Tannehill's response was flat. "I'm sorry, he did what?"
"Strangled himself."
"Where? How?"
Murphy flashed annoyance. "Like I said. In his cell."
Tannehill put his hands up pleadingly, "I know there's not a lot of real estate in a jail cell, but that's my point, there's not a lot of real estate. It's not easy to hang yourself. Did you think he was a suicide risk?"
Murphy's lips were pencil-thin. His stare fixed. "No."
Tannehill's conciliatory tone continued, "Look, I assume you didn't bring me down here just to respond with terse answers. You could've given me this information over the phone."
Murphy's stare remained in place. The fern straightened up slightly in response.
"Can you at least let me see the holding cell where it happened?"
Murphy sighed and the fern drooped, "you know what the holding area looks like CH."
"So, indulge me, Murph. This man killed my partner for God's sake, " he suppressed the urge to say "may have killed" in an effort not to press his luck too far, "And now he's dead? I'm a PI. This isn't going to sit well with me unless I get some sort of answer. Let me just look at the area so I can set my own uneasy mind at rest."
Murphy sighed again and slowly pulled himself from the chair to his full height. The fern straightened a bit in imitation. "Let's go." The words were drawn out interminably into a mournful bellow.
They walked from the office further back into the bowels of the precinct. This being Capital City, everything was built on a hill, and the station was no exception. Even though the entrance was at street level and the stairs descended 15 feet to the holding cells, the labyrinthian architecture of the building allowed the prisoners the luxury of a small glimmer of sunlight puncturing an aperture in the brick wall.
Despite the sunlight on the split levels, the 15 feet of decline between them was nothing but precarious darkness. The pitch of each step was variable and the pine that composed the steps hadn't been replaced since the gold rush.
A single, unsecured incandescent bulb winked in its knowledge of the dangerous grounds it illuminated and many a prisoner unjudiciously ignored its omens while falling down the stairs to his peril - either of his own accord or pushed by a phantom hand in blue.
They appeared from the black maw of the stairwell back into the light. A short row of cells stood in front of them.
"Which one?" Tannehill asked.
Murphy gestured nonchalantly to the first cell on the left. Tannehill squared to face it.
He peered into the cell, light yellow paint flaking from the bars to expose their iron heart. The top bunk in the cell was perfectly made. The bottom, a disheveled pile of unmade sheets.
"Where? How?" Tannehill repeated the same questions he had upon learning of Beederman's demise.
"We found him with his back against the bars, legs splayed out in front of him."
"What did he hang himself with?"
"Bedsheet. He attached it above the crossbar here," Murphy gestured at the bar three feet above the floor bisecting the front of the cell.
"Can I see the body?"
"CH, you know I can't do that. It's against procedure. Even with your background and the special circumstances of the case, that'd be a stretch."
"You done here with the crime scene?"
"Yup. It was pretty open and shut."
Tannehill glanced back toward the dark stairwell and the open and shut cases it concealed of broken suspects' bones and bloodied faces over the years. "Mind if I take a look?"
Murphy sighed, went over to the jailer at the far end of the corridor, asked for the keys, walked back, and extended an interminably long arm toward Tannehill with keys in hand. "As a favor to you," he pulled the keys back slightly, "this one time."
Tannehill unlocked the cell, leaving the keys dangling from the door, and walked in. He became aware of the smell of bleach in the far corner by the bed - a smell that hadn't been so pungent when he stood outside the door.
He moved to the bed and inspected the sheets. Among the tangles, he spotted a couple of tightly wound peaks beginning to soften. Reddish-brown spots dotted the bedscape in clusters.
On his way out of the cell, he squatted at the crossbar. The bar height matched the brim of his fedora. He stood up, exited the cell, locked the door, and handed the keys back to the jailer, who'd walked down the corridor to observe the investigation.
"Satisfied?" Murphy cocked an eye.
"If you can call it that." Tannehill chewed on his lower lip. "Did you see the body?"
"Yup. Like I said, he was jammed up against the bars, facing the back wall."
"Did you see the body?" Tannehill squared himself to face the jailer.
"Wasn't my shift." The jailer responded with such a lack of enthusiasm that Tannehill wondered how regular a suspect's suicide was within the dungeons of the precinct.
"Settles that, I suppose," Tannehill acknowledged begrudgingly.
"Yup," Murphy responded lackadaisically, eager to rejoin his fern in the office.
---
Tannehill stepped outside the station and cocked his fedora back on his head so his face could absorb the surprisingly bright early afternoon sun.
The botched coverup of Beederman-Bellucci's death didn't surprise him. The untimely demise of suspects and the half-hearted efforts to explain them away to a credulous public were standard operating procedures for the Capital City Police Department.
However, in this case, Tannehill couldn't discern a motive. Though the reasons may be scant - whether it was a black man looking at a white woman with the wrong level of interest in his eyes, a suspect who talked back to an arresting officer or a drunk who simply needed some minor assistance to show him the errors of his ways, there was always some reason, however tenuous, that led to motive.
This one didn't make sense. Beederman-Bellucci surrendered quietly and had already willingly played the patsy for someone else's misdeed. It was possible that he was murdered to stay silent, but to what end? He'd already willingly confessed.
And the police wouldn't off him in revenge for Snell - Snell himself was grudgingly tolerated in the precinct, predominantly because he was lazy and incompetent and posed no threat to department's activities. Tannehill's ex-communication from the department ensured no one would seek extra-judicial retribution on his behalf.
That left only one motive for Beederman-Bellucci's killing - greed. Given that this was Capital City, it left no shortage of suspects.
[Author's Note: It's not Medium worthy at only 1108 words, but it's still not too shabby. The story length is now clocking in at 31624 words.]
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