Vicky’s arguments banged around in my head, busting up logic and reason, until they jolted loose a plan to visit my sister at the jail.

Tony climbed into the Tacoma and curled his lips into a rueful smile. “Great idea,” he said with a snort, “if you can keep it from blowing up in our faces.” He stroked the Pancho Villa with the finesse of a philosopher. “Sheriff de Lude is sick of seeing your face. You’ve got a profile that brings trouble on a pack horse.” 

“Support noted,” I said. “But I need to ask her about the night Aidan died.”

We arrived at the Police Station and walked inside, Tony trailing sufficiently to accentuate his resistance.

Turned out, Sheriff was M.I.A. anyway. I proposed my thinking to Officer Gerulis, whose hesitation stretched into eternity.

Impatience got the better of me. “How about it, Ollie?” I finally asked, with my hands on his desk. “Can I go back and talk to her?”

“Dang, Connor,” Ollie replied, spinning a stapler on its head. He watched it twirl within the confines of his thick fingers. “You put me in a bind. I’m not supposed to let anyone back there.”

I leaned forward a bit. “You hear what I’m saying, though? She might remember something now that she missed in the heat of her arrest.” I stared at him and worked my jaw with the focused intensity of a gestating cow. The internal frustration rose from gut to chest until I stood straight-backed and taut with anticipation.  I rolled my shoulders and stretched my arms. “It only makes sense,” I added at last.

“It’s just a hard thing. Specially with the Deputy….” His voice trailed off, fingers spinning the makeshift toy.

“It’ll take me a minute,” I said, wondering what had happened to the guy who knew the sheriff had lost sight of the law. The policeman who had only hours ago been willing to help me get things back on track.

Ollie’s shoulders slumped and his ears flopped, puppy eyes pleading in that transitory way of gentle dogs. 

“Main trouble is,” he said. “Sheriff won’t like it. I don’t want to make things harder for him.” 

I could almost feel Tony rolling his eyes behind me. My lungs filled with a long draw through my nostrils. I was ready to lay into Ollie with a very convincing argument about the social necessity for justice when a psychotic killer was on the loose.

Before I could unleash the emotional torrent backing up in my throat, Ollie said, “Alright. It’s your sister after all, and she needs a little comfort. I’ll let you in to see her for a minute.”

“I appreciate that,” I said with a long exhale. “You don’t know how much.”

Ollie stood, waltzed over to the ring of keys and beat me to the door by five steps. “Can only give you ten minutes, tops. Rules of the Sheriff.” He looked me in the eye as I walked past.

Renée jumped up when she saw the door open, her cell being closest to the exit. The jaundiced light made her skin appear plastic, and her eyes had sunken into two dim orbs surrounded by darkness. The tremors in her hands when she reached for the cell bars revealed a state of emotional exhaustion.

“Did you find out who did this to me?”

“Hey, Sis. You okay?” I asked, trying not to sound fearful at the sight of her. A glance down the hall made the nightmare more vivid. There were maybe ten cells about eight by ten each. Low wattage bulbs exposed cots with thin mattresses in cages of their own. Odors of vomit, piss and mildew. A hard, cold space reflective of our childhood after mother sent dad packing.

Renée shook her head. “I can’t remember anything from that night,” she said through tears. “I don’t remember drinking. I wouldn’t drink, I’m sure of it. But I blacked out and now I’m afraid I did something terrible.”

My heart plummeted, landing with a thud at the pit of my stomach. The gravity of her words, questioning her own innocence, even her capacity for murder, shook my beliefs as well. Doubt creeped in like smoke under the door of my certainty and threatened to splinter my stalwart understanding of the sister I’d grown up with.

“I’m sure you didn’t,” I said with a force meant to reassure us both. “Why would you? Doesn’t make sense.”

She shuddered, stumbling back to slump into the rigid jailhouse berth.

“Did you see Aidan at all that night?” I asked.

“No!” she blurted. “We went to the club. Vicky said he’d never show up there. Too many pagans searching for a god to make them happy, is what she told me her dad would say.” Renée’s face twisted in confusion. “At least, I don’t…. I don’t remember seeing him,” she stuttered.

I nodded, wishing for a way to avoid reminders of that night. Only, the thing needed doing. “What about Vicky? Did she say anything about your drinking? Anything else about Aidan that night?”

Her face fell when she heard me say her lover’s name. She shook her head violently. “No, we were having fun. Until I got sick.” She plopped back down. “Have you seen Vicky? I hoped she would come.”

I bit my lip, struggling to keep ideas about Vicky’s involvement with Hugh in the box. At least for now.

“I’m working on it,” I said, diverting the topic from her missing lover. My fingers took hold of the cold steel. “Touch my hands, Renée.”

She didn’t budge.

“You have to be strong, sis. Trust me, you didn’t do this. I promise I’ll get you out.”

Solid steel bars and concrete floors held inmates captive to their worst fears. My stomach turned at the sight of it happening to my sister.

“I have to go. They only gave me a few minutes.”

I stepped away and she rose like she was attached to me with strings.

“Please stay, Connor. I cannot last another minute in here.” As weak as the ordeal had made her, desperation gave power to the vocalization. The echo of them hit one wall and slid to the floor.

“I’ll come back. First things first, Sis.”

“Why hasn’t Vicky been to visit?”

It clenched me. The comfort she needed only came with a lie. I’d assumed that Vicky had visited. I wasn’t prepared with a story. Raw honesty meant risk of another suicide attempt. And I needed more information, more time, so I could get her out.

“They won’t let her visit,” I said, adding emphasis to the restrictive element the county made available by default. Maybe it was true. It sounded true, and that was the most important thing for the moment. “Took a lot of masterful sales talk to get them to let me in. Besides, Vicky’s been detained for questioning regarding what the two of you were doing prior to Aidan’s murder, so they won’t let her speak to you.”

“Oh.” The pronouncement deflated her. She slipped back into the folded shape of a wraith on the hard cot.

“Kayla’s doing better.”

Her head came up. A flicker lit her eyes. “I’m glad. Can’t wait to see her.”

“Won’t be long. Hang in. We’ll get this worked out.”

Stepping away from Renée brought a flood of bad memories. Memories of me taking off for a football game while she sat home alone. Me bouncing out the door with a flippant word of encouragement, her dejected expression shelved beside a thousand others. And when we were younger, leaving her wobbly and tearful, hollering after me as I raced away on my bike.

Panic swelled as my heart beat wildly and my breaths became short and insubstantial. A shock of vertigo nearly tipped me, and I was forced to reach for the damp concrete wall to steady my exit. The clap-clap of my shoes provided an unwanted applause that wouldn’t stop no matter how I changed my step. The persistent hardness of the metal bars from Renée’s cell remained even when I shoved my hands deep into my pockets. The coat I wore was useless. A chill ran its paws over my skin. No redemption existed in this manmade cave. 

As I pushed out of the cellblock and into the police office proper, thoughts of Renée’s morbid end loomed like a thunderhead. Seconds raced by faster than my rapid heartbeat, while simultaneously feeling eternal. I had to find answers soon, or she would die in this claustrophobic hole of darkness.