Kelson went to the bunk, lay on his back, and did the breathing exercises Dr P taught him to do to relieve stress and lessen the pain of a headache when Percocet didn’t do the trick. He breathed in, long and slow, and breathed out, long and slow. But when he breathed out, words as weightless as the thoughts in his head floated on his breath. ‘Percocet – dead man – bottle of – jailhouse bench, ha! Dr P – it ain’t working – it ain’t.’ He breathed in, long, slow. ‘Peters is – jackass big-footed big ha! – what he does in bed’s his own damn – what he does to me is—’ Then the men in the other cells told him to shut up, which made him yell at them, which made them tell him what they’d do to him if they could get out of their cells and into his – which made him laugh so hard his lungs hurt, which relieved the stress and head pain.
Then one of the men said to the other, ‘Screw it, he’s a nutcase.’
Which made Kelson explain, ‘Not a nutcase. Disinhibited.’
Which made the man say, ‘Yeah, whatever … nutcase.’
At some point, a cop brought lunch. Later, a different cop brought dinner. ‘This sucks,’ Kelson said out loud more than once, which made the other prisoners laugh at him, but the plain white walls and bars and the plain gray floor suited him well enough, and he announced that fact too – more than once. Lights went out at ten p.m. and came back on the next morning at six. The cop who’d put him in the cell the previous day returned at six fifteen and told Kelson to get out of bed and hold his hands for cuffs. Kelson stretched his limbs, yawned, and held out his wrists. The cop sneered at him and said, ‘A sociopath, huh? No worries? Slept like a baby?’
‘Babies sleep badly,’ Kelson said. ‘Up at night – hungry, wet.’
‘Go to hell,’ the cop said, and took him upstairs to the interview room.
Kelson’s friend and former division commander Darrin Malinowski was waiting for him.
Kelson raised his cuffed hands to greet him.
Malinowski said, ‘Oh, Sam.’
Kelson shrugged.
‘You don’t look so good,’ Malinowski said.
‘You’ve got to help me,’ Kelson said.
‘Of course. Anything I can do.’
‘The cop I talked to yesterday – he thinks I killed Felbanks. He thinks—’
‘It’s OK,’ Malinowski said. ‘We’ll straighten it out. Take a seat. Talk to me.’
So Kelson sat and told him what he’d told Peters. Trina Felbanks hired him to convince her brother to stop stealing and dealing. Kelson went to Christian Felbanks’s condo and found the body. The SWAT team raided the condo.
Malinowski sat across from him with his fingers folded on the steel table. Kelson appreciated the neatness of the gesture and said, ‘You’re a good man, Darrin. Good haircut too. You’ve got your priorities straight.’
‘Right,’ Malinowski said. ‘Look, the story you’re telling doesn’t make sense. Not to Peters. Not to me either. You say you went in and found the body. But if that’s all it was, why did you pick up the pill bottles on the night table?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘The homicide guys did a quick check, made a few calls, did the preliminary forensics. No one wants an ex-cop in the tank with a bunch of guys he’s busted. Forensics ran the prints from the bottles through the database – you know, to clear you. But they got matches on two of them.’
‘Bullshit,’ Kelson said.
Malinowski gave him a sad smile. ‘Saying that is good. But it doesn’t change the facts. It doesn’t change what’s real.’
Kelson shook his head. ‘I walked into the bedroom, saw Felbanks, checked he was dead, and called nine-one-one.’
‘You called nine-one-one?’ Malinowski said.
‘I started to,’ Kelson said. ‘SWAT came in. I moved away from the bed. I didn’t touch anything.’
‘In the whole apartment, you didn’t touch anything?’
‘In the kitchen and bathroom, I opened the cabinets.’
‘See what I mean?’ Malinowski said. ‘You aren’t making sense.’
‘All I can do is tell the truth,’ Kelson said.
Malinowski said, ‘OK, when you opened the cabinets, what were you looking for?’
‘Felbanks’s drugs,’ Kelson said.
‘Good,’ Malinowski said. ‘The drugs you found in his bedroom?’
‘Yes – or no. I don’t know. Them or other drugs. His sister said—’
‘So you and Felbanks partied and then—’
‘I didn’t party with anyone. I didn’t touch the bottles. I found him dead.’
Malinowski sighed. ‘Right.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘How’s your head now? Your therapist told us you might have memory problems. Any blackouts?’
‘Yeah,’ Kelson said, ‘I woke up this morning in jail and couldn’t figure out how I got there.’
Malinowski looked at him, uncertain.
‘Irony,’ Kelson said. ‘I can still do irony – sometimes. My memory’s as good as before I got shot. It’s in my therapy records.’
‘So you didn’t touch the bottles. You didn’t help yourself to a few pills. You weren’t going to run off with the whole stash.’
‘I didn’t touch them,’ Kelson said.
Malinowski sucked his bottom lip. ‘OK, we’ll let that go. You’ve got another problem. You say Felbanks’s sister hired you to talk sense into him?’
‘That’s right,’ Kelson said. ‘Trina Felbanks.’
‘Twenty-nine years old?’
‘I would’ve guessed thirty.’
‘Short red hair? Carrying a few extra pounds?’
Kelson nodded. ‘Carrying them in the right places.’
‘Flat face?’ Malinowski said. ‘Short neck?’
‘Not so much.’
Malinowski said, ‘Trina Felbanks was born with Down syndrome. A lot of other issues. Trouble with her heart. She’s lived her whole life in Sioux City, Iowa. She couldn’t get to Chicago unless someone put her on a cart and pushed her.’
Kelson opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Malinowski asked, ‘You want to tell me what really happened?’
‘I can’t,’ Kelson said.
‘You can’t, or you won’t?’
Kelson looked at his old commander and said, ‘I need a lawyer.’
‘Peters didn’t arrest you,’ Malinowski said.
‘He held me here last night.’
‘That was him being an asshole. He said you smarted off and needed some quiet time.’
‘A lawyer,’ Kelson said.
Malinowski gave him a curious smile. ‘Peters says you’re free to go.’
Kelson held his cuffed hands toward him. ‘Then unhook me.’
‘Sure.’ Malinowski used a key. ‘But I’ll tell you this as someone that cares about you – the only reason you’re walking out of here is you used to be a cop. Another guy, the prosecutor might charge and let you sit in jail or scratch together bail. But Peters has your pistol. If ballistics matches the bullet from Felbanks’s head, you’ll be right back at this table, and you won’t be talking with me. You sure there’s nothing else you want to say?’
‘Yeah,’ Kelson said, ‘let me the hell out of here.’