DIRTBAG CHAPTER 25

    While Donaldson waited in the interrogation room, Dan was in county lock up, watching TV cartoons on the community couch, a guy sitting next to him, made him feel the point of a shiv in his side.  He was about to turn and introduce the man to his left fist, when another guy came around his other side and took hold of his arm.  He was a husky guy, tall, muscular and his buddy with the shiv was just as big.  When Dan tried to pull his arm free and swing with his right, his fist was blocked by the man with the shiv, who started digging the blade into his flesh.
    “Don’t move!”
    Dan kept real still.
    “Listen to me.  You say anything…  I mean anything to anyone, ever… my friend here will dig the shiv in so far, he’ll cut through a few internal organs, leave you to bleed to death, cut your throat just to make sure you’re dead.  You got it?  Don’t forget your sacred oath to remain silent.”
    The prison guard let them through the gate, on their way out of his cell block.
    Who were they?  Dan never saw them before.  Were they Masons, or hired thugs, dressed in prison garb, like cons, trustees maybe? He asked around, came up empty.  Alone in his cell, afraid for his life…

    An hour later, Dan received a visitor in jail and when he saw it was Lan and Stuart, he did an about face, didn’t want to be seen with a cop for any length of time, but a guard made him sit down and handcuffed him to the metal table.  Still, that didn’t mean he had to listen.
    “You can take me back to my jail cell now.  You’re wasting your time.  There’s no way I’m talking to the pigs.”
    “Look Dan,” Lan said, sitting across from him in the small interview room, “I know you’re a Mason, just like Gerard.”
    Silence was his answer.
    Changing his position, leaning into the long time con, Stuart said, “You remember Gerard, the guy you visited in Palo Alto, the guy you said was a childhood friend?”
    Giving her a cold look, Dan’s piercing stare was all she got.
    “You’re not doing yourself any favors here… by not being cooperative…”  Lan pulled out a pair of tweezers from his pocket and plucked an arm hair and put it into a plastic baggie; Dan recoiled, but was defenseless to resist in wrist restraints.
    “What’s that for?”  He asked.
    “This is going to tell me if you were in Nigel Mann’s house on the night of the murder.”  Lan said.
    Dan licked his lips nervously.
    “You want to talk now?  Or should we give Gerard Donaldson a try first?”  Stuart shouted.
     They waited for a response from Dan, then Lan pulled out a cellular module device, bigger than his hand and dialed a number.
    “What’s that?”  The convict asked.
    “The latest thing in technology: a cell phone: cordless.  With this baby I can make and receive calls anywhere in the world.  Isn’t that amazing?  Right now, I’m calling your old pal Donaldson.  Remember him?”
    Sitting up at attention, Dan looked interested.
    “Hello, Gerard.  I have Dan Murdock here, the man you let into your home.”
    Cecil was holding Gerard’s cell phone up to the suspect’s mouth on the other end of the wireless.  The lead detective said, “Say hi to your old pal Dan.”
    Lan put the phone up to Dan’s ear.
    He heard Donaldson’s voice saying, “Dan, it’s me, Donaldson.  Can you hear me?”
    Convinced now that he recognized the voice of his old friend, Dan said, “Donaldson, I haven’t-”
    Lan pulled the phone away from him and put it up against his chest, before Dan said anything like he wasn’t talking and even though Dan was yelling, Donaldson couldn’t hear him.   When the furor died down, Cecil began speaking into the phone for all to hear, “Here’s the deal, the first one to confess, gets to have the charges against him reduced and we’re talking about murder charges here.”
    Donald was saying, “You have nothing to bargain with.”
    “The evidence is overwhelming.”  Cecil declared into the phone.
    “Bullshit!”  Dan yelled.
    Cecil turned away from the suspect and cupped the phone to his mouth, “What’s that Gerard?  You want to confess now?” 
    “I don’t believe it,” Dan shouted.
    “You say you had nothing to do with it?  It was all Dan’s idea, he’s the one who killed those girls.”
    Gerard was screaming, “He’s lying Dan, don’t believe him.”
    Cecil covered up the phone, muffling his voice.   A few minutes later, the lead detective was outside the interview room, talking on the cell-phone.
    “Is Dan ready to confess, Lan?”
    Lan looked at Dan, like this was his last chance.  “Going, going, gone…”

    Locked in a small room for hours, Gerard Donaldson was beginning to feel claustrophobic and he was getting tired of this treatment.  Cecil came into the room to reason with him.  “Right now, your old friend Dan Murdock is spilling his guts out to the ADA, telling him everything he knows.  Since he was the first to talk, he get’s the best deal, but it isn’t too late for you.  Tell me everything you know about the murder of Mary Donovan and I’ll put in a good word for you with the ADA.”
    Gerard had a laugh.
    “You won’t be laughing after you’re charged with two murders.”  Seeing this had no effect on him, he said, “You know what Dan said about you, said you were there in the basement of Nigel’s house that night those two girls were cut up like a piece of roast beef.”
    “That’s a lie!  That’s a God damned lie!”
    “Oh, you didn’t carve up Mary Donovan’s corpse, or dig a partial grave, carve magical symbols into the floor?  That wasn’t you?  Because Dan said you were a sadistic maniac, who liked the blood ritual?”
    Did Dan really say that?  It didn’t sound like him.  Gerard maintained his silence, thinking, maybe Cecil was putting him on.
    Cecil kept on the pressure, “I’m asking you.  I know what Dan says.  I’m giving you a chance to either corroborate or contradict his story.  He says you were in the house that night, right?  Because if you weren’t, now is your chance to say something.”
    “I have nothing to say!”
    “Maybe you had nothing to do with it, but I bet you know what happened in that basement, which makes you an accessory after the fact, so start talking.”
    “Charge me, or let me go.”

    Cecil did neither.  He let Donaldson stew in the small room for a while longer; when Lan and Stuart were back from jail, they came by the office.
    Cecil asked, “Did you get anything useful out of Dan?”
    Disappointed, they merely nodded.
    Cecil put a hand on Lan’s shoulder to let him know it was all right.  “I want you to talk with Mike Aaron again.  He isn’t a Mason, but he has ties to the organization.”
    Cecil went into the interrogation room.  “Gerald Donaldson, please stand up.”
    Now Gerard was worried.
    Cecil smiled, despite the bad news.
    “Gerard Donaldson, you’re free to go.  Don’t leave the bay area.”
    His relief was apparent.

    An hour later, Lan and Stuart were meeting with Mike Aaron in county lock up.  They were in an interview room.
    Lan had a folder, he was holding up for Mike to see, “You were lying to us Mike.  The Junk Yard Dogs don’t exist, do they?  They were really Mason’s, weren’t they?  You fabricated the whole thing, bought the jackets, made the website, or was that done for you?”
    He wasn’t talking and he wasn’t even looking at them.
    “Hey, eyes on me,” Stuart shouted and the man turned his head in her direction.  “What’s your affiliation with the Masons?”
    He kept his eyes on her and his mouth shut.
    Lan took the relaxed approach, after all, he was holding all the cards.  “We could slap another obstruction of justice charge on you, or you could tell us everything you know.  Do you really want to go down for these guys, these murderers, that commit brutal acts in the name of some God, is that what you want to associate yourself with?  Tell us why you lied.  Why are you covering for the Masons?”
    That same stony face looking straight ahead, slowly turned toward Lan and said, “Have a nice day.”  He pounded on the door and yelled for a guard, “I’m ready to go  back to my cell now.”



 Copyright 2016  William Leslie