Page 79 of Long Way Down

Ferguson shook his head. “No. Lecter was always a weirdo. You know in the first scene that he’s polite, and he’s educated, but he’s not right. Osborn’s the opposite. He’snormal. He’ll sit there and talk about last night’s game with you, ask how your mom’s doing, and you forget you’re talking to a monster. He’s charming, but he’s not over the top or fancy about it. He’s just…nice. And before you know it, you’ve told him all about the beef you’ve got going with your next-door neighbor. It honestly blows my mind that he ever had to rape anybody. I guy who can put you at ease like that shouldn’t have had any problem with women.”

Contreras frowned, jaw set at a hard angle. “You wouldn’t think. Is he ready?”

A uniformed guard appeared on the other side of the door and said, “We’re good.”

“Yeah.” Ferguson motioned to the guard, and keys jangled toward the lock.

Through the door, they passed into a tall, white, cold room set up as a sort of common area, with TVs mounted up high, and octagonal white picnic tables bolted to the concrete floor. The ceiling was three floors, the perimeter walls comprised of gallery walks, and, behind the railings, cells. There were cells at ground-level, too, and the cat-calls were immediate and spirited, beaten back by the crack of batons against metal bars. One wall on the ground floor fronted an exercise yard, and light fell in through the windows, cool gray stripes of it through the bars turning the floor to zebra hide.

One table out of the fifteen was occupied. Down at the far end, two men sat side-by-side, facing them. One was slender and hatchet-faced, dressed in a tight, deftly-tailored blue suit. The other wore prison whites, both hands resting face-down on the table. The incoming slatted sunlight winked off the lenses of a pair of round-framed glasses, and Melissa’s step faltered.

Scent of ozone and fresh mud on the breeze, scent of sweat and human musk up close. Sound of dripping:plink, plink, plink. Hands turning her, fingers biting into her upper arms. A strobe of lightning glinting off glasses fogged from hot, panted breath. Flecks of spit striking her face. A hiss:If you tell anyone, I’ll kill your mama and daddy. I’ll kill your granddad. I’ll kill everyone you love. And they wouldn’t believe you anyway, you stupid little cunt.

Contreras glanced back at her over his shoulder, and she swallowed and strode forward before he could ask if she was alright.

Ferguson walked them up to the table, and introduced them. “Detective Contreras, and Detective…Dickens?”

“Dixon,” Melissa said, dropping down to sit directly across from Osborn. “I think we can take things from here, Mr. Ferguson, thank you.”

“Thanks,” Contreras told him behind her.

Ferguson said something else, before his shoes squeaked away over the concrete, but she didn’t hear it, gaze fixed on Osborn.

Up close, he was…completely unremarkable. Not handsome, but not bad-looking. He had normal, proportionate features, green eyes behind the glasses. Sun and laugh lines marked him as middle-aged, and the silver at his temples suited him. She scrutinized him, searching for a trait that was physically revolting…but came up empty. His biceps were toned beneath the short sleeves of his jumpsuit, his nails trimmed and neat, hands and forearms browned from time spent in the sun out in the yard.

The Invisible Man, the press had called him, before he was caught. A man so ordinary, so able to bled in seamlessly with the world around him, that no one noticed his comings and goings and nefarious doings.

Invisible enough, say, to continue standing at the pulpit every Sunday, reading verses and then patting the soft hands of grandmothers when the service was over. Invisible enough to conduct the funeral of the child he’d violated and murdered.

Melissa took a deep breath and reminded herself that she was no longer six-years-old. No one was coming to kill Mama and Daddy if she told.

“Mr. Osborn,” she started, as Contreras settled in beside her, and the attorney cleared his throat. Loudly.

She’d forgotten about him, in all honesty.

He cleared his throat again and clicked the end of his pen a few times. “Excuse me. Detective Dixon, was it?” He had a reedy, nervous voice that paired well with his slightly-protuberant eyes. He had the look of a field mouse cinched into a bespoke suit. “Before you start questioning my client, I believe we need to go over a few ground rules.”

She sent him a withering look, and Contreras stepped in before she could say something indelicate.

“Yeah, hi. Rob Contreras.” He offered a hand that the attorney stared at with obvious reluctance. “And my partner, Melissa Dixon. And you are?” His tone and smile were friendly, but the question was blunt enough to set the attorney back on his bench, brows lifted.

When Contreras only stared at him, he smoothed his tie and consulted his leatherbound folder and rearranged himself with a series of fussy movements. Then he finally accepted Contreras’s shake. Briefly; he turned loose as quickly as if he’d been burned. “Spencer Bradley. Mr. Osborn’s attorney.”

“Good to meet you,” Contreras said, the picture of amiability. He folded his hands together in a casual pose and cast a glance toward Osborn. “But you do understand that your client isn’t in any trouble with us, don’t you?”

“It’s alright,” Osborn spoke for the first time. When Melissa glanced toward him, she saw that he wore a soft, unassuming smile; it turned his eyes to crescents and deepened the lines around them. A peaceable expression, one not alarming in the slightest; that knowledge left her skin crawling. “Spencer gets a little excited about this sort of thing. He’s harmless, though.”

Bradley sent his client an affronted look. “It’s important to protect yourself. We don’t know these detectives or what they want,” he chastised.

Osborn turned to him, frowning. “They can hear you, you know.”

Bradley sighed, and returned his attention to Contreras. “I want to make it explicitly clear that my client has not encouraged, supported, or directed the perpetrator you’re searching for in any way. He is not a relative, nor a friend, nor an acquaintance of any sort. If he is an admirer of my client’s, it’s an admiration he has fostered on his own outside of this facility, without my client’s favor.”

“You’ve never had contact with him, then?” Contreras asked Osborn directly.

“My client worked alone in the past,” Bradley continued, voice firming. “He had no partners or assistants. He was arrested, tried, found guilty, and sentenced for his crimes. He has done nothing within these walls that would incur additional charges or sentencing. He will speak to you only with the intent of providing insight and opinion. The moment the interview becomes inappropriate, I’ll end it.”

Contreras snorted and said, “Relax, man. We come in peace.”