“Nigel, why?” Ella asked. “You didn’t need to do that.”
Byford pulled the suspect up, doing nothing to quench his outburst. Ella looked around and saw all of the residents standing outside the apartment building, watching in awe.
“He’s a murder suspect. I’m not naïve enough to trust him.” Byford hauled the man into the back of their car and locked him in. Aleister’s screaming stopped, but through the glass, Ella saw him hyperventilating.
She didn’t have a good feeling about this. Something was going on, but something was very strange about it. Back at the precinct, they needed to have a long talk with Aleister Black.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Watching him through the two-way mirror of the interrogation room, Aleister Black reminded Ella of a child. His mannerisms, his outbursts, his inability to regulate his emotions. But even so, did that mean he was innocent? A mentally stunted individual is still capable of committing atrocities, and besides, there was no guarantee this wasn’t all just an Oscar-worthy performance.
Sheriff Hunter approached Ella, stale smoke lingering on his clothes. “Do you think this is our guy?”
Ella didn’t quite know how to respond. If she had to make a guess, the scales tipped in favor of guilty, but there was enough reasonable doubt to second-guess her assumption. “It’s a coin flip,” she said. She suddenly gasped at her error. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Easy mistake to make, given the circumstances. What do you have on this fella?”
“What don’t we have? He’s a coin collector. He has a history of criminal activity. He got into a fight with Jimmy Loveridge. He works for the same company Barry Windham did. He even spent time in Japan, the same part where the coins at a crime scene came from.”
Sheriff Hunter’s mouth fell open. “Well, shit. I think any judge in the world would put that guy behind bars in a second.”
“It doesn’t look good for him, I’ll admit. It’s just…”
“What? You don’t think it’s him?”
“Cops always told me about that gut feeling they had. Like, they can just look at a suspect and know they’re either guilty or innocent.”
“Oh yeah. I know that. It’s a real double-edger.”
“Yeah, well I always thought that was just bullcrap. But now I’m in this job, I get the same feeling.”
“It’s called intuition,” Hunter said. “We pick up on things outside of the usual; our brains just don’t understand it.”
A simplified version, Ella thought, but pretty accurate. “Yeah. There’s something about him that I just don’t get. He’s impossible to read. I have my doubts, I’ll be honest.”
Byford joined them with a coffee in hand. He hadn’t gotten Ella one and she was getting desperate for a caffeine hit by now. She’d hadn’t had one today and the withdrawal symptoms were starting to show.
“Shall we?” he asked.
The coffee would have to wait. “Okay. Let’s present him with the evidence.”
“No, let’s accuse him of being the murderer,” Byford said. “We might as well start as we mean to go on.”
Byford was showing his time served, Ella thought. Immediate accusations were the old school approach to FBI interrogations, but that method had long been replaced by a more natural, conversational approach.
“The accusation style died out years ago,” Ella said. “It’s not a viable interrogation style anymore.”
“Yes, it is. It’s advised in situations with ample evidence, which we have.”
“We don’t have ample evidence. We have a few tangible links. Nothing solid connects Aleister Black to these crime scenes.”
Byford conceded. “Alright, let’s do it your way. Come on.”
Ella couldn’t believe her partner wanted to use that technique. It had been considered outdated during her entire time at the FBI. Maybe Byford needed a refresher course. With a little tension between them, the two agents entered the room to a cowering suspect. Aleister Black’s arms folded right around his body, like a child clutching an invisible teddy. The two agents took a seat opposite him.
“Mr. Black, we’re sorry for bringing you in like this, but you understand why, don’t you?” said Ella.
Aleister nodded. His head jerked to the left. A new twitch Ella hadn’t seen yet. This anxiety must have been hell for him.
“Can you tell us about your fight with Mr. Loveridge? What happened exactly?”
“I just screamed at him. I didn’t hit him. I apologized the next day.”
“Right. And what about your attack on the dealer in New Castle? It says in your record that you assaulted him.”
“That was the man who bought the coin off Jimmy. I just punched him in the nose, but I didn’t do any damage. A guy like me doesn’t punch so good.”
Ella did notice the distinct lack of muscle tone in the man. Combined with the color of his skin, malnutrition was a safe bet.
“Okay, and your file says you lived in Okinawa, Japan, for a while? Can you tell us about that?”
Aleister smiled for the first time since they met. Maybe he had some good memories of his time there, memories that he remembered through his coin collection, perhaps.
“Yes, I did. I wanted to get away. People in this country aren’t so nice to people like me. But in Japan, no one batted an eyelid to me. I felt like I belonged there, so I stayed as long as I could. But you need a Visa to live there, and I didn’t have one. After nine months, I had to come back.”
“Did you happen to bring any coins back for your collection?” asked Byford.
“Yes. Lots. Rare ones too. Japan has lots of great coins.”
Ella saw in Byford’s expression that he saw this as a gotcha moment, but Ella didn’t feel the same way. A guilty man, regardless of their naivety, wouldn’t mention such a thing.
“Mr. Black, a rare Japanese coin was found at the home of one of our victims. What do you have to say about that?”
Aleister looked up from the table for the first time since he entered the room. “What type of coin was it?”
“One thousand yen. Okinawa 1964. Mean anything to you?”
“It means a lot, but it’s not rare. You can find those things very easily.”
“Do you have any in your collection?” asked Byford.
“Several. Every collector does.”
Again, with the admission. Ella was really struggling to see the light here. “Mr. Black, what do you do for work?” she asked.
“Warehouse.”
“You work for an electrical company, is that right?”
“Yes. Quanta. Why?”
“How long have you been there?” Ella asked.
“In total, ten years. I worked there for seven years, then I left to go to Japan. Then I started working there when I came home.”
“So, you must be pretty familiar with some of the other employees there,” said Byford, catching on to Ella’s thought process.
“I know everybody. It’s a big place, but I know all the names and faces. Part of my Asperger’s. I can’t forget something once I’ve committed it to memory.”