Author's Note: Just a little something to scratch my itch. Occurring immediately post the Season 1 Finale. Spoiler alert for those who haven't seen the entire first season. Please R&R! 3
He doesn't look like a killer.
As my cautious steps echo along the remaining length of the darkened hallway, I pause beside the cage set aside for this particular monster. I don't see the bars; my eyes are immediately drawn to the sight of him, sitting hunched on the edge of his metal framed bed. His head is bowed, his hair shielding his face from my view. I don't see the bars because I feel, suddenly, like I am part of this world. I'm over my head in deep, cloudy water and he's the nightmare that circles around me. Expertly sniffing out my hesitation on the tide.
Outwardly, he gives no sign that he knows I've arrived to speak with him. I blink quickly as an orderly places a metal chair beside me for me to sit on, afraid that if I take my eyes off of the broken-looking man on the bed that he will transform into his true self. Instead his only reaction is a subtle flexing of his angular jaw, an involuntary acknowledgement that I have entered his presence. I stand frozen for a moment, the chill of the building only just now managing to make my skin prickle.
It's hard to believe that he killed five people. Hard, but not impossible. Not for me.
"Mr Graham, my name is Lafonda Jones. I'm your lawyer. Do you mind if I sit down?"
I can see that his chest is moving. Shallow, controlled breaths, as he exists within the confines of his own heinousness. For the first time since seeing him I allow my eyes to refocus, the bars reassuring me that it's okay. That I'm safe. That he isn't a threat to me - to anyone - anymore. For weeks I have been viewing the evidence printed boldly in black and white in every newspaper that was shoved through my mail slot. The news was full of him every night, fresh suppositions about the how and the when and the why. After my appointment to the case it had taken me half a bottle of merlot and two days to promise myself that I could do this.
The startling realisation that I had judged him - my client - before I had even met him is another level of alarm for me. When he doesn't respond I lower myself slowly into the chair, extracting my iPad from my tote. I log into the Department's secure-app, grateful for the time the whirring, circular cursor buys me. It is seconds where I don't have to think about how I am going to approach this. His file is there, logged in my workflow. I've read it already, was reading it in the parking lot before I steered myself up the wide, concrete steps of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
I know I will do a better job of representing him if I believe in his innocence instead of just trying to peddle it to the jury. Gathering my resolve until it's almost as tangible as static-electricity, I force it into steeling my index finger like one of the many bones that make up the frame of the criminal justice system and jab the icon that will lay him - and the dark deeds attributed to him - bare to me. My eyes skitter over the thumbnail images depicting the folders that hold the crime scene photos; I ignore them in favour of opening a new file note. May as well start at the beginning.
"Do you think we could start by covering your version of events, beginning with where you were around the time Cassie Boyle was murdered? I've read your statement, but I think it's important that I hear your take on things."
There is a tittering sound down the hall, a high-pitched giggle that unnerves me. The man in the cell before me is so still, so surreal, that I had almost forgotten that other nightmares lurked in the shadows of this wing of the Hospital. My voice echoes, almost as though there is no one else there to hear me. In fact, if Will Graham can hear me then he's doing a pretty good job of hiding it. I wait a few moments, and though I feel as though this will be the perfect out - the client who refuses to speak to me, letting me off the hook on a case I don't want to work - my damned stubborn streak kicks in.
Whether he murdered those people or not, I didn't deserve to be treated like shit. Not by him, not by anyone.
"Mr Graham, I can assure you that this silent treatment won't earn you my respect, but it might earn you twenty-five to life."
Silence. It plucks away on my last nerve. I almost don't manage to contain my frustration - at having had to work myself up to this, only to have him be disgustingly uncooperative. I remember his background, my intuition telling me that he has probably already noticed that I'm floundering. That used to be his schtick, after all, learning to think how others thought. Getting into other people's minds. He can probably read me like a book. Just when I've decided that I don't have the nerve for this and move an inch to leave, his voice breaks through the wall of solitude he has built around himself.
"Telling you my take isn't likely to spare me the sentence, Miss Jones."
I let my weight sink back onto the chair, unsure about whether or not I'm grateful that he's decided to speak.
"That's a poor attitude for a man who has been consistently crying innocent." I am unwilling to keep the edge from my voice. "We have a trial to prep for."
His hands, previously clasped between his knees, are balled suddenly into fists. I watch as the blood is squeezed away from his knuckle-joints, veins becoming immediately more pronounced. It isn't until I find myself wondering if that is what his hands had looked like when he had been holding a butcher's knife that I look away.
"Maybe I should confess," he said wearily. "Call the whole thing off, and go straight to sentencing."
I feel sick. Is he really saying this to me? Is he going to burden me with the weight of this knowledge? I swallow and lean forward, iPad and case file all but forgotten as I look at him intensely. "Did you kill those people, Mr Graham?"
He scoffs, throwing his hands up as he turns to face me for the first time. I've seen him numerous times on the 6 o'clock news, but I'm struck by how much younger he seems in person. Naiive. "You've seen the evidence. You know as much as any jury will. What do you think?"
"I think that the only thing between you and a conviction is your attitude," I told him honestly. "Sarcasm and hopelessness won't get us anywhere with this case." I'm still leaning forward, perched on the very edge of the cold metal visitor's chair. It probably makes me stand out even more - painting me as even more of a tourist - but I don't care. I didn't want to come here, and the irony of the situation was not lost on me. The longer I stayed, the more I wanted to dig. I wanted to up-end the trash can containing the facts, and sift through it until I found that one shred of evidence that would prove him innocent.
I wanted to do my job.
Somehow, he must have sensed that. He had been notorious for his ability to get inside other people's heads, to work out the finer points and counterpoints of their cognitive processes. For knowing what made people tick. He turned his head to look at me, a sharp shrewdness in his blue eyes that suddenly unsettled me. So often when people looked in my direction, they looked through me - but not him. I met his scrutinising gaze, unwilling to back down, but eventually I busied myself with my iPad. When he spoke, his voice had a calm, even timbre.
"I'm innocent."
I look up again, my finger poised over the glaringly bright screen of my device. My eyes skip over his face - handsome, with a square jaw that balances the seriousness in his eyes - as though I'm searching for the truth somewhere right out in the open. Eventually, I nod.
"Then we have a lot of work to do, Mr. Graham."