Four Blind Mice

Chapter Twenty-Six

We didn't need this crap not now, especially. We were taken out to the Cumberland County Jail in a small, blue bus that sat ten. Apparently there were only a couple of cells at the jail in Fayetteville. At no time were we offered any professional courtesy because we were homicide detectives from Washington, who just happened to be working on behalf of Sergeant Ellis Cooper.

In case you're ever looking for it, the booking facility at the County Jail is located in the basement. It took about half an hour for the local police to do our paperwork, fingerprints, and take our photographs. We were given a cold shower, then 'put in the pumpkin patch'. That was the guards' clever way of describing the orange jumpsuit and slippers prisoners were made to wear.

I asked what had happened to the four soldiers who'd attacked us and was told it was none of my goddamn business, but that they'd been' transported to the stockade at Bragg7.

Sampson and I were put in a misdemeanor block in a dormitory cell, which was also in the basement. It was built for maybe a dozen prisoners, but there were close to twenty of us crowded in there that night. None of the prisoners were white and I wondered if the jail had other holding cells, and if they were segregated, too.

Some of the men seemed to know each other from previous nights they had spent here. It was a civil enough group. Nobody wanted to mess with Sampson, or even me. A guard walked by on checks twice an hour. I knew the basic drill. The prisoners were in charge the other fifty-eight minutes an hour.

“Cigarette?” a guy to my right asked. He was sitting on the floor with his back against a pitted concrete wall.

“Don't smoke,” I said to him.

“You're the detective, right?” he asked after a couple of minutes.

I nodded and looked at him more closely. I didn't think I'd met him, but it was a small town. We had shown our faces around. By this time a lot of people in Fayetteville knew who we were.

“Strange shit going down,” the man said. He took out a pack of Camels. Grinned. Tapped one out. Today's Army, man. “An army of one.” What kind of bullshit is that?"

“You Army?”I asked,“ I thought they took you guys to the stockade at Fort Bragg.”

He smiled at me. “Ain't no stockade at Bragg, man. Tell you something else. I was in here when they brought. Sergeant Cooper in. He was nuts that night. They printed him down here, then took him upstairs. Man was a psycho killer for sure that night.”

I just listened. I was trying to figure out who the man was, and why he was talking to me about Ellis Cooper.

“I'm going to tell you something for your own good. Everybody around here knows he did those women. He was a well-known freak.”

The man blew out concentrated rings of smoke, then he pushed himself off the floor and shuffled away. I wondered what in hell was going on. Had somebody arranged the fight at the bar? The whole thing tonight? Who was the guy who had come over to talk to me? To give me advice for my own good?

A short while later, a guard came and took him away. He glanced my way as he was leaving. Then Sampson and I got to spend the night in the crowded, foul-smelling holding cell. We took turns sleeping.

In the morning, I heard someone call our names.

“Cross. Sampson.” One of the guards had opened the door to the holding cell. He was trying to wave away the stink. “Cross. Sampson.”

Sampson and I pushed ourselves stiffly up off the floor. “Right here. Where you left us last night,” I said.

We were led back upstairs and taken to the front lobby, where we got the day's very first surprise. Captain Jacobs from CID was waiting there. “You all sleep well? ”he asked.

“That was a setup,” I said to him. “The fight, the arrest. Did you know about it beforehand?”

“You can go now,” he said. That's what you should do. Get your stuff and go home, Detectives. Do yourselves a big favor while you still can. You're wasting time on a dead man's errands."