By the time Bobby sat across from him in Interrogation Room C, Garrett Sikes looked like he'd been around the block a few times. Like he'd had some mysterious trips and falls while in holding. He looked as though a well placed foot might have brought his shackled body down hard in a hallway. Or maybe he'd been pushed a little too forcefully into a cinder block wall while being cuffed and uncuffed. Or maybe the bracelets had been applied a little too tightly. Bobby knew about the thin blue line. The brutal blue line.
Sikes was also obviously in deep withdrawal, a double whammy ill and despised, no, a pathetic troika because he'd waived his right to counsel so he didn't even have an advocate. There was a tremor in his hands, his brow was beaded with sweat and to Bobby he looked like a man who didn't have much time for this earth. There was a hollowness in his voice and eyes. It was immediately easy to see why he had attacked Eames. Bobby could imagine the man's mind corroded by methamphetamines, the gateway drug to paranoid aggressive behaviour and mental illness. Goren sighed deeply not sure how to approach such a pathetic case. So he sat clasped his hands on the table and gave it straight.
"You're looking at attempted murder Garrett."
"I didn't do any..."
"Of a cop." he cut off the denial, short and sharp.
Sikes launched into a vague shaky tale. "I was waiting for someone. Then there was all this noise, didn't sound good so I hid." he crossed his arms quickly, mania in the movement.
Bobby pushed back his chair purposefully. And watched the man jump. Increased anxiety, increased startle response he logged the results. He decided then and there that his whole interrogation was going to have to be a sensory assault. He was going to have to play on the man's mental and physical weaknesses. "The police announced themselves."
"I didn't hear anything."
"You got selective hearing Garrett?"
"Huh?" the man said and Bobby had to hold back a smirk.
"You hear what you want to hear! Let's test that." Goren jumped up dramatically. "Do you hear this Garrett?" he knocked on the outside of the interrogation room door." Sikes just glared. "Do you?" Goren yelled again.
"Yeah, yeah."
"How about this." he knocked lightly on the table.
"Yeah."
"How about this!" planted his hands, leaned in and whispered "Tell me the truth or you'll rot in jail." And he was positively sinister.
Silence.
Goren slammed both fists on the table receiving another desired reaction.
"Okay, okay yeah, I heard them. But I wasn't going down for a wrong place, wrong time thing."
Satisfied Goren sat again. "Do you remember attempting to murder an officer of the law?" Bobby had seen some of the assault, but he was going to get a confession. This sack of flesh wasn't going to escape on a technicality.
"That bi... cop attacked me it was self defence." The perp's face was a mottled red.
"How did she manage to get the upper hand?"
"Upper hand." he scoffed "She didn't know what the fuck hit her. " His lips edged up a bit "I had her on the floor." Then he frowned and quickly added "But like I said, self defence and she never said she was a cop."
"You had her on the floor? Because you ignored the police sweep. Because you hid in a closet. Because you surprised Detective Eames. Because you j- jumped her and violently assaulted her. Isn't that right?" Bobby was barely containing his own rage and disgust. This was a dangerous position to be in he knew that he could quickly become a victim of his own involvement. He looked down at his own clasped hands using a relaxing technique, subtly tensing and releasing the muscles in his forearms.
The addict was silent.
"Isn't it?!" Bobby raged.
Sikes let his head list and bob a little.
"What's that? What's that Garrett? Is that how a coward says yes? A pathetic drug addict says yes?"
"Yes. Yes. I jumped her." He was a lump of misery. "I - I can't control it." he looked at his hands.
"The rage?"
"Uh huh, the rage."
"How did you get caught up in this Garrett? Just being in that building makes you a guilty man. Possession of stolen goods."
"I don't know noth..."
"Really even about the bike chop shop downstairs. You were sitting above over a million dollars in stolen bikes."
"Bikes? You think I know about bikes." he huffed and ran a red hand back and forth under his nose in a frenetic motion. "I said I was upstairs waiting for my friend."
"Really did you beam up to the second floor? Did you climb up the outside of the building? You walked right passed all those bikes to hide and ATTACK a police officer!" he yelled.
"Yeah okay, okay. But I just went where I was told. I got nothing to do with bikes. He said go to 21 Davisville, go upstairs and wait."
"Who said that?"
"What?"
"Yes you said he. He who?"
"I didn't say he." Two steps forward two steps back.
"Is this the he?" Bobby held up a picture of Tyler Mayford. "Do you know this man?"
"Nope."
"Well he says you sold him drugs."
"Well he's losing it."he adjusted over and over in his seat.
"Stop fidgeting and look at this picture!" Goren yelled angrily to combat the man's drug induced attention deficit disorder.
"Sure. Sure I remember now." he worried away at a hangnail "I ran him his prescription." He said it in such a way that dared the cop to find a problem. It was bravado he reeked of weakness. Bobby faltered for a moment because it was entirely possible that this guy was so mentally impaired that he might not have the capacity to confess to all the layers of his crimes. He had to recreate the story.
Goren stood and perched on the corner of the table, as close as he dared to the unstable character. This close to Sikes he could see a facial palsy in the man, the left side dipping lower then the right. He also saw those telltale rotting teeth. Bobby hated Garrett Sikes. He hated him in a way that scared him. But still, if the detective had had the power to eradicate this drug, this life sucking poison from the world he would have without a second thought. Even if his actions saved Garrett Sikes. Frank. The name suddenly popped up, front and centre in his mind and a wave of sadness crashed over him. Maybe he'd lied to Eames, maybe he did miss his big brother.
"Was this woman there?" Bobby held a picture of Jane against his chest, his heart, and slammed his finger into it.
The suspect moved his head in a short twitchy negative way.
"Well we have a problem. An even bigger problem then being implicated in 2 felonies." he reached back and slowly unzipped his portfolio for dramatic effect and and deliberately placed four large colour photos on the table beside him square to the corners and evenly spaced. He'd had them enlarged to 11x14 for effect.
"Oh man…. Oh fuck… don't show me that man. I just ate." Sikes turned away from Jane Walston's strangled mutilated body with the backdrop of grey concrete. The most unsanitized images of brutality.
"Your work upsets you?"
"You're fucking crazy. I didn't do that!" he scratched his neck like he had a parasite. And Bobby wondered briefly if maybe he did have something catching. It was probably best to let the table be a barrier. He moved back to his seat.
"I think you did. You're a very violent man Garrett."
"Naw, naw, not like that. That's crazy shit."
"Someone sliced into her chest with a bread knife." Bobby racheted up the the discomfort.
"Ewww."
"Someone took her heart and threw her body away like garbage. Was that you Garrett?"
Sikes sat, his frantic knee slammed against the underside of the table lifting it and creating a racket of bumping and scraping. Instead of creating the unease he desired Bobby was feeling it. This was going south. The detective stood and abruptly swung the table out from in front of the addict and sent it careening toward the door.
"Okay. Okay… Calm down man." The perp held up two quaking palms.
Bobby calmly held a headshot of Mayford (yes the raving narcissist had had a drawer full of headshots in his apartment) and Jane Walston's smiling annual school photograph side by side. He needed to make a clear preschool level correlation for this man. Bobby rolled his eyes, next he was going to have to break out a white board and box of tactile aids - plush toy knives and hearts.
Sikes looked at the pictures more closely "Yeah sure." He said casually, Like he'd been asked about the weather. "The guy… That guy had that chick in his bathtub and he was filling it with ice." Ah, the sour, rancid taste of victory Bobby swished it around in his mouth. He and Eames had gotten it exactly right.
"So this man, a high powered lawyer, invited you into his apartment and showed you the woman he'd just killed?" his voice fairly dripped with skepticism.
"Yeah." he sat back gnawing his blackened raw fingertips.
"No." Bobby huffed "Let's try again."
"That's what happened. I didn't do a murder."
"I'm not saying you did."
"You want me to help you nail him?"
"I want the truth." Bobby leaned against the wall arms folded. His frequent movements, his volitility, his noisy displays all part of the plan. Shock and awe. "Look. We know Mayford is a murderer but we need the whole story."
"He told me to come in. He wanted me to look. That guy is a fuckin' sicko. We're safer with him locked up."
"If that's really what you think, then why did you agree to cut her?"
"What?" Sikes paused, "I didn't."
"You did. We all know you did. I'm going to be honest Garrett. This guy Tyler Mayford is a rich big time lawyer you don't want to get into a 'he said, he said' with him." Sikes' knee started going again. "Abuse of a Corpse? Accessory? I'd take that over first degree murder any day."
The addict turned a ruddy shade of distress and appeared to stop breathing. Bobby was half ready to grab the department defibrillator not sure if it was a seizure or a heart attack or what. Panic. It ended up being panic. "I didn't do it." he said at last suddenly crying "I-I know who did."
"Who."
"My evil child."
"Pardon?"
"He lives in here." the man grabbed a handfuls of shirt and chest. "He wants what he wants."
"He comes out?"
"Yeah. " the beaten man drew in a long snotty breath and nodded. "I tried to stop him. I tried to, but he wanted to see her heart. He thought she was so pretty. He wanted to hold it and squish the blood between his fingers. "
"Where did he cut out the heart?" He was going to assume this 'evil child' was a metaphor for his stripped drugged out brain.
"In the tub."
"In Tyler Mayford's apartment?"
Sikes nodded grinding at his red wet eyes.
"Where was Mayford?"
"I don't know." he burst forth angrily. "I wasn't there!"
Bobby moved a step closer. "Okay. Does your evil child know?"
"He never knows anything, he just cuts and rips and tears and punches. He likes blood."
"Tell me about the dump. Who moved the body?"
"Was it moved?" he asked innocently.
"Well it didn't get up and walk away." Bobby burst getting tired of this ridiculous character. Garrett Sikes wore innocence like a fish wore a coat.
"Oh yeah. That guy, the lawyer, he put her in a suitcase and wheeled her away." he almost smiled.
"And you dumped her."
"No."
"And you dumped her?"
"Are you deaf man?"
"She was dumped at your old stomping grounds Garrett on your favourite b-ball court. Where you sell crack and meth to kids. Seems like a pretty big coincidence. Maybe it was all you. That's what Mayford wants us to think. So that he can walk away from this. And it's pretty feasible Garrett. Maybe you delivered the drugs tied him up, raped and strangled his companion and …" It was fantastical yarn Bobby was weaving, but his subject was about to crack.
"No. I cut 'er." he pled "I cut her, that's it. Can I go now?"
To Rikers you idiot. He thought but kept his lips sealed, packing and straightening the chaos he'd created. As much as Bobby wanted every little detail and to plug every crack and gap there would always room for speculation. But Sikes wasn't going anywhere, they had his address, they could always dip into this filthy pot again later. It should have been over. Bobby tried to purge his mind of Eames, tried not to see her supine on the floor being attacked, but she was there everytime he blinked. And although he'd gotten what he needed from the perp part of him couldn't stand the inequity. His Alex, hurt, afraid and this guy totally oblivious to the pain he caused. Before leaving room Bobby let his evil child take over, in a moment of infantile rage (that would probably earn him disciplinary action), he kick the side of Sikes' chair so hard that the man teetered and struggling for balance then fell to the floor.
The thin blue line.
He was no better.
Date night. It was Wednesday and it was 7:45pm but neither of them were in a frame of mind (or body) to face the public. He wanted to be with her, after today, after Sikes and based on the way she'd received him pressing against him with breasts and hips, she wanted nothing more as well.
He'd fought the urge to go to his local first and get blitzed. He'd done good today. The criminal had confessed and all was right with the world. Wasn't it? It was up to the courts to assess the validity of an insanity defence, if that's where this was going, but I've done my job. Still, as seemed to be the way with this type of victory, it was euphoric and exciting in the moment, and then by quitting time he just wanted to forget.
Eames was still soft and wounded. He wished he could grab her, spread her and throw her up against a wall like that other time. Would she let him be rough and crude? Would she let him rip off those tight little yoga pants? Would she let him bang her while she gripped the sofa? It flipped to a fantasy sequence, she would yell 'harder' and he would give her what she wanted.
That would change the tone of this day.
He was looking at her like a predator with undisguised sexual intensity. But she missed all of it because she didn't look up. Instead she wrapped an arm around his middle and suggested that they just chill out. And that diffused him because she was so feminine and normal.
She couldn't handle him tonight.
He'd break her.
"I bet you aren't a TV guy." she ventured teasingly still oblivious. He'd mentioned shows in the past but usually they were irritatingly highbrow on some public network.
"I bet I can surprise you." he said venturing into her small kitchen unpacking the barbecue sandwiches he'd brought with him in a bag. A barbecue caesar wrap for Alex and something called 'Texas Heat' for himself. It was probably not the most date friendly choice based on the amount of onions and Jalapenos he'd asked them to ladle on the thing. But he had something else in his coat pocket something important to the plan. His blue flex grip toothbrush and a large tube of toothpaste. Something of his to leave in her home.
"Hey, you okay?" Her voice broke in, because he was spacey. He'd paused while unwrapping the sandwiches to stare off into nothing.
"Yeah." his answer was clipped.
"Bobb…"
"I'm fine okay." he barked. She'd nearly forgotten this version of Goren.
"Okay fine." she backed off. His remorse was immediate but he couldn't bring himself to say anything. He'd lost the ability to communicate.
They ate in silence in 'their' positions at her table. She looked at him frequently but he was stoney, his eyes cast downward to the most vile sandwich she'd ever seen. She couldn't be angry, even though it was a little like having dinner alone. He was making an effort. And maybe, she thought, a little meanly, her revenge for this lame date would come later when he had a wicked case of heartburn. Then like the soft touch she'd become, she thought of her medicine cabinet. Pepto Bismol? Yep. She couldn't not take care of him.
"Are you going home tonight?" she asked suddenly.
"Propositioning me on the first date, why Miss. Eames."
She smiled Ahhh human again.
"If you'll have me?" he said in an endearingly unsure voice.
Oh she'd have him all right. She nodded warmly taking a bite of her wrap. And he thought for about the millionth time since he'd met Alexandra Eames how lucky he was that she was endlessly patient and endlessly forgiving.
Afterward they sat on the couch in an impressively complex configuration of limbs. Her between his legs, back to chest, both of his arms loosely about her, one of her rogue legs thrown over his, one pair of hands meshed. It was all about contact.
And about 15 minutes into a very low brow sitcom their symphonic snores drowned out the television laugh track.