'Righteous Nights' - Chapter 13

The hallway seemed to narrow in on itself as we delved deeper into the inner sanctum of the precinct. Interrogation room no. 3 beckoned just up ahead. I had Officer Powell on my shoulder, hovering close by in case I decided to make a last-minute run for the exits. But the time for second thoughts had long since passed. I had already accepted my fate. With a whole host of butterflies swimming around in my stomach, and the narrow-eyed police officer closely watching my every move, I opened the door and hoped for the best. 

The windowless room was small and dingy, just as you would imagine. A quartet of rough, unpainted walls encircled a creaky wooden table perched in the centre of the floor. On one side sat the young girl I knew only by the name of ‘Clara’, arms folded and still scowling. Three cold-faced police officers stood opposite her, meanwhile, ready to fire their opening round of questions. The air was stifling and tense. You could have cut the atmosphere with with a blunt bread knife...

“For the purposes of the record…” spoke the least deterred of the three duty officers, all with their backs to the wall, “…could you please state both your first and last names. All formalities must be completed before we can begin the interview…”

There was no sign of any recording device in sight. No outdated tape machine nor remote controlled telecom running through into another room somewhere. There did not seem to be any surveillance cameras present, either. Everything about the situation seemed both offhand and off-the-cuff. I subsequently shuffled my feet, feeling uneasy. 

“We won’t ask you again…” began another of the officers, this time a woman, “…are you going to cooperate with us or not?”

‘Clara’ held her gaze to the floor. Four or five seconds would eventually pass in painstakingly slow fashion before she finally spoke, raising a warped grin in the direction of the police officers as she did so. Two words then left her mouth in something of a growl...

“FUCK…” she said proudly, clawing away at the wooden table, “…and YOU!”  

After that, there was a moment of quiet.

Each of the officers shot several concerned glances at one another before one of them finally motioned over the detainee and handcuffed her wrist to the table. The cop peered back with an exasperated expression on his face, signalling to both myself and Officer Powell to somehow lend a hand. Yet, we both remained still.

'Clara' responded with a cold, maniacal laugh.

“FUCK and YOU!” she called out louder this time, “…don’t you get it? Fuck you, officer! All of you! Fuck every single one of you phoneys!”

“Be quiet…” they retorted back to her, “…you are in police custody, so you'd better…”

But the girl refused to listen...

“You be quiet!” she said, “…shut that wretched mouth of yours before I shut it for you! And someone get me some water, better yet…get me a real drink before I really start to lose it!”

After another string of senseless insults directed at the officers, the girl gazed back down at the table and sought to catch her breath. ‘Clara’, or whatever her real name actually was, had lied to me during our brief meeting at Crosby’s Bar. She had claimed that she was none other than Coburn’s grieving sister, still mightily distressed by the disappearance of her brother and wanting nothing more than to put things right. 

Yet, there sat Coburn’s actual sister back in the other room. ‘Carolyn’ they called her. Like the rest of us, she too had presumably been left equally bemused and beguiled by the fiery imposter we seemingly had on our hands. The line had been drawn, as it were, and the explosive young thing in interrogation room no. 3 had certainly crossed it with defiance. 

“It’s ok…” declared Officer Powell finally, speaking directly to the officers as he pointed towards the door, “…wait outside for now, the detective and I can take it from here.”

"Are you sure? She's still pretty upset..."

"...I'm certain. Just wait outside."

The three on-duty cops soon did as they were told and temporarily left the room, presumably welcoming the chance to grab some air. They were met by the jeers of the hot-headed girl still detained at the table. 'Clara' shook her handcuffed wrist at them and cried out triumphantly, gleefully gloating in the face of their departure.  

“Go on then, Lucky…” Powell signalled to me for the first time, “…take it away.”

“Take what away…?”

“This is your moment in the spotlight…” he spoke casually, “…show us all how to do our jobs properly, that’s what you’re here for…isn’t it?”

I wanted to punch him right then and there. In-fact, I wanted to do much worse...

The sight of Officer Powell emerging from Lucy’s apartment all bare-chested and fancy-free remained at the forefront of my mind. It had not left my system, sadly, soaring through me like toxic poison in my bloodstream. Suddenly, I noticed the faint bruising across his throat from where I had made a grab for him. I had wanted nothing more than to clench down on his windpipe until the slicked-backed deputy had nothing left to say for himself. No more pompous comments or smug-faced remarks. But of course, dear reader, an increasingly violent detainee was still sat opposite us from across the table.

And it was she, who would require my immediate attention.

“Ahem…” I coughed, attempting to distract her somewhat, “…Clara? Can I call you Clara…?”

The girl lifted her head up sharply, darting her eyes straight towards my own.

“…I think I still owe you for that drink, no?’

“What drink!?” she asked abruptly, "...what fucking drink!?"

“That night at Crosby’s..." I said,"...it’s going back some time now. You wanted me to buy you a drink, and I said maybe another time. Well, here we are now…together again.”

'Clara' narrowed her gaze in suspicion, fidgeting with her handcuffs and cautiously gripping the table. For the first time I noticed just how destitute she looked. Exhausted too, as if she had been sleeping rough in the nights leading up to our discussion at the precinct. Her hastily cut fringe flew out of place above her eyes, dark and matted, whilst the dirt under her fingernails painted her out in something of a sorrowful light. If the circumstances had been different, perhaps I might have felt sorry for the girl…

“Listen here you little prick…” she called out once more, rising to her feet and slamming back down again as the handcuffs tightened on her wrist, “…I’ve never seen you before in my entire life!” 

“No, no, come on now…” I said,  “…think. You most certainly have. Try to recall…”

But the girl’s memory had begun to elude her. 

“If I did meet you before…” she muttered, “…I don’t remember a damn thing about it…”

“And why is that, may I ask?”

She smiled and looked away, “…you don’t have a very memorable face, do you mister!?”

With that she looked me up and down some more as Officer Powell sat there with one leg crossed over the other, watching the scenario unfold. I was happy to let the girl stew a while, for it meant she was no longer shouting and cussing at the top of her voice. The frowns slowly dissipating from her forehead signalled that she might have been easing up a little. But I could still feel Powell’s beady-eyes breathing down my neck. It was time to change tact…

“Very well…” I remarked, with a sudden change in tone “…come to think of it, I’m not surprised you don’t remember me. You were already more than halfway wasted by the time I arrived at the bar. In-fact, if you don’t mind me asking…are you intoxicated at this very moment, right now as we speak?” 

Her eyes narrowed even further this time, like two icy slits in her face no larger than paper cuts.

“I remember you now…” she mumbled slowly, “…you wouldn’t shut the fuck up and buy me a fuckin’ drink the whole goddamn night, would ya? Damn cheep-skate!”

“Yes!” I rejoiced loudly, “…yes, that was me!”

“You’re not so bad lookin’, I guess…”

“Why thank-you…” 

I shuffled in my chair slightly, finding myself mildly embarrassed. It may have come from a drunken criminal with fresh cuts on her knuckles and the look of something truly crazy in her eyes, but it was the closest thing to a compliment anyone had paid me in weeks…

“So tell me…” I proceeded without further ado, “…can you begin to explain just what on earth was happening back there with you and…let’s see, Carolyn I think her name was?”

The young lady barked back immediately, “…that bitch! I’ll get her, just you watch! Thinks she can speak to me like that…she’s an old shrew and she better watch her back!” 

“That may be so…” I clambered on, “…let me rephrase. Mrs Carolyn Coburn…she’s is the same boat as all of us. She has most likely been wondering why you have been impersonating her...well, impersonating Coburn’s sister, that is?” 

“I couldn’t give a damn about Coburn or his sister…” she stated rather unashamedly, “…that man’s got a face that would scare the shit out of a toilet bowl! He was just my cover, a distraction…”

“A distraction?”

“Yeah. I’ve never met the dumb-fuck actor in my life. Wouldn’t want to either…”

“Ok…” I said, still clambering to make sense of what the girl was telling me, “…but, what did you mean when you referred to Coburn as….a cover?”

The detainee simply put her finger to her lips, however, and shushed in my direction. 

“Quiet now handsome, all you do is talk…”

“Seriously…” she heard me say, but it was no use. 

The girl had started chuckling to herself again. She wiped her dark hair away from her eyes, keen to reveal a somewhat seductive side that I had not been privy to before. 

“Shhh now. It’s bedtime…”

“Look…” I posed, pointing to the police officer alongside me, “…I’m not like them, am I? Talk to me will you. What’s your name, gal?”

“Fine…” she said, “…I think I’m startin’ to like ya. So I’ll tell you my name, it’s…”

“…”

“It’s…”

“…”

“RUBY FUCKING REDWOOD!”

Thank god for that. She shot up from her chair once again. But this time the girl stayed there, refusing to back down as the chain cut deeper into her wrist. I, on the other hand, leaned back and let out a long sigh of relief. The girl had finally given me her name. It was not much, but it was a start. 

Relaxing a little, I soon drew my cigarettes from inside my jacket pocket, hoping the packet had survived the rain. I was just about to spark the lighter into life and draw my first puff when I suddenly stopped everything I was doing, however, and put the cigarette back down upon the table.  

Ruby Redwood? Ruby...

...Redwood?

It took a moment. Perhaps a moment longer than it should have, but somewhere inside the corner of my mind things finally fell into place. I felt the might of that old proverbial penny dropping once again. This time it fell fiercely and ferociously, hitting the floors of my clouded consciousness with a dull, echoing thud. That, I'm afraid, was the moment when this whole thing came crashing down on me.

What was one of the Redwood Sisters doing here? In Clearview!?

It was the one name I did not want to hear. If there was one snarling face I did not want to come across, sitting opposite me in the interrogation room chair with a chip on her should and red hot blood pounding through her veins…it was, well...Ruby fucking Redwood. 

Suddenly I looked up and saw the smug face of Officer Powell, puffing on a newly sourced cigarette of his own. He continued to sit rather nonchalantly with one leg over the other, beaming from side to side and staring directly at me with the look of something sinister. Then, out of nowhere, the second imaginary penny dropped in my mind, with a sharper thud than the one that came before. 

“Ms Redwood…” he spoke with a malevolent look about him, “…I hate to break it to you, but we already know why you’re here in town. We know why you pretended to be looking for Coburn…”

The girl swiftly reclaimed her seat, with that firm scowl returning once more. 

“Fine!” she said, “…I never did care about Coburn, pretending to be his sister just gave me an excuse to be here in this shitty little town. No, I came here because of what happened to my family…back in the Big City! It was a travesty what the police did to them…a fuckin’ travesty!”

“That it was…” Powell continued calmly.

Yet, the girl was too fired up by that point to simply leave it there...

“…it was a goddamn mess!" she boldly spat back at us, "...a fuckin’ mess. And you wonder why I’m upset, why a good drink helps to cool my nerves!? I’m gonna get back out there and kill that little bastard, that punk officer who murdered my family! I know he’s here…somewhere in Clearview…and mark my fuckin’ words I’m gonna find him, I’m gonna make him regret the day he ever crossed us!!”

This time Powell uncrossed his legs and straightened up in his chair, keen to drive the conversation forward.

“…you say you and my friend Lucky here had previously run into each other in Clearview? What if I were to tell you, that you actually might be far more familiar with him than you realise…?”

“Go on…” she spoke uncharacteristically softly.

“Well…” Powell declared, eyeing me up once more, “…our friend Lucky here, he came from the Big City too, just like you…”

Now I knew what he was up to. I had to stop him somehow…

“Powell, what are you doing!?”

“…and what’s more…” Powell pushed on despite my attempts to make him stop, “…he was working as a police officer too. You know Ruby, Lucky here was a police officer working on, would you have guessed it…the Redwood case?” 

“What do you mean!?” she barked back.

“He was there on the night, among the very same police unit that ventured up to the estates owned by your family. Apartment no. 24…”

“Powell!” I cried out helplessly, almost screaming, “…enough already!”

“…this man here…” he continued, standing up and pointing his finger directly at me, “…he’s the one who walked out alive that night! He’s the one who killed the Redwoods and left them there to rot! Your father Raymond, your brothers Roman and Riley…he even left little baby Russell crying whilst his mother lay dead on the floor with six bullets lodged deep in her skull! He thought he could run here to Clearview and all that business would simply poof and disappear…

…but not this time, Lucky! This time you have to face the music!”

Officer Powell had taken things too far. Way too far. But alas, his plan had worked a trick. 

The rogue officer wanted to get back at me. He wanted me out of the way, a sense of cold-blooded revenge for the fact that I had interrupted his little rendezvous with Lucy mere moments prior. Deep down, he must have known that Lucy Labelle still loved me. He knew there was nothing he could really do. But regardless of the man’s true intentions, regardless of where he placed his rights, and his wrongs…Powell had succeeded in reawakening the painful anger that lived deep inside Ruby Redwood. Her appetite for vengeance was clear for all to behold.

It was like one of those poorly funded state reservoirs. The type that is about to burst its banks and raise total destruction among the unknowing inhabitants living within its shadow. Ruby was about to blow, we could all feel it. Even Officer Powell had taken a tactical step backwards in anticipation for what was to come. The young lady had reached her tipping point by that stage, and neither me, Powell, nor the three sheepish looking duty officers waiting outside in the corridor could have done a single thing about it...

“You piece of…I’m gonna…come here you!”

Ruby launched herself at me with precise intent. With one swift motion she thrust her hand forward and grabbed my shirt with force, breaking the links in her handcuffs previously chaining her to the table. At once I felt the madwoman tighten her grasp around my collar, as five sharply focussed fingernails ripped viciously into the side of my face.

I must have let out a howl of pain, but the girl would not let go. 

Next, she pulled her face up to mine, enough so that I felt the girl’s warm breath forcing itself down upon me. Officer Powell stayed behind with his back firmly planted up against the wall, casually watching the events unfold as if he were witnessing a mid-afternoon matinee. If it was not for the trio of intervening officers rushing in from the corridor outside, I truly do not know if I would have ever made it out of that room alive.

The girl would have surely killed me there and then...

"You bastard! You killed my family! I'm going to make you pay..."

The scene was one of total pandemonium. I spluttered and stuttered amongst it all, attempting to clear my name in the face of anyone who would listen. But the words were swiftly lost in the sea of rumbling discontent. All anyone could hear was a chorus of cutting curse words and siren-like snarls. Ruby threw out a string of foul-mouthed expletives that flew like sharpened daggers across the tiny room. She screamed, hollered, and howled as it took the strength of three decisive duty officers to just about hold her back.

All the while, however, a soft laughter crept out from the mounting melee. A gentle sniggering and giggling from the corner of the room. It could have only come from the man still standing with his hands on his hips and that half-lift cigarette coolly perched in his mouth…

The rat bastard that was Officer Powell...

*

In a moment I was thrust back out of there. The door to interrogation room no. 3 slammed shut behind me as I fell down helplessly upon my knees. I was back out in the corridor. Away from the screeching tones of Ruby Redwood, and away from the treacherous Officer Powell, too, with only Officer Dirkdale’s big red face bearing down on me for comfort.

“What are you doing, Lucky?” he coughed, reaching for his cigar, “…get back in there and find out what the girl knows!”

“I can’t…” I cried softly, still feeling the pain of five freshly cut scratches embedded deep in the side of my face. Blood had begun to trickle down my cheeks like red tears of anguish, but there was not a single handkerchief in sight, and Dirkdale was hardly one for sympathy. 

“You can’t!?” he bellowed out loud with a false sense of surprise, “…you’re telling me that a big-boy detective like yourself can’t handle a little ol’ thing like Ruby Redwood? Ha! They sure don’t make ‘em like they used to, do they Lucky?”

I said nothing, heart pounding so fast it felt as if it wanted to break through my rib-cage and start tap-dancing on the floor in front of me. There was nothing I could say. Nothing I could think of, that would make me feel any better about what had just happened…

“Calm down, will you…” Dirkdale finally spoke after what felt like a lifetime.

The police-chief had returned with a paper cup filled with water. I thought it might have been intended for me, perhaps. But by the time Dirkdale had arrived he had already held the cup to his own lips and ruthlessly downed the whole thing in one fell swoop.

“Take the night off for god’s sake, Lucky…” he ushered with authority, “…you’re done here anyway. Mrs Coburn’s lawyer arrived already and whisked her away whilst you were in there with Ruby, smoothing things out. Apparently, Carolyn had some urgent business meetings to attend to here in town. So we'll just leave that one there…”

I nodded, with one hand still held up to the side of my face.

“Next time…” spoke Dirkdale with an air of self-proclaimed wisdom, “…don’t come waltzing into town thinking you’re the bee’s knees, ok? We’re the ones who run things down here, boy...and after what happened today, after me and the boys dropped you in the deep end just like you wanted, I’m sure you’ll do right by us and learn some goddamn respect!”

I nodded again, feeling deflated and crushed. 

“Good…” Dirkdale smirked, as he eventually sidled triumphantly back to his office and left me to contemplate the nature of my dismissal, "...we know who you are, Lucky. There ain't no secrets here in Clearview. Do you understand?"

What came next was a moment of suspended silence, a moment of heartbreaking realisation that left me speechless and unable to move. I just sat there, perched on a small chair out in the corridor as I silently wept to myself, feeling pathetic and alone. The muffled noises from interrogation room no. 3 continued to reverberate throughout the rest of the precinct, but I soon fazed them out. A whole day could have passed and I still would not have noticed.

It was over, dear reader. Dead and done for. Now, my past had sufficiently caught up with me in the most dramatic of circumstances. The same past that I sought desperately to hide from you, to gallantly brush aside with my brand new life as a private investigator.

It had failed. Everything had failed. My hidden skeletons had been paraded on show for all to see as I felt the cuts on my cheeks begin to bite with the sting of salty tears.    

My new life in Clearview, as pitiful as it had been…

...had already bitten the dust.