Truth and Consequences

by V. J. Chambers

  Damn it, she’d meant to go over that Curtis Fisher case. She’d only been able to give it a quick go-through the afternoon before. She’d meant to spend the evening really digging into it. But now, all she could think about was Patrick.

  She debated canceling the morning meeting. But that wasn’t right. She couldn’t let her personal issues get in the way of her work. Besides, she would go see Felix after work and all of this would be settled and she was worrying about nothing.

  So, she got up from her desk and gathered up her files and her coffee, which wasn’t warm anymore, but only lukewarm. She smiled at Amos. “Be right there.”

  On the way to the conference room, she stopped to nuke her coffee in the microwave. It was probably sacrilegious to put coffee in the microwave, but she didn’t care. Clutching her now-warm coffee, she entered the conference room.

  The room was large, with a projector in the front of the room and a white marker board. There was a long rectangular table stretching out the length of the room with enough space for twelve people. There were four of them. They had more space than they needed.

  Iain and Frankie were both seated at the table. When she came in, they looked up at her expectantly.

  “Morning,” she said.

  “Morning,” said Frankie.

  Iain made a noncommittal noise that could have been a greeting. He wasn’t great with interpersonal interaction.

  She sat down at the head of the table. “Well, what have we got?”

  “We?” said Frankie. “I thought you wanted us to talk about the case that you found. The Fisher thing.”

  “Yes,” said Elke, “but if we’ve got anything else, we can talk about that too.”

  “Nothing for me,” said Iain. “I was getting started looking through some of the cases that have been submitted when you sent the Fisher file over.”

  Elke turned to Frankie. “You have a long list of cases, right?”

  “You said that we needed this to be someone who hadn’t been convicted of any other crimes,” said Frankie.

  “I didn’t say that exactly,” said Elke. “But since our last couple of cases have been, er, unsavory types, Andrews wants us to find someone a little better for public relations this time.”

  “Well, I don’t have anyone like that,” said Frankie.

  “Okay,” said Elke. She opened her file folder. “So, Curtis Fisher.”

  “Guilty,” said Iain.

  Elke raised her eyebrows. “You sound pretty certain.”

  “His DNA is all over the victim’s body,” said Iain. “And from the examination, they’ve determined that Fisher had sex with her. There’s evidence of that. He’s guilty.”

  “Oh, really?” said Elke, flipping through the file. “Lots of DNA, huh?” Damn, she really hadn’t had a chance to look at this at all.

  “That’s not all,” said Frankie. “He was having an affair with the victim’s sister. I mean, affair is probably the wrong word. The girl testified at trial that he was essentially sexually assaulting her. She was frightened to report it because she was afraid he would hurt her, and the kind of things he made her do are…” Frankie grimaced.

  Elke paged through the file. “Really?”

  “Also, there’s the testimony from his friend, who says that Fisher called him and asked if he could borrow a shovel,” said Frankie.

  Elke closed the file. “Okay.” She furrowed her brow. “Okay,” she said again, more quietly.

  Frankie spread her hands. “Listen, I’m typically willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt, but I really think this guy did it. There’s testimony from one of the the victim’s friends about how frightened the victim was of him. He was probably abusive towards her, probably in the same way he was toward the sister.”

  Elke sighed. “It’s only that his mother seemed so certain he was innocent.”

  “Well, she’s his mother,” said Frankie.

  “He’s probably manipulative toward his mother as well,” said Iain. “He may be very good at fooling her about what he’s really like.”

  “Okay,” said Elke. She fiddled with the file folder. “So, what else do we have?” Then she remembered they’d been over that. “Right, you both said you have nothing.”

  “Sorry,” said Frankie.

  “I can go back to going through the submissions,” said Iain.

  “No, let’s be thorough,” said Elke. “We’ve already spend time going through this Fisher case—”

  “Some of us have,” said Frankie.

  Elke glared at her. “Look, I had a… family thing come up last night, and I admit I’m behind on the case, but that doesn’t mean that—” She let out a harsh sigh. “Never mind that. Point is, we might as well go and talk to Fisher. I set up a meeting for us with him at the prison. It’s not going to hurt anything to talk to him. Besides, his mother says he has an alibi.”

  Iain snorted.

  Elke rolled her eyes. “Even though you discount all eyewitness testimony, Hudson, it doesn’t mean the law does.”

  “Sure,” said Iain. “You’re right. I guess we can talk to him.”

  * * *

  By which Iain meant that Elke and Frankie could talk. He wasn’t much for interviewing people. He did okay, and he liked to think he’d improved since coming aboard the CRU team, but he still wasn’t comfortable with conversation. He felt as if there was a set of inscrutable rules for human interaction that everyone else seemed to have downloaded automatically into their brains, but that he had to learn by trial and error.

  Curtis Fisher was waiting for them in an interrogation room when they arrived. The room was bland, with a table and chairs but no windows. Curtis sat at the end of the table staring down at his hands. He was in his early twenties, and he had broad shoulders and rippling muscles. Obviously, he spent time taking advantage of the prison’s gym equipment. Or maybe he just spent his time in his cell doing push-ups. Whatever the case, he cut an intimidating figure. With his buzz cut hair and thick dark eyebrows, he didn’t exactly project a picture of innocence.

  Not that any of that mattered. Evidence was what Iain cared about. Not feelings. Not intuition. Just the facts.

  Elke sat down next to Fisher, leaving Frankie and Iain to sit in the remaining chairs.

  “Hi there,” she said. “Did they tell you why we were here to see you?”

  Fisher nodded, not looking up.

  “So, do you have any questions about who we are or what we do?” said Elke.

  Fisher shrugged.

  Elke cocked her head. “We want to ask you some questions. Is that okay?”

  “About what?” Curtis had a quiet voice. He finally looked up at them, and Iain was struck by how young he seemed. Even though Fisher was musclebound and shaved, his face still had the roundness of youth.

  “About Allison Ross and her murder,” said Elke.

  Curtis winced.

  “Can we talk to you about that?”

  Curtis nodded.

  Iain was glad he wasn’t conducting this interview. Between himself and Curtis, he wasn’t sure if anyone would have spoken. Curtis seemed as adverse to conversation as Iain did.

  “Your mother thinks you’re innocent,” said Elke. “Are you?”

  Curtis glanced around the table at all of them, his expression wary. “You’re really asking me that?”

  “Yes,” said Elke. “Is there a problem with the question?”

  “Well, it kind of doesn’t matter what I say,” said Curtis. “I’ve been saying I was innocent all along, but no one listens to me.”

  “The case against you is fairly extensive,” said Elke.

  “Not really,” said Curtis.

  Iain cleared his throat. “There’s DNA evidence.”

  “There’s DNA evidence that I was having sex with my girlfriend.” Curtis turned to Iain, looking exasperated. “Allison and I were together that morning before school.”

  “In the morning?” said Frankie.

  “Yeah,” said Cur
tis, who suddenly blushed and looked back at his hands.

  “Morning isn’t a typical time for most people to be intimate,” Elke said carefully.

  Curtis hunched up his shoulders. “Well, it was kind of a new thing for us, and we sort of were doing it whenever we could.”

  Frankie spoke up. “And with Holly, too?”

  “Holly?” said Elke.

  “Allison’s sister,” said Frankie.

  Curtis’s face twitched and the flush of red deepened, but when his voice came out this time, it didn’t sound embarrassed. “All of that is a lie. I was never with Holly. Not once.”

  “So, she made it up?” said Frankie.

  “I think she…” Curtis clenched his hands in fists and released them. “Like she was sure it was me, and she wanted to make certain that people thought I was really guilty, so she said that stuff about me. But it’s all bullshit. I never did anything like that.”

  Frankie raised her eyebrows. “And your friend Jeremiah? He’s lying too?”

  “Why would I ask him for a shovel?” said Curtis. “It’s not like Allison was even buried. They found her body in her car.” He looked disgusted. “I don’t know why Jeremiah said that stuff. No freaking clue.”

  Elke was quiet, looking at him.

  “What?” said Curtis quietly.

  “Nothing,” said Elke.

  “No, you’re thinking something about me,” said Curtis. “You’re trying to decide whether you think I’m lying or not.”

  Elke spread her hands. “You seem to be quite comfortable talking about Allison’s body.”

  Curtis flinched. “Well… I guess it’s just part of everything now. It’s not easy for me to think about her being dead. Or to think about how she was killed. All those… stabbings.” He fidgeted with his hands, and he wouldn’t look at anyone anymore. “Obviously, I’m never going to be comfortable with all of that. Or with the fact that she’s gone.” His voice cracked on the end of the sentence. “But if I want to think about the murder, sometimes I have to try to turn all that off. And I have to think about it. Because no one else is. Everyone’s convinced it was me.”

  Elke nodded slowly. “That makes sense to me.”

  “It wasn’t me,” said Curtis, looking at all of them again. “Supposedly, it happened after school. Allison usually had cheerleading practice after school, but it was canceled that day. But she was staying late because she had a meeting with her English teacher, but she never showed up. Right after school, I went to the auditorium and I worked on running lines to get ready for an audition for the school play. I was there with Mary Johnson. She was a girl who worked at the diner near the school. We were friendly. We worked on the audition piece for over an hour. By the time I left school, Allison was already…” He swallowed. “I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.”

  Elke blew out a long, slow breath. “Well, thank you very much, Mr. Fisher. You’ve given us a lot to think about.”

  “Wait,” said Curtis. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “Now, Mr. Fisher, I didn’t say anything like that.” Elke gave him a reassuring smile.

  “You gotta believe me,” said Curtis. “Not so much for me, but for my mom. She’s just… she’s not okay. I’m her only kid, and she’s here all the time. She’s got all this debt trying to pay for lawyers for me, and she’s not going to give up. She’s…” He looked away, laughing bitterly. “I guess that doesn’t matter. What do you care that my mother can’t let it go?” He looked back down at the table. “I didn’t do it. But I gave up on thinking that meant anything a long time ago. My mom, though? She just can’t give up.”

  * * *

  “She wants us to take the case,” said Frankie, sinking down at the table in her kitchen.

  Her husband Rufus was at the counter chopping up zucchini. He was making some kind of curry, and he was a dynamite cook. In her household, Rufus did all the cooking, and she did all the cleaning up. They’d divided things that way ever since she had hopelessly screwed up grilled cheese.

  “Really?” said Rufus. “But this guy sounds guilty.”

  “Well, she says we don’t know either way, but she thinks it’s possible he is,” said Frankie. “I think it’s a reach. I mean, we’re not talking about one person lying here, we’re talking about basically all of the witnesses. And then we’re ignoring the DNA. And there’s some fantasy alibi that no one could find five years ago, but that we’re supposed to find now. It’s insane.”

  “So, why do you think she wants to take it on?” Rufus dumped the zucchini into a hot pan and gave it a stir.

  Frankie flung herself down on the table, sighing. “I don’t know. I can’t figure it out.”

  “You think it’s personal? She’s doing it just to disagree with you?”

  Frankie made a face. There had been some friction between her and Elke owing to the fact that they’d worked opposite each other on cases before and hadn’t been able to work out any kind of settlement. Frankie didn’t do settlements, and she thought Elke had never quite forgiven her for that. “No, I don’t think she’s being that petty. I honestly think it’s the mother.”

  “Whose mother?”

  “I didn’t tell you that Fisher’s mother came to the office and cried and that’s what got Lawrence looking at this case in the first place?”

  “Uh…” He turned away from the stove. “Maybe you mentioned something like that. So, did you meet the guy’s mom?”

  “Me?” She pointed at her chest. “No, I wasn’t there when the woman came in. I was dealing with Thad stuff.”

  They both got quiet for a moment, listening. The sounds of their son Thad’s play came in from the other room. He was making his toy soldiers have conversations about fungi. Thad was on the spectrum, and he had new, near-obsessive interests every few months.

  “I thought everything was okay with Thad’s new after school program,” said Rufus.

  They’d enrolled Thad in a program with other kids with autism. It had been recommended by Iain from work, and Thad liked it there a lot.

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” said Frankie. “I had to go in for a parent-teacher conference at school, though.”

  “Oh, right,” said Rufus. “That.” He had been there too. It had gone fairly well, all things considered. Thad was having trouble getting along with some of the other kids, but his teacher was pretty great and understanding about Thad’s special needs. She’d worked out a compromise of moving Thad to another side of the classroom and giving him certain duties that kept him busy and away from the kids who were having issues with him. She basically had wanted to make sure that was okay with Frankie and Rufus, though. She didn’t want them to feel as if Thad was being singled out or unfairly treated. Since it wasn’t that at all, everything was fine.

  “Right,” said Frankie. “So, anyway, I wasn’t there. And I know a crying mother can be really tough to handle. Hell, I had mothers come in and try to retain me as a defense lawyer, swearing up and down their kid was innocent, but then when I talked to the kid, I found out it wasn’t true. Mothers want to believe the best about their children. I understand that.” Well, she sort of understood. Sometimes, with Thad, she found herself assuming the worst. Not because Thad was a bad kid. He was the best, really. She loved him with a fierce, desperate abandon. But he was challenging sometimes.

  “Frankie?”

  “What?”

  “You trailed off there,” said Rufus.

  “I was just thinking about Thad. What if it was Thad? What if Thad was accused of committing murder?”

  “Thad would never do that,” said Rufus.

  “But what if he did?” She chewed on her lip. “Would I be able to accept that?”

  “Frankie, is there any point in thinking about this? Thad is not a murderer and never will be.”

  She took a deep breath. Maybe he was right.

  “You know what I think?’

  “About Thad?”

  “No, about your case.” He came away from the s
tove and sat down next to her at the table. “I think you have to investigate more. If this Fisher guy is guilty, then prove it. Then the CRU will drop the case. And you’re in the clear.”

  She smiled at him. “You’re right.”

  “Of course I am.” He grinned back. “I’m always right.”

  She laughed a little. “What would I do without you?”

  He got back up and headed for the stove. “Fall apart, most likely,” he said lightly.

  * * *

  “El, it’s so good to see you.” Felix’s eyes were dancing. “Last time, you said you wouldn’t be back, but here you are.”

  Elke sat down heavily at a table in the visitor’s room in the prison where Felix was being held. “This is about Patrick.”

  Felix furrowed his brow. “Patrick?” He sounded thoroughly bewildered.

  “Don’t play dumb,” she said. “You know exactly what you did to Patrick.”

  “Do I?”

  “How could you?” Her voice shook. “How could you convince my little brother to get involved in your dirty drug business? You jackass.”

  Felix leaned back in his chair. “He begged me to cut him in.”

  She pressed her lips together.

  “He did,” said Felix, sounding wounded.

  Elke didn’t say anything.

  “Okay, okay.” Felix’s shoulders sagged. “So, I had to talk him into it. It’s not as if anything bad has happened to him, is it? He made some extra cash, that’s all.”

  “Nothing bad? He’s in fear for his life, running from your goons.”

  Felix raised his eyebrows. “What?”

  “You need to call off your men. Tell Patrick he can go back to his life, and they’ll stop going after him. He wants out. Let him be out.”

  Felix spread his hands. “I’m not in charge anymore, Elke. I’m in jail. And Patrick is being dramatic. There’s no way that I’d let anyone hurt him. He’s your brother.”

  “He showed up at my place terrified,” she said.

  “Well, send him home and tell him to get a grip. Nothing’s wrong.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “No?” Felix shrugged. “I don’t care what you believe. It’s the tr—” He broke off. His expression changed. It went serious and thoughtful. Then he smiled slowly. “Actually, maybe we’re going about this the wrong way, sweetheart.”