Is this the kind of man we want keeping us safe? How is it no one ever knew about charges so severe?
The police department has much to answer for, and it does not appear that we are going to be given any. The department has been tight-lipped as to any developments in the case, and our repeated requests for information have been rebuffed in the strongest of terms.
Their silence begs the question; what are they hiding? One theory is that they have already given up trying to solve the case, but are putting detectives on the streets to keep up the appearance of doing their due diligence. If this is in fact true, it is a scandal waiting to explode.
The murder of George Hobbes was a tragedy, but what it is revealing about the underbelly of this city, and the people sworn to protect it, may just be the ray of light needed to show the filth we have allowed ourselves to live in.
Chapter 13
The Erosion Of Respect
Detective Lane watched the hand circle the clock, measuring the icy silence he sat in. It felt to him as though it was unending, even as he could see each individual second elapse. Time was an illusion, a construct for dissecting pieces of lives into more manageable chunks. Thinking was easier when the scope was smaller, when the bits of knowledge could fall through the sieve and pile up like the sands at the bottom of an hourglass.
“Are we really not going to talk about this?”
Detective Knox's gaze shifted to look at his partner, his head not wasting the energy required to face him. He was already beginning to regret telling his story, as Lane now wanted to talk about his feelings. Knox had long since put the ordeal behind him, as much as he could, and that was where he preferred it to stay. He could never forget what he had done, nor excuse it, but the scars dulled around the edges when he wasn't constantly being reminded of his mistake.
“I thought we just did?”
“You know what I mean. Are you going to put that out there and just walk away?”
“That was the idea.”
“Too bad. If you're trying to teach me a lesson, you have to explain it with a bit more clarity.”
Knox was not a natural teacher; he lacked the patience for the job. He had learned through attrition, by analyzing his experiences and siphoning out the important details. It didn't occur to him that he might be unique in that regard, that others lacked the ability to discern what was and was not important to know without being shown how. Human nature was frustrating to Knox, because human contact was unavoidable.
“Why can't you just figure it out for yourself? It'll do you more good that way.”
“That will just teach me the lesson I think I should learn from your story. It doesn't mean I'll learn the lesson you want me to.”
“Dammit, that actually makes sense.”
“I thought it might.”
Knox was not eager to relive the memory, not because of the feelings it would bring back to the surface, but because of the erosion of respect that was bound to come along with it. He could handle the backwash of guilt that would rise inside him, it was a degree of suffering he had grown to believe he deserved. What he could not accept as easily was the way people who knew his secret looked at him, how fellow sinners could pass judgment so easily. It struck him as absurd that, no matter the dark secrets others hid, he was condemned by all who knew.
“I told you that story so you might understand the importance of not getting ahead of yourself. It's easy to start believing something, and then forget that you might be wrong. We're all liable to bouts of hubris, and the best thing we can ever do is learn how to be critical of ourselves. If I had learned that at the time, maybe things would have turned out differently.”
“Why were you so sure you were right?”
“That's the question, isn't it? Honestly, I can't tell you why. Back then, I didn't think I could be wrong, so when I had a hunch, I ran with it.”
“I'm sure you had done it before.”
“Of course I had. And that just made it worse. Every time you take a risk and it pays off, you become goaded into taking more and more risks, until it eventually blows up in your face.”
“Which will always happen.”
“Absolutely. Luck doesn't run forever, and it's only a matter of time until you strike out. When that happens, you have to hope it's not at a critical time. I didn't get fortunate that way.”
“Basically, you're telling me that I need to challenge everything I assume, to make sure the foundation of my conclusions is solid.”
“Right. If you're wrong at the start, you're never going to get to the right finish.”
“So, with that in mind, what if we've been working with a wrong assumption on this case?”
“What are you thinking?”
“We've been assuming that no one could have been in the room to commit the murder, but what if there is a way to get in and out that we missed?”
“That's not a half-bad idea. Do you think we should go back again and see if we can figure something out?”
“If nothing else, it'll get your mind off the past.”
“Let's go.”
* * *
Puzzles have solutions, but they aren't always obvious, and can escape you if you don't know what it is you're looking for. Detective Knox realized the truth of the axiom as they stood at the scene once again. No matter how closely they had looked before, they could not catalog every detail. The information they acquired was filtered through the lens of what they already knew, meaning the needle in the haystack could be ignored if they weren't looking for one.
That there was no escape from the room was obvious, otherwise they would have already identified it upon their first inspection. They had assumed the locked doors and windows led to a single conclusion, but Lane was right to challenge this assumption. Plenty of antique buildings contained hidden secrets and passages, the sorts of tricks that made escape possible. Without a blueprint, finding those avenues, were they to exist, required patience, skill, and a degree of luck Knox was confident they did not possess.
Lane instructed his partner to lock him out of the room, in order to test his acumen and see if there was a method for breaching the locked door. Knox heard rustling and scraping on the other side of the oak blockade, but didn't expect the brass latch to move. A simple examination of the mechanism had told Knox everything he needed to know; that there was no method of moving it from outside the room without conjuring magic into reality. Lane made a valiant effort, considering every possibility.
Hearing a knock, Knox let his partner back in, confident they could now cross that point of contention off their list. Lane did not seem frustrated, but rather disappointed that he had not stumbled upon an elegant solution to their problem.
“There's no way anyone got through that door.”
“I agree, but I could have told you that before you wasted your energy trying to get through it.”
“We're here to challenge assumptions. You can't do that without a little experimental methodology.”
“Have it your way. If you want to fail, be my guest.”
The pair continued their search, scouring the walls for any clue that a hidden door lay waiting behind them. Lane plucked books from the shelves, hoping each one was the trigger to open a portal, while Knox ran his hands over the smooth surfaces, looking for a crease that could conceal a hinged escape. No inch of the room was left untouched, but they were unable to find anything they had missed in their earlier inspections.
Lane dropped to his knees, anxious to see if the answer had been under foot the whole time. A wooden floor could easily hide a false board that might cover a tunnel, and Knox watched as his partner scoured the floor for a sliver of wood out of place.