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“I’ll send a couple of uniforms to arrest him,” Jack said. “Happy hunting.”
“Good timing,” I said, standing up to stretch.
“I told you we were getting close,” he said. “I can feel it in my gut.”
“Maybe you just need another candy bar,” I said. “I’m switching to coffee before we talk to Kevin. You should bring him some. He’s probably got a pounding headache. Maybe it’ll make him more agreeable.”
“Or we could just torture him with the smell of yours,” Jack said. “You should drink water.”
“If water tasted like coffee I would drink it,” I said. “Besides, there’s water in coffee.”
“I hope you gave your patients better medical advice than you give yourself,” he said, opening the door for me.
“That’s why I don’t work with the living anymore,” I said. “I don’t have to feel the burden of preaching what I don’t practice.”
“How about a compromise? Coffee now and water at dinner.”
“Agreed,” I said. “And people say marriage is hard. Look at us winning.”
I understood the psychology of meeting with Kevin in lockup. There was something about hearing the bars clank shut behind you that made you appreciate freedom a little more, and I knew Jack didn’t want Kevin to get comfortable in an interrogation room. Some people needed the sight of the bars as a reminder of what was at stake.
I’d have preferred the interrogation room.
I brought my coffee to my mouth but didn’t drink. I was just using it to cover the smell—steel, cement, sweat, vomit—all topped with a thin layer of bleach. My shoes scraped across the concrete floors and I waited for the corrections officer to unlock the door that led into the holding area. Jack had left his weapon in the safe with the guard.
The holding cell area wasn’t a large space. There were four gray cells, each with double bunks bolted to the wall and a single toilet. The holding cells were for short-term guests or those waiting to be transferred over to the prison. After the chaos of the night before, I expected all the cells to be full, but we passed only one other man who was lying on his bunk and staring at the ceiling on the way down to the fourth cellblock.
Kevin lay on his bunk, curled on his side with his back turned toward us.
“Time to rise, Sleeping Beauty,” Jack said. We waited for the deputy to open the cell and we stepped inside. I wasn’t going to sit anywhere, and I was going to have to scour the bottoms of my shoes when we left. That says a lot for someone who embalms people for a living.
“Go away,” Kevin groaned. “Let me die in peace.”
“No time for that,” Jack said. “We’re closing in on Cami Downey’s murderer. I need you to sit up for me so Dr. Graves can look at your hands.”
Kevin rolled so he was sitting on the side of the bed, but his head was hanging down. I could already see the marks on his knuckles.
“Crap,” I said, letting out a sigh.
Kevin looked up and I winced at the sight of his face. His left eye was almost completely swollen shut and he had some very colorful marks on his face. The knuckles on both his hands were bloodied and bruised.
“Looks like you had an exciting night,” Jack said, eyeing him up and down. “You need a medic?”
“Someone already came,” Kevin said. “Hasn’t done much good.”
“Not much you can do for a punch to the face,” Jack said. “It’ll feel better in a couple of days.”
“Why do you want to see my hands?” Kevin asked, flexing his sore knuckles.
I went over to him and picked up his right hand, feeling around to see if there were any bone chips or broken fingers.
“You haven’t been in many fights, huh?” I asked.
“What makes you say that?”
“Your thumb is broken. That’s a rookie mistake. Never tuck your thumb in your fist.”
“We don’t get into a lot of fistfights at the courthouse,” he said sullenly. “God, my head is pounding. Why am I the only one still here?”
