The Bloody Canvas

by KJ Kalis

  Carson felt a wave of frustration move through him. He had followed Beckman around the city as she chased the artwork and didn’t focus on interviewing the child whose fingerprints were all over the murder weapon. Rookie mistake. The lawyer had outmaneuvered him. No more. He was glad he saw his mistake before his chief did.

  “This is Alberto Soza,” a voice on the other end of the line said.

  “Mr. Soza, this is Detective Martino from the Savannah Police Department. We met the other day when you took Miles out of the police station?”

  “Certainly, Detective. How can I help?”

  Carson rolled his eyes, glad that no one could see him make a face. Attorneys were that way. They pretended that they had no idea what he wanted when he called. Alberto knew what Carson wanted. He wanted to interview Miles. “I need to set up a time to speak with your client about the Hailey Park incident.” Carson chose his words carefully, knowing that Alberto was the type of lawyer who would rather spend twenty minutes arguing about the use of the word alleged versus actually getting any work done. He didn’t have the time or the energy to play games.

  “I’m sure you would like to speak to him, Detective. But the problem is, the boy isn’t speaking right now.”

  “Mr. Sosa, I’m sure you can understand that our desire is to get this situation resolved as quickly as possible. I do need to set up a time to meet with the boy.”

  “Detective, I’m not sure you understand exactly what I’m saying. Since his foster mother took him home, Miles is refusing to speak. He hasn’t uttered a word.”

  Carson stood up and started to pace back and forth behind the desk in his office. Miles wouldn’t speak? That didn’t make any sense. Young children were prone to use more words than literally anyone else. Carson wondered if this was some new legal tactic to try to prevent him from having access to a potential criminal. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Mr. Sosa. The reality is that in law enforcement we have the obligation and the right to question suspects. Now, when would you like to set up this appointment?” Carson stopped pacing for just a moment, worried that he had overstepped. The last thing he needed was some fancy attorney getting in the way of his investigation.

  “As I said, Detective Martino, we can set up all the appointments you would like, but the boy won’t speak.” Carson could hear some papers shuffle on the man’s desk. “The other issue we have is that he is currently under a psychiatrist’s care. I really need to get a release from his doctor before he can be interviewed. You know, we don’t want to jeopardize the child’s mental well-being.”

  Carson could feel his face flush with blood as the lawyer came up with reason after reason why he couldn’t have access to Miles. Most lawyers he had worked with were at least fairly cooperative, or at least willing to stick to the letter of the law. This lawyer didn’t seem to have any scruples or hesitancy about blocking his investigation. “As you know Mr. Sosa, we have an obligation to interview all pertinent suspects in a case. Your client’s fingerprints were found on the murder weapon. I think we should just set up that appointment, unless, of course, you’d prefer that I had our district attorney discuss this with you in front of the judge?” Carson was tired of playing games. Whoever this attorney was, he was trying every possible way to prevent Carson from doing his job. That wasn’t going to happen. Carson had spent far too many years dedicated to his work to the exclusion of everything else, to let this case slip by with substandard investigative work. It would do nothing for his career, and he had little else in his life to lean on. He didn’t wait for Alberto to answer, “Would it be possible for you to bring Miles to the office at two o’clock this afternoon?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line for just a moment. Carson imagined that Alberto was thinking through his options. “Yes, that would be fine. I will present my client to you this afternoon.”

  Carson muttered a thank you before hanging up. He started pacing behind his desk again, running through the facts of the case in his mind. He knew about Hailey, he knew about the murder weapon — what kind it was and whose fingerprints were on it — he knew the location, he knew why Hailey had been there. What he didn’t know was why a child would want to kill someone. That was a mystery.

  The next several hours passed quickly, Carson clearing his desk of everything except for Hailey’s murder file. He went through the images over and over again, looking for things that he had missed. Near lunchtime, Ginny stopped in his office, “You want me to bring you a sandwich from the deli? Looks like you have a lot going on here.”

  “That would be great. The regular, please.”

  Ginny was back with the sandwiches in a half hour. She set the white butcher paper-wrapped sandwich on Carson’s desk. “Need help with anything?” She plopped down in one of the chairs in front of Carson’s desk, unwrapping her own sandwich. They had known each other long enough that she didn’t ask if he’d mind.

  “I don’t know, Ginny,” Carson shook his head. “I just can’t make the facts all work together in this case.”

  Ginny took a bite of her sandwich and leaned forward, looking at the file that Carson had been staring at, “What’s troubling you about it?”

  “Pretty much everything.” Carson slammed his fist down on the desk, the pens rattling in their cup from the concussion. “It just doesn’t make sense. I’ve got a body, a murder weapon and fingerprints from a child. A child!”

  Ginny furrowed her brow as she took another bite of sandwich, “I’ve never seen you like this before, Carson. What’s going on with you?”

  Carson sighed and leaned back in his chair. He picked up a bottle of water that Ginny had brought in with his sandwich and twisted it open. He took a drink before answering. “You know my nephew, Julio?”

  Ginny nodded.

  “He just turned ten. That’s the same age as the suspect in this case. I have to be honest, the idea a child that age could commit murder is beyond what I ever thought was possible.”

  Ginny cocked her head to the side and gave him a half-smile, “Good thing you don’t work for any of the big city departments. I’m sure they see lots of crazy stuff like this.”

  Carson took a bite of his sandwich, realizing how starved he was as soon as he started to chew. Ginny was probably right. While the Savannah Police Department dealt with a lot of tourist and vacation type crimes — car break-ins, lost luggage, the occasional missing child — murder wasn’t one of the things that were high on their list. It was, for the most part, a quiet and sleepy town, with families who had lived in the area for years. They just didn’t see the type of felony crimes that lots of the other major cities did, at least not until Hailey’s murder. “You’re right,” Carson sighed. “It’s not so much the fact that someone died, that’s bothering me. It’s that both the victim and the accused are so young. Something just isn’t right.”

  “That’s why we're here,” Ginny said. “We specialize in handling all the stuff that isn’t right.” She pulled a potato chip out of the bag she had put on the corner of Carson’s desk and crunched on it. “Did you make much progress with Kat Beckman?”

  “The reporter?” He shook his head, “I think she may have led me on a wild goose chase. I spent the last day following her around the city looking for Hailey’s artwork.”

  “I think she’d appreciate being called a journalist,” Ginny smiled. “I did a little research on her. She’s the real deal.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have a couple of buddies in the FBI. I reached out to them and they reached out to people they know. She’s been a big help to them on a couple of cases. Where is she now?”

  Carson rolled his eyes, “She should be in London. She’s chasing down a shipment of art that some guy at Scotland Yard told her was coming in. She took off with a so-called art expert from here.”

  “And you weren’t impressed, I take it?”

  “I just can’t see how the missing artwork from Hailey’s apartment has anything to do at al
l with her murder.”

  Ginny stood up, crumpling the white butcher paper her sandwich had come in into a ball and tossing it in Carson’s wastebasket, “I don’t know, buddy. When I looked her up, she looked like the real deal. From what my contacts said, she really likes to help law enforcement get their cases solved. She doesn’t even usually report on the case itself, usually just some aspect of the case. Doesn’t take much glory for the paper.”

  “My sister said the same thing.”

  “Is Anita ever wrong?” Ginny walked out of the room.

  Kat had left Carson thinking about art for the last twenty-four hours. Now, he had to prepare to interview a murder suspect. Maybe Kat was right. Maybe there was some larger link to Hailey’s art. Maybe that was the reason that she had been killed. He shook his head again. The whole thing just didn’t make any sense at all.

  Carson cleaned his desk, using an antibacterial wipe from the canister that he kept in the drawer. He carefully wiped the area, setting the file for Hailey’s murder right in front of him. It was not the time for distractions. He opened it once again, staring at the images. From what he could tell, Hailey hadn’t had a chance once she was stabbed. The medical examiner confirmed that. Even if she had been able to reach for her phone, there was no way that help would have gotten there in time to save her. Carson hoped that the location of the wound had just been a lucky guess. Either way, it was still horrifying that a child could commit murder… or even be accused of it.

  He knew from his training that stabbings were far more personal than getting shot. What he didn’t know was the psychology around child homicide. He frowned, wondering why Miles had used a knife. Why hadn’t he used a gun? Certainly, there could be an access issue. Maybe it was just easier for him to grab his foster dad’s hunting knife then it would be to get access to a gun? That was certainly possible. But a stabbing required strength and precision in order to be effective. Unless Miles, or whoever did this, knew what they were doing it would’ve been likely they would have missed. Carson shook his head. There was something more going on here. He just couldn’t see it yet.

  He looked at his watch, realizing that there were just a few minutes left before Miles and his attorney were due at the office. He stood up, closed the file and walked down the hallway into one of the conference rooms, flipping on the lights. The room wasn’t newly decorated, but it had been nicely maintained. Just a few months before, Carson had found a maintenance crew in the building putting a new coat of pale gray paint on the walls. On the wall to the left was a large mirror that led to a viewing room on the other side. In the center of the room was a dark brown Formica table made to look like wood. There were four chairs arranged around the table. Generally, he or one of the other detectives sat on one side and the accused sat on the other. On the table, he put a yellow legal pad and two pens. He highly doubted that Alberto Soza would allow Miles to write out a statement, but he had to try. He looked at his watch. He had about ten minutes before he expected the lawyer to arrive. It was just enough time for him to touch base with his boss.

  Carson walked to the back of the police station and rapped on the Chief’s door quietly. “Come!”

  Carson pushed the door open and stayed in the doorway, “Chief?”

  Savannah’s Police Department Chief, Joe Jackson, had been on the job for nearly thirty years. Some people in the department wondered why he hadn’t retired already. Carson knew why. He loved his job. “Detective. What’s going on?”

  “Not much, sir. Just wanted to check in on the Hailey Park case.”

  The Chief waved him into the office. Carson stepped behind one of the two chairs that flanked his desk, resting his hands on the back of the chairs, “I’ve got the suspect coming in with his attorney in a few minutes. Wanted to give you a heads up in case you want to watch from the observation room.”

  Joe nodded, “I’m glad you got that scheduled.”

  “Yeah, the attorney gave me a little bit of a hard time.”

  Joe shook his head, “Those attorneys…they forget they don’t run the legal system.” The Chief looked up from the paperwork that he had been staring at when Carson came into the office. “Okay, give me a quick rundown on where we are and what you’re thinking.”

  One thing that Carson loved about Chief Jackson was that he spent more time asking questions than barking out orders. Over the years Carson had worked for the Savannah Police Department, he’d seen many good people get promoted and move on to other departments because of the Chief’s professional development strategies for them. Carson probably could have moved on to a bigger department, but he liked working for Chief Jackson. He was straightforward and no-nonsense. It made Carson’s life much easier. “What I know for sure is I have a dead art school student, a knife that was used to commit the stabbing, and a child’s fingerprints on it.”

  Chief Jackson leaned back in his chair interlacing his fingers behind his head, “I heard you were running around with a journalist the last day or so.”

  Carson’s face flushed. One of the bad things about working for a small department was that everyone knew what everyone else was doing. “Yes, that’s true. She’s here on behalf of a paper from California.”

  “California? That’s a long way off.”

  “I wasn’t too sure about her. I’m still not completely sure about her. Ginny said that she’s done some good reporting and has heard good things about her from her FBI contacts.”

  Chief Jackson smiled. “Ginny, she knows everyone, doesn’t she?”

  “That is the case, sir,” Carson moved around to the front of the chair and sat down. “The thing that’s frustrating me is that the pieces just don’t fit together. I was telling Ginny the same thing just a little while ago. I’ve got a murder, a suspect, a dead body, a bunch of artwork that’s gone missing, and something strange...”

  “What’s that?” Chief Jackson leaned forward in his chair.

  “Well,” Carson tilted his head, thinking. “It’s two things, actually. First, the attorney for the child in question said he hasn’t uttered a word since the incident.”

  “You think he’s using some sort of shock tactic?”

  Carson shrugged his shoulders, “I have no idea. That leads me to the second thing. A little while ago I found out that the child in question -- his name is Miles -- his psychiatrist was beaten up pretty badly and dumped in front of the hospital.”

  “You think those two things are connected?”

  “I have no idea…”

  17

  London’s customs building was an unassuming brick warehouse on the west end of town. Located in an industrial area, the structure was likely built after World War II as part of the building fury as England tried to regain its identity. Aside from the sign in front stating that it was a government building, no one would ever know that literally millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise was housed there waiting to be released by the government. As Henry pulled up and parked the car, Kat took a good look around.

  The building itself was made of brown brick with a grayish mortar that had chipped in more places than not. It was the type of building that needed a good facelift. Kat wondered if the government hadn’t put money into it so it wouldn’t attract attention. Anything was possible, she thought.

  Like most areas of England, right next to the warehouse were other buildings that flanked it on each side, a plumbing warehouse and what looked to be offices for a brewery. Although it occupied a corner, the buildings were positioned so close to each other that there was only enough room for a single car to pass between.

  As Kat looked up, she realized the brick walls of the customs building extended up three floors at least. Around the building was nothing but concrete. While buildings in the United States typically had grass and shrubs and landscaping, that just wasn’t common in England. Without any greenery, the brick building rose sharply up and away from the concrete sidewalk. Henry slammed the car door and motioned for Kat and Eli to follow. They went aro
und the side of the building, to a metal door painted in a rust color with a small square glass window up high enough that it let light in but not high enough that anyone could look through it. Kat could see wire running between the panes of glass. Over top there was a rectangular metal awning that was flat, suspended by two cables, one at each corner. Next to the door handle was a keypad. Henry typed in a series of numbers and then swiped his ID badge. The door buzzed open as the lock was disengaged remotely.

  The transition from the brightness outside into the darkness of the warehouse blinded Kat momentarily. She squinted, trying to make out what was in front of her. The windows of the building, high up in the walls, let down an eerie light. From where she was standing, it looked like they had not been cleaned since the day the building was completed. Given the fact that the customs building simply housed merchandise welcoming it in and then ushering it out, it wouldn’t surprise her if that was actually the case.

  As she followed Henry, Kat realized the building had a funny smell, the combination of damp shipping containers, raw wood, and what she was sure was some sort of mold. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized they were in a small anteroom that had a high cyclone fence just inside the doorway. There was a locked gate in front of them and someone sitting at a desk on the other side.

  “You are?” the guard said from the other side of the fence. Kat looked at her closely. She was dressed in a light blue long sleeve shirt with a blue vest over the top. She wore dark pants and even darker work boots, her hair tied so tightly to the back of her neck Kat wasn’t sure how she didn’t have a headache. Her body was thick, the kind of frame you would expect from a Russian woman, though she spoke with a heavy British accent that made her difficult to understand.

  “Henry Nash, Scotland Yard.” Henry flipped open his ID badge and showed it to the woman through the fencing. She pulled a set of keys out of her pocket and unlocked the door from her side.