Chapter 7 - Interrogation Room Four
The fluorescent lights of Interrogation Room Four hummed with a low, headache-inducing frequency that matched the frantic pulse behind Julian’s temples. The room was standard issue—concrete block walls painted a depressing institutional beige, a scarred metal table bolted to the floor, and a two-way mirror that Julian knew reflected the cold, analytical gaze of half a dozen state investigators and, likely, an operative from the U.S. Attorney’s office.
The heavy steel door swung open with a metallic groan, and Detective Marcus Vance—no, not Marcus, Marcus was his brother; this was Detective Thorne, a sharp-featured investigator from the Hartford precinct—stepped inside carrying a thick cardboard file folder. Thorne tossed the folder onto the metal table with a dull thud.
"Your lawyer is on his way from New York, Mr. Vance," Thorne said, pulling out the metal chair opposite Julian and sitting down without removing his heavy leather gloves. "But given the speed at which federal prosecutors move when a high-profile corporate whistleblower is ventilated in a municipal park, you might want to consider cooperating before the grand jury convenes tomorrow morning."
Julian kept his hands cuffed to the steel loop bolted to the center of the table, his posture upright, his expression an impenetrable mask of corporate calm. "I have nothing to hide, Detective. I cooperated with the 911 dispatcher, I applied pressure to the wound to save the victim’s life, and I demanded that your officers sweep the tree line for the real shooter. When my counsel arrives, we will review the dashcam footage from your responding cruisers, and this entire absurd misunderstanding will be resolved."
Thorne leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table and lowering his voice to a conspiratorial hiss. "Let's talk about the victim, Julian. Maya Lin wasn't just a corporate attorney. Three hours before she took a bullet in the shoulder at the Old Lyme pier, she logged a comprehensive digital package to a secure federal cloud server—a package containing notarized ledgers, offshore wire transfers, and a signed affidavit from a man the Connecticut state police have listed as deceased for the last twelve years: David Vance."
Julian didn't blink. His heart skipped a beat, but his face remained completely impassigned. "David Vance died in a plane crash in Colorado in 2011. If someone is impersonating him to extort our family, that’s a matter for federal fraud investigators, not a murder charge."
"Oh, it's a murder charge all right," Thorne said, opening the folder and sliding an 8x10 glossy photograph across the table. "Or at least, an attempted murder charge, depending on whether Ms. Lin survives surgery at Hartford General. And as for David Vance... federal marshals pulled him out of a safehouse in Seattle less than forty-eight minutes ago. He’s currently on a flight back to Hartford under armed guard."
Julian looked down at the photograph. It wasn't of Maya; it was a still frame from a security camera at a diner in Seattle, showing a gaunt, weathered man with graying hair and a familiar, unmistakable Vance jawline, sitting across a table from Maya Lin just twenty-four hours before she was shot.
"So you see, Julian," Thorne continued, tapping a finger against the photograph. "The narrative that you were an innocent bystander meeting a stranger in the fog is starting to fray at the edges. Especially when we examine the contents of the heavy manila envelope that was tucked inside your overcoat when our troopers cuffed you on the pier."
Julian’s breath caught for a fraction of a second. He had hidden the envelope in his inner breast pocket, but in the chaos of the arrest, the intake officers had patted him down thoroughly. They had it.
"That envelope contains privileged legal correspondence between my family's corporate trust and retained counsel," Julian said, his voice dropping an octave into a dangerous register. "If your officers opened it without a warrant signed by a federal judge, you've just contaminated every piece of evidence in this investigation, and my legal team will have this entire case thrown out before the sun comes up."
May you like
Thorne smiled—a slow, unpleasant parting of the lips that didn't reach his eyes. "We didn't need a search warrant, Julian. It was classified as abandoned property at a felony crime scene. And do you know what was inside that envelope? Not corporate trust documents. It was the original autopsy report from the 2011 Denver plane crash—an autopsy report that proves the body in the casket wasn't David Vance at all. It was an anonymous Jane Doe purchased from a county morgue by Arthur Vance to fake his nephew's death."
---
