COFFEE TALK
"What the heck?" Alex's voice crackled through the intercom.
"It's me, Ms. Dalkowski. Harris Kagan."
"It's 6:30 in the morning."
"I need to speak with you."
"I'll be in to work at 9."
"It can't wait, detective," Harris said. The USB drive felt heavy in his hand. "And I'm not convinced I'd be safe in the Municipal Complex."
Harris stood in the cold, shuffling from foot to foot for warmth, listening to Alex huff annoyance through the intercom.
"Fine." The lock buzzed open. "Come inside, count to twenty, then come up."
Harris opened the door and paused. "Wait. Is that twenty Mississippi, or twenty Idaho?"
The intercom had switched off, though, so Harris decided to switch between Mississippis and Idahos as he stepped into the foyer. Warmth relaxed some of the tightness from his shoulders. To be on the safe side, he counted thirty before mounting the stairs. Alex's cracked door slanted light over the landing.
His heart pounding, breath short and sharp from the flight of stairs, Harris nudged the door open.
"Hello?" His eyes struggled to make sense of the dark.
"This had better be good, Kagan." Alex stood just back from the door. A gun belt cinched the waist of a fuzzy purple robe. A Spartan apartment opened behind her: sofa, TV, thrifted furniture. An attached shotgun kitchen sat opposite the door. It looked like a halfway house from a TV crime drama.
"Is that…a gun?"
Alex waved Harris in. "You are an accused criminal."
Harris closed the door behind him and thrust a hands into his coat pocket. “So I’ve got a—"
Alex's hand shot to her sidearm. "Hey there." Her thumb popped its holster strap open.
"Oh no," Harris' blood ran cold. "No, no, no. It's just a USB drive."
Alex nodded. "Slowly."
Harris slowly removed the hand from his pocket and held the USB in his cupped hand. "Proof of my innocence."
One hand still to her sidearm, Alex swiped the device. She turned the USB stick under lamplight. "This better not be a mixtape. Any Morrissey and I’ll put you back in jail."
Harris nodded across the room to where Alex's laptop sat open on a plain white desk. "Just plug it in. Listen to the audio files."
"And risk this be some kind of virus? No thanks." Alex circled around a half wall into the kitchen. She plugged the USB stick into an under-counter radio, pressed play, then began rifling through her cabinets.
"Coffee?"
"Ah, no thanks," Harris said. "My body is a temple."
"Is that why half the employees at Burrito Euphoria know you by name?"
Hope fluttered high in Harris' chest. "They do?"
"Not the kid who worked Tuesday. Sorry, still no alibi." Alex paused her juggling of paper filters and tinned coffee grounds to shoot Harris a sharp eyebrow. "Well, don’t just haunt my doorway. Sit."
A harsh voice cut through the room just as Alex's Mr. Coffee began its coughing and chuffing. Harris sat on the sofa and slung his arm over its back. His heart squeezed to a juicy pulp. His face burned. Alex, for her part, only paused slightly as the voice popped to life. A quick hitch in her step, a breath, and she went back to schmearing her bagel as the smoky voice threatened Sheila Talbot’s life. Harris watched Alex for any twitch, hoping to see softness in her shoulders. Hoping to see some spark of light in her eyes.
Alex only jabbed the stop button as the horrible laugh petered to silence. She took a massive bite of her bagel, eyes wary.
"Whaff da heck wassat?"
"Proof," Harris could hardly contain his shaking. "The voice talks about the robbery and then the arrest. It isn't Kavi, Arthur or me."
"That's for our forensics to say. If it's not you, then who's the voice threatening Sheila?"
Harris shook his head. "You won't believe me."
"I already don't believe you. It's literally my job to not believe you until proven otherwise."
Harris' lips formed the name but stopped. It sounded so stupid, so improbable. "Hardcastle."
"Chief Hardcastle?" Alex half-swallowed a hunk of bagel and broke into a fit of coughing.
Harris put his hands before him as if defending against a flurry of punches. "You have to hear me out."
"I let you in my apartment at 6:30 in the morning," Alex thumped her chest to dislodge the cream cheese lingering in her pleura. "This is me hearing you out."
"He's having an affair with Kavi's boss, with Miss Leslie. And Miss Leslie already has a felony conviction on her sheet"
Alex’s eyes narrowed. "And how do you know that?"
"I...can't say. I just know. I also know that the library is drowning in red ink, that Miss Leslie is desperate to get us out of her meeting rooms so she can squeeze a few extra pennies from her fundraising group. She has access to our stories. He has access to prints, ballistics. Let's say Chief Hardcastle is in love with her. Let’s say Ms. Leslie uses his affections for evil."
"And what about the costumes? The van? The witnesses who put you at the scene of the crime?"
Harris shrank. "You don't believe me."
"Where did you get this recording?"
Harris swallowed a dry lump down his throat, suddenly wishing he'd taken Alex up on her offer for coffee. "From Sheila."
"Sheila Talbot gave her personal voice recorder files to the very people who are accused of threatening her."
"I…I don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know? It's your USB. How did you get the audio file?"
Harris shook his head. "I didn't get it, Arthur did."
"Arthur who is still the prime suspect."
"I know," Harris shook his head, "it's insane."
Alex nodded, popped the last of her bagel into her mouth. "Sure you don't want coffee?"
"Actually," Harris rose form the sofa, the room thick and spinning. "I could go for a cup."
Alex poured coffee into matching Bakersville PD mugs and handed one to Harris. "You strike me as a skeptic, a little too brash for your own good, Kagan… Let me ask you another question."
"Yeah."
"You ask Kavi and Arthur if they did it?"
Harris nodded. "Of course."
"And who was first to shout their innocence?"
Harris took a sip but found it difficult to swallow. "Arthur."
"Arthur who magically produced these voice files for you. Do you know how he got them?"
"I don't know the specifics, no. Just that he had a meeting with Talbot and their voice recorders got switched."
Alex shook her head. "I can only look at the evidence and make educated guesses. Yesterday you came to me telling me he went mysteriously missing in the middle of the day and today it's exculpating voice recordings he's produced from thin air. He's stupid enough to tell me we're all characters in some grand novel and all of a sudden one of your workshop stories comes true. I don't entirely trust the reporter either. Girl couldn't get an obituary or the police blotter right and now she's an ace reporter… You familiar with Occam's Razor, Harris?"
Harris perked up. Were he a puppy, he would have raised his ears, tail wagging. "As a man of science, I practically live my life by it."
"Let me let you in on a secret then…" Alex leaned in toward Harris, mussed hair falling in lovely little tangles around her face. "When it comes to solving crimes like this, the guilty person is usually exactly who you think it is. When a wife ends up murdered, you can bet with decent odds it's the husband. Money go mysteriously missing from the store till? An employee with sticky fingers. It would be interesting if solving crimes was all Sherlock Holmes, with moving parts and double-switches and last-minute confessions, but the truth, Harris, the plain, sad truth, is that we know who's guilty almost the moment the crime is committed."
Alex put down her coffee mug, put a hand to Harris shoulder. Her eyes softened, a note of sadness coloring her face. "It would be fascinating if we were all living in Arthur's literary reality, if there was some massive conspiracy come to roost in Bakersville, Indiana. I would personally love it if each crime was a precious, intricate puzzle and I had to tease out the solution. Unfortunately, that's almost never the case. Solving cases is mostly brute force: boots on the ground, asking a million questions. There's no jewel-thieving crime lord blowing through town. People commit robberies because they're short on money. The other factors—the story, the costumes—it's probably just our criminal trying very hard to commit the perfect crime."
Alex pulled the USB from her radio, stuffed it in a robe pocket. "As a favor to you, I'll take this in and let forensics take a look. But I wouldn't get your hopes up. Unless there's a time stamp embedded in the audio file and some magic bullet pointing at exactly at other voice, I doubt this helps you. You're fighting circumstance with more circumstance. And to be honest, none of it makes you look any more innocent."
"Except for the fact I'm innocent." Harris set his mug down on the counter. "How about a wager: if we prove I'm innocent before next Thursday, you go on a date with me."
Alex rolled her eyes. "For burritos and Nintendo?"
"I'll be sure to clean my old Nintendo cartridges. I'm telling you; two-player Gyromite is a blast. We can even take separate cars, if you're worried about appearances."
Alex shoved Harris from her kitchen. "Get out, Kagan. Some of us still need to get ready for actual work, Mister Administrative Leave."
Harris jogged across the room and flung open the door.
"That wasn't a no."
"That wasn't a yes, either. I'm already regretting trying to flirt information out of you. And listen…if Arthur does anything odd, or asks you to do anything weird, you let me know right away, okay?"
Harris smiled as he ducked from Alex's apartment. "I'll see you soon."
No comments:
Post a Comment