Anna turned the thought over in her mind, tilling the fertile possibilities. Getting caught had never been part of her plan, but faced with the reality, she had to weigh her options. The endgame had been to get away with murder, to prove it was possible, but now that she had been discovered, there was little reason to continue the facade. Whether in jail or running for her life, she had failed. Failure deserved to be punished.
“I'll make a deal with you. I'll tell you what you want to know, if you tell me what I want to know.”
“That sounds fair. What do you want to know?”
“How did you figure it out? My plan was perfect.”
“It was indeed. I'll give you all the credit in the world for being brilliantly evil. I don't think there is a detective alive who would have looked at the body and come up with the right answer. You obviously know the rule book we play by, and you used it perfectly against us.”
“If that's the case, why am I sitting here?”
“Because I was too drunk to play by the rules.”
“I don't understand.”
“You would have gotten away with murder if I was a better man, but I got drunk and angry, and I did something stupid. My moment of weakness led me to the answer. So what I'm saying is that one sin uncovers another.”
“I suppose I have rotten luck.”
“There is no such thing. Now it's your turn to talk.”
“I suppose you want to know why I did it, don't you?”
“Yes, that would be a good start.”
“You're not going to like the answer.”
“Tell me anyway. Humor me.”
“I killed him to see if I could get away with it, to see if you could figure it all out. It was sort of a human experiment. I like pushing the pieces around and seeing how people react.”
“This was going a bit far, don't you think?”
“Maybe. If you have a conscience. I don't, however, so it was just another game to me.”
“That might just be the worst explanation I've ever heard. I figured you'd have some grand declaration to make. You disappoint me.”
“Come now, detective. Doesn't the thought of getting away with murder excite you? Haven't you ever thought about whether you could do it or not?”
“No, I spend enough time thinking about death as it is.”
“You're missing out. I would bet you're one of the few people smart enough to do it.”
“Plenty of people get away with it all the time. You don't have to be smart; you just have to be lucky.”
“I thought you said there was no such thing.”
“It's a figure of speech.”
“Do me a favor, think about it.”
“No thanks.”
* * *
Detective Knox closed the door behind him, feeling less satisfied than he usually did after closing a case. Anna had gotten under his skin, showed him a side of humanity he was not used to. Even in the city, even amongst the killers he saw on a daily basis, there was always a reason for the shedding of blood. Anna was an amoral creature, someone who extinguished a life as though it mattered no more than the flame of a candle on an unwelcome birthday cake.
Detective Lane drew nearer, his face contorted with anguish. Knox could tell he was struggling to digest what he had heard; the very foundation of his world fracturing as his understanding of humanity was upended.
“Did that just happen?”
“Yes, kid, it did. You come across all sorts on this job, but even for me she's out there. I've never seen anything quite like her.”
“How did you know she would confess?”
“People with egos like that, the one thing they want more than anything is attention. Getting the credit, getting her name in the paper, that's even more important than being free.”
“That's an odd way to be wired.”
“We're all weird. Some of us know we are, and figure out how to deal with it. The rest are just hoping they're never in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Have you ever been?”
“Every day, kid. Every day.”
Chapter 32
Salvation
Detective Knox knew what he was supposed to be feeling, the sense of elation that came with solving an unsolvable riddle, taking a killer off the streets, and relieving his mind in the process. His hand trembled on the handle as he paused before entering. Blackness filled his vision as he closed his eyes, taking in one last deep breath of cold city air before he pried the door open. The warmth of home hit his face, more inviting than usual. Something inside him was different, though he could not put his finger on exactly what had changed. After a case was closed, he seldom felt the urge to rush home, preferring to revel in celebratory excess by draining a bottle of whiskey by himself. It was a routine that was misinterpreted as misanthropy, but Detective Knox did not see it that way.
To his mind, a victory such as this one could only be appreciated properly when given ample time to sink in, which could not be done while sharing the experience with others. The glad-handing that came in social settings were good for giving lip-service to the notion of success, but did nothing to instill the lessons that came along with it. Self-reflection was the only recipe for taking success to heart. That others could not see what Detective Knox did was not his fault, or at least he told himself.
This time, Detective Knox did not want to bury himself in a bottle, tasting the sweet drops of victory as they fell upon his tongue, while sitting alone in a dark bar, running his fingers over the blood-stained carving on a table, eying the crowd for his next case. What he wanted was to be at home, with Kat, sharing a connection with another person that might remind him all hope was not lost. Hope was not something that came naturally to him, a resource that needed to be infused into him by others. That was Kat's role, the reason he loved her. She tethered him to the rest of the world; she was the lone dissenter stopping the crowd of angry villagers before they could lay into him with their pitchforks.
Kat greeted him as he stepped through the door, into another world. The smile on her face would often make him wonder about her sanity, how she could manage to smile in a city filled with as much evil as he knew was out there. On this occasion, he did not resort to such thinking, and instead was reassured by her presence that his heart was still beating. He approached her, and had given her a kiss before she knew what was happening. Kat was confused, not recognizing the man embracing her. Her husband had become cold over the years, eschewing such affection as a product of a spent youth.
“What's gotten into you?”
“I closed the case.”
“Congratulations. I'm so proud of you, but that doesn't explain all of this.”
“It's the weirdest thing. I usually feel great when I solve a case, but this time I don’t. I feel nothing, at least I didn’t until I walked in the door.”
“That's almost sweet, if you mean it.”
“I do, I think.”
“Why is it different this time? Not that I'm complaining.”
“I don't really know. I guess this answer was even more disheartening than usual. Sometimes, knowing why something happened doesn't make it any easier to understand.”
“I could have told you that, if you ever listened to me.”
“Listening to you is the only reason I solved this one.”
Kat's eyes lit up. It was the first time she had received credit for assisting his thinking on a case.
“Do tell.”
“Now you're trying to rub it in.”
“Maybe a bit. I'll tell you what, you go in the den and relax, and I'm going to go out and get us a bottle of something good to celebrate with. How does that sound?”