Chapter Seventeen
We closed up shop immediately. Murder confessions didn't usually happen in my front room, and we didn't need any unexpected company walking through the doors and interrupting what could only be a serious discussion. Trixie made a fresh pot of coffee and we sat down in the front room, Rose and her charge on the couch, Kali on the chair near the window and Jacks on the other chair. I stood over everyone protectively, though really it was a power play, an intimidation tactic that I hated using, but knew that it would work. I just hoped that I wouldn't have to play the 'bad cop' in front of Kali.
Rose sat unnecessarily close to the kid she'd dragged in here as Kali took pictures of his clockwork hands and compared them to the photos she'd taken of the marks on the dead doctor's body. She looked me dead in the eye and simply nodded grimly.
So we had the murderer in our office for sure.
And he was a kid.
I felt my stomach turn sour over the whole thing. I wanted to rip Five Points apart with my bare hands, but I pushed the anger aside. I knew that Jackson was on the edge of losing his cool, again. This shit didn't jive with Jacks any more than it did with me, but at least one of us had to go into this with a clear head and Jacks was too close to the entire clockwork modification culture to look at it objectively.
It didn't make him any less guilty, but there was a lot to be said for this kid coming in of his own free will. It showed remorse, and intelligence.
And confidence in whatever Rose had told him about it being the right thing to do.
Trixie brought the kid a glass of water and a cup of coffee for Jackson before excusing herself into my office. She knew the drill about us wanting her to have plausible deniability in all circumstances, just in case something came back to bite us in the ass later. Although how this could bite us in the ass, I wasn't entirely sure, but I still didn't want to risk it.
Jackson sat stiffly in his chair, sipping gingerly at the coffee Trixie had given him and glaring at the kid in question. His glass eye twitched in his skull as he studied the kid critically. He was livid and it was then that I was positive that I wouldn't be playing the bad cop here.
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. Jackson was losing it and I wondered if I shouldn't send him away for the moment.
“I'm all right, Blaze,” he said with a nod, as if he could read my mind and he set his coffee down.
I arched my eyebrow at him, almost completely positive in that moment that the after-market modifications he'd done to his eye and hand had given him psychic powers. I didn't acknowledge that particular theory, though. I nodded in return and turned my gaze back to the kid in question.
“Do you have a name?” I asked first, folding my arms over my chest.
“It's Max,” the kid replied quietly. I noticed that he was shaking, shivering under the heavy sweatshirt that he was wearing despite the warmth in the room.
“I'm Blaze,” I replied. “This is my partner Jackson,” I added, motioning to the chair where Jackson was sitting quietly. “And the doctor taking your picture is Kali.”
Max nodded quietly and took a sip of his water, licking his lips nervously before setting the cup back on the small coffee table and hugging himself tightly, as if he was cold. He cast his eyes down towards the floor, slouching forward in a defeated manner. He was closing up, retreating back into his own head and that wasn't gonna be good for our line of questioning.
Rose reached across and patted Max's leg gently. “Max, these are the good guys. They actually care about us, about kids like us, and they'll do what they can to help you.”
Oh, the blind faith of the young. I wanted to help in any way that I could, but I wasn't sure if there was much that I could do for the kid; he was looking at 25 to life for murder, unless we could convince the D.A. otherwise. It really all depended on what we could prove actually went down in the doctor's house that day.
“I want to help you, Max,” I agreed. “I really do, but it depends entirely on what you can tell us about the murder.”
Max shuddered when I said the word 'murder' and I knew that he hadn't wanted to kill anyone in the first place.
“What the hell did you get into?” I asked genuinely worried about this young man in front of me. He didn't look like the type to kill someone, even if it was in self-defence.
Max hesitated and his brow furrowed with concentration. It was an internal debate, I'd seen my fair share of them myself, and they rarely ended well for the person having them.
“Sorry, let me rephrase that,” I suggested.
“No,” Max spoke slowly, “it's all right. You've got every right to ask me that. I guess...” he groaned to himself, as if it was difficult to put into words. “I guess that I got into murder for hire.”
Jackson stiffened in his seat. I thought he was already tense, he just proved that there was an even higher level of 'tense' in his body language repertoire.
“You were hired to kill Doctor Jones?” I asked.
Max nodded, then stopped abruptly. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly what?” Jackson snapped, leaning forward dangerously. “You were hired to kill or you weren't hired to kill. Either way, you're a murderer.”
“Jacks!” I growled. “Do you need to be removed from this investigation?”
Jackson leaned back and folded his hands on his lap. “No, sir. Sorry,” he mumbled. I was very thankful in that moment that he had set his coffee down earlier. I didn't want Jackson armed in any way at this moment in time.
I turned my attentions back to Max. “Okay, let's try this again.”
Max sighed again and shuddered. “I wasn't hired to kill Doctor Jones. I was blackmailed.”
“See, Jacks?” I offered lightly, eyeing my partner carefully. “No need to fly off the handle, he wasn't hired at all. It was blackmail.”
“Look, I'm here of my own free will!” Max whined. “I don't have to take your mockery. If you're not gonna be serious about this, I'll disappear and you'll be screwed.”
I raised my hands in a gesture of apology. “Simmer down, kid. I didn't mean anything by it. You'll have to forgive my skepticism. And my sarcasm. You don't stay alive long as a gumshoe if you're not careful.”
Max released a heavy sigh and nodded slowly. “I'm not the greatest person in the world, I know that. I'm a junkie, and a Gearhead and my younger sister has ended up following in my footsteps.”
“What are you on?” Kali asked gently.
“Morphine and codeine, mostly,” Max admitted. “Painkillers, you know. Anything I can get. Vicodin, Percocet, anything and everything in copious amounts. For these,” he waggled his clockwork fingers. “I'm in constant pain. I've been getting treatment from, er, had been getting treatment from Doctor Jones for six months. I was on his waiting list to get adjustments. He wouldn't let me go to a Greaser because he didn't trust them to fix what they'd broken. And I've been getting cleaned up.”
“You have a sister?” I asked.
“She's fifteen.”
“She got a name?”
“Lola,” Max admitted. “I dunno where she is right now, though.”
“She a Gearhead, too?”
Max nodded and tears welled up in his eyes. Oh no. I wasn't sure if I could deal with waterworks and keep my composure.
“Where are your parents?” Kali interjected.
Max shook his head. “Died in the crash that gave me these arms three years ago.”
“Did your sister get proper implants at all?” Kali pressed on.
“No,” Max informed us. “All illegal. She thought it was 'cool' and she asked me to refer her to a Greaser, which I did.”
“So how did you get blackmailed into killing the Doctor?” Kali asked bluntly, yet somehow managing to keep her gentle tone.
“They said that they would hurt my sister if I didn't do what they wanted,” Max said pathetically.
“Did they give you any reason to suggest that your sister was in any immediate danger?” I asked, suddenly real
izing what sort of assholes we were really dealing with. Threatening a kid? And threatening to hurt his younger sister if he didn't do what they wanted? That was some serious shit that I wasn't gonna let slide. Someone was gonna pay dearly for that.
“What do you mean?”
I had to force myself not to shake this kid. He was drugged out on painkillers and God knew what else. He was shaken enough without me adding to his trauma.
“Had your sister been missing? Did the guy who hired you give you any piece of evidence that suggested that your sister was I dunno, being held hostage or something to that extent?”
Max shook his head again. “No. But I haven't seen her since that day!”
“Where do you live?”
“In the Kitchen,” Max admitted. “I work in a garage to pay the bills. We live in the crappiest apartments on the waterfront. When things broke though, we would stay at the halfway houses Doctor Jones ran,” he gave Rose a pathetic little smile. “Rose always made sure that we had a place to stay.”
“And you haven't seen Lola either?” Jackson asked Rose.
Rose shook her head. “No. I'm sorry. And she hasn't been at the halfway house in a few days.”
“Does Lola have any friends who she might be staying with?” Kali asked.
Max shrugged. “No one that I can think of who I haven't spoken to already.”
“Go get Trixie on the phone,” I told Jackson. “Get her to start calling anyone and everyone who might be able to track down a missing girl,” I hesitated for a split second. “And you too. Call in whatever favours you might need to find her,” I looked at Max. “What does she look like?”
“She's fifteen,” Max mumbled. “Long, dark brown hair, brown eyes. She's white. Um... skinny. She has clockwork implants on her left hand and right leg below the knee. Probably wearing ripped blue jeans and one of my old mechanic's shirts.”
“Call it in, Jacks,” I instructed.
“On it,” Jackson agreed, standing up. He looked at Max. “I'm sorry I lost it at you. You're in a tight spot. I get it. We'll find your sister.”
Max's eyes widened and welled up with tears again. He nodded in Jackson's direction and Jackson left without another word.
“Okay, Max. You've gotta give me something more concrete to work with here,” I said, sitting in Jackson's now vacant spot. “I need a name, a cheque, a bank statement, something to prove that you were hired to kill Doctor Jones.”
“I told you, I wasn't hired!” Max argued, petulantly.
“Whatever, blackmailed then,” I corrected myself, unimpressed with the forced correctness. “I can't take your claim seriously unless you've got proof.”
“I dunno, it was some fat guy in a fancy suit claiming to be an executive from Five Points,” Max explained quickly. “He showed up at work one day and offered to have my implants looked at and upgraded for free at Five Points if I did a job for him.”
“Did you get a name?”
“No, but I would be able to tell you who he is if I saw him again.”
“So you just accepted the job?” I pressed on.
“At first, yeah,” Max admitted. “I mean, you don't know what it's like to live in constant pain because of these things!” he said, indicating his arms. “I know that I've done a lot of damage to my liver and stomach taking painkillers all the time. I've overdosed on them more than once. I've been hospitalized because of it. If someone offers me a job and then offers to pay me in medical procedures to fix the pain, I'm gonna take that offer without hesitation, man.”
“What changed?”
Max shrugged. “The guy told me that there was a delivery happening to Doctor Jones, that I needed to get the envelope that was coming away from the Doctor and hightail it back to Five Points and deliver the envelope. I didn't think much of it until the Suit told me that I needed to dispatch the Doctor off to greener pastures. I asked what he meant and he told me that the Doctor needed to take the big sleep. That's when I refused the job. Delivery I can do. Stealing an envelope, all right, if I'm gonna be pain free at the end of it, I'll do it. But I'm not a killer, man. Not even at my worst, had I ever considered offing someone to get a fix. I had my sister to think of.”
“So what changed this time?”
“When I said no, the Suit guy threatened my sister. He said that he knew all about me, that Gearheads are watched more carefully than anyone else. He knew my address, knew my sister's name, knew that she wasn't in school. He said that Lola was gonna be taken away, that I was unfit to care for her. He told me that Lola was already in his custody and that if I ever wanted to see her again, I would be smart to do as he told me.”
I frowned. “And you just believed him?”
“Hey man, we live in the rat traps. There's no security there. And my sister runs around the Kitchen all the time,” Max snapped, back on the defensive. “I take threats to my sister's well-being very seriously. Obviously you haven't got kids, or anyone who you really care about or else you wouldn't even be questioning why I did what I did to protect her.”
“You took a man's life over an empty threat,” I shot right back, pissed off beyond reason. “Without proof. Without a guarantee. You killed someone for no reason except for words.”
“I'm sorry!” Max shouted, standing up in anger. “I'm sorry! I didn't want to. I didn't want anyone to die! I just wanted to stop hurting all the time, and to keep my sister safe!”
Rose reached out to Max, but he brushed her hand away angrily. “None of you understand. You don't live out there. You've never lost anything you care about. You're a doctor,” he spat at Kali. “And you're a detective. You don't get it.”
“Sit down and close your head,” I snapped evenly. “You don't know anything about any of us so you're one to talk,” I rose slowly to my feet, glaring at Max until he slowly sat down. “You've confessed to murder, there's no way out of this now. I'm gonna do what I can to keep you from getting the electric cure for your crime, but I can't promise you anything at this point. You keep it up with that attitude, though, and I might not want to help you at all. Apologize.”
Max set his jaw and narrowed his eyes, but looked slowly over to Kali. “I'm sorry for snapping,” he mumbled, defeated.
“Damn right,” I replied gruffly. “Tell me how you did it.”
“Did what?” Max asked, his voice cracking.
“Tell me how you killed the Doctor, and how you hid from the cops.”
Max looked pleadingly at Rose. Rose shook her head. “Do what he says,” she told Max. “You'll get asked all of these questions by the cops after anyway, might as well tell Blaze and get your story straight before the brass try to twist your words all around.”
Max sighed. “I rang the doorbell. Doctor Jones let me in. I said that I was having more pain than usual, and he told me to follow him upstairs so that he could pull my file.”
“He let his patients know where he lived?” I asked, surprised.
Max nodded. “Yes. He worked at all hours.”
“Okay, go on.”
“So we walked up the stairs and that's where I spilled to him what I was really there for. He said that he didn't have a delivery, that nothing came for him and that someone was lying to me. I grabbed him by the shirt, at the front, you know, to make him look at me, to make him pay attention,” Max frowned and looked at his hands in his lap. “And when he refused to tell me what was happening, I let him pull away, let him turn his back on me. I hesitated. He told me that he was going to get me something for the pain and that he wouldn't press charges. Then the doorbell rang. I begged him to answer it, to get the delivery so that I could take it and go. But he didn't. He told me that he would help me and that the whole thing didn't need to end in violence, and the doorbell rang again, and then I thought about my sister, and what would happen to her if... I grabbed him and twisted his neck,” Max shuddered and covered his face with his hands. “It was so easy! Like breaking a tree branch! I didn't know how strong I was... I...” he let out a littl
e sob and Rose placed her hand gently against his shoulder.
I stole a glance at Kali. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. I didn't blame her. It wasn't an easy thing to hear, and it sure as hell wasn't easy to sit across the room from a killer. Maybe she was right, maybe she had been working with stiffs for too long. I wasn't sure if she needed pity or not, but she didn't give me any indication that she wasn't in it for the long run, so I pressed on.
“How'd you get out of there?” I asked. “I was standing right outside the door.”
“I ran,” Max said. “Down the hallway when the Doctor fell down the stairs. I went to the end of the hallway and out the window. I kind of hid on the roof and prayed that no one would find me. And then when the cops left, I sneaked back into the house and out the front door.”
I knew it! I made a mental note to gloat about that the next time that I saw Stringer. I nodded solemnly to Max. “I have to take you into the police now, you know.”
Max nodded. “I know. What's gonna happen to my sister?”
“I'll do what I can to protect her, we've got calls out already,” I said slowly, unsure about what would happen to her, myself.
“She can stay at the house,” Rose chimed in. “I'll make sure she's taken care of, once we find her.”
Max nodded. “Thank you.”
“I'll put in a good word for you with the DA,” I added. “See if we can't get you a reduced sentence or some sort of deal. If I can find the guy who hired you and get a confession, you'll be golden.”
Jacks reappeared, a look of triumph on his face. “Talked to some friendly cops. They put a call out for her, treated it like a missing person case and they found her,” he announced. “Chief Fredricks has her in protective custody and is waiting our arrival at the station.”
Max broke down in sobs of relief and Rose hushed him, trying to calm him down. Kali stood and I followed suit. We moved across the small room towards the coffee machine and Jackson's office so that we could talk in relative privacy.
“You did a good thing, Blaze,” Kali praised, patting my arm. “And you too, Jacks,” she added with a smile.
“Are you holding up okay?” I asked in return, noticing that she looked a little paler than usual.
Kali nodded. “Now that his sister is all right, yeah, I think so.”
“So what are we gonna do now?” Jackson asked.
“We have to take him in,” I replied. “He's guilty of murder, but I'm pretty sure that we can get him a reduced sentence. Ten for manslaughter instead of twenty-five to life for murder, right?”
Jackson shrugged. “Maybe.”
Kali nodded her agreement. “I think he would appreciate it, anyway,” she cast a glance over to the broken kids sitting on my couch. “I can't believe that someone would seriously set this sort of thing up. And for what? Money?”
“Power,” Jackson replied. “Control over these kids who got messed up in the first place.”
“That's sick,” Kali complained.
“That's life,” Jackson decided.
I shook my head. “This isn't going to go unanswered. We're going to take him in, get his sister back to the Kitchen where she'll be safe,” I looked from Jackson to Kali, my face a mask of determination. “And then, after that, we head over to Five Points and start bashing heads together until we find some answers.”