The Seventh Sons (Sycamore Moon Series Book 1) (2 page)

Now, with their injuries stabilized, nothing was stopping Maxim from getting answers.

"Gutierrez!" he called out.

A young man in pressed blues entered the clinic room. He was a bit short, but the stocky sort, and combined with his crew cut gave him the appearance of a marine-turned-officer. The reality was that Gutierrez had never served and didn't quite have the needed discipline. He was a bit of a joker, really. And tonight, of all nights, he'd decided to wear a triangle goatee with some kind of handlebar mustache.

"What is it, Detective?"

"Let's take this one down to the box." Maxim motioned lazily at Diego as he moved into the hallway and turned halfway around, waiting for them to take the lead.

As he stood there, the detective's eyes scanned the rest of the short hall behind him. Recessed lights lined the ceiling, creating a bath of sterile illumination. An empty front desk with a sign-in sheet, a branching hallway for a wide service elevator and a set of bathrooms, and three other rooms with closed doors filled out the floor. Straight ahead, in the direction he motioned Gutierrez to go in, was an always-open pair of double doors and the staircase down to the marshal's office.

At this time of night, after the doctors had gone home, the clinic's skeleton crew amounted to a single nurse. Tonight it was Renee. Maxim smiled. He liked her the most because she always kept their conversations flowing, no matter his troubles. For the moment, however, she must have been attending another patient somewhere. Renee was nowhere in sight.

Too bad. Maxim again caught himself spinning the silver band around his finger. He immediately felt guilty.

The detective's eyes moved to the other rookie guarding the ward. He sat across the doorway with his back against the wall, which would normally afford a great view of the prisoners—except he was playing a video game on a portable console.

"Kent, keep an eye on the other two, and let me know if they wake up and start talking." The officer didn't look up or cease his finger tapping, but he gave a quick nod of acknowledgement.

Gutierrez pushed the prisoner ahead of him as they passed through the doorway. Like the other suspects, Diego wore only a loose hospital gown. He had some bandages on his right forearm and hip to account for minor road rash and some bruising on his shoulders and knees. Because the floor was cold, the man had been allowed to keep his worn, yellowed socks on. Although the holes in the toes created a comical appearance, Maxim didn't want to take the situation lightly.

"Listen, Diego. I won't tolerate any surprises." The detective brushed his right jacket back and placed his hand on his gun holster, more a signal of readiness than a threat. As the two shuffled by him, Maxim shook his head and addressed the rookie. "And, Gutierrez. Shave that damn mustache."

"Sorry, boss," the uniform chuckled, "but I don't think there's enough hair here to glue to your bald head." He laughed and pushed the prisoner into the stairwell, wearing a stupid grin the whole way.

The detective sighed and rubbed both hands on his head, checking to see if Kent had noticed the quip. Ever since Maxim had shaved his hair close to his scalp, the rookie had been on him about it. So what if his hair was receding a bit? He surely wasn't going bald at thirty-two.

Still, something had been bothering him, and he refused to call it an early mid-life crisis. As gifted as he was, he hadn't managed to recover his wife after she disappeared two years earlier. Living without her created a void inside him that he was just beginning to comprehend. However easily work had come to him thus far in Sanctuary, there remained the nagging feeling that he needed to understand more. This determination, whether through carelessness or curiosity, brought him to consider the bikers an aberrant type of thorn.

In truth, Diego had him hooked the second he mentioned disappearances.

Trailing them downstairs, Maxim hit the ground floor, turned into the police lobby, and entered the marshal's office. It was a large room littered with desks and outdated computers and had the old kind of fluorescent bulbs that buzzed. The far wall was exposed brick, and the ceiling tiles were still stained from the years when smoking was legal in government buildings. The only two officers in the room besides the rookie were Hitchens and Cole, two veterans who were as much a relic in these times as the office itself.

"Get out of the way, black," said Gutierrez to Hitchens as he passed him by.

"You keep calling me black and I'm gonna file racial discrimination charges on your ass." Hitchens tried to scowl but couldn't hide his smirk. "Fucking spic."

Maxim shook his head. If Gutierrez was an instigator, the two veterans were stock cartoon caricatures: Hitchens was heavy and bossy and loud and Cole was tall and muscled and reserved. The humorous moment did not last long.

"Dwyer, what in the hell do you think you're doing?" Hitchens always spoke plainly. He didn't care if it got him into trouble, and it often did, but Maxim appreciated that nuance about the man. He was overweight and in his fifties but still dependable in most situations.

This wasn't one of them.

"The marshal is going to flip his lid when he finds MC members in our jail!"

Barney Hitchens was the patrol sergeant, so he was accustomed to getting his way. He didn't hold rank over the Criminal Investigation Unit but the marshal certainly did, and the marshal would not be happy that Maxim had chosen to observe and interfere with the bikers at Sycamore Lodge tonight. None of the police were cleared by the brass to monitor the club, and Hitchens and Cole, perhaps concerned with their pensions, never bent that rule. The two uniforms had responded to the motorcycle accident, but they wanted no part of locking up the Seventh Sons.

"Someone needs to account for the dead man, Hitchens. What else could I do?"

The grizzled officer was only half sympathetic. Gutierrez escorted the prisoner to the interrogation room and Hitchens watched them with uncertain eyes. "You should have just left it alone, that's what. And on a full moon, no less."

And there was the real reason no one interfered. Fear.

This was a small department and the veterans could get away with just about anything—but they were flat out afraid of the motorcycle club. Hitchens was bull-headed and coarse, but his superstitious nature had those qualities beat. Too many long nights in the woods, Maxim supposed.

Still, maybe the timing of the full moon had influenced Maxim's decision to watch the bikers on this particular night. The veterans had reasons for their beliefs; if Maxim was to be convinced as well, tonight was a promising candidate.

Cole, ever diplomatic, attempted to ease the tension. He was a decade older than the sergeant, but that didn't stop the taller man from hitting the gym and showing up his friend. "Just make sure when the marshal reads your report that it doesn't involve us, 'cause we're not here."

Officer Cole wasn't as abrasive as his counterpart, but his message was the same. For someone in such prime physical condition, Maxim thought it curious that he was afraid of the wolf stories too.

"You got it," was all Maxim could get in before they marched toward the exit.

Hitchens, without looking back, left one last piece of his mind. "Make sure you know what you're doing." The two veterans left the marshal's office for the night.

So it was to be a skeleton crew downstairs as well, then. Their gray hair may have been evidence of wisdom or cowardice, but neither rubbed off on Maxim.

 

The detective entered the small interrogation room as Gutierrez locked Diego's left arm to the reinforced steel bar on the table.

"And his right arm too."

Maxim wasn't sure that he believed in werewolves, and he knew the man's right arm was bruised, but it wouldn't be said that he taunted the unknown. He gave Gutierrez his set of cuffs to keep Diego comfortable with stretching room and then slid a plastic chair across the dirty linoleum tiles to the front of the table opposite Diego. Maxim considered the empty chair for a moment.

"Don't worry, Detective Dwyer, I won't bite." Diego spoke plainly between the thin mustache and goatee circling his lips. "I can guarantee your safety if you can guarantee mine."

He looked calm in his seat, leaning forward on the table with his hands clasped together. For a man banged up in an accident and wearing nothing but tube socks and a hospital gown, he seemed strangely put together. He had a confident, strong jaw, a decent tan, and aside from his frazzled black hair, he was well groomed.

The rookie grabbed a camcorder leaning against the corner wall and unfolded the tripod. "Don't tell me you buy into all this dog talk, sir." Gutierrez positioned the camera to get a good view of Diego in the limited light, putting his hands up to block out a shot like a director might frame a scene. "Although this video could make the front page of Reddit if this guy did something crazy!"

Diego contemplated the young man with the waning patience of a father, eyes again appearing black as night. "You live in the middle of these beautiful woods, just south of the Grand Canyon, yet your computers..." he said, trailing off as if his amusement were enough explanation.

Gutierrez raised his eyebrows. "Don't pretend like you're too good for Facebook, bro. When you take pictures of your giant hole in the ground, you gotta post them somewhere."

The prisoner blinked slowly and said, "I don't like to carry my cell phone on me."

The rookie scrunched his eyebrows together. "Why not? It's called a mobile phone because you're supposed to take it with you."

It may have been the harsh yellow bulbs recessed in the low ceiling, but Maxim had no need for jokes or philosophical discussion at this late hour. He just stood there and gave Gutierrez an unwavering stare that conveyed the state of his sense of humor until the rookie retreated from the boxy room, closing the door behind him. Maxim's gaze traveled from the video camera, making sure it was on, to the suspect, seated calmly and leaning on the table, and finally to his vacant chair. With everything in place, the detective gave a heavy sigh and melted into the seat.

"How's my bike?" Diego's slight Hispanic accent was well-integrated and hard to place.

"It's fine," Maxim replied. He wasn't very familiar with motorcycles, but he did note the conditions of the accident vehicles for his report. "You laid it down and scratched it up but it's good to go."

The door opened meekly and Gutierrez popped his head in. "Yo, that's another thing. Do you think I can ride that bike one day? It is dope."

"Gutierrez!" Maxim glared and the rookie disappeared again.

Diego could not hide his smile. "It's a beautiful machine, isn't it? A brand new Triumph Scrambler. It really stands out from the pack."

That was something else the detective had noticed. The other club members opted for old Harleys.

"Okay, let's start this off. This is Detective Maxim Dwyer," he recited in monotone, looking back at the camera although barely concerned if he was actually within frame, "interviewing suspect one in the Sycamore Lodge stabbing." The detective nonchalantly turned to his companion and leaned in. "Please state your name, for the record."

The prisoner's face brightened ever so slightly, as if the game were afoot. Maxim recognized the sign as either deceptive or playful, thinking Diego didn't realize the magnitude of trouble he was in. Did he think he could just walk away from all of this?

The man answered with a proud flair, exaggerating his accent as the name rolled off his tongue. "Diego de la Torre, sir." The prisoner even bowed his head slightly, like he was the star in his own play.

Maxim rested his back against the inflexible chair and put his right foot on his knee. Where was he to start?

"You've previously mentioned arriving at Sycamore Lodge at about ten o'clock. Is that correct?"

"That is."

"And what were you doing there?"

"Oh," Diego said, shaking his head as if the reason were unclear. "I suppose the same as everybody else."

"Meaning you were looking for trouble?"

Diego chuckled. "Trouble, perhaps, but not the sort you're interested in."

Maxim studied the man's body language. Diego had appeared very frayed before, and back in the clinic, he'd had an insistence about him, almost like some of the drug addicts the detective had occasionally arrested. But locked up down here, the prisoner was the perfect model of composure. Maxim hoped this change in demeanor didn't reflect a shift in the man's desire to be forthcoming.

"According to eyewitnesses, the two we've got upstairs were drinking for hours before you showed up. They both exceeded the legal limit of alcohol in their blood, but you tested completely negative."

"Maybe I don't drink," posited the suspect.

"They say it's hard to trust a man who doesn't drink—"

"Would you trust me more if I admitted to lying about it?"

Maxim sighed as he watched the upturned corners of Diego's mouth open into a wide grin. Not only was the suspect wasting the detective's time, but he was having fun doing it. Maxim should have known this wasn't going to be an automatic confession.

"Diego, I would trust you more if you didn't hide behind clever banter. You told me you wanted to confess. So what is it exactly that you have to say to me?"

The suspect had no immediate answer. He looked at the bare walls, examining all four of them. Maxim closed his eyes and rubbed them as he realized what Diego was searching for. The detective reached into his jacket's breast pocket and placed his phone face up on the table. "Five minutes till three."

"Then we still have about ten minutes."

"Good. How about we drop the werewolf thing until then and keep talking about the case?"

Diego's lips covered his large teeth as they closed to form an inquisitive pout. "Aren't you at all intrigued?"