Chapter 21 The Confession
The Confession
Mitch was sitting on a chair, hands cuffed behind his back.
The inspector facing him was silent, slowly flipping through a case file, nodding from time to time to add weight to the silence.
The performance had been dragging on for ten long minutes when the cop finally pulled out a black-and-white photo – an image from a security camera feed – and slid it across the table.
“This man, sitting on a bench in the courthouse, right across from the courtroom. Do you recognize him?”
The picture was slightly blurry, but Mitch was in the perfect position to know exactly who the man was – and since anything he said could be used against him, he kept his mouth firmly shut.
“Alright, then,” said the detective, clicking his tongue. He laid three more photos down in front of Mitch.
“And here, in the courthouse parking garage. Any idea who that might be?”
In the first shot, Mitch was walking down the ramp that led to the underground levels. In the second, he could be seen hiding behind a metal post. The third photo showed him from behind, walking back up the ramp to the street.
“Still nothing?” the inspector drawled, clearly losing patience. “Maybe a close-up will help jog your memory.”
This time, it was crystal clear. Mitch was perfectly recognizable.
“So what? Is it illegal to go to the courthouse, or park your car there?”
“No, it’s not – if you have a car. The problem is, we didn’t find a single vehicle registered in your name. So what the hell were you doing in that garage?”
The inspector’s face might as well have been carved from granite.
His suit jacket strained across his broad shoulders, making him look even more imposing.
Cufflinks gleamed at his wrists as if he polished them every morning after shaving and before shining his shoes.
Everything about him reflected the desire to impress.
“I remember now,” Mitch said. “It was pouring that day. I took shelter. That’s not a crime either, last I checked.”
“Let’s say I buy that. Now what if I told you that Prosecutor Salinas was murdered three days ago? Still want to play dumb?”
“I didn’t know. How could I know that?”
“Newspaper? TV?”
“I only read books, and I don’t own a TV.”
“Of course you don’t. Except there’s another problem – bigger than your lack of a car.
We showed these pictures to one of the prosecutor’s neighbours, and he recognized you.
Says he saw you loitering around the house – more than once, and not just at any old time,” he snarled, slamming his fist on the table.
“An ex-con, freshly out of prison, who just so happened to have been sent down by Salinas, is seen hanging around the courthouse, in the parking garage where the victim kept his car, and outside the man’s home – on the very day of the murder.
That’s a hell of a string of coincidences, don’t you think?
I haven’t seen anything like it in twenty years on the job.
So tell me, how long do you think it’ll take a jury to be convinced you’re guilty?
“You do realize, don’t you, that this time we’re talking life in prison,” he added, his voice dripping with condescension. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Mitch asked, his throat tight like a rusted clamp.
“Unless you confess now. I’ll put it in my report that you were overcome with guilt and cooperated willingly.
I could get the sentence knocked down to twenty years.
That’s still a long stretch, sure – but not that long for a repeat offender.
You’re still young. You’d have a good chunk of life left when you get out…
assuming you don’t go and kill anyone else, of course. ”
“I haven’t killed anyone! And the crime I was convicted of wasn’t a crime at all!” Mitch burst out.
“Sure. That’s what they all say. My offer is on the table for an hour. Oh, and one last thing: the CSI team lifted a whole bunch of prints in the victim’s house. We don’t have the results back yet, but I thought I’d mention it, in case you already knew yours would be there.”
The detective stood up. “One hour. Not a minute more.”
He left Mitch alone to consider his proposal.
It didn’t take long for the grim truth to settle in: he was screwed.
He’d left his fingerprints all over the place – on Salinas’s desk, the door handles, the bookshelves, the books he’d touched.
And on the port glass. As if it might somehow change his fate, he found himself wondering which neighbouring window he’d been spotted from, because he was sure he’d checked them all carefully and seen no one.
What if the cop was bluffing, and the mysterious neighbour didn’t exist?
As for the fingerprints, he could always say Salinas had invited him in and offered him a drink.
But the butler would deny that, and the word of an ex-con wouldn’t be worth much.
Despite all the stories he’d read, Mitch found himself unable to think of one that would stand up in court.
Twenty years or life. That’s an easy decision for someone who’s never seen the inside of a cell.
But for someone who’d survived hell – who’d lived through the Sergeant’s beatings, the freezing nights and the suffocating summer heat – the decision wasn’t so simple.
He considered his chances of getting the case dismissed.
The prosecution had motive, and the evidence was damning.
Only two gaps remained: the murder weapon and the exact time of death.
Mitch wished he could check his watch to see how much longer he had left before his fate was sealed, but it had been confiscated along with all his personal effects, and the slightest movement caused an immediate tightening of the handcuffs that were already biting into his wrists.
He figured he had half an hour at most, maybe a bit less.
He started his thought process over from the beginning.
He thought of all those courtroom scenes in John Grisham and Michael Connelly novels – moments when everything seemed lost, and then something turned the whole case on its head.
He put himself in the shoes of the court-appointed attorney.
Yes, his client had gone to the courthouse.
After having served such an unfair sentence, he had the right to want an explanation – to understand why Salinas had gone after him with such single-minded viciousness.
Not wanting to be seen in the company of an ex-convict, the prosecutor had asked him to wait by his car, which was parked on sub-level 2 of the parking garage (so far, so good), being careful not to let anyone see him (which would explain why Mitch had hidden behind a post).
The defendant had gone along with Salinas’s requests, but the man had failed to turn up.
Assuming that the prosecutor had stood him up, or maybe been delayed by some piece of business, Mitch had left the parking garage (photo 3).
Shortly afterward, Salinas emerged from the garage in his car and spotted him in the rain.
He’d picked him up, taken him home, brought him straight to his office (maybe that’s why the butler didn’t see him).
A passionate bookseller like the defendant wouldn’t have been able to resist touching a few spines on the office shelves (the fingerprints).
The prosecutor had poured a glass of port for the defendant (the fingerprints again), but the arrival of an unexpected visitor had put a premature end to their meeting.
The defendant had then left as discreetly as he’d arrived.
A plausible story, one that raised more questions: how many people had Salinas wrongly convicted?
How many lives had he ruined to boost his own career?
How many of them might have wanted to get revenge?
Had the police even considered any other suspects?
Wasn’t this just another rush judgment? Why had Mitch been deemed the perfect suspect, even though every single bit of evidence for his involvement was circumstantial?
Mitch could almost be proud of the story he’d built.
It would work in a novel. In real life? Not so much.
But maybe – just maybe – it wasn’t impossible.
Trouble was, he was terrified. And he only had about fifteen minutes left to make the most important decision of his life.
Time was running out. If he pleaded innocent, he risked life in prison.
If he confessed, he’d lose everything… but maybe not forever.
The weight of this catch-22 made it impossible to focus.
His hands were shaking, his heart pounding, and sweat was trickling down his back.
He felt as if he might collapse, or suffocate, and he knew that his only hope of getting out of this – if any hope remained – was to calm down.
Easier said than done when every second counts.
Back in prison, when fear threatened to overwhelm him completely, Mitch had escaped into his thoughts, which neither bars nor walls could restrict.
Now, once again, he closed his eyes and found himself back behind the counter of his bookshop.
There were a few customers browsing the tables; he was suggesting an author to one of them, straightening the displays, pausing to slip one of his hand-written recommendations between the pages of a book… His breathing started to slow.
He wondered who the prosecutor assigned to his case would be. One of Salinas’s allies, determined to avenge him? Or one of his enemies – someone he’d stepped on while climbing the professional ladder?