“Don’t you have any video of inside the passage?” I asked, exasperated.
“Nope,” he replied. “But we do have it from the opposite street. Here it is.”
He played a different video from Creechurch Place, where Mitre Passage let out. The camera was too far from the alley’s mouth for a clear picture, but it showed Eira’s small figure falling to the ground. Not a moment later, I emerged from the shadows and knelt beside her.
“That’s not what happened!” I said hotly. “The timing is all wrong! I was at least twenty strides behind Eira. I wouldn’t have reached her that quickly, and where’s the footage before this? Of the man in the cloak fleeing from the passage?”
Stowick rolled his eyes. “Give it up, Miss Frye. There was no man in a cloak. You attacked Eira Kent, and you mostly likely killed William Lewis and Rosie Brigham too.”
“You are stark raving mad,” I informed him. “Bring that footage to a professional and tell him to check it for alterations. I’m telling you, the Ripper is pulling the wool over your eyes.”
He stretched, and his chair creaked beneath his weight. A diabolical smile spread across his froggy cheeks. “Miss Frye, we have already had our in-house professionals verify the validity of this footage. We’ve got you. You might as well admit it.”
“I refuse,” I snapped. “I didn’t do it, and you can’t prove it.”
“Were you watching the same videos?”
“At any point in that video can you see me pulling a knife across Eira’s throat?”
Stowick crossed his arms. “You were right next to her the entire time. It’s plain as day—”
“It is not,” I countered. “The footage is grainy and dark. There’s no evidence of a blade in my hand. You can’t even be sure that’s me in the video. Did you find a murder weapon?”
He tried his best to hide his annoyance. “I’m sure you chucked it away when you realized we were right behind you.”
“But your constables and investigators would have swept the scene,” I reminded him. “They would have found the knife I used, if I had used one. Did they?”
Stowick’s upper lip curled. “I can’t reveal intimate details of the investigation.”
“You have nothing,” I said smartly. “Nothing but a few minutes of altered footage. It will get dismissed in court. Shoddy CCTV won’t prove anything. I know how many criminals go loose because the CCTV isn’t enough to identify them. You’ll look like an idiot. Again.”
His teeth clenched with an audible click, and his face went so red that it was swollen to twice its normal size. He slammed his palm on the desk and stormed out. The other officer, the younger one who’d brought in my knapsack, came back in.
“Sorry, Miss Frye,” he said. “I’ve got to get you back to holding.”
I didn’t fight against him. “You can’t keep me here forever. You don’t have enough proof to charge me for this.”
“But you did steal the files,” the constable reminded me.
“It appears I stole the files,” I corrected him. “Again, it’s hard to tell who’s who with security footage. That’s not me.”
The constable cracked a grin. “I gotta give it to you. You’re a slick one. Off we go now.”
Another two hours passed. The rest of my comrades were released one by one. The crazy woman speaking to herself was last to go, and as she was escorted out, she turned back to me and, with complete clarity, said, “Give ’em hell, honey.”
Time slogged by. The holding cell grew cold, and with my sweater gone, I curled in on myself and balled up to keep warm. No one came in to offer water or food. My blood sugar dropped slowly until I began to shake slightly from the inside out. At long last, the door opened, but my hope sank when I saw it was Stowick again.
“Come on,” he said, dragging me out of holding. “The press wants a picture of you.”
“For what?”
He pushed me along to where I had originally been admitted and made me stand against a white wall, where a photographer took my picture. I officially had a mugshot. Well, I technically had two; the first had been courtesy of the San Diego Police Department.
Once the photo was finished, Stowick shoved me back into the holding cell. I stumbled inside, too weak to worry about keeping my footing.
“We’re releasing a statement,” Stowick nastily informed me as he locked me in. “That we’ve got the killer in custody. All we need is a confession from you.”
“Good luck getting it,” I spat. “I want to speak to the chief investigator. Baker, right? Get him in here.”
“You don’t have the right to speak to anyone,” he answered. “Get comfortable, Miss Frye.”
I shouted after him as he made to leave again. “I need something to eat. If I pass out in here, I’ll make sure you lose your job!”
Stowick’s answering chuckle echoed back to me before he slammed the door and left me alone once more.
In hindsight, I’d gotten myself into this mess. Evelyn had warned me from the beginning about nicking William Lewis’s file off the investigator’s desk. At best, I’d likely be charged for interfering with the investigation or whatever the UK equivalent was. At worst, Stowick and Baker would find a way to frame me for the three attacks in Whitechapel.
As I mourned my fate and worried about Evelyn’s health, a bickering match broke out in the main area of the police station. The argument was so loud that I could hear the men’s voices clearly from the cold holding cell.
“She is my client!” a familiar voice boomed. “You can’t keep her here without better evidence. I am taking her with me.”
“She is a killer,” Stowick shouted back. “I refuse to let her loose in the streets!”
“She’s not a killer, but you are a moron,” the other man replied. “I demand you release her to me. You do not have the authority to hold her any longer. When you have a solid case,
