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Stacy put a hand on Melinda’s shoulder. The pressure applied to the grip forced Melinda to look at the hand as if it were a foreign object.
“This is Chance’s handwriting?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “I know what my own son’s handwriting looks like.”
Stacy looked down at the card. “Who’s touched it?”
Melinda looked down at the dark ink scribbled in the blank spaces. “Just me, the mailman, and now you.”
Stacy walked past her mother to the steps. “Stay here.”
“I thought I was to leave,” Melinda said coolly.
“Plans have changed.”
Stacy looked back at Melinda, then pulled some money from her pocket and tossed it in the air. The bills fluttered down to the floor. “I don’t cook, so order a pizza or something. Don’t go anywhere or do anything until I come back.”
Melinda stared at the bills on the floor as Stacy marched upstairs.
Stacy quickly put on a navy pantsuit that had been hanging in the back of her closet. She slid on her black boots and then glanced over at the oxygen machine near the bed. She would like some added oxygen for what would be a very taxing next few hours, but she had to hurry.
Stacy barely said goodbye to Melinda as she grabbed an unused plastic sandwich bag from the kitchen and placed the postcard from Chance inside of it as a way of preserving the new piece of evidence. Then she burst through the doors to Superior Lofts and out onto the street. She bounded up the road and got into her Camry, then made a quick phone call.
Stacy pressed down hard on the accelerator pedal as she sped through downtown Cleveland. Dusk came sooner than she expected, the last of the sun’s rays cosseted behind soft gray clouds. The downtown city streets took on the look of a black and white photograph, every familiar image a shade of gray. The view began to fade to blackness as night began. The various buildings that dappled downtown Cleveland resembled a concrete wall that was identical to the next without an identifying marker of any kind.
Stacy rolled down her window. She had done so much of her work as a homicide detective at night. As the light drained away from the sky, the air had a tincture that Stacy associated with gloom. Most of the violent crimes in the city occurred under the canopy of night. She felt her eyes and ears become sharper, and her mind more paranoid at night. Every aroma Stacy smelled forced her brain to jump to the most frightening thought. Her body was constantly tense, and her breathing and the feeling in her hands and feet always felt sharper and more defined than it did during the daytime.
Stacy steered the car through an intersection and turned right onto Ontario Avenue. The Camry veered under the Cleveland City Jail building into the designated parking area for police officers. The long rectangular building looked like concrete pillars propped it up. It had uniform windows running both sides of the building’s length and was the color of a faded tan stone—the perfect color and shape to be reminiscent of seventies architecture.
Stacy showed her credentials to the desk officer and announced the reason for her visit—to speak with Brandon Deerfield.
As she entered the foyer behind the desk officer, the stench overwhelmed her. She’d been to the jail many times before, but the smell always surprised her. Urine, sweat, and vomit mingled into one uniform assault to her senses. The artificial lighting overhead made everything in the corridor seem sick, and Stacy wondered how long someone would have to spend in a jail cell before they forgot what a tree looked like or how the wind felt on a stormy day.
The steel door closed behind her, the sound of locks clicking echoed in the narrow space. As Stacy moved down the corridor and past a few cells, several of the inmates were hacking and wheezing. Most of them were gaunt as their bodies began the natural comedowns that occurred when the drugs they’d been taking wore off and began exiting their systems.
Two guards trailed Stacy, their heavy footfalls clopping against the floor. A reedy male voice spoke first.
“He’s in the room at the end of the hallway, just through that door, Lieutenant. He’s a little pissy. Said he wasn’t expecting any visitors.”
Stacy looked back. “I’m not a visitor.”
The other guard moved through the narrow space between Stacy and the cinderblock wall and stopped their walk. He reached down and selected one tarnished gold key from an oversized key ring and inserted it into the padlock. The door groaned and squealed as he jostled it open.
Brandon Deerfield was sitting at the table in a small metal chair where his hands were cuffed, his legs shackled together, and the table bolted to the floor beneath it. He didn’t look up when Stacy came into the room. Both guards took their positions on opposite sides of the room.
“Look up at me, you son of a bitch.”
Brandon looked up from the table. His mouth pursed with contempt but then instantly returned to a practiced half-smile that was equal parts amusement and disdain.
“Lieutenant Tavitt. Isn’t it a little beneath the great Stacy Tavitt to be hanging out in the jail with inmates?”
Stacy flushed with anger. “I came to offer a deal—cooperation for lesser charges.”