Jack the Fox

The police precinct was a building that never seemed to get quiet. While lawyers often worked late into the evening at the courthouse, and even overnight wasn't uncommon, there was nonetheless a rhythm to the days there. The precinct, however, seemed to be just as bustling no matter what time Andrea visited. She supposed that there was probably just as much crime going on at night as during the day.

She was about to head down the now all too familiar route to the interview room where Kyle would have been put, when her path was blocked.

Jack Cunningham, or as Kyle had called him "Jack the Fox," her opposition in this trial. Andrea assumed that he must have got his nickname from his surname… "Cunning as a Fox." In her opinion, he looked more like a weasel.

"Good evening, Ms Mason. I'm glad I caught you, the desk did say that you were going to be visiting again," he said.

"Good evening, Mr Cunningham. I hope you weren't planning on meeting with my client without me being present?" she said.

"Perish the thought!" he replied in a tone that Andrea felt implied that it's exactly the kind of thing he would do if he thought for a second he might be able to get away with it. Kyle had described Jack as "a sneaky bastard" who had "a lot of tricks," and Andrea didn't doubt it.

"No, I'm here on other business," he continued. "You see, there have been a number of developments in the investigation..." He handed Andrea a thick folder full of papers.

"What's this?" she asked, opening the folder and flipping through the documents.

"Assorted pieces of additional evidence recently made available," he said with a smile that looked more like a sneer. "Witness transcripts, additional biographical information of the victim, some minor pieces of forensic evidence, video footage from the Castilian Building–"

"What did you do, print the video out as a flip book?" Andrea asked, hefting the thick collection of papers.

"Aha, not quite," he said humorlessly. "No, only printouts of select frames from the footage that was recovered."

"Recovered?" she asked. She assumed Jack was talking about the security cameras in the Castilian lobby. She had asked the security guard there about them, but he'd been just as belligerent about giving her access to the footage as he had been about letting her up to the crime scene. She hadn't heard anything about the footage being damaged.

Jack nodded. "Yes, unfortunately there are no cameras up on the condo levels, which would have been more useful. But even the cameras that were available in the lobby and the parking garage were found to be corrupted when the police reviewed them."

"That's rather unfortunate," Andrea said. Video footage of people coming and going into the building could have been a valuable alibi for Kyle, or even revealed who the actual killer was.

"Yes… unfortunate. Or perhaps suspiciously fortunate depending on your point of view," Jack said.

Andrea had to agree. It seemed unlikely that it was mere coincidence that the footage had been damaged right when a murder had been committed. The obvious answer was that someone was trying to cover their tracks.

"But you said that the footage had been recovered..?" she asked hopefully. An unbroken record would have been the best evidence, but even some footage would be better than nothing.

"Partial recovery only, I'm afraid. Nothing after Monday, which is obviously when we would have been most interested, and even before that, the images the technicians were able to recover are rather low quality."

They had to step aside as a pair of officers hustled past, hauling a handcuffed suspect between them.

From the brief glance Andrea had given the paperwork Jack had handed her, it looked to Andrea like he might be trying to bury her with paper. It was a common strategy among less scrupulous lawyers to deliberately provide way more information during discovery than was necessary, in the hopes of both wasting the other side's time and hopefully hiding the relevant information in a mountain of irrelevant noise.

Jack continued, "There will be a pending addition to those documents… The police are currently interviewing another of Miss Davenport's friends from college."

"Oh?" asked Andrea. "Did the roommate get back from Europe?"

"That's right," said Jack. "Her flight arrived just this morning."

"Does this girl have a name? And does it sound like she has any additional evidence?" she asked. Andrea knew she had seen the girl's name in the report before, but given that she was out of the country for the duration of the investigation, it hadn't been important.

"Helen." Jack checked his notes. "Helen Shepherd. Even though she was on vacation, she still messaged Beatrix regularly, so she may have been the last person to talk to her. More importantly, she also appears to know a little more about Beatrix's as-yet-unidentified boyfriend, which is obviously of great interest to the detectives investigating the case."

Jack waved a hand at a corridor behind him. "I had been observing the interview when I stepped out for a refreshment and happened to hear the desk take your call. Perhaps you would like to join me?"

Andrea was definitely interested in hearing more about the boyfriend, though she was surprised the detectives were. As far as she could tell, they were still convinced that Kyle was the killer. Perhaps they thought the boyfriend would corroborate their version of events if they could bring him in. Andrea hoped that he might give her a lead on the real killer.

Jack led the way back to a different set of interview rooms than Andrea had been visiting. An officer outside checked their IDs before allowing them into the observation room. Inside, it was completely dark except for what light was spilling through the wall sized glass window, through which could be seen two detectives and a girl who was presumably Helen.

It was the classic arrangement with the interview taking place in the adjoining room, while Andrea, Jack and a couple of other men already in the observation room watched through a one-way-mirror.

Helen was college age, as Andrea expected, with curly blonde hair and a sharp nose. She seemed exasperated as the detectives continued questioning. Andrea had to wonder how long they'd already been interviewing her.

There was enough light coming through the glass so Andrea could still flip through her new pile of paperwork as she listened. It sounded like the girl was talking about the last time she had seen Beatrix, describing a club they had been to the week before.

There were a number of photos in the paperwork that Andrea had to assume had come from Helen's phone. While others had seen Beatrix more recently, these had to be some of the most recent photos of her.

Beatrix had the same raven black hair that Andrea had seen in other photos, same thick framed black designer glasses. But in these photos, she also had a cute asymmetrical bob haircut. It must have been a recent change of style, because she hadn't looked that way in the photos that had been on the news. Andrea also hadn't noticed it the last time she had seen Beatrix, lying on her back dead in the morgue with her hair swept back.

It broke Andrea's heart to see photo after photo of Beatrix looking so young and happy, knowing that her dead body was chilling in the morgue somewhere below them. As much as Andrea wanted to defend Kyle and prove his innocence, she also desperately wanted to find justice for this poor girl.

"Did the boyfriend ever come to these clubs?" one detective asked.

"No, I told you before, no one ever saw him. She liked playing up how fun it was to have this secret boyfriend. Haven't you found him yet? He's the one who'll help you find her if anyone can," said Helen.

Like another arrow to Andrea's heart, she remembered that Beatrix's death was still being kept secret. The police wouldn't have told Helen that Beatrix had already been found dead, any more than they would have told her sister, Yasmine. As far as they were concerned, her friends and family were still holding out hope she might be found alive and well.

"That's why we're asking so many questions. Are you sure you can't tell us anything else about him?"

"I already told you, like, five times! She only said he was a couple of years older, that he took her out to fancy restaurants, that he looked 'really good in a suit,' and that he was a lawyer."

Lawyer? That was more detailed than they had previously found. There was always the possibility that it might be someone that Andrea knew.

"Did she ever talk about visiting the Castilian Building?" the detective asked.

"I don't even know what or where that is," Helen replied.

The detective slid a full page photo across the desk to Helen. "Do you recognize anyone in this photo?"

"…Why is it messed up?" Helen asked. Andrea couldn't see the photo well from where she was standing, but she guessed this might be one of the screenshots from the security camera Jack had told her about. She started skimming through her papers to try and find if she had her own copy of the photo.

"Yeah, that's definitely her," Helen said.

"What about this guy?" asked the detective.

"I don't know, I've never seen him."

"Could he be the boyfriend?"

"Maybe? They certainly look like they're together."

Andrea finally found the papers with the photos Jack had talked about. She recognized the parking garage from the Castilian Building where Kyle lived. It was actually a sequence of photos, with a man helping a woman out of a car and escorting her into the building. They certainly did look like a couple.

The image quality wasn't great, but there was no denying that the girl in the photo was wearing thick black glasses, and had dark black hair in an asymmetric bob.

Andrea felt her blood run cold.

"So you're sure that this is Miss Davenport?" the detective asked.

The man in the photo had a head of messy dark hair. And while the photo wasn't very sharp, there was no question that Andrea recognized his face as he helped the young woman out of the black Volvo.

"Yes," Helen said, "I'm sure of it. That's Triss!"

Like pieces of a puzzle falling into place… It was like someone named Charles being called Chuck, or Edward being called Ted… Triss WAS Beatrix.

She could hardly hear the detective over the sound of the blood pounding in her ears.

"And you're sure you don't remember what this guy's last name is?"

"There's nothing to remember, she never told anyone that! She only ever used his first name," Helen said. "Kyle… Kyle the big city lawyer."

Andrea ran out of the observation room.