The Cases of George Alpha #3 - Stolen Spirits

Suicide

We ran downstairs to the sub-basement, where the holding cells were. Teri filled me in on the way there. After her interrogation of Leroy, in which he once more had denied all knowledge of a man named Travis Barker, she had called for Rutger to bring him back to his cell.

Rutger was the police officer managing the holding cells during the day. In charge of prisoner safety and security, he took care of transferring them between their cell and the interrogation rooms, whenever necessary.

As we reached the security door leading to the holding cells, I saw the body of Leroy Barker lying on the floor in the hallway, with Rutger seated next to it. He was panting, leaned against the wall, a patch of darkred blood stained his blue uniform around his belly. Captain Ironfort and sergeant Rascal were hovering over him.

'What happened?' I asked as Teri and I reached them.

Rutger looked up at me. 'He shot me. While I was closing the door,' -- he indicated the security door -- ' he suddenly bumped into me and made a grab for my gun. I tried to wrestle him to the ground but he was too strong. He took my gun and shot me in the belly, and then he just shot himself through the head.'

Looking up, I noticed the spray of blood on the ceiling, bits of Leroy's brain were still coming off and dripping to the floor. He must have put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

'Are you okay?'

'Yeah,' Rutger wheezed, 'hurt like hell but the wound is healed already. I always plug in my Healing before I handle prisoners.'

'Smart man,' the captain patted him on the shoulder.

Leroy laid bent over his arms, I noticed the gun was still in his handcuffed hands, to the side of his chest.

'Why were his hands not bound behind his back?' I wondered out loud.

'I-', Rutger hesitated, 'I didn't think it was necessary. He didn't behave like a risk, I thought just cuffing his hands was enough.'

He cast his eyes downwards, realizing he had made a professional mistake which could be cause for an official reprimand. We all looked at captain Ironfort, waiting how he'd react to this.

The captain looked at the scene and back at us. 'Mistakes happen,' he finally said. 'We'll have to file the report, but it's bad enough that you got shot and we lost a prisoner. Let's try not make this any worse than it has to be.'

Rutger sagged with relief, 'Thank you, captain.'

Teri stood up, considering the scene.

'Why kill himself?' she said.

I gave her a questioning look.

'What's the point?' she repeated, looking at me. 'You can still just go and interrogate him at Central.'

'He killed three police officers,' Rascal said, 'he knew there was no way he was getting out of prison in this lifetime. Maybe he just felt like getting it done and over with?'

'It wouldn't be the first time a bastard takes the easy way out,' the captain added.

I looked at Rutger again. 'Did he say anything to you, anything at all?'

'No,' he said, pushing himself up against the wall, 'not a thing. He just attacked me.'

I looked at Teri, my eyes communicating the same question. She shook her head, nothing of her last conversation with Leroy had indicated he might do something like this.

'Well, that's an additional charge of attempted murder for him,' the captain declared. 'You cleanup and go home to get some rest,' he addressed Rutger, 'I expect a detailed report on my desk first thing tomorrow morning.'

Rutger nodded.

'And somebody clean up this bloody mess,' the captain added before walking away, waving a finger at the ceiling and the corpse on the floor.

We kept silent, but as I walked back upstairs to finish my interview with judge Ronfry, I felt Teri was right, something was off about this.