CHAPTER TWENTY
Ella walked to the Hoover Building, talked to Roadrunner about Francis Hale and was back in the MPD parking lot again within forty minutes.
According to Roadrunner, Hale was a ‘fine gentleman,’ and while this glowing reference wasn’t evidence of Hale’s innocence, it did tip the scales a little.
Before heading inside, Ella sat in the precinct’s smoking area, despite not being a smoker.
She often wished she did, because she imagined nicotine was a great way to clear the cobwebs.
But addiction was a slippery slope, and before you knew it you had yellow fingers and no teeth.
She went back to her office and found Ripley nose-deep in photographs. Ripley asked, ‘Did you sign any autographs while you were gone?’
‘Hilarious.’
‘You can forget about going undercover ever again. You know that?’
‘I’m not famous.’
‘You’re not exactly Elvis, no, but people recognize you. I told you this day would come and you didn’t believe me.’
Ella asked, ‘Has it never happened to you?’
‘I’ve never been recognized by the general public, but I’ve always looked like a witch.’
‘You have your own Wikipedia page. I don’t. And you were on that stupid TV show too.’
Ripley tapped her cheekbone. ‘Nobody remembers the witch. Anyway, I’ve been going through some things. Have you seen this?’
‘What?’
Ripley showed some of her printouts. ‘These are the comments from Brennan’s livestream. They weren’t embedded into the video itself and his channel was blocked pretty quickly. The tech guys have isolated them, though.’
Ella counted the pages. Twelve printouts, all with about 50 comments on each page. Ella quickly scanned them all, then focused on the last batch:
JimmyTwoFingers: Curtis going to investigate, RIP Curtis.
Redshoes: He heard the killer.
MaryB_87: Where did you go??
tommyg: Rock Creek Park and the dead man.
RonaldR: MPD is not underfunded, they’re mismanaged.
Redshoes: Killer is probably watching this stream!
JimmyTwoFingers: Curt, you look terrified.
PigCake: The headphones are off. Business is about to pick up.
The chat had been roughly one comment every ten or fifteen seconds for the past hour of the show, but then the timestamps started to run in single seconds.
JimmyTwoFingers: wtf? who is that?
Redshoes: Is this a bit? This is kinda weird bro.
Silver_Knight: Is this real? What am I looking at?
MaryB_87: This is a prank, 100%.
Deborah_K: WTF
JimmyTwoFingers: is that an ax??
JimmyTwoFingers: WHAT!!
PigCake: calling 911 this is messed up.
Redshoes: PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS FAKE.
RonaldR: Someone get to his house, seriously.
Silver_Knight: I’m gonna be sick.
Ella stopped there. She didn’t need the rest, and the rest was what she’d expected, four hundred people arriving at the same understanding at slightly different speeds and then losing the ability to type anything but the same five words in capitals over and over.
‘God damn. His regulars had to watch him get decapitated.’
‘Yeah. We need to try and get real names for those regulars too. I’m guessing they won’t all be local, though.’
The door opened and Hibbert came in with a take-out coffee in one hand and a slim folder in the other. He set the coffee on the corner of Ella’s desk without being asked, which Ella took as a small kindness from a man who had been awake longer than either of them.
‘Hale’s alibi holds,’ he said.
Ripley set the printouts down. ‘All of it?’
‘All of it. I had a uniform from the Frederick barracks walk into the lobby of the Best Western on West Patrick Street about twenty minutes ago. The manager handed over the whole digital lot inside ten minutes. The desk records have Hale checking in Sunday afternoon at ten past three. Plate match on the van in the lot, photo ID match on the licence.’
‘And last night?’
‘That’s where it gets airtight. The corridor camera on the second floor has the door to room two-eleven in continuous view from before he got there to after he left this morning. Hale went up to the room at six p.m. on Monday and didn’t come out again until nine a.m. this morning.’
‘Any other way in or out?’
‘Not unless he can float. His room is three stories high.’
Ella had to concede that, despite the argument, the size and the weaponry angle, Francis Hale wasn’t her man. His alibi was nailed to the wall. ‘What about the immigration thing?’
‘Not my department,’ Hibbert said, ‘but I can pass it on. I’ve got bigger things to worry about than a Canadian immigrant. Should I let him go?’
‘I don’t see any need for him anymore,’ Ripley said.
Ella took a second to think things through. Francis Hale was an expert in medieval weaponry, and their unsub had utilized two medieval weapons.
Hibbert began, ‘Alright, I’ll process him and-’
‘No. Keep him here a little longer,’ Ella said. ‘I need to have a chat with him.’
‘About what?’ Ripley asked.
‘Trust me.’ She turned to Hibbert. ‘Where’s the evidence room around here?’