Caged In

“Do you want to kill me, Alex?”

Alex Dunn looked into the cool and penetrating eyes of the woman who had been taunting him for the past three hours. She had arrested him as top suspect in his ex-wife’s murder, and while at first her methods of interrogation had been straightforward and almost sympathetic, with no further leads the situation was becoming increasingly intense.

“What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?”

She surveyed him from behind the lenses of her glasses, running the tip of her tongue around lips the colour of dried blood. She was a beautiful woman, confident and strong, though Alex knew she was only turning these powers on in the hope of breaking him. He wasn’t really sure what to make of it – in all his twenty-seven years of watching crime shows on TV, he had never seen a detective try this particular form of interrogation on a man. He supposed it was due to the criminal profile they had made, the type of man they thought he was deep down inside. A misogynist, he supposed, or perhaps someone who was afraid of the opposite sex.

“You look nervous, Alex.” She cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “What’s the matter? Are you only comfortable around women after you’ve killed them?”

“I didn’t kill Rachel,” Alex said in a heavy voice filled with dread. Since his arrest he’d repeated those words so many times that they were starting to lose all meaning. Even saying her name was wearing on his patience, just like her nagging used to. “I was set up. I didn’t do anything.”

The detective smirked as she rose from the table and Alex watched in the reflective side of the two-way mirror as she collected a folder from a police officer at the door. After a moment she moved back toward the table, leisurely skimming over the file, though he knew she had studied it several times before. This was just the theatrics, set to throw him off.

“Your DNA was found on the murder victim and weapon,” she said, counting the evidence on her fingers as she read, “you have no alibi and no witnesses can confirm your alleged movements on the night of Ms Gibson’s death.” She snapped the folder shut with the palm of her hand, cracked it against the table and leant toward him, her wide, cat-like eyes set on his. “We’ve got a water-tight case against you, Mr Dunn, but what I can’t understand” – she raised her voice as Alex tried to speak over her – “is why you killed Ms Rachel Gibson.”

“I told you, I didn’t do it,” Alex said through gritted teeth. Anger was pulsing through his brain, making the back of his eyeballs ache. He licked his dry lips, but his mouth and throat were parched.

A brief smile passed over the detective’s face as she pushed a news article from the local paper toward him. “Your mother, Glenda Dunn, has been quite loud in the press of late,” she said. "It seems she believes in your guilt as much as we do."

“Dear old Mum.” He wanted to sound cheerful, joking even, but the ruse was up when his voice broke on the final word. Had she really done this? It was bad enough for her to preach her beliefs at home and in church group meetings, but this?

Alex stared at the news article, watching the corners flap with his heavy breathing. He should have known this was going to happen, should have expected it after his mother’s visit shortly after his arrest. At the time he assumed she just wanted to talk, though now he wished he had the foresight to send her away.

“Tell me what happened, Alexander.” She had sunk into a chair, shaking black locks from her face though her eyes remained closed while she spoke, as though she was too ashamed to look at him.

“Mum,” he had whispered, wanting her to open her eyes, to smile and tell him everything was going to be okay, that it was all a mistake and now the police officers were going to unlock the door to his cell and let him go home.

“Alex,” she muttered in a tired voice and opened her eyes at last. Alex flinched under her gaze, reading the betrayal and pain in her eyes. He knew then, even before he had the chance to explain, that his mother had made up her mind. Alex James Dunn, her only son, was a murderer.

He had explained the situation anyway, hoping for some sympathy. He told her about the argument he and Rachel had, how he had taken off in the car – his usual reaction to stress – thinking that a short drive would help him think things through. He had taken to the streets with all four windows down, the cold air slapping at his bare skin and driving shivers down his back, literally cooling his temper as he sped along the near-empty road in the dark.

He pulled into the driveway feeling better, just about ready to apologise, and that was when he saw the white sheet sticking out of his letterbox that he didn’t remember being there before. He was surprised, even amused by it at the time, wondering what the oddly-shaped package was doing there, sitting so benignly in his letterbox.

“And what was it?” his mother asked. “Not a message from God or neither of us would be here right now.”

“A pawn from a chess set, Mother,” Alex said. “It was a part of our set, the faux crystal one I kept on display in the living room.” He shook his head, frustrated by her unmoved expression. “Don’t you see? Someone set me up. They snuck inside when I was gone and...” he took a deep breath, remembering how he had moved inside the house to see Rachel’s oddly blank eyes shining in the overhead lights, the kitchen knife jutting from the front of her chest as she lay, unmoving on the living room floor.

His mother barely blinked. “You have disgraced yourself and your family, Alexander,” she said, clutching the cross around her neck as her eyes reduced to slits. “‘Thou shalt not kill!’”

The words felt like a slap across the face. Alex grimaced, pulling away from his mother in shock. “Please,” he begged, “why is it so hard for you to believe me?”

But Glenda Dunn only shook her head, seeming not to have heard him. “Satan has moved your hand,” she whispered, clutching the cross until her knuckles turned white. “You are going to Hell, Alexander. There is no hope for you now.”

“Read enough, Alex?” the detective asked, pulling the news article from under his nose. She placed it back in the file as Alex shook his head, coming back to the present.

“Just ... let me explain,” he whispered, noticing with a cold bout of irony how much his words sounded like the prelude to a confession. He could almost feel the excited gazes of the people hiding behind the two-way mirror as they listened, watching him in silence.

He looked up into the detective’s eyes just in time to see her momentarily shocked expression mould quickly into a look of vague interest. “Go on,” she said in a deliberately indifferent voice.

“In my anger that night, I remember leaving the house,” Alex began, watching in satisfaction as the detective’s eyes widened slightly with interest and expectation, “but I can’t remember whether I locked the door after I left.”

The detective blinked in surprise. “What–?”

“– does that have to do with Rachel’s murder? I left the door of the house open by accident. Anyone could have snuck inside while I was gone. That’s why none of the doors or windows of the house were forced. They killed Rachel and planted the pawn in my letterbox for me to find, not me.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Doesn't that mean anything to you people?”

The detective watched him carefully. “I’ll admit the appearance of the pawn is strange, Mr Dunn,” she said, “but it has no connection to the murder as far as we can see. If anything, you probably planted the chess piece there to throw us off your case.” She gave him a thoughtful, appraising look. “What exactly are you looking for, Alex? What do you want?”

“I want a lawyer,” he said with a satisfied smirk, meeting her head on at last.