“This is the same person that sent you to follow her?” Braze asked.
“Yes...but like I said, I’m starting to think there is something else going on here.”
Braze nodded then fished a cellphone out of his pocket and began punching numbers before saying, “If you find anything out, Clement, anything at all, come back. And if you don’t, I hope you will consider coming back anyway.”
Cold grey eyes held onto a warm amber gaze then broke away as the two men walked in opposite directions, their backs turned once more to one another.
One was speaking rapidly into a cellphone. The other kept reaching to his thigh, touching something through the fabric of his trench coat as if looking for reassurance.
~~~
Sara looked down at the black stains covering her fingers and reminded herself again not to touch her face.
She plucked instead at the tiny balls of paper towel clinging to the ink still drying on her hands, then sighed as they caught under her fingernails. Her nose was running as much as her eyes but one of the policemen had warned her to wait until the ink dried or she would have it on her face next.
What do they call it? Good cop, back cop...?
The man who had taken her fingerprints had a kindly face and seemed genuinely bothered by his task as he pressed her fingers to an ink pad, then to a paper marked in a grid of lines and numbers.
When he had finished, he held out a wad of paper towels to her. As Sara began wiping at the ink on her hands, he tucked a second wad of paper towels into her upturned shirt sleeve and said, “That’s for your eyes. But wait until the ink dries on your hands. Paper towels won’t do much good except to smear it around, so it’s better just to wait than have ink on that pretty face.”
He had blushed, then, as if he had said something out of line, then led Sara to a room where she was told to wait.
She was still there even though it felt as if hours had passed, but she knew that could not be so. Braze had promised he would come for her, no doubt with a whole team of lawyers on his heels. Except that he had not...so, surely it could not have been all that long since she was told to have a seat and wait.
Just as Sara had convinced herself that the police were deliberately keeping Braze from her, a heavy metal door opened and a disheveled man stepped in to the room. Unlike the other officers, he was dressed in normal clothing. His suit was wrinkled and his choice of necktie was all wrong. Which meant that he was the perfect image of the cliché that makes an investigating detective.
He nodded to her and before he had a chance to say anything, Sara blurted, “Look. This is all some kind of mistake. I didn’t have anything to do with murdering people.”
She knew what she had just said was meaningless to the man in his rumpled suit, but she felt better having said it.
“Oh, I know. A big, big mistake,” he nodded, his forehead lifted in sympathy for Sara.
Foolish hope bloomed within her. And then the man spoke again.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he said, then laughed quietly before his face turned hard, “That’s what they all say. Just keep repeating it as if you’re trying to convince yourself it’s the truth. But we both know better, don’t we?”
He shrugged then looked down to examine his fingernails before continuing.
“You know, we almost didn’t catch on to you. The prints at the Fresci crime scene didn’t match anything on record, then out of the blue some tipster calls up and convinces someone here to listen to him. Tells us to check other records for those prints....records like domestic battery complaints. And whaddya know? Bingo...Miss Sara Renardine, last known domicile, Cavanaugh County, complaint filed against a local cop for domestic violence. Charges that were dropped the very next day, right?”
He looked back up at Sara, then nodded.
“But, and here’s the kicker, the next known domicile of Miss Sara Renardine just so happens to be the Sunside Hotel. The same darn place where poor Frederick Jenkins was torn apart.”
He leaned closer to her, then lowered his voice as if confiding a secret.
“Do you know...we’re not even sure he was dead before it happened. Being torn apart, that is.
“And all that blood. Where did it go, Sara? That’s what I’d like to know.”
The man sighed as if he had seen it all before. As if Sara was already a convicted woman.
“You’ve got some thinking to do, Sara. Long, hard thinking.
“Oh, and your big shot boyfriend isn’t coming anytime soon. We’re all waiting on a judge to decide what to do with you while we confirm those fingerprints of yours...but, it’s looking like you’re gonna be charged. If not for murder, then for accessory to voluntary manslaughter and that’s only if you’re very lucky.”