Conviction
Chapter 7: 15 Years to Get Comfortable
A/N: So, thankfully things have turned around here and I'm back on schedule. Thank you for all the kind words and words of encouragement, they meant a lot to me!
Enjoy!
xXx
"I didn't kill anyone." Peter Jones, thirty-three and prematurely graying, insisted for what was most likely the thousandth time in the last fifteen years.
"You have to understand Mr. Jones," Blaise began. "The evidence that convicted you is hard to dispute."
Peter shook his head. "I can explain most of it." he defended desperately. The last fifteen years seemed to be playing havoc with his sanity.
"Really?" Draco asked. Peter nodded. "Alright, then how did your fingerprints get inside the ransacked drawers?"
At his question, Peter immediately looked away, shame playing across his features. When he hesitated to answer Blaise spoke up.
"Look, if you want our help, you have to be honest with us. Otherwise we're only going to come to the same conclusions the original investigators came to."
Peter took a deep breath looking between the two men sitting across from him. "I met Nigel through a school program I signed up for to help pad my university applications. He was ornery and rude and quite frankly horrible to be around. He was also very frail; hard of hearing plus he had terrible cataracts. So, I used to go through his drawers, take things I knew he wouldn't miss. I figured it was my payment for having to deal with him." he sighed. "I was doing something nice, but that doesn't make me a saint." he huffed. "I was a stupid kid and I regret it all but I did not kill that man."
"Alright, let's work under the assumption that we can prove that right now." Blaise said. "Do you have any idea who could have done it? Did you say anything to anyone about Mr. Henshaw's circumstances or anything that could have been in the house?"
Peter shook his head. "I talked to my friends about him all the time. Usually in public and very loudly. Anyone could have heard me. I've never been a very subtle person." he must have seen the skepticism on their faces because all of a sudden his demeanor changed. "You have to believe me." he pleaded desperately. I'll be the first to admit that I am an asshole, but I didn't kill anyone. I just… I can't take this place anymore." he laughed mirthlessly. "I miss seeing seasons change, and the food from my favorite restaurant. I...miss my freedom." he dropped his head in his hands, running his fingers through his hair and pulling on the strands in frustration.
xXx
"Well that was touching." Draco commented as they pulled away from the prison. Blaise snorted.
"I guess."
"You don't believe him?" Draco asked. Blaise shrugged.
"I don't know. Maybe it's just one rich kid sensing the bullshit of another, but I don't buy it."
Draco shrugged. "It did sound a little rehearsed. But who knows maybe it's just the way he sounds. We'll find out eventually I suppose." Blaise nodded in silent agreement. "Anyway what about Umbridge? We need a plan to get her to open up."
"Yeah, I've been thinking about that. We should definitely play to her sense of self-importance. Like was talked about earlier." he said "Maybe convince her that we're on her side."
"How do you propose we do that?" Draco asked.
"Consider who she hates the most." Blaise said.
"Hermione." Draco replied. "...And Potter."
"Exactly. So, we invite her down to the office; convince her we think Potter has it out for her for firing Hermione. Make her think we're trying to protect her. If it turns out she was right we have her for help on future cases, if it turns out she was wrong maybe we'll finally be able to get rid of her for good."
Draco chuckled. "You really don't like her."
"Can you blame me? The only reason she'd ever deign to give me the time of day is because of my family's' prestige. If it weren't for that I'd just be another "thug" to her."
Draco didn't respond, there wasn't much he could say to that. Draco had no experience with what Blaise had gone through his entire life, having to constantly defend himself with his own name to people who couldn't see passed his surface, to people who didn't know him. He'd seen it first hand on a few outings when they were growing up but all he had for perspective was a spectator's view and nothing more. He would always be incapable of fully understanding his friend's experiences.
Draco pulled up to the curb outside the office not long after. "I'm going to go find Hermione and let her know what we're planning. I want to make sure we have all our bases covered in case something goes wrong."
Blaise chuckled. "I'm sure you'd like to cover several bases with her." he replied. Draco rolled his eyes.
"I don't know what you're talking about." he replied loftily. Blaise shook his head, opening the passenger door and stepping out onto the sidewalk. He peeked his head back through the open door.
"I'm sure you don't, mate. Must have left it all in the broom closet."
xXx
"It was like he was in a different world." Harry said amused.
"His focus is very impressive." Luna added, nodding in agreement with Harry.
"Well hopefully he'll have something. Draco and I went up to Azkaban yesterday afternoon to talk to Peter Jones. He was less than helpful."
"He didn't have anything new to say then?" Luna asked.
"He spent most of the interview begging us to believe he was innocent and then laid it on pretty thick was a speech about missing his freedom."
"I take it you didn't believe him?" Harry asked. Blaise shook his head.
"Maybe I'm just jaded but he sounded like a used car salesman."
"He wanted you to buy his crap." Harry finished.
"Exactly. Draco seems to think we should reserve judgement, but there's just something about this guy. I can't put my finger on it yet."
"Yeah, well, it's starting to look like I may have been wrong about this case." Harry continued. "I walked that neighborhood half a dozen times and found nothing. At least nothing that jumped out at me."
"Well don't give up on it yet." Draco said as he led Neville into conference room. Neville looked haggard as he shuffled in, collapsing into a chair before leaning over the table and passing out copies of his report. On top of that he looked peeved as he flipped open his own file and began to give out his report.
"So, while the cursory DNA tests were running I took a hard look at the evidence reports and found an addendum. A few pieces of evidence were excluded from the trial because Umbridge convinced the judge they were unimportant."
"What evidence?" Harry asked.
"DNA evidence, blood, that's never been identified. It was found mixed in with the Nigel Henshaw's blood on the floor, which pretty much guarantees it was related to his death. Now fifteen years ago, they had the technology to properly separate it to distinguish fully between the two profiles, but it hadn't been perfected yet and most labs didn't have access. The ones that did, didn't use it much and the ones that didn't had to send it out to a specialty lab which cost more money than it was worth at the time. Luckily, though, they're required to store DNA samples for as long as a person is incarcerated and since Jones is in for life, they still had it in the storage locker."
"We're able to separate it?" Blaise asked. Neville nodded.
"Yes, it took all night, but I did get it separated. I did a basic examination of the two DNA samples, the one from the first case and the other from underneath the flood board that we pulled up yesterday afternoon, and I can tell you that they are both the same blood type. It's going to take a little longer for detailed analysis though."
"How much longer?" Draco asked.
"I've got them running as we speak and I'm hoping, barring an unforeseen circumstances, they'll be ready by tonight or tomorrow morning."
"Good, anything else?" Draco asked.
"Yes, the prosecution also excluded a set of unidentified fingerprints and not to jump to conclusions, what with it being an old file and all, it kind of looks like, judging by the state of the physical report, someone was trying to hide it without actually doing anything illegal with it." Neville explained.
"That's definitely something to ask Umbridge about." Blaise said turning to Draco, who nodded in agreement.
"Didn't you go talk to her yesterday?" Luna asked.
"We did," Draco began. "But she was a little off during our interview. We couldn't tell if she was losing her mind or hiding something." he continued. "But it was pretty obvious she didn't know what we were talking about."
"Or at the very least she was pretending to, to try and hide something from us." Blaise added.
"So, you're going to talk to her again?" Harry asked. Draco nodded.
"In fact we came up with a plan that could get her to open up to us a little more." Blaise explained. He and Draco shared a look before turning to Harry.
"I'm not going to like this am I?" Harry asked cautiously.
"Depends," Draco said.
"On what?"
"On whether or not you like the idea of Dolores Umbridge hating you even more than she already does."
"Oh… that's not so bad I guess. What's the worst she could do, sick her cats on me." Harry shrugged. "I assume I shouldn't be here for this interview?"
Draco nodded. "It's probably best you're not. We're really going to let you have it. We figured we should be as uncouth as she tends to be when speaking to people she thinks are her equals."
"Well in that case," Luna interjected. "I think we should go talk to Peter Jones' high school girlfriend."
"You think she knows something?" Neville asked. Luna shrugged.
"Who would know someone better than their own girlfriend?"
"Alright, then Harry, go with Luna to speak with…" Draco looked down at the file. "Rachel Taylor? In the meantime, I'll get a hold of Dolores and see if she'll come in tomorrow morning, in which case, Harry, don't come in until I give you the all clear." Harry nodded his agreement. "Neville, get back to your lab and let us know first thing the moment you find something."
"Right away." Neville replied standing from his seat and walking out as the rest of the team disbanded.
xXx
The sprawling mansion sat on the outskirts of Hampstead. It was a lovely brick construction with paned windows outlined in wrought iron frames. The property was still green since London and its surrounding areas had not seen snow quite yet and the entire estate gave the impression of an old castle and grounds.
"Rachel Williams nee Taylor." Luna said as they pulled through the front gate and made the slow trek up the winding driveway. "She was raised in Clapton about ten years before it's gentrification. She was in school on academic scholarship, which could not have been easy living two streets over from "Murder Mile"."
"She's obviously married now." Harry said.
"That she is, she went to college on another scholarship for business and went to work for the Williams and Downey Conglomerate after graduation where she met her husband, Stephen Williams, who is the youngest son of one of the CEOs. They have two children."
"Well she's certainly moved up in the world." Harry commented. Luna hummed, not entirely paying attention. "Something wrong?" he asked.
"I don't know. I feel like I just figured something out but I can't put my finger on it." she explained. After a moment she sighed. "I'm sure it'll come to Me." she continued closing the file and putting it away. "Shall we?"
Harry didn't respond as they got out of the car and made their way up to the front of the house, ringing the bell and stepping back from the door. They could hear children laughing and screaming on the other side of the heavy wood door. A few minutes later the door opened revealing a small, curvy brunette with big blue eyes, dressed down in jeans that probably cost more than either of their monthly rent.
"Can I help you?" she asked, flinching as a child's scream rang out behind her.
"Rachel Williams?" Luna asked. She nodded and Harry reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out his credentials. He showed them to her.
"I'm Inspector Potter and this is my associate Dr. Lovegood. We're with the Conviction Integrity Unit. We've recently been tasked with reexamining the murder of Nigel Henshaw and we were wondering if we could ask you a few questions about Peter Jones." Harry explained.
"Oh, um.. Sure. Please, come in." she replied stepping out of the way for them to enter. She closed the door behind them just as a pack of kids came barreling into to the foyer, toy lightsabers smacking against each other, accompanying the sounds of plastic phasors.
"Kara, Stephanie." Rachel called out making her way toward two of the girls in the group. Said girls looked up at her still smiling and laughing with excitement. "Mummy has to talk to these nice people so why don't you take your friends upstairs and play in your room for a little while?"
"Okay!" they exclaimed in unison taking off up the spiral staircase, leading the pack of children off behind them. When they were gone, Rachel turned to them with a smile.
"Sorry about that. They're all off from school for the Holidays and I agreed to take them since I've taken some time off work." she explained as she gestured for them to follow her into a living room that looked like a battle ground. It most likely had been given what the kids had been playing with.
"That's alright, we understand." Harry replied as Rachel stooped to pick up toys and pillows strewn about the floor.
"Do you have children yourself?" she asked them.
"No, I don't." Luna replied simply.
"Not yet unfortunately." Harry added with a smile. "But soon hopefully."
Rachel smiled as she took a seat and Harry sat across from her. Luna remained standing, looking over the pictures along the mantle.
"Well, you're in for a real treat Inspector. My girls are the best thing that's ever happened to me." she explained. "Anyway," she sighed. "You didn't come here to talk about my children. What is it you want to know?"
"Anything you can think of." Luna replied and Rachel hesitated gathering her thoughts.
"Well, um, we had been dating for about six months at that point. To be honest, looking back I'm kind of embarrassed I dated him at all."
"Why's that?" Harry asked.
"He was a jerk. Simple as that. He was a rich kid, in a rich kids school with everything he could ever want and more. He treated everyone like they were beneath him and fooled around like there were no consequences." Rachel shrugged. "I guess I was just trying to fit in. You know?"
"I'm sure it was difficult going to that school with those people." Luna replied and Harry looked up at her a bit taken back by her tone. He'd been working with the woman for nearly a month now, but the fact of the matter remained he didn't know her all that well, aside from her abilities in the field and on cases. Clearly he was missing something entirely.
Rachel nodded. "You get used to it though."
Luna hummed. "What about this program? The one that introduced him to Mr. Henshaw. From what you've told me, Peter doesn't exactly come off as the kind of guy to volunteer for something like that."
Rachel huffed. "He's not, or well he wasn't. His dad made him do it. Peter's family was wealthy but not the same way the other kids were. His father built his company up from nothing. He fought hard to get where is he is today and it killed him to see his son growing up like the kids he hated growing up. Acting like he owned the world like his father's fortune was automatically his. He believed it working what you have, earning it. So after yet another stunt his father had to bail him out of, he made Peter sign up for the program in the hopes of showing him that he wasn't entitled to anything he didn't work for." Rachel took a deep breath. "Obviously it didn't work out the way he had hoped it would."
"Do you think he did it?" Harry asked.
Rachel laughed humorlessly. "Honestly, I don't know." she replied. "I mean he was a jerk, but, he was also kind of a coward. You know, unless he had an audience to show off to. I can't see him doing something like that without someone there to brag to about it. And well, murder is the kind of thing you don't brag about."
Harry was about to ask another question when a crash sounded upstairs, startling them all. "Son of a bitch." Rachel exclaimed. She blushed looking between them. "Sorry. You can the girl out of Clapton but you can't take Clapton out of the girl." she replied ruefully.
"It's alright, I think we've got everything we need." Luna said, ushering a confused Harry to his feet. "We'll see ourselves out and Happy Christmas, Mrs. Williams." she continued.
Rachel smiled. "Same to you, I hope everything works out."
With that Luna led the way to the front door and back out to the car. When they were situated inside Harry turned questioning eyes on Luna.
"What was all that about? We barely asked her anything." He said.
"I think I may have figured out what I couldn't put my finger on earlier." she told him. "I need to look into it, will you drop me at the CPS office?"
Still confused Harry nodded. "Yeah sure, do you need help?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Alright then, I'll go see Neville while you're there." he told her starting the car and driving back the way they'd come.
"Good. While you're there, see if Neville can tell the gender of the blood samples he's testing."
"Gender?"
Luna nodded. "I have a hunch."
xXx
Draco followed Hermione around the room with his eyes as she packed up her briefcase.
"So she's agreed to come in then?" Hermione asked.
"Yes, she'll be in first thing in the morning." Draco explained. Hermione was still moving about the room and he watched as she disappeared into the private bathroom off her office. "Did you talk to Harry about it?" she called through the door.
"He's going to stay away from the office until I give him the all clear." he replied as the door opened and Hermione stepped out dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.
"I'm sorry, is this a bad time?" he asked, though his tone made it clear he wasn't sorry at all.
"No, I'm just leaving on time today. Ginny's meeting me here. We're going to finish our Christmas shopping this evening." she told him. "Do you have any suspicions what she might be hiding?" she continued on.
"The idea that maybe she's done to Jones what Fudge did to Sirius crossed my mind." he told her. "I don't know why she would. His father is a powerful man who's well-liked by pretty much everyone. If someone paid her to put Jones away there's really no telling who could have wanted that." Hermione hummed her agreement. "Luna and Potter went to talk to his ex-girlfriend today as well." he continued.
"How did that go?" she asked, finally reclaiming her seat.
"Well, Potter said he didn't really get anything from her and Luna ushered him out the door fairly quickly afterward. She had him drop her off here."
"What for?"
Draco shrugged. "All Potter said was she was checking out a hunch. He told he was going to see Neville while she was here and she asked him to see if Longbottom could give them a gender from the blood evidence he found."
"A gender?" Hermione asked. Draco nodded.
"The only thing I can think of is that maybe she suspected the ex-girlfriend, but she didn't say as much to Potter and she never called him to pick her up here when she was finished. In fact, I've gotten a few short text messages from her and not much else."
"Hmm, well, I'm sure she knows what she's doing." she replied. "I've worked with Luna numerous times and I've learned to give her a bit of leeway while she's working a case for me. She's never let me down before, in fact she's the one that helped me put this team together." she continued.
"Well then, I'll take your word for it." Draco added. "That's really all of it, I better get going." he continued standing from his seat. Before he could leave however, a knock sounded at the door and they both turned to see Ginny Weasley poking her head through the open door way.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Am I interrupting?" she said.
"Not at all, Draco was just on his way out." Hermione replied ignoring the knowing smirk on her best friends face.
"Oh yes, Draco Malfoy. Good to see you again." Ginny greeted him with a handshake. Draco accepted, nodding at her.
"Likewise. If you'll excuse me I have to be getting back to the office." he excused himself walking out. Hermione rolled her eyes as Ginny watched him walk away her head tilted as she thoroughly enjoyed the view.
"Ginny!" Hermione hissed and the redhead turned to face her with an unapologetic smirk.
