Joe sat back down and looked at him pleasantly, his voice back to normal. “I want you to be very practical, Travis,” he said. “I want you to think about what’s best for you when you talk to me.”
“I don’t have to talk to you,” Travis replied, but his voice lacked conviction.
“Oh, Travis,” Joe said. “Do you want to take that chance? I mean, you’re the one who put a cop in the hospital. Not something the state’s attorney or any judge is going to like.” He stopped, as if in thought, before continuing, “Let’s see … what are you? A two-time loser? Damn. Not a great bargaining position. You never know, of course. You might get lucky and duck the hangman. It happens. Once in a blue moon.”
Travis stared at him, clearly flummoxed by what he was hearing. In fact, he wasn’t a two-time loser, nor was he facing any hangman, metaphorically or otherwise. Judges tended to belittle assaults on police officers, even with the additional charges Reynolds was facing.
“Travis?” Joe asked, his voice growing rich with warning. “I’m not a patient man, and I am seriously pissed off at you.”
Travis swallowed, once. “What d’you want?” he asked quietly.
“To balance the books,” Joe told him. “You tell me everything that got you in this jam, and I’ll see what I can do to cut you some slack with the state’s attorney.”
Travis made a face. “You’d make my putting your cop in the hospital go away? I really believe that.”
“Okay,” Joe said, counting off the charges. “Aggravated assault, assault on a police officer, breaking and entering, theft, evading arrest, failure to obey a police officer…” He looked up. “That’s just off the top of my head. I got more to play with, and I won’t take any of it off the table unless you give me something. How good that is dictates how much I take off. Your choice.”
Reynolds stared at him, but without defiance this time.
“No tricks,” Joe said. “You do the math. This is a straight-up deal, ’cause I know you have something to give me.”
Still, the young man resisted.
“Tell you what,” Joe went on. “I’ll add murder to the list for good measure, since you’re the only guy we have for that, too.”
“What?” Travis exclaimed. “I didn’t murder nobody.”
“Why do you think everybody’s so interested in that fancy apartment?” Joe asked. “The old-timer who lived there was killed, Travis. Now, I don’t know if you did that or not, but do you really want me to think you have something to hide?”
Joe slapped his hand loudly on the tabletop, making Travis jump in his chair.
“Now’s the time to talk,” Joe yelled.
“I didn’t kill nobody,” Travis said quickly. “It was just a grab job.”
Joe smiled supportively, his voice again conversational. “Something you were paid for?”
“Yeah.”
“Who paid you?”
“Some guy. I don’t know his name.”
“Tell me about that.”
Travis pressed his lips together briefly, and then began his confession. “I got a call, like out of the blue. This guy said he heard I do odd jobs, and did I want to pick up five hundred bucks.”
“He say how he heard of you?” Joe asked.
He shook his head. “And I didn’t ask. What do I care?”
“Of course,” Joe agreed.
“Anyhow, I said cool, and he tells me to go to the old folks’ home, to go behind a Dumpster near the back, and find a cardboard box with a uniform in it and a key.”
“How were you going to get paid?”
Travis tapped his temple with his finger. “Right, right. There was an envelope, too, with half the money in it.” He laughed suddenly. “And I mean it,” he added. “It was cut in half. Five one hundreds, cut in two. A note said I’d get the other half afterward.”
“You keep the note?” Joe asked.
“Huh? No. Why?”
“How ’bout the money?”
Travis smiled. “Hey, man. Like that was a long time ago. That’s long gone.”
Joe nodded, resigned. “What else did the note say?”
“Told me to go to one of the apartments-gave me the number-told me to use the key, and told me to do stuff.”
Joe merely raised his eyebrows in inquiry.
“Right,” Travis repeated. “Let’s see. There was a photograph in one room I was supposed to take. He told me to erase the answering machine. And there was a box in the dresser, in the bedroom, with a pin or something in it I was supposed to grab. That’s where I bumped into your cop.”
“How about some files, from out of the desk?” Joe asked, caught by the omission.
Travis looked at him. “Oh yeah. I forgot. Them, too, but they were already missing. It was just those three things.”
“You’re saying you were already in the apartment when the police officer entered?” Joe asked.
Travis registered surprise. “Oh, yeah. Scared the shit outta me. I was in the office, doin’ the picture and the phone, and I heard him come in. I thought for sure he’d find me, but then he went the other direction.”
“Why didn’t you leave then?” Joe asked.
“And miss out on the five hundred?” Travis protested. “I don’t think so.”
“You knew he was a cop?”
“Oh, sure,” Travis replied without thought. “You know, he had the camera case. Plus, he looked like one.”
Joe moved on. “What did you do then?”
“Snuck up behind him and whacked him.”
“With what?”
“I don’t know. Some heavy statuelike thing I grabbed off the hallway table when I went in. I put it back when I ran out with the box.”
Joe shook his head despite himself, thinking of the multiple errors. No one had even glanced at the marble figurine still sitting on the side table, not thinking that Reynolds might have done something so spontaneous to begin with, and so orderly afterwards. And he could hardly believe that Lester hadn’t double-checked the apartment-except that it was all too human a mistake.
“You grabbed the whole box?” he sought to confirm.
“After that, I did, sure,” Travis admitted. “I wasn’t about to hang around with him on the floor.”
“Yeah,” Joe concurred. “But what exactly had the man told you to take?”
“A pin. A round one, like they wear on a lapel. You know, like those little American flags politicians have. But it was dark purple and had two gold letter C’s on it.”
“He tell you what they stood for?”
“The C–C?” Travis asked. “Nope-no clue. But I found it in the box later, after I got away.”
“What about the picture?” Joe asked. “You said he wanted that, too.”
“Yeah. I grabbed it,” he said. “It was pretty small. Not much to look at.”
“Describe it.”
Reynolds shrugged. “Like I said, small. Black-and-white. The frame was kinda cheap. It was just a group of people.”
“Recognize anyone?”
“Nah.”
“Tell me about it,” Joe urged him.
He looked faintly irritated. “I don’t know-bunch of old people. Well, old people now, I guess. It was an old picture-the clothes, the hair-you could tell.”
“How many?”
“Five, maybe?” he answered. “Men and women. It wasn’t great. Looked like a party snapshot to me. They were drinking, lifting their glasses. That kinda stuff.”
Joe stood up. “Hang on a sec.”
He stepped outside to retrieve his case, which he brought back with him, sitting down to rummage through several folders he had within it. He extracted a single photograph and laid it before Travis.
“This one of the people?” he asked, pointing to a copy of the picture of Marshall posing alongside Carolyn Barber in the Governor-for-a-Day shot.
“That’s two of them,” Travis confirmed.
“You’re sure?” Joe asked.
“Yup. I remember her ’cause she was pretty, even for an old picture, and him because there were other shots of him around the room.”
“And there were two or three others?”
“Yeah. At least one more woman-not much to look at-and a couple of dudes. So, yeah-I guess that does make three. I wouldn’t know the other ones, though. Like I said. I just noticed these two ’cause of what I said-they kinda caught my eye.”