The funny thing about Black Harbor PD was that, although they had Interview Rooms #1 and #3, there was no #2. Interview Room #3 was reserved for children and victims of sensitive crimes. A blanket ladder leaned against one of the dove-grey walls, next to a basket of toys. The furniture was akin to what you’d see in someone’s home: overstuffed chairs with ottomans, a matching couch. Beneath the window that overlooked the annex building and municipal parking lot, as well as his house, was a bookshelf filled with secondhand picture books. He’d spent a fair amount of time in that room, building rapport with children who were either too scared to speak or whose parents had coached them on what lies to tell.
Interview Room #1 was the opposite. Stark and windowless; the only break in the concrete block was a sixty-by-forty-eight-inch acrylic two-way mirror. It wasn’t supposed to be comforting or calming. It was meant for interrogations. To break people down. To strip them of “nothing but the truth” until they had no option but to confess to their criminal misdeeds: murder, rape, coercion. Hudson wasn’t ready for that yet; however, he knew if he ever made the move to Robberies, he’d have to learn a thing or two about commanding that room.
It was an ironic commentary on Black Harbor. The fact that they only had these two spaces, for conducting either soft interviews or hard interrogations. There was no in-between. It was a black-and-white setup that forced people to be put in one room or the other, despite the fact that most people lived in shades of grey. Including Hudson, himself. And Kole, from what he’d heard.
The viewing room was the size of a narrow closet. It would be large enough for a twin bed and nothing else. There were two metal chairs facing the glass, neglected by the two people already in the room when he arrived. Sergeant Kole and Investigator Riley stood in identical poses, arms crossed, bodies squared up with the mirror. A pair of mint-colored headphones hung around Riley’s neck. She leaned forward a bit, then, bouncing on the ball of her right foot, like a runner waiting for the sound of a gun.
Hudson pulled the door shut behind him and stood next to Kole. They were all three swathed in darkness now, the only light coming from the other side of the glass. At the stainless-steel table, a hulking figure sat, meaty hands folded. There was a bottle of water in front of him, and an unopened bag of chips. The man looked around, his gaze sweeping from the four corners of the room to the ceiling, like an animal surveying its cage. The rolls on the back of his bald head glistened with sweat. A bruise marbled his cheek.
An investigator who Hudson recognized from the roll call following Garrison’s death entered the interview room. Dressed in jeans and a sweater, he looked as though he’d come straight from a Christmas party.
“Hi, I’m Detective Jerome Kasper from Wesson Police Department. I’m leading the investigation into Officer Garrison’s death. How are you?”
The hulk shrugged his shoulders. It sounded as though he had cotton in his mouth when he mumbled, “Been better.”
Kasper squinted, tilted his head as though assessing damage. “You might want to put some frozen peas on that. Stop the swelling.”
“My cousin got me with a lamp.”
Detective Kasper smiled. He had square teeth that were spaced apart, his mouth framed by a goatee. “You get him a shitty gift, or what? Sorry, bad joke.” He cleared his throat. “My colleagues from this department said you’ve got some information concerning Officer Garrison, who was shot and killed just shy of a week ago.”
The large man shifted. “Look, I can’t go back to prison, man.”
“No one said anything about you going back to prison.”
“They got that dope on me, though. I swear—”
“Ronald, is it? Ronald Muntz?”
“Yeah.”
“If you’re about to tell me that half ounce of cocaine between your ass cheeks wasn’t yours, you can save your breath. Now.” Kasper walked closer to the table. “I could thank you for getting me out of my in-laws’ place early, but I’m gonna catch hell from my wife when I get home. I won’t get a lamp to the face, hopefully, but … you know how it is.”
Hudson watched Muntz slump forward a bit, his back rounding.
“I’m gonna have to make it up to her,” said Kasper. “Watch something on the Hallmark channel tonight. So you”—he pointed directly at Muntz’s chest—“better make this worth my while. I don’t wanna hear no I know a guy who knows a guy bullshit, all right?”
Hudson glanced at Kole. The sergeant cupped his right elbow with his left hand, his thumb hooked thoughtfully under his chin. His eyes swept back and forth across the two characters left to right, reading them.
“So, what have you got for me?” said Kasper.
“Look, man, you gotta swear if I tell, I ain’t going back to prison. I can’t do five more years, shit, I can’t do five more minutes in that place.”
“Ronald, I swear you won’t go back to prison. Not for this. The fight with your cousin, that’s just a disorderly conduct arrest. We’ll get you out on a signature bond. And as far as the cocaine, we won’t even mention it in the report. It’s like you never had it on you—in you,” he corrected.
“Okay.” Muntz sighed. Hudson watched his shoulders rise and fall.
“You ready to tell me, then, who shot Brix Garrison on the night of December nineteenth?”
“Yeah.” Muntz’s breathing changed, sped up. From where he stood, Hudson could see more globules of sweat rolling down the man’s stubbled head, trickling behind his ears and disappearing in the folds of his neck. “I just, uh, can I use the bathroom?”
“You serious, Ronald?” Kasper raised his brow.
“Yeah, I … I drank like a whole soda before they picked me up. I just gotta pee, that’s all.”
Kasper looked toward the mirror. Kole nudged Hudson. “Come on. I’ll take the front. You watch his back.”
Unsure what he’d just been volunteered for, Hudson followed Kole out of the viewing room, just as Detective Kasper opened the door to Interview Room #1. “This is Sergeant Kole and…”
“Hudson,” Hudson offered. “Er, Investigator Hudson.”
“Investigator Hudson,” Kasper repeated. “They’ll be your escorts to the bathroom.”
Muntz looked at them each in turn. He was shorter up close, and more muscular. As Kole led the way through the bureau and down the hall with Muntz walking between them, Hudson could see clear over the top of his head. There were scars on it, dents. He would guess that today’s scuffle wasn’t the first fight he’d participated in. A gang symbol was tattooed on his neck. It looked like a DIY job, the ink all blued and blurred.
Once in the bathroom, Muntz went to the far urinal. Kole stood next to the paper towel dispenser, and Hudson took his place beside him. Muntz urinated for a long time. After about thirty seconds, Kole shared a look with Hudson. Muntz tipped his head back and closed his eyes, as though this was the first moment of peace he’d experienced all day.
“Jesus, you’ve got a bladder the size of a bathtub,” said Kole. “How much soda did you drink?”
Muntz grunted. When he finished, he flushed the silver handle and zipped up his jeans.
“Hey hey hey.” Kole blocked the door. “Wash your fucking hands, that’s disgusting.”
Muntz rolled his eyes and made a U-turn toward the sink.
If the reason for Muntz’s being there hadn’t been so grave, Hudson would have smiled. He knew Sergeant Kole was a bit of a neat freak. That fact was evident by the abundant supply of disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer he kept in the bureau at all times, not to mention the man himself was immaculate. There was never so much as a hair out of place or a speck of lint on his clothing. How did he do it, Hudson wondered—have it all together in a place like Black Harbor?
The water shut off. As Muntz grabbed for a paper towel, Hudson noted he had the hands of a mechanic, the lines of his palms all antiqued with black, the same crud shoved under his fingernails.
They walked Muntz back to Interview Room #1 and returned to their positions in the viewing room.
“Better?” Kasper asked Muntz.
Muntz nodded and fell like a bag of sand into his chair. It scraped across the tile.
“Okay, now that you’re more comfortable … tell me. Who shot Officer Brix Garrison on the night of December nineteenth?”
“I know a guy.”
Kasper was already shaking his head. “I thought we weren’t gonna do that.”
But Muntz talked over him. “I know a guy. I bought dope from him. The stuff they found on me today.”
“Okay … When did you buy it?”
Muntz sighed. His eyes darted to all the corners of the room as though someone else could have snuck in while he was gone. He looked at the window then, his gaze searching for where he knew Hudson and Kole to be, like a camera lens struggling to find a focal point.
“Couple days ago. Tuesday, maybe? He had a .50-caliber Desert Eagle. Black with a gold barrel. Was bragging about poppin’ a cop a few nights before.”
A storm cloud passed before Kasper’s eyes. A crease cut severely across his forehead. When he lifted his gaze to meet Kole’s, it was as though the two were telepathically connected, as though Kasper could indeed see Kole on the other side of the acrylic glass.
Hudson heard Riley inhale sharply, at the same time Kole whispered, “Motherfucker.” They had him. The bullets that slammed into Garrison were .50 AE, 300-grain rounds for a Desert Eagle.
“You’re sure?” Kasper posed to Muntz. “It wasn’t like, a Glock 41 or…”
Now it was Muntz’s turn to raise his brow. “Come on, bro. You don’t mistake a hand cannon like that for anything else.”
“You got a point. All right. So, who’s your guy? The one who sold you the cocaine and was braggin’ about poppin’ a cop.”
Muntz leaned forward in his chair, scraping it across the floor again. He hung his head. “I better not go to prison again, I’m telling you.”
Kasper raised his right hand. “I swear on my mother’s grave, you will not go to prison for this.”
Muntz was quiet, as though rethinking his decision to come here.
“Ronald,” prompted Kasper.
The giant man leaned forward so his forehead was on the table. From his vantage point, Hudson could see him kneading his hands. “You know he’s gonna kill me for this, right?” His words were muffled, spoken to the floor. “He’ll feed me to that goddamn snake of his or some shit.”
“Sit up, Ronald.” When the hulk didn’t move, Kasper leaned hard on the table. The water bottle toppled off, bounced once when it hit the floor and rolled out of sight. “You have two seconds to tell me who shot Brix Garrison before I lock you back up in handcuffs.”
Muntz finally looked up. He’d left a pool of sweat on the stainless-steel surface and Hudson could see that the back of his shirt was soaked through.
“One,” counted Kasper.
Muntz shook his head. “I’m fucked.”
“Two.”
Suddenly, Muntz stood. A screeching metal sound tore through both rooms as he ripped the table out of the floor. Bolts bulleted in different directions, one nicking the two-way mirror. Riley yelled and covered her ears with her hands before darting after Kole, who had run into the interview room to assist Kasper. By the time Hudson made it in, Kole already had a Taser trained on the man.
“You pull a stunt like that again, Muntz, you’re going to prison,” said Kole. “I don’t care whose grave I have to swear on.”
“How about your friend’s? Garrison, was it?” Muntz’s breathing was heavy and labored. Flipping the table was obviously more exertion than he’d had in the past year or more. Riley and Kasper held him back.
The Taser in Kole’s hand buzzed. The prods made an electrifying clack clack! Hudson felt his blood doing the same thing, electrifying. He wanted to punch Muntz square in the mouth.
“Hudson.” Kole’s voice snapped him out of his fantasy. “Call the jail. Tell ’em we got a new booking coming through.”
“No!” shouted Muntz. He started to lunge at Hudson but Kole commanded him to his knees, the Taser still trained on him. “Tell us who shot Brix Garrison, Muntz. Now!”
Muntz let out a sob, and just as Hudson took his cell phone out of his pocket to dial the jail, he uttered a name that blackened the edges of Hudson’s vision, like a page thrown into a puddle of ink. “Hades.”