Tireless, Part 1

photo courtesy of unsplash.com

“Why do you have him in handcuffs?” the young lady demanded.

“Is this her?” Caxton asked, glancing up with a weary expression from the official paperwork that covered his desk.

The younger detective, the one who had come in with the young lady, nodded.  His expression was tight-lipped, and he also looked tired.

It was very late, midnight was long gone.  The two detectives had been nearly ready to call it a night after a long day of working on an unrelated case when this new business had come up.  Something had happened, someone had been killed.  From what they could tell it was almost certainly in self defense, but it was becoming more and more obvious by the minute that they had their work cut out for them in trying to get everything squared away.

“Why is he under restraint?” the lady asked, lowering her voice and addressing Caxton, and not Deaver, the younger detective who had come in with her.  She had guessed correctly that Caxton was now the person in charge.

“He’s all right, miss,” Caxton said, rising and going to them.

They stood by closed door just inside the entrance to the department floor; it let into a small side office.  They all looked through the window set in the door into the little room.  Inside, sitting in a straight chair at the desk, hands behind him, was a small dirty looking old man.  His hair was thin and matted, it seemed to be almost caked solid with grime.  His face and hands were very dirty, his many layers of clothing were darkened with wear and dirt and were all worn and ratty around the edges.  He looked like exactly what he was, an unfortunate older man who lived homeless in the street.

“Has he done anything violent?” asked the young lady.  “Do you have any reason to think that he might do anyone harm?”

“No, miss,” said Caxton, sounding utterly exhausted.  “It’s standard procedure to restrain persons in circumstances like these.”

“But he’s only a witness,” the young lady said.  “You’ve only brought him in because he was there when it happened.”

What she said was quite true, they had brought him in to serve as a witness to the events leading up to the unfortunate death of the young man in the alleyway which they were currently investigating.

“He’s a witness,” Deaver, the younger detective said, staring through the window at the old man, “but when we need someone to come in, and they won’t come willingly, sometimes we have to take measures like these.”

“What do you mean he wouldn’t come willingly?” asked the young lady.

“He refused to come with us,” said Deaver.  “He wouldn’t talk to us in the alleyway, he wouldn’t voluntarily come with us to the station.  We need him to give evidence, and he wouldn’t cooperate.”

Caxton, who was a little tired with Deaver’s somewhat puffed-up way of performing his job, shook his head as though to himself.  They were all still looking through the window at the old man.  

“Well now you’ve got him here,” said the young lady, “so why do you need to keep him in cuffs?  If he hasn’t done anything wrong you should release him at once.”

The old man himself seemed to have gone to sleep in his seat, his neck and head were slouched forward, and although his arms were still locked behind him, attached to the chair, his muscles and figure appeared to be completely relaxed where he sat.  His face was turned down, his eyes appeared to be closed.

“He seems harmless enough now,” Caxton said after a moment, speaking as if to himself.  “Deaver, see if he wants anything to drink, then take the cuffs off.”

Deaver looked at Caxton sharply but said nothing, instead he gave a little half-shrug and moved to open the office door.

“I’ll question this young lady,” said Caxton.

Deaver nodded, pulled the office door open, and went inside.

Caxton lead the young lady over to his paper-plastered desk.  Because it was so late the department was mostly deserted, the desks were all empty and indeed half the overhead lights had been switched off.  On the way back to his desk Caxton switched these back on.  He pulled over a second chair for the young lady and they both sat down.

“State your name, please,” he said quietly.

“Beatrice Sitwell,” the young lady answered, “but everyone calls me Bee.”

He took her through the usual preliminary questions; current address, date of birth and so forth.  He offered her water or coffee, and she said yes please to both.  He got up and brought back a bottle of water and two styrofoam cups filled with steaming syrupy brownish dregs, two packets of sugar, and two packets of non-dairy powdered creamer.  Bee opened the bottle and drank about half, glanced at the coffee but did not drink any.

“I’m sure my partner Detective Deaver,” Caxton began, “already talked you through what happened tonight, but I’d like to talk it over with you again, just to make sure we have all the facts straight.  I’ll try to get you out of here as quickly as possible so that you can get home, and we can take care of the formal signed statement at your convenience tomorrow.

“Can you tell me first please,” he went on, still speaking quietly but managing to not sound as though he’d gone through this routine hundreds of times, but as if this were a case he was particularly interested in, “where you were earlier this evening and how you happened to be in that alleyway.”

Bee explained that she had been working late at a bar where she was a waitress several blocks, she thought it was three, but she didn’t know the bar’s exact address and especially she didn’t seem to know very clearly where the alleyway was in relation to it.  

Caxton knew the place by name, knew where it was, and how far it was from the alleyway, but said nothing, he let the young lady talk.

She said she’d left for the night when her shift had ended at midnight, she’d been working since the middle of the afternoon, and had been heading home when she’d encountered a young man walking in the opposite direction on the sidewalk, and had seen that he was staring at her, trying to get her attention.

“What time was this, about?” Caxton asked.

“It must have been twelve-ten, maybe twelve-fifteen,” Bee said.

She explained that before she and the young man had met, she had noticed him smiling.  She said she didn’t want any trouble from him, so she had turned aside before they reached each other, and had entered the alleyway, and that contrary to her expectation of avoiding him this way, he must have followed her in.

Caxton listened to this part of her story without comment, and without really any inward comment; he didn’t think it was especially believable that the young lady should enter the alley to avoid trouble with the young man, but long experience had trained his sense of attention and logic to simply absorb the fact, and to reserve judgement until all the available information was 

Bee had paused, looking expectantly at Caxton as if to ask if he believed her or not.  When he said simply “go on,” instead of continuing she first took a small gulp of the thick, bitter coffee, and made a face.

“I heard him behind me,” she said, “I mean his footsteps.  So I turned around, and I could see him in the light from the street.  I said what do you want, and he said he liked my purse, and I said so what, and then he pulled a gun on me.”

“You’re sure it was a gun?” asked Caxton.

“I could see the light on the barrel,” said Bee.

“Did he simply take it out or did he point it at you?” asked Caxton.

“He pointed it right at me,” she said.  “He was still smiling, like he wanted to talk.  But I wasn’t gonna talk with him, this wasn’t the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at me.  So before he could say anything else I threw my purse at him and grabbed for the gun.  This wasn’t the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at me.”  She was leaning back somewhat in her seat, as if trying to convey an attitude of lazy and indifferent competence in the face of danger.

“Is that right?” asked Caxton mildly.

“I’ll have to ask you about that later,” said Caxton.  “What happened after you reached for the gun.”

to be continued