Page 6 of Red Snow
“Detective Granger,” Marcus calls to me, but I ignore him.
“What?” Jerry replies, suddenly confused.
“Are you right or left-handed?” I ask again, smiling without a care in the world.
“Detective Granger,” Marcus says again, but I don’t even look his way.
“I’m right-handed,” Jerry replies. “Why?”
“No reason,” I answer, just as I reach over and grab Jerry’s left hand. I take ahold of his pinkie and bend it at the knuckle as hard as I can, until I hear the satisfying pop of his bone breaking.
“Fuck!” Jerry screams, before letting out a long wail that surely echoes down the hall. I’m sure somebody else heard it, but they won’t come running to help this asshole. “You broke my fucking finger! Goddamn it!”
“Jarrod!” Marcus screams, standing up with consternation written all over him.
“Maybe you didn’t understand me clearly before,” I say to Jerry, still ignoring Marcus. “Take a second to gather your thoughts while I talk. We know you killed Douglas Mitchell, and you’re gonna confess to it. Is that still confusing to you in any way?”
“Fuck you!” Jerry says, spitting the words in my face.
“Still confused, huh? Cool.”
Without a hint of remorse, I grab Jerry’s left hand again. This time, it’s the ring finger that snaps.
He screams again, and neither of us does a thing to stop him. I want him to know that he can scream all he wants and it won’t save him. I’m sure Douglas Mitchell screamed when he was being stabbed to death. He thought he was going out for a nice run, and he ended up being stabbed six times, until he laid on the ground and bled to death. There isn’t a hair on my head that feels bad for Jerry Bales.
“You can’t do this to me!” Jerry proclaims, glaring at me. “I have rights, and I want my fucking lawyer, now! I’m gonna sue the fuck out of this department.”
“Okay, sure. I’ll have Detective Phillips go call your lawyer,” I say to Jerry as I scoot closer to him and eyeball his hand again. “But by the time he shows up, the rest of the bones in your left hand will probably be broken. It’ll be a long wait for him to get here.”
“You can’t do this!”
“I already did,” I interrupt. “See, you resisted arrest earlier, and I had to tackle you just to bring you in. When I tackled you and we rolled on the frozen ground in your backyard, you broke two of your fingers. Or maybe it was three. Or maybe even all five. Maybe it was your whole hand, I can’t really remember. That’s the way I saw it, that’s the way Detective Phillips saw it, and that’s the way every other cop will say they saw it. You wanna keep pushing with this bullshit? You wanna laugh at me and my partner after we tell you your fucking DNA was found at a murder scene? Fine. This is how we’ll play it. You laugh at your games, we’ll laugh at ours, but our punchline is way better. You wanna keep going?”
Jerry hesitates for a second, obviously deciding on whether or not he wants to keep up his tough guy act. While he thinks, I grab his hand again.
“Wait! Okay! I did it!” he shouts, stopping me before I can grab his middle finger. “I fucking did it, okay? The guy was kicking my ass, so I stabbed him. I did it. I’ll sign the confession. I’ll do it, just please don’t break my fucking finger.”
“Excellent choice, Jerry. Doesn’t it feel better to get it off your chest?” I tell him with a smile as I release his hand from my death grip and stand next to Marcus. “Thank you. You just kept me from doing stuff I’dmaybefeel bad about later. We’re gonna call your lawyer and bring in a written confession for you to sign, which you’ll signbeforehe gets here. Luckily, your dominant hand didn’t get messed up when I tackled you earlier, so you’ll have no trouble signing the confession. We’ll make sure to get those fingers looked at, too. Alright, thanks for your time, Jerry. Have a nice day.”
With that, I turn on my heel and waltz out of the room. Marcus follows closely behind me, and the second the door to the interrogation room closes, he punches me in the arm.
“What the fuck, Jarrod?” he snips. “You’re breaking guy’s fingers now? Have you lost your mind? That’s too far, even for you.”
“He pushed me to it with all that laughing and shit,” I admit, grinning. “He’s not laughing now, is he? Relax bro, we got what we wanted. He’s gonna sign the confession, plead guilty, and this shit will be over and done with in no time.”
“I know all that, but what if he gets ballsy and tries to sue?”
“He won’t sue. I killed the video before I went into the room, so we’re good. The guy just confessed tomurder. He’s got much bigger problems than a couple of broken fingers.”
Marcus lets out a sigh as he finally relaxes.
“Alright, man, but you gotta chill with breaking people’s fingers. I’m glad you got the guy to confess, though. That was crazy.”
“Yeah it was,” I admit behind a chuckle. “Look man, you do things I wouldn’t do, and I do things you wouldn’t do. That’s what makes us a kickass team. So relax. We got him. Now let’s knock out this paperwork so we can go celebrate.”
