Four Walls

Shit. 'I don't know what you mean.'

'Yeah, you do. You signed up for Washburne's Koran class. Probably figured if you wore a dashiki and knelt to Allah a few times, the parole board would go easy on you.'

Jorge snarled. 'That's interferin' with my religious rights, yo!'

Mac talked for the first time. 'Which way do you kneel when you pray to Allah?'

Suddenly, Jorge got nervous. He was pretty sure he knew that one. Had something to do with the sun, he thought. 'East-the way the sun rises.'

'Actually,' Mac said with a smile, 'it's toward Mecca. Nice try, though.'

Flack was holding a folder and was flipping through it. 'I got a report here from Officer Sullivan. He said that yesterday, during Malik Washburne's Koran class, he informed you that trying to fake a religious conversion to improve your parole chances was, and I quote, 'an insult to Allah.''

'And that was when you hit him,' Mac said.

It wasn't like he could deny it, so Jorge said, 'Yeah, I took a swing at him, but I didn't hit him or nothin'. He hit me, though. Pendejo got me right in the nose!'

'According to the infirmary report,' Mac said, 'it wasn't broken, but it did bleed a lot. Some of that blood got on Washburne, and we found it on his body.'

'Yeah, so we got into it, so what? That don't mean I killed him.'

'And yet,' Flack said, 'you got the trifecta: means, motive, and opportunity. We got your prints on the weight that killed him.'

'I told you I used that weight right before he did! And yeah, I figured I'd suck up to his sorry ass so I could get back in the Koran class. There ain't nobody but Allah in my life now.'

Flack looked up at Mac. Unless it was the other way around. 'You can just feel the religious fervor, can'tcha?'

'Oozing out of his pores,' Mac said. Then he leaned forward and stared at him with his scary-ass eyes. 'The evidence is piling up against you, Jorge. Malik Washburne had a lot of friends in here. It'd go easier if you confess now.'

Jorge was no fool. Cops only said that when they didn't have anything. If they were sure, they'd arrest him. Not that it mattered that much-he wasn't going anywhere for another two years, and then only if he made parole- but he wasn't making their lives easier, either. 'Screw you, cop. I didn't kill Washburne. I ain't a killer.'

'Yeah, well,' Flack said, 'neither was Jack Mulroney.'

'Yeah, but white folks is crazy. I'm just a businessman bidin' his time in the service of Allah.'

Flack and Mac looked at each other, then Mac said, 'We're done here. For now, anyhow.'

As the CO took Jorge back to his dorm, he wondered what would happen next. He was nothing but a wannabe Muslim, and el-Jabbar had been giving him static on the subject. Getting into it with Washburne didn't help. If word got out that he was prime suspect number one, he was seriously screwed.

Luckily, cops weren't the type to go gossiping. Jorge figured he was safe as long as the cops didn't say anything, and they wouldn't unless and until they actually had something. If that happened, they'd arrest whoever they had, and he'd be safe then.

At least, Jorge hoped that would be how it worked.

* * *

After Melendez was taken out, Mac asked who was next on the list.

Ursitti consulted his clipboard. 'Karl Fischer. He's-'

'I know what he's in for.' Mac shook his head. Fischer had shot three young men in a subway car, killing one, leaving one in a coma, and paralyzing the third for life. All three were African-American. 'What the hell's he doing here?'

Holding up a hand, Ursitti said, 'I know, Detective, I know, but his lawyer made a motion and the judge granted it-as long as his case is on appeal, he gets to stay in medium. And he carries a lotta weight around here.'

'Using the system for his own benefit,' Mac said with disgust. Of course, Mac himself had done something similar to get Gerrard and Sinclair off his back, but that was only because his back was against the wall.

Besides which, Mac was on the side of right there. When Clay Dobson was first arrested, the officers failed to secure his belt. Dobson tried to hang himself with that belt. Gerrard, then a lieutenant, covered up both the failure to secure and the suicide attempt. Mac hadn't wanted to use that against Gerrard and Sinclair (who was the inspector in charge of the precinct at the time of Dobson's arrest), but he had little choice. While the DA's office had cleared Mac of any wrongdoing in Dobson's death, Sinclair had started an internal investigation to please the media and raise his own profile, no doubt in an attempt to make his bid for the commissioner's chair more realistic.

Mac had thought him to be a fool in any case. Gerrard, at least, used to be a good police. Sinclair, though, was a political animal with delusions of grandeur-and also no sense of history. Most NYPD commissioners were brought in from outside, and the job tended to chew people up and spit them out. Theodore Roosevelt had one of the most distinguished careers of anyone in American history, a successful soldier, a well-regarded New York State governor, a popular vice president and president. The one failure in his entire career was his disastrous tenure as the commissioner of the NYPD.

Sinclair was no Teddy Roosevelt. Thoughts like that kept Mac warm at night.

And sights like Karl Fischer kept him up at night. One of the COs Mac hadn't seen before brought Fischer in. He was shorter than Mac was expecting him to be, with a monk's fringe of hair that was part blond, part silver; a hook nose; and wide, penetrating blue eyes. They were the same color as Flack's.

Most of the inmates who'd come into this room were either defiant or overly solicitous. The former were the harder criminals who didn't give a damn about anything; the latter were the ones who were doing everything they could to be model citizens in order to make parole.

Fischer didn't fit either one of those types. He had a superiority complex about him, a vibe Mac hadn't gotten off any of the other inmates so far. 'Detective Flack, Detective Taylor,' he said in a bourbon-smooth voice with just a hint of a Southern accent, 'what can I do to help y'all today?'

Where others had asked that question as if eager to please, Fischer was acting as if he were doling out indulgences. Neither detective had introduced himself; Fischer must have gotten their names from one of the other inmates, a neat trick with the place in lockdown. Obviously, he wanted to show off how good his information network was.

Mac found he couldn't help himself. 'How'd you swing getting remanded here? You were convicted of, among other things, first-degree murder.'

'That's arguable, Detective Taylor. You see, the law says I'm entitled to a jury of my peers. That jury was pretty much all my inferiors.' He smiled. 'Pity that particular nuance doesn't carry much weight with New York judges, but I've got other things to base my appeal on. For one thing, the evidence was truly spotty. Obviously, Detective Taylor, you weren't the one on the case. I can't imagine you allowing an arrest to proceed with the pissant evidence they had on me. If'n you were, I daresay this would've had a much better end for all concerned.'

'Somehow I doubt that,' Mac said tightly.

'Don't sell yourself short, Detective. I've been hearin' about your trials and tribulations with that Dobson fella. Now there's a hardcore sumbitch, if you'll pardon my French. It's a travesty of justice that a man like him gets to go free while an innocent man such as myself rots away in prison.'

Flack got the interview back on track, for which Mac was grateful. 'What can you tell us about the two murders that happened this morning?'

'Not a thing, sorry to say, Detective. They both happened in the weight yard when I was not present in that facility.'

'So you didn't know that it was Jack Mulroney who killed Vance Barker.'

'I was deep in conversation with Mr. William Cox. We were discussing the Gospel according to St. John and the discrepancies between it and the other three Gospels, which I attribute to John actually being present.'

Mac raised an eyebrow. 'Really? Most religious scholars have come to the conclusion that John was actually