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The cell was dirty. He felt dirty, felt dirty all over, felt like he deserved the cuffs on his hands and the stink of fading screams into the walls and being thrown into the small wooden bench, hearing the metal bars close behind him.
The officer smiled at him, packed his keys, and winked. “Compliments from Detective Casillas.”
.
He felt good today. He shrugged on his suit jacket, clipped his badge on his belt, grabbed the files and headed for the prison his latest arrest was being held in.
He got a pat on the back from his boss, a loud “You finally cracked the case!” resonating through the office and he just smiled, didn’t even snap back at the remark, just smiled and laughed and smiled again because today, today was a good day, and those were running thin in his world.
He drove to the prison, was told to leave his weapon on the front desk after being patted down and entered the dark corridor. The officer led him to one of the first interview rooms, said he’d get the prisoner soon, and Iker smiled again, sat down, waited.
Cesc entered the room 2 minutes later, dressed in blinding orange and his hair ruffled and messy looking, and the officer forced him on the chair, asked if Iker needed anything else.
“That’ll be all,” Iker said, engrossed in his file reading. The officer left the room, and then, there was silence.
Iker went through a few more pages, watching out of the corner of his eyes as Cesc fidgeted in front of him, shifting in the chair, placing his hands on top of the table, removing them, fiddling with the cuffs, and Iker felt like saying, I got you.
“So,” he said suddenly, earning a little jump from Cesc. He was scared, alright. “You’re a hard man to find.”
Cesc opened his mouth to speak but Iker glared at him, dangerous and threatening, and spat “I’ll be doing the talking here.” Cesc shut his mouth.
He paced around the room, the files still in his hands, until he stopped in front of Cesc, looked at him for a second before speaking. “You know, this is what I don’t understand. We had nothing but circumstantial proof against you. So why run? Because I find it hard to believe you didn’t know that would alert the police. You had to know that.” He chuckled. “Hell, that’s the whole reason this case will hold up in court! So why run? Could have gotten yourself a good lawyer, he’d get you rid of the two murder charges. But you ran.” He looked up at the ceiling, sighed. “Why is that, Fabregas?”
He looked like a boy, sitting there. So fragile, so small. So, so innocent. “What do you care? You got what you wanted.” He raised his eyes to meet Iker’s, held them. “You got me.”
“Hmmm,” Iker hummed, starting to pace again. “Yes, yes I do.” He sat, splayed his hands on the flat surface of the table, tilted his head. “But I still don’t understand. Give me a motive, throw me a bone here. What did you gain out of killing those people? Did it make you feel good? Power, was that what you were after?”
Cesc blinked, smiled lightly, shook his head. “No. No, it wasn’t power. And I didn’t kill them.”
There was a pause, and then Iker laughed, laughed hard and long and kept laughing until Cesc laughed a bit too, and neither of them were really laughing because, because nothing about this was funny. “Ah, that’s a good one. Try telling the judge that.” Iker collected his files, got up, and walked to the door.
“Casillas?”
Iker froze, turned around, seethed, “Detective Casillas.”
Cesc nodded, his eyes empty, damaged (because you don’t need substance for hurt), “I didn’t kill anyone.”
Iker slammed the door after him, and Cesc was led back to his cell.
.
“Let’s make one thing clear here,” Iker slammed the papers down on the table the next day, and Cesc stared at him. “I am going to come back here every single day until you give me a reason. Not because I need it, not because I won’t convict you without it, just because I want one.” He raised his eyebrows. “Clear?”
“Yes,” Cesc said quietly. “You still don’t believe me, then?”
“No, and don’t expect me to.”, he opened the files, took out two pictures. “Remember them? The men you killed.” He spread them on the table, pointed to one of them. “David Carter, father of two little girls,” he pointed to the other one, “John Arter, husband and father of an 8 year old boy.”
Cesc stared at the photos, his eyes a blurry painting of confusion and something resembling pity, emotion. Iker thinks, I’ve seen people fake that before. He thinks, you’re faking it.
“I-I,” he frowned. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve never seen these people before.”
Iker leaned back, studied his face for a moment. “I don’t believe you.”
Cesc rubbed his palms against his eyes. “How can you not believe the truth?”
“Truth isn’t something you believe in, it’s something you prove,” He smiled. “And right now, you’re not doing a very good job at proving your innocence.”
Cesc set his jaw, pushed the pictures away, looked out the small window by his side. “I told you. I went in the room, saw two bodies on the floor- never even looked at their faces. I stepped on their blood, knew no one would ever buy my story.” He brought his eyes carefully to the detective’s. “I was right.”
“That’s because it’s bullshit. Why didn’t you call an ambulance? The police?”
“They were already dead!” Cesc shouted, and Iker didn’t flinch. “What was I supposed to do? Wait around until the police arrested me? You don’t even have a fucking murder weapon,” his voice broke around the lump in his throat, and he rubbed at his eyes again. “Of course you’d go for the only evidence you have.”
Iker narrowed his eyes. “If you’ve never seen them before, then why did you go into the room? What led you there?”
“I heard yelling,” Cesc shook his head, laughed bitterly, “I heard yelling, and I tried to help, so I ran there, and now I’m here.” He closed his eyes. “I was just trying to help.”
“Why did you never mention the yelling?” Iker read through the report, looked back up at Cesc. “We got your testimony yesterday, there was no yelling in what you wrote.”
Cesc shrugged, breathed deeply, looked Iker dead in the eye. “Who would believe me?”
.
“Don’t tell me he’s getting to your head.”
Iker hummed interrogatively at his brother, who worked with him on the headquarters. “What?”
“You’ve been reading that file for an hour,” Unai pulled a chair, sat down next to him. “You know he’s guilty, only guilty people run. We’ve been looking for him for three months. It’s over, Iker.”
“Yeah, I know, I just-“ he pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath. “This would be much easier if we had a murder weapon.”
“His shoe prints are at the crime scene, he fled the country as soon as the investigation was opened,” Unai shrugged. “Seems pretty simple to me.”
“It does, I know.” He leaned his forearms on his knees, breathed out. “It’s simple. Too simple.”
“Too simple?”
“Yes. Too simple for us to have seen everything.”
.
“My mom lives in Long Island. She probably doesn’t know I’m here, she never watches TV and we cut off contact two years ago but- do you think you could tell her? That, you know, I love her?” his voice was gruff. “I know I’m gonna get the death sentence, and I just, I didn’t say it enough, you know? And I only realized that now, that it’s never really enough but this one was definitely not enough, and I just need her to know, ok?” his eyes were heavy. “You’ll tell her?”
“I’ll tell her.” Iker said flatly, tapped his fingers on the table to regain some nonchalance. “Are you sticking to your story? That you’re innocent?”
Cesc seemed desperate then, breathed in a frustrated sigh, “It’s the only story I know.”
“We could settle. I’ll cut you a deal, keep you out of the death row. Could offer you satisfying conditions for a life sentence.”
Cesc buried his head in his hands, and his words were muffled, hard, pained, “I’m not gonna lie to avoid death.”
“Don’t we all lie to avoid death? We do anything to avoid it.”
Cesc looked at Iker, and Iker looked at Cesc, and Cesc looked clean for the first time since Iker had laid eyes on them. “I’ve given you my confession, detective. My story is real, and I’m not going to trick my fate with lies and fake words. It’s not who I am, unlike what you may think.”
“This might come as a shock to you, but I don’t think anything of you. You’re a criminal, that’s all.”
Cesc chuckled, but it lacked meaning. “You’re wrong. But if you can live with it, so can I.”
“But you won’t live with it,” Iker pursed his lips. “You’ll die.”
“Then I’ll defend my innocence to the grave.”
.
He showed up with bruises on his cheek. Iker pulled the guard aside, sneered and told him no one was entitled to fucking touch Cesc, that his prisoner needed to be in perfect condition otherwise the jury would take pity on him (and even saying it, he didn’t quite believe himself), and the guard disappeared, and Iker sat, staring at Cesc.
Cesc didn’t speak. He seemed older, degrading, miserable. Iker wanted to beg him for a piece of evidence that would prove he hadn’t committed the murderers, but Cesc had nothing, and Iker had everything to put him on the line for the lethal injection, and it was the first time it was making him sick to his stomach to know that.
“Have you accepted what’s going to happen to you? You have three days before your hearing, and then that’s it. One more week for the verdict, another couple to get you near that needle.” Cesc just listened. “Give me something. I don’t care if it’s a lie, it’ll spare your fucking life.”
“I either die innocent, or I spend the rest of my life in jail, innocent.” He bit his tongue. “Which one would you choose?”
And Iker, Iker knew, he knew which one he would choose.
His last words would be, I didn’t kill them.
.
He visited him in his cell, one day. Cesc looked better, more taken care of, and Iker’s heart wrenched. “I wish I’d loved more. I never found it, you know?” he turned to him with dreamy eyes. “Never found the one. I wonder what they would be like, sometimes. What would they think of me now?”
“If they really loved you, they’d believe you.”
And Cesc smiled, glanced at Iker. “Is that why you’re starting to believe me?”
“No,” Iker replied, and the harshness never reached his voice. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt.”
The cell felt tighter, falling down on them, and Cesc scratched the back of his neck. “There was this gorgeous girl, in my highschool. Dirty blonde hair and the most amazing brown eyes, the kind you’d get lost in. I didn’t mind getting lost, for once. She cheated on me,” he looked up. “I always had a thing for the wrong people.”
Iker thinks, me too.
.
Cesc went to court. His lawyer was all over the place, screaming and trying to get everyone’s attention, but his words were hollow, worthless, and Cesc was found guilty. Death row.
Iker went to his cell again. He sat in front of him, caught his eyes, and said, very seriously. “I need you to listen to me.”
Cesc listened.
“There is a key to your cell in my right pocket. There’s a simple trick for the handcuffs, just find a clip or something and stick it on the hole in the middle. It’s the reason we don’t let prisoners bring anything into the cells, because we’re afraid they’ll try out something like that.” He paused. “You’re going to punch me. Twice, because no one will believe you knocked me out with only one punch. The guard is on his lunch break, and I have a key card to open the door that leads to the street. Left pocket, inside my jacket. Got it?”
Cesc shook his head. “I’m not going to punch you.”
“Yes, Cesc,” Iker said angrily, “Yes you fucking are. Because you need to go- go love someone. And I believe you, I believe you didn’t kill anyone, and that’s enough for me. Run, and I’ll know why you’re running this time, and I’ll be in peace. Don’t look back, ok?” he offered him a smile, and Cesc looked at him disbelievingly, and Iker sighed. “Ok, now punch me.”
“Ok, but, but I just-“ he scrambled for something furiously in his pockets, and then took out a piece of paper, put it on Iker’s hands. “Don’t read it until I’m gone, ok? Please?”
“Ok,” Iker nodded, and then it went dark.
.
It was me. I’m sorry.
Iker handed in his badge that day.