Paint the town red

Chapter XXVIII

Sunday morning began with Yuki waking me up – apparently, I fell asleep too soundly after yesterday's outburst of emotions, and therefore I didn't hear either the trill of the doorbell or the ringing of the phone. Actually, that's why my neighbor took matters into his own hands and decided to wake me up personally.

"Get up, there's a lawyer for you."

"What do you mean - lawyer?"

"Devil's Advocate, damn it. How the hell should I know? Get up and find out for yourself. I've already made coffee there for everyone."

I muttered something displeased, and Yuki left the room so that I could change my clothes and tidy myself up. A lawyer? Where did he come from? I didn't hire anyone, and I don't think Frederick decided to hire him for me. Although, to be honest, a lawyer is quite useful to me in my situation.

About five minutes later, I left the room and came to the living room, where Yuki and a young man in a business suit were already sitting at the coffee table. I definitely had never seen him and certainly was not familiar with him, otherwise I'd definitely remember him – such an extraordinary appearance would be hard to forget.

I went up to them and greeted the man, we shook hands, and I sat down on the sofa opposite him. Yuki wanted to goand leave us alone so that we could discuss business in peace, but I asked him to stay – now he is my confidant. I would've called Max, but he's sick, and I don't want to strain and unnerve him even more. And I promised my neighbor I'd tell him what it was all about, so he'd better be here with us and find out firsthand.

"So, my name is Lewis Hamilton, and I am your lawyer in this case, namely, in the case of the murder of George William Russell. As I understand it, you are considered..."

"Wait, wait, wait. Who hired you anyway?"

The man nodded and pulled out several folders with papers from his briefcase. Opening one of them, he took out a printout from George's e-mail, in which he asked Lewis to "back me up" in case of his death. I mean, George kind of predicted what was going on, and he made a deal with a colleague to help me. I looked through the papers, then I returned them to the man.

"Let's get back to business. As I understand it, you are now the only suspect in the murder of Mr. Russell, right?"

"Right."

"How is it so?"

"There was a woman at the crime scene, she pointed me out as George's killer only because I was dressed in approximately the same way as the alleged killer."

"Do you have a description of the killer?"

"Hard to say. As I was walking to George's house, I bumped into a young man right next to the place where the body was soon found. I described everything in detail in the interrogation, you can request its details at the station."

"Yes, I have already sent a request. Can you tell me what happened that day?"

I took a mug of coffee from the table and took a small sip, then began to tell the lawyer everything that happened that morning, trying not to miss a single detail. I told him that we had agreed to meet with George a few days before his murder and that he had called me the day before, and that his voice sounded a little worried to me. He took out a printout of a map of the area from the folder and asked me to indicate my approximate route both to the British man's house and back, which I easily did. He also asked me to mark the place where I ran into a stranger. "Sometimes simple maps provide much more information than digital ones," he said, examining the lines of my route.

I showed him my phone and all my texts and calls to George's number with all the time stamps. In addition, I advised him to contact our computer scientist Logan Sargeant at the station – he'll provide a report on the contents of both mine and George's phones, as well as give a report on geolocation and surveillance footage in the area.