be begging for on my deathbed. I've decided to beat the Christmas rush and start hating her now. They're coming in this afternoon, and it looks to be as much fun as root canal."

  "Sounds like a blast. What's the good news?"

  "I left a message for our vic's boyfriend, Bobby DelVecchio? He called me back while I was going ten rounds with Bracey. He's also coming in this afternoon, and he says he knows who the killer is."

  9

  MAC TAYLOR WALKED THOUGHTFULLY across the prison yard, contemplating the life of Malik Washburne.

  He'd been born with the name Gregory Washburne, and he'd been a uniformed cop, assigned to the one-oh-eight in Long Island City, the neighborhood in Queens where he grew up. Mac had met him once or twice, and he'd struck Mac as a good, conscientious cop. He always made sure that crime scenes were preserved and took some of the best notes of any uniform Mac had worked with.

  Mac also knew that he, like far too many cops, was fighting alcohol addiction. He'd worn an AA pin on his uniform, which was against regulations, but his sergeant let him get awa
y with it in light of his good work.

  Four years ago, though, he had been instrumental in nailing a drug gang working out of the Robinsfield Houses. The gang had been led by one of Washburne's childhood friends.

  Mac knew how difficult that could be.

  Once the trial ended and Washburne's friend was convicted, Washburne handed in his shield and his weapon and became a community activist. He'd already converted to Islam, mainly because of its provisions against drinking alcohol, and after resigning from the department, he also changed his first name to Malik. He'd been doing good work helping to keep Long Island City clean after the arrest of their main drug gang. Last Mac had heard, he was volunteering at the Kinson Rehab Center on Queens Boulevard.

  Turning to the CO escorting him-Flack's friend Sullivan-Mac asked, "How did Washburne wind up in here?"

  Sullivan shrugged. "Fell off the wagon. Way he told it, one of the kids he was workin' with at that rehab center in Queens he volunteered at OD'd on him. He just lost it. Went to a liquor store, bought the first bottle he could grab off the shelf, and started guzzlin'. Then he got behind the wheel, ran a red light, and killed two people."

  "That's a damn shame." And Mac meant it. Washburne was a good man, and it saddened him to see such a man brought so low by his addiction.

  "Model prisoner, though," Sullivan said. "He did lotsa mediatin' between the Muslims and the skinheads. Honestly, he did more good than the damn ball game did."

  The pair of them had now walked most of the way across the yard and were heading into the long building that housed Jack Mulroney.

  "It's funny, Detective, me and Donnie were just talkin' about you today."

  "Oh?" That surprised Mac.

  "Yeah, we had breakfast-catchin' up, y'know? He told me you were the best."

  "That was good of him." Mac knew the words sounded inadequate, but taking compliments had never been his strong suit. Besides, lately he didn't really feel like the best. How much of that was due to the way he lost control with Clay Dobson and how much was due to the way he was stumbling through his relationship with Peyton Driscoll, he couldn't say.

  "Look, Donnie don't pay compliments that don't mean nothin'. He's got sincerity oozin' outta those blue eyes of his. So if he says you're the best, I'm inclined to believe him." He hesitated. "Which is good-'cause I can take or leave Barker, but Washburne was a good guy."

  "We'll find out who killed him, Officer." Those words were said with more confidence. Barker's stabbing had distracted attention from Washburne, but Mac knew the evidence would point to his killer.

  Just as Sullivan moved to open the door to A Block, the door opened from the inside. Another CO, a small, pale man with a large hook nose, was escorting a prisoner outside. Said prisoner was in leg irons. Mac was surprised a medium-security prison even had leg irons, since those were generally reserved for maximum-security facilities.

  "Jesus, Grabowski, we were just comin' to see this asshole."

  "This Mulroney?" Mac asked.

  The other CO, Grabowski, said, "Yeah. I was told to bring him to interrogation."

  "Perfect timing," Mac said. Mulroney's right arm was covered in blood. "Hold him still, please." He held up his camera and took several pictures. "I'm gonna need those clothes. I'll clear it with Flack," he added quickly when Grabowski started to object. "Just take us to where he can change. I'll bag his clothes, he can change into fresh ones, and then we'll talk to him."

  Grabowski shrugged. "Fine, whatever."

  Mulroney was quiet throughout these proceedings. He wasn't smiling, exactly, but he wasn't frowning either. Based on what Sullivan had said earlier, this was Mulroney's first kill. Mac remembered the first time he was responsible for taking a human life, when he served in the Marines in Beirut. He hadn't thought it would be a big deal-they'd trained him in this, after all-but the image of the bullets from his M16A1 slicing into an enemy soldier's body had been seared on his brain ever since. He didn't sleep for several nights after that.

  Killing a person changed you. Jack Mulroney was about to learn that lesson the hard way.

  But while Mac had taken a life in the service of his country, Mulroney had done so for personal reasons. He would be punished. Mac would see to that.

  The procedure took several minutes: Mulroney had to have the leg irons removed, the dickies were taken off his person and put in one of Mac's evidence bags, Mulroney put on fresh dickies, and then Grabowski reapplied the leg irons. Sullivan and Grabowski then escorted them both to interrogation, where Flack and Ursitti were waiting.

  The interrogation room was a bland room that they got to by walking down a bland corridor. Most municipal buildings in New York City had a similar look to them: off-white brick walls, brown or green molding (brown, in this case), and filthy linoleum floors. RHCF was no different.

  Sullivan and Grabowski led them through a wooden door into a small room that had a Formica table with one chair on one side and two chairs on the other. It looked like most every other interrogation room in the world: no clocks, no windows, no hint that there was a world beyond the room, aside from a small video camera in the corner. (Thanks to television, everyone knew that there was somebody watching on the other side of the two-way mirror, so most places had abandoned the pretense and lost the mirror, just sticking with a camera to record the interview. Besides, having a recording made things easier at the trial phase.)

  Grabowski sat Mulroney down, leaving the leg irons on. A single handcuff was attached to the table, but the leg irons made that redundant.

  Ursitti dismissed the other COs, leaving Mulroney alone with Flack, Ursitti, and Mac. Flack sat down across from Mulroney and started to remind him of his rights, but Mulroney cut him off.

  "Let's cut the crap. I killed the asshole, all right?"

  Flack looked up at Mac. "Damn, I'm good."

  "Very funny," Mulroney said, "but what's the point of playing coy? El-Jabbar and the rest of his towelheads all saw me shiv the prick, and you guys probably got eighteen kinds of tests you can do on the shiv to show that I held it."

  "Why'd you do it?" Flack asked. "You're just a garden-variety gay-basher. Why'd you graduate to murder?"

  Mulroney shrugged. "Sonofabitch did a take-out slide."

  "This was at the ball game?" Flack was taking notes now.

  "Yeah." Mulroney looked up at Ursitti. "Some genius thought it'd help 'foster a commonality' between us and the towelheads if we played a nice friendly game of baseball. National pastime and all that shit." He snorted. "I don't even know what 'foster a commonality' means."

  "So what happened?" Flack asked.

  Mulroney shrugged again. "It was the top of the third. The towelheads were up. I was playing second, Hunt was at short."

  "Brett Hunt," Ursitti added. "He's in for gay-bashing, too."

  "Good guy," Mulroney said. "We made a good keystone."

  "Yeah, I'm sure Derek Jeter and Robinson Canу bonded over beating up gay guys, too," Flack said sarcastically. "Get on with it."

  "So Barker gets up and he draws a walk. Next guy was Yarnall."

  "Ryan Yarnall," Ursitti said. "He's in for check fraud."

  Mulroney laughed. "He hits like an accountant, too. He struck out on three pitches. Swings through every damn thing, it was hilarious. Then Yoba gets up."

  "Greg Yoba, in for robbery."

  "Right, and he grounds it to Hunt. I run to second, Hunt flips it to me, and I'm all set to turn around and throw to first, when, wham! The sonofabitch picks up his leg as he's sliding into second. My shin still hurts."

  "That when the fight broke out?" Mac asked.

  "Yeah. Bastard shouldn't have done that."

  "So you killed him," Flack said.

  Mulroney shrugged. "It wasn't right. And the COs broke it up before I could get my own back."

  "In the majors," Flack said, "they don't shiv guys who do that."

  Smiling, Mulroney said, "Well, maybe they should."

  "This isn't a laughing matter,
" Mac snapped. "A man is dead. Before, you were getting out of here in a couple of years. Now, assuming you don't get the death penalty, you'll be spending the rest of your life in those green dickies, and not in as nice a place as this."

  "Maybe," Mulroney said. "But he deserved it. At least I showed that sonofabitch what for. It was worth it just for that."

  Flack had a few more perfunctory questions for Mulroney, but the interview was essentially over. The man had confessed. Mac would make sure the evidence supported that confession-and if it didn't, he'd find out what Mulroney was hiding.

  But the Barker murder wasn't the real mystery here-Washburne was. To Ursitti, Mac said, "Lieutenant, I'd like to interview some of your COs."

  "Well," Flack said, "we're definitely interviewing one of 'em. See, they're really not supposed to be able to make those toothbrush shivs."

  Mac looked at Ursitti. "How would one of the inmates get their hands on a razor?"

  "When they shave. They try that crap all the time, putting tinfoil in the safety razor so it looks like the blade's in there."

  Frowning, Mac said, "Don't they use magnets to test that?"

  "In max security, yeah. I, uh, managed to finagle getting us one." Ursitti suddenly was interested in the pattern on the linoleum floor.

  Mac regarded the lieutenant. "You're not supposed to have one of those?"

  "Ain't in the budget, and if it ain't in the budget, it ain't in the prison." Ursitti said those words as if they were a mantra he'd heard over and over again-probably from Russell. "But-well, let's just say we got us an electric magnet under the table."

  "So who handled shaving this morning for Mulroney's block?"

  Flack said, "According to the duty roster, it was Ciccone."

  "That's the guy guard-dogging Hawkes."

  Ursitti said, "Well, your guy's getting a new guard dog, 'cause Ciccone's ass'll be in that chair in a minute."

  Sure enough, Ciccone came in a few minutes later, palming sweat off his forehead. No doubt he was grateful to be in the air-conditioned interview room after being outside for so long. Looking for all the world like an eight-year-old who'd been summoned to the principal's office, Ciccone fell more than sat in the chair.