The Murder

I'm sitting opposite a man who, at some better time in his life, was made like a god. But now, his eyes have lost their glimmer and his features succumbed to gravity. He's in for murder one, and I can't read his expression.

The arresting officer told me that the man had called the police himself, from the old woman's kitchen, and that when they had arrived, there he was, at the kitchen table, hands in his lap like a kid in time out. He'd showed them the body.

"I killed her." He had said.

And now I'm scanning his face for... something. There's no guilt, no remorse. There's no emotion at all.

"Why did you kill her?"

He looks at me, with deep-set blue eyes. "Because that's what you should do to people who hurt kids."

"Hurt kids? How did she hurt kids?"

"Boys, I should say. She molested us. I don't know how many. I wasn't the only one, though."

"Go on."

"Lucinda Brown was my piano teacher. That's how she got us alone, of course."

He tells me everything. It turns my stomach, and I head for the door.

"Detective... You forgot the recorder."

I nod, wordlessly, and picked up the recorder off the little metal table. The door slams metallically behind me. I steal a glance at the handcuffed man on the other side of the double mirror. Callahan looks at me, frowning.

We head back to my office, and grab our coats. I leave his file and the recorder on my desk. She shivers just slightly at we step into the night, and I put my arm around her protectively. I wonder for a moment if I'm protecting her, or myself.

"Why do you do that?" She doesn't look at me.

"Do what?"

"Act like a lover but still call me 'Callahan' even when we're away from the office?"

"I don't know. Habit."

She doesn't say anything until we get to Sully's. I look at her from across the table and love her. She's beautiful. Her hair is long and full and the color of coffee before you add the cream, and her green eyes sparkle because she knows she has the body of a Venus. How she ended up a cop, I'll never understand. She orders a coffee for each of us, and a slice of pie to split. The usual.

"When are we going to stop this, Jack, and just get married?"

"When I don't have to work so much."

"Then why don't you take that desk job the Chief keeps offering you?"

I don't answer for a long time. Our coffee and pie arrives. She picks at the pecans on top, waiting for me to say something.

"I really don't know why I don't take that job, baby..." I can't look at her. "Maybe I'm too attached to the idea of playing detective."

She reaches across the table and takes my hand. I hold her hand back, feeling how small it is in mine. We sit that way until the diner closes. I take her home and kiss her goodnight, and later I lay in my bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about the man in the interrogation room.

The next morning, I take that desk job.