May 18

State Penitentiary, A Wing

11.30 AM

"Detective Skye," Jake remarked, removing his hat and placing it over his chest.

Ema turned around, a warm smile lighting up her face.

"Officer Marshall," she replied. She folded her arms and smirked. "Still rocking the cowboy look, huh?"

"Still wearing that lab coat," Jake shot back with a grin. "It's good to see you, bambina." He turned to Apollo and Trucy. "Well, I'll be outside when you folks are ready to leave." He nodded to Ema. "Come by the guards' room later, we can catch up."

(Is there *anyone* on this case who doesn't know someone else who's involved?) Apollo wondered as Jake stepped out.

"You finally made it," Ema remarked teasingly, interrupting Apollo's train of thought. "I was about to quit waiting and go home."

(Oh gee, thanks for sticking around and doing your job.) Apollo looked around the cell. To his left was a set of bunkbeds. Opposite those, fixed to the right hand side wall, was a shelf with some personal items on it. A toilet was positioned in the centre of the back wall, with a sink in the back right hand corner.

"So, uh, what can you tell us?" Apollo asked.

"Well, first of all, this crime scene wasn't exactly pristine when we got here," Ema answered. "We couldn't examine it until the firefighters got the blaze under control, and they had to take Gavin to the hospital wing practically right away. We've got one photograph of the scene before they moved him – that's it." Ema stepped aside and directed their attention to the white outline on the floor, in the centre of the cell. The head of the figure was propped against the toilet, the legs extending under the bunk beds. "This is where Armando and Gavin were found."

"What, both of them?" Trucy asked in confusion.

"That's right," Ema replied. "The bad news, from your point of view, is that Gavin was found face down on top of Armando."

Apollo grimaced. "How about the murder weapon?"

Ema pulled out her bag of Snackoos and crunched away before answering.

"The toilet bowl," she said at last, pointing to the lavatory in the back wall of the cell. "From the position Gavin and Armando were in when they were found, it looks like there was some sort of struggle, during which Gavin got the upper hand and smacked Armando's head against the edge of the toilet bowl hard enough to fracture his skull. Then Gavin passed out from smoke inhalation."

Apollo ran a sweaty hand over his hair. The prosecution now had motive and a plausible scenario, with fairly strong circumstantial evidence to back it up. There had to be something in here that could help him turn things around.

"So, uh…did you spray with luminol yet?" he asked.

Ema smirked and handed him the spray and goggles. "Knock yourself out."

As Apollo expected, the bulk of the blood traces were on and around the toilet bowl. Then he spotted some distinctive patterns of blood on the floor.

"Hey – these are footprints!"

"Don't get over-excited," Ema replied. "These were left by the firefighters when they moved Gavin out of here."

Apollo slumped. "Oh."

"Come on, Apollo, don't give up!" Trucy urged. "There's got to be something in here that can help!"

Determined, Apollo put the goggles back on and returned to his task. The rest of the cell was clean…except part of the metal frame of the top bunk.

"Detective Skye," Apollo said, "where did these flecks of blood come from?"

Ema donned her own pair of goggles and gazed at the flecks with a thoughtful expression.

"Truthfully, I don't know," she replied. "Neither Armando or Gavin had any other wounds where the skin was broken. It's possible the firefighters splashed some of Armando's blood up there when they were moving Gavin…but they're up a little high for that to have happened…"

"Look, Polly!" Trucy exclaimed. "Right where the blood traces on the bunk bed are – the metal's clean. The rest of it is sooty."

Apollo frowned. "You're right." He gazed at the clean space on the bunk, then reached out. "It's almost like…" He hovered his hand over the clean area. It was a perfect fit. "…like a handprint."

"Good eye," Ema replied. "Unfortunately I couldn't find any prints…" She offered Apollo the fingerprinting kit. "…but you're welcome to try again, if you like."

Apollo dusted the clean part of the bunk bed frame carefully, but it was just as Ema said – no prints. He shook his head.

"Somebody touched this," he said with conviction. "They might have worn gloves but they definitely touched this." He turned to Trucy. "Hand me the camera, would you?"

"Alakazam!" Trucy plucked the specialist camera they'd acquired a while back for investigations from her hat and handed it to Apollo. The young attorney took a snap of the bunk bed frame, and then again using a special filter to show the luminol traces. He turned to hand the camera back to Trucy and saw that she was gazing at the shelf opposite the beds. Apollo joined her. The shelf bore a few books and some personal items.

"Think there are any clues here?" Trucy asked. Before Apollo could answer, she reached up and began to look at each thing one by one. "Look, a golden retriever!"

She held the picture out to Apollo. He recognised it from the video evidence in the Misham case.

"That's Gavin's dog," he told her, placing it back on the shelf. There were three books next to it – a far cry from the small library Kristoph had had before. Two of them were legal tomes. Apollo winced at the third one.

" 'Faust'," Trucy murmured, reading the title off the spine. "Isn't that about a man who makes a deal with the devil?"

"Yeah, something like that," Apollo replied. He had a sudden mental image of the devil face in Kristoph's hand, and shivered. He turned his attention back to the shelf. There was a clear gap between Kristoph's belongings and those of his cellmate. On Armando's half of the shelf was a well-thumbed copy of 'The Mask of Zorro', and another book with no title on the spine. Apollo pulled it off the shelf.

" 'Grade One Braille'," he read. He turned to the first page out of curiosity, running his fingers over the bumps. "Someone's written something on this page… 'Hear Jane. Hear Jane run. Run, Jane, run –' " Apollo shut the book in disgust. "That's terrible." He put the book back on the shelf, next to a blue and white ashtray with the words 'Argentina '22' and a picture of a soccer ball printed on it. The final thing on the shelf was another photograph. Trucy carefully took it down, gazing at it reverentially.

"This is…Daddy's mentor," she murmured.

Apollo nodded. "She was Armando's lover," he replied. Gently he took the picture from Trucy's hands and put it back on the shelf. "Nothing useful there." He looked around the cell, searching for any other clues. Nothing. Apollo stepped out of the cell and gazed at the staircase opposite, cordoned off by police tape. Something caught his eye and he looked up.

"Hey…Skye –"

Ema walked up beside him.

"Aah, I know what you're thinking," she remarked, looking up at the security camera pointed directly into the cell. "No such luck. The electrical wiring for that camera comes up from the laundry room…and guess what shorted out during the fire?"

Apollo's antennae drooped. "Figures."

"It went out at around midnight," Ema continued, "right at the start of a fresh tape. All we have is a blank cassette."

Apollo shot her a sheepish half-smile. "Somehow, I'm not surprised."

Trucy had followed them out of the cell, and now she was gazing at the wall next to them at the end of the corridor. There was a keypad and a large red button set into the wall. "Hey, Detective Skye, what's this?"

"I can answer that, little lady," Jake said. "That there's the release for all the cell doors along this wing. There's a remote switch, too, in the surveillance room…" He frowned. "…but for some reason it was out of action that night. When we discovered the fire, the only way to release the prisoners here was for the warden to put on breathing apparatus and use that switch." He shot the switch with his finger. "That's when he discovered the murder."

"Neat," Trucy remarked, taking a picture of the keypad.

Apollo gazed up at the camera thoughtfully.

"Are these cameras on all the time?" he asked.

Jake shook his head. "Only when the prisoners are in their cells," he replied. "We don't have them all over the prison, y'understand – most of the time we supervise the prisoners in person. Ain't no point having a perfect record of someone gettin' shanked or beaten up – you gotta douse that brushfire before it starts." He paused and discreetly had a swig of something from a small silver flask. "But after lockdown the prisoners are secure, and having cameras is a might quieter than me stomping up and down here every half hour."

"I see…" Apollo replied.

"Hey, we still make rounds at night," Jake clarified sternly, "just not as often as we would if we didn't have the cameras."

"Oh, sure, sure!" Apollo said quickly, not at all liking the menacing expression on Jake's face. "I, uh, I didn't mean to offend you – or imply…anything…"

"No offence taken," Jake replied with a tip of his hat.

Apollo wiped the sweat off his brow and turned back to Ema. "So…is there anything else we should know?"

"Well, we do have two witnesses," Ema replied. She pointed to the cell diagonally opposite the crime scene, beside the stairwell. "The occupants of that cell – Daryan Crescend, and Rowdy Kitaki."

(Great, now I have to interview Cresce- wait, who?) "*Rowdy* Kitaki?" Apollo asked.

"Big Wins Kitaki's nephew," Ema answered. "He's doing hard time for second degree murder – robbed a convenience store and shot the clerk. Since Big Wins went straight, he's got none of the usual mob protection or perks."

"Right," Apollo replied. "Where will we find him?"

"In the hospital wing, with Dar-" Ema stopped herself and amended, "with Crescend." She shook her head. "The prosecution will probably call one or both of them, but frankly I wouldn't rely on their testimony."

"Because they're killers?" Trucy asked.

Ema rolled her eyes a little and pulled out her bag of Snackoos. Apollo cringed instinctively as she took one of the snacks and tossed it in her mouth.

"*MUNCH*MUNCH*MUNCH*MUNCH* Because I don't think they saw anything useful," she explained. "Come with me, I'll show you what I mean." She directed them towards Crescend and Kitaki's cell. Apollo walked ahead of her and yelped as two Snackoos hit him in the back of the neck. "Two for flinching."

Apollo shot the detective a glare, rubbing his neck. He and Trucy entered the cell, Ema following.

"Now," Ema remarked, "face the bars…" Apollo and Trucy obeyed. Ema extended an arm, pointing to Gavin and Armando's cell. "…and look that way."

Apollo got as close to the entrance as possible, right up to the corner of the cell. Even here, all he could see of the crime scene was the shelf, and part of the toilet bowl. He signalled Trucy to pass him the camera, and took a snapshot.

"You can't see the bunk beds from here," he said. "And given where the body was found…that was where the struggle happened."

"Bullseye," Ema replied. "Plus, it was dark." She called out to Jake. "Officer Marshall, could you turn off the lights, please?"

"Sure, bambina," Jake replied. He moved to the light switches and shut off the large fluorescent lights, leaving faint, glowing strips running either side of the linoleum floor as the only light source.

"Now add in smoke," Ema continued, "and the fire alarm, and I don't know how anyone could hear or see anything that went on." Jake put the lights back on and the trio stepped out of the cell. "But the prosecution seems determined to call one or both witnesses tomorrow."

Apollo nodded. "Then we'd better interview them."

They returned to the crime scene for one last look around. Apollo thought back over his interview with Kristoph as he gazed around the tiny cell. What was it like to share such a confined space with a man who both terrified and irritated you? Was that how it happened…did Kristoph snap and kill Armando out of rage? Or panic? Or had someone, somehow, entered the cell and killed Armando while Kristoph was unconscious?

Apollo took a deep breath and let it out.

"I think we're done here for now," he remarked to Jake. "Can you take us down to the hospital wing, please? We've got some witnesses to interview."