The Day of Legion (7 page)

“That there is a warrant to search your house. You are detained pursuant to that warrant. Any interference by you or refusal to cooperate will be deemed to be obstruction and you will be charged accordingly. Do you understand?”

“What the hell is this abo...”

He was interrupted. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I understand what you just said, but I don’t understand what this is all about. I don’t know what you’re doing here.”

The detective ignored him and wrote something in a black notebook. John looked at the other officer. He stared back at John, frowning constantly, so he didn’t ask him any questions.

The detective finally stopped writing in his notebook and looked at him. He could hear the noises of a thorough search of the apartment. John could hear them talking, but nothing was clear.

“Do you know Rachael Lewis?” the detective asked.

John nodded. “Yes, we met last night at a café.”

It was only then he realized she wasn’t there in the room.

“Where is she?” John asked. “Is she okay?”

The detective stared at him, grim faced, aggressive. “I don’t know. Where is she, John?” he asked. “Tell me about last night.”

“Can you tell me what this is about?” John asked again.

The detective ignored him, instead listening as another detective in a suit entered the room and whispered in his ear. The first detective nodded as he listened, not once looking at John.

“Tell me about last night, John, where you met, what happened when you met Rachael,” he finally said, completely ignoring the fact John had just asked him a question.

John relented and decided to cooperate, hoping if he did they would explain why they had barged into his house with a search warrant.

“Okay,” he began, watching as the detective retrieved the notebook from his pocket and started to write again. “I went to a café down on the waterfront with my neighbor, Patrick. We had dinner and a few drinks and met a group of women, one of whom was Rachael. We got on well, had a few more drinks then came back here and...”

“And what?” the detective asked.

“We had sex, okay?”

“Then what happened?”

John shook his head. “We fell asleep. I woke up, she’s gone and you idiots are kicking my door in. Now, tell me what’s going on or I’m calling my lawyer.”

The detective ignored the last remark and continued writing. John felt a little deflated. He had hoped the request for a lawyer would have compelled them to give him some information, but he guessed that’s how it was on television, not real life.

He looked out the open door and watched as a uniformed officer walked past with John’s laptop in gloved hands and placed it in a brown cardboard box marked ‘evidence.’

“Hey, that computer is my work computer and I need it this weekend and on Monday,” he protested.

The detective looked up from his notebook. “The warrant covers all computers in the house.” He continued writing, looking at his watch a few times and noting the time.

Without a word, the detective pulled a photo out of his inside jacket pocket and held it in front of John’s face. He reeled back in horror.

“What the fuck are you...?”

“This is your work!” the detective shouted. “We have the evidence. You killed Rachael Lewis, we don’t know why, but why did you take all those photographs and then leave them all over the body? You sick bastard!”

John couldn’t breathe. The detective threw the photo onto his lap on top of the search warrant. It landed face up. Tension in his head began to build. He looked at the photograph again.

It showed Rachael, pale-skinned with blue lips and eyelids. Her eyes were red and she had ligature marks around her neck. Her eyes were partly open, completely devoid of the sparkle and life she had a few hours ago. They were dull and dry, glazed over. One arm was bent awkwardly behind her body, with the other resting on her stomach. She was naked and lying in a shallow ditch outside somewhere. The officer who took the photo was standing on the ground above, looking down.

Lying around her were photographs. One was in the crook of her elbow that rested on her body, another between her breasts. Three or four others were scattered around her corpse in the dirt.

John cried. She looked so terrible. She was a beautiful woman, a beautiful person, taken from the world and discarded in a ditch like rubbish. Someone made an attempt at burying her. One foot and half a leg were covered in freshly thrown dirt. It seemed so unreal that he had just met her, just been with her, just made love to her a few hours ago.

He looked up at the detective, desperate. “I didn’t have anything to do with this! We met at the bar, came back here and had sex. She must have left in the early hours or something. The last I saw her was in bed next to me, before I fell asleep.”

The detective read him his rights and asked if he understood. He felt trapped. The cold reality of what they thought he’d done hit home. He understood his rights, but he also understood he was a suspect in a serious crime that he had nothing to do with. He felt the walls closing in, hammers pounding on his temples. He started to hyperventilate. He tried to lower his head between his knees, but lost his balance and fell forward on to the floor at the detective’s feet.

No helping hands offered him assistance. Instead, the detective merely took a step back.

“Why’d you do it, John?”

John gasped for air and had to breathe in between each word. “Fuck...You. I...didn’t...have...anything to do with it. I...want...a...lawyer. No...questions.”

“I’m sure you do want a lawyer,” the detective said. “Why’d you leave the photographs? You’re either very stupid or you wanted to be caught.”

“They’re not my fucking photographs!” John shouted.

The detective motioned for another officer to come into the room. He held several see through plastic evidence bags, each containing a photograph. The detective took them and held each one in front of Johns face momentarily as he sat on the floor. Tears welled up in his eyes and his chest tightened.

“I don’t understand,” he said quietly, confused and scared.

Each photograph depicted him and Rachael in various sex positions in his bedroom. The first they were clothed and kissing, the next she was standing in front of him naked, next she had him in her mouth, a few more on he was taking her from behind and the last he was on top, his hand on her neck as he kissed her, thrusting inside her.

“They were found with her body,” the detective explained. “Along with this.”

He held up another plastic bag. Inside John could see his business card, covered in dried dirt and blood.

“This is a mistake,” he said. “I didn’t take those photographs. I’ve never seen them before.”

The detective looked at him, stone faced. “They look like they’ve been taken from over there,” he said, walking toward the closet. He slid the door across and shook his head. Lying on the floor was a cream dress, a pair of flat women’s shoes and white lace panties, all sitting at the base of a camera tripod.

“This is wrong!” John shouted, trying to stand up. He was pushed on to the bed by the officer in black, who had not said a word since their arrival.

“Damn straight it’s wrong!” the detective shouted back. “You are going away for a long time, Johnny boy!”

He began to cry, feeling hopeless, lost and confused.

The detective carried on, relentless in exposing the “truth.” “Did you have someone in here, John?” he asked. “Or did you have a remote system set up?”

“I didn’t have anything set up and I didn’t have anyone in the closet,” he answered. “I’m not like that. Let me think about this for a second.”

When the detective and officer in black laughed he knew he just said the wrong thing.

“Need time to think up an excuse?” the officer in black said, his voice devoid of any sympathy.

“That’s not what I meant,” John said. He was going to say more, but threw up on himself and the bed clothes.

“Oh, shit!” the detective said. “Get a wagon here. I’m not transporting him to the station in my car like that!”

Another officer walked in, carrying the laptop opened and on. “Got it,” he told the lead detective.

He showed the detective the screen and tapped the touch pad a few times scrolling through something. The detective nodded and said something to him. The officer carrying the laptop looked at John and then the vomit in his lap. His disgusted look said it all and John wondered if it was his puke that disgusted him, or what they thought he’d done.

They allowed him to stand under the shower, cuffed and still wearing the pants he had managed to put on. Once the communications officer informed them that no wagon was available, they decided John should be transported in the oldest car they had.

While he stood under the warm water, wishing he could flow down the plug, the detective stood in the open door of the shower box.

“John Hansen. You are under arrest for assault on Rachael Lewis.”

John felt his whole world falling down around him. He had watched the news enough to know the police always arrested someone on a lower charge, a holding charge, so they could conduct a thorough investigation on the more serious charge and then proceed with that offense when they had sufficient evidence.

“This is crazy,” John protested. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

“That’s what they all say,” the detective answered. “You can talk to your lawyer when we get to the station.”

John knew resisting would only make matters worse. He would call his lawyer from the police station and hope it could all get settled. He was led to the doorway of the apartment by the lead detective and a uniformed officer. There were about ten officers, some in forensic suits, searching through his drawers, cupboards and personal files. He shook his head. How had it come to this?

He was bundled into the elevator, still in handcuffs and wet from the shower. This was a nightmare. He knew it was a mistake, but the police were convinced he was responsible for Rachael’s death.

As they got outside the building, John saw all the police vehicles: four cars and a van marked ‘Crime Scene Attendant.’ Several passersby stopped and were looking from a distance, staring when they walked him out the door, shirtless with his hands shackled behind his back.

It was then John saw Jason and Janine on the other side of the road. She tried to pull Jason away, divert his eyes, but he resisted and stared at his father being led to a marked patrol car. He had forgotten Jason was being dropped off to spend the weekend with him.

The look on Janine’s face told him he could have lost Jason forever. Here she was, dropping their son off to stay, and what do they see when they arrive? John also knew she would eventually learn the charges. It had suddenly, in one terrible moment, come crashing down. It would never be the same again.

Chapter Six

Jason sat on his bed and cried. He didn’t understand what was going on with all the police cars and his father being led away. He had smiled and waved to him, but he didn’t wave back, then his mother grabbed at him and told him they were going home.

When he whined and said he wanted to stay, she told him the weekend was off; his father wasn’t going to see him for a while. When he asked why, she didn’t answer. As soon as they got home she started calling people and sent Jason to his room. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she made several calls and was talking frantically.

“Not a good day, kiddo.”

He turned and saw Christo standing there. He was in his usual blue suit and tie and as always, smiling. He returned the smile, though it was forced.

“Daddy’s made Mummy angry and I can’t go to his place this weekend.”

There was a knock at the door and Janine walked in. She had tears running down her face and was trying to wipe them away with a tissue. She came over, and without saying anything hugged Jason as tightly as she could.

Over the next few weeks Jason didn’t hear anything from his father. He heard his mother on the phone several times. She kept saying to the caller that it ‘wouldn’t be good for Jason to talk to you right now.’ He guessed it was his father, but when he asked her if he called, she always told him he hadn’t, and he was busy doing some important stuff.

One day, Janine organized a play-date with Alex’s father. He was to bring Alex over and they would have coffee while the kids played. She chose Alex, because his father had suggested the idea while they were waiting for the children to come out of class. When she turned him down, he seemed so hurt. She knew he was having problems with Alex, but also knew Jason needed to get his father off his mind. Alex hadn’t been in trouble for a while now, plus she needed adult company.

Jason liked the idea of someone from school coming around to play. He had friends, but it was a rare occasion when one of them came over.

There was a knock at the front door. He heard his mother talking and a man’s voice. Not long afterwards, he heard footsteps coming toward his room and Alex singing. The door swung open and Alex walked in. Alex hadn’t really talked to him since his father stopped him running on the road, but he had heard a lot about him.

Jason knew Alex always got in to trouble. Their classrooms were next to each other, and he always saw Alex being taken to the principal’s office. It happened two or three times a week. Jason had also seen Alex’s father in the office a lot too. He was always telling Alex off as they walked out.