Southern Lights: A Novel

They asked him about the victim, about whom he claimed to know nothing, and showed him a photograph of her. She had apparently been approached on a dark street near her apartment, coming home late from the library of the medical school. Like the others, she had been raped and “snuffed” out, strangled during sex. Her body had been found in a shallow grave in a park. She hadn’t been found for four months, and the body had deteriorated badly by then. And Luke had been in town when it happened. Luke shrugged when he looked at the picture of the girl when she was alive, and tossed it back on the desk. His eyes hooked Alexa’s, and he paused for a long moment when he looked at her. She could have been wrong, but she had the feeling this time that he was silently saying “Watch out, that could be you…or your kid.” Her eyes didn’t waver, nor did his. This was becoming a personal vendetta between them now. She was not going to be bested by him, or fooled.

“Where do you guys keep coming up with these women? My dick would have fallen off by now if I’d screwed them all.” The senior detective conducting the interrogation didn’t comment, and Alexa noticed Charlie McAvoy shift in his seat. He was still on the case and doing good work. He had handled his sister’s case and several others and was working hours of overtime. He looked as tired as everyone else. Only the defendant looked rested, in top form, good spirits, and great shape. He was the center of attention and a star. He cast several glances at his attorney, who smiled at him encouragingly as the interrogation wore on.

Alexa had recently demanded that he have a further medical exam to see if his body ejaculated sperm, or if it remained trapped elsewhere, as happened sometimes with men who had severe kidney problems and had been on medication for years. There was no evidence that he was, and he had refused the exams, which he had the right to do, and had offered to come in their eyes.

Everyone was tired of it, and him, as the interrogation wore down. He was so completely without remorse or concern, claiming he’d had nothing to do with any victim, and had neither raped nor killed them, that if anything, he looked bored. And in passing he made a comment that all the women he’d met in Iowa had been dogs, sluts, or cheap whores. Alexa saw Charlie tense as he made the comment, and sat there willing him not to react. For some reason then, maybe knowing that one of the victims was Charlie’s sister and wanting to goad him, he said that he wouldn’t have stuck his dick into any girl in Iowa, or most of the states where he’d been.

Charlie was tired and had been up all night, after meeting with the parents of several victims, and trying to get more information from them. His sister had been dead for a year that week, and his own parents were still devastated and so was he. But Quentin wouldn’t give it up. He kept talking about “dogs” and “sluts” and “cheap whores” and what he would and wouldn’t do to them if he had the chance. And before any of them could grab him, Charlie was out of his seat like lightning, had literally flown across the table and had Quentin by the throat, and he was in even better shape than Luke. Charlie had a choke hold on him, and Quentin responded in kind. The two men were literally strangling each other, as every cop in the room and even Alexa dove toward them to break it up.

Someone hit an alarm, and there was chaos in the room as people shouted, grabbed, scuffled, it was nearly impossible to drag Charlie off him, but two of the men finally did. Jack was standing there sweating profusely, his own shirt torn from his attempts to break up the two men. He said not a word to Luke but shouted in his detective’s face, who was choking and spitting on the floor. Luke was back in cuffs and being dragged away, spluttering too.

“What the fuck were you thinking? Are you out of your mind? You’re off the case. Now!”

“I’m bringing charges!” Luke shouted through the door as it closed, with no time to cast smoldering looks at his attorney, or menacing looks at Alexa or anyone else. It had been an incredibly dumb thing for Charlie to do, and would probably win him a year’s suspension for attacking a suspect, but he clearly needed the time off, and Jack was furious with himself for not taking him off the case before. He was quietly talking to Sam Lawrence and the other special FBI agent, who had actually been the ones to pull Charlie away from Luke. Jack explained again about his sister, and they nodded, and finally one of them laughed.