Book 3: Chapter 26 - The Kids are Not Alright

There is not now, nor has there ever been, any
evidence that the Asher Family is tied to crime in Prism City.
—Detective John Knight, Public Statement

Lyle leaned back in his chair and read through the statement a third time. This was easily the biggest break they'd had so far, but he couldn't work up the same childlike excitement as John. His gut told him he was missing something. He looked up at the one-way glass and examined the student on the other side. Chase Cook was miserable and exhausted. Lyle could see it in his eyes. 

What he couldn't discern was why. There were the obvious reasons, of course. This was the boy from the CCTV footage at the station. The student who'd helped kill a police officer. And now he was handcuffed to a table in an interrogation room. Of course he was upset. But that didn't seem to fully encapsulate the emotion behind the kid's eyes. There was something else. Something... frantic. A building pressure that couldn't remember how to panic properly. 

Something felt deeply, deeply wrong.

And it wasn't only because of Chase. Part of the problem was John. The other detective was obviously hiding something important. All in the interest of pursuing glory rather than the killer. It was clear in every sidelong glance and self-impressed smirk. But that wasn't new behavior for Detective Knight. It couldn't explain the persistent anxiety under Lyle's skin. This feeling was different. Like bubbles of air escaping in too many directions at once. He was drowning, and the water didn't follow the rules, so he couldn't tell which way was up.

It was a deeply unsettling feeling.

He needed to speak to Chase directly, but the boy was refusing to talk. At least, until after Demetri had given his statement. That didn't make much sense to Lyle. If Chase had a story to tell, it wouldn't change because Demetri spoke first. They weren't exactly going to let the kid read the other statement before writing his own. 

Yet he'd agreed to speak only after Demetri. 

Lyle took another drink of cold coffee from a paper cup. Or, something people called coffee after the end of the world. He'd had the real thing only once, at Cyan Asher's estate. It was nothing like what he was drinking now. And it wasn't helping him think.

The only thing that made sense was that, for some reason, the order the stories were told in was important. Like Demetri—a man who'd met the Cruel Ivy Killer and been locked in a box—could provide context necessary to understand Chase's statement. 

Lyle tapped the side of his mug with one finger, his eyes stuck on the pathetic prisoner in the next room. 

That wasn't right. 

He could see the truth in the bags under the boy's eyes. Demetri didn't have the context necessary to understand Chase. But for some reason, Chase thought the other witness testimony would help Lyle believe him.

As soon as Lyle realized that, it was impossible to miss. Chase was certain he'd be called a liar if his story was told first. Hell, he was probably right. There were no signs his mind had been altered by a talent. Aside from Bouvier’s sloth talent, anyway. As far as Lyle could tell, Chase had helped lure Officer Foreman to his death while sound of mind. He'd either been willing or a victim of mundane coercion.

The latter was an obvious option Lyle had failed to consider before. That had been stupid. But when the world was run by people who could attach literal strings to human puppets... blackmail never seemed like the obvious answer.

In either case, Chase was likely to be tried in Foreman's death. If he thought Demetri would make his side of the story more believable, it was smart to insist on waiting.

Lyle looked down at the folder again. Demetri had been brought to the infirmary, since he was dehydrated and exhausted. But his constitution was high enough to prevent the worst effects of captivity. John had taken the man's statement while treatment was being provided, and the story was more than thorough. They even had an artist produce a composite sketch of the so-called Cruel Ivy Killer. A woman, apparently. Or a teenage girl, rather. She'd been wearing the school uniform, of all things.

That was a difficult pill to swallow. But not an impossible one. It didn't rule out further coercion or a mind-altering talent after all. The girl Demetri had spoken to could have been a mouthpiece at most. It would make more sense than presenting herself to a living target in uniform. Unless she was an idiot.

Which, of course, she might’ve been. 

Or she could’ve just been extremely arrogant. The two words were practically synonymous. 

All Lyle knew was the girl described was... extremely distinctive. That, and this wasn't a false lead. Demetri's story lined up with a double murder in the red district the night he disappeared, and in a building near the storage facility. Red Threads of Fate confirmed a weak connection between the items in the makeshift cell and the killer's victims as well.

Putting everything together was frustrating. On any other case, Lyle would think they were about to catch the culprit. Everything was lining up well. Probably more perfectly than he even realized, if John's smug confidence was anything to go by. Whatever the man had left to research, he'd seemed certain an arrest would be made in a matter of days.

Lyle needed to get out of his own head. There was only one thing to do. He had to hear what Chase Cook knew about all of this. So he put his coffee down, closed the folder in his hands, and left the observation room. He glanced across the bullpen to see John and some IT specialist huddling around a computer. His job would’ve been so much easier if the other detective would simply work with him. But he’d do what he could in the meantime. John would want the killer behind bars, too, and wouldn’t withhold anything unless he genuinely thought he was going to stop the culprit. Lyle would get more out of the man if he simply waited for the necessary cooperation.

Finally, he walked to the next door and stepped inside.

Chase looked up with weary, worried eyes, but didn’t speak. Neither did Lyle, for a few moments. He simply made his way to the steel chair opposite the suspect and sat down. He put the folder on the table between them and started quietly flipping through the pages. He didn’t let Chase see anything important. But the header on the first page was clear, with Demetri’s name more than legible at the top.

Lyle allowed the boy’s anxiety to grow, refusing to be the first to speak. He had plenty more to consider, and he could wait for Chase to break. It would make the conversation so much easier if Lyle didn’t have to poke and prod for every response he got.

He managed to read the entire statement again to the tune of Chase’s nervous tapping. He was about to start it over when the silence was finally broken.

“Did you speak to him?” Chase asked.

Lyle didn’t look up, instead flipping to the next page in the file and letting his eyes run across it. He didn’t read it this time. He just wanted to give the impression he was more interested in the paper in front of him than the boy. A ridiculous idea, since he’d come into the room with Chase for an obvious reason. But the witness wouldn’t think about that right away, so it was usually an effective tactic.

“No,” Lyle responded.

Chase gritted his teeth and glared at Lyle. “Then why are you here? I told you. I can’t give my statement until Demetri does!” That was a mild but interesting shift in language. And one which lent credence to Lyle’s suspicions. It wasn’t that Chase wouldn’t talk first. In the kid’s eyes, he couldn’t.

“But my partner did. I have his statement here,” Lyle finished. “I can’t tell you what it says yet. I don’t want it affecting your own perception of events, you understand. But I believe we’ve done as you asked regardless. It’s your turn now.”

Chase paused. He looked at the door to his left before focusing back on the folder in Lyle’s hands. “You’re not lying?” Chase checked.

Lyle shook his head. “That seems like a pointless question, since the answer will remain the same no matter who you ask or how truthful they are being,” he pointed out.

“It matters to me,” Chase insisted.

Lyle shrugged. “No. I’m not lying. I’ve read the statement several times now, in fact. But I’m not sure what to make of it yet. I need your input first,” he explained. As he did, he pulled a blank statement sheet from the folder. He didn’t offer it to Chase yet, but let him see what it looked like. Identical to the one Demetri had filled out.

“Alright,” Chase finally conceded. “Please.” He held his hand out, and Lyle sniffed.

Lyle handed the paper over, retrieving a black pen from the back of the folder and offering it as well. “Before you start, read the disclaimer at the top of the page and sign that you understand what it means. Please fill out every line from the very beginning to the very end with no white spaces. If there is a gap at the end of a sentence, draw a horizontal line from the final word to the edge of the statement space. If you make a mistake, please cross it out a single time, then initial the change. Use as many dates, locations, and specific details as you can think of. When you are done, sign every highlighted space. Do you understand?” Lyle had given the same speech a thousand times, but he still had to work to keep his voice measured. He was eager to read every word Chase wrote, but displaying that would be a terrible idea.

“I’ll tell you as much as I can, but I’m going to need more space than this,” Chase replied. 

Lyle frowned at that. It wasn’t the first time a statement had needed multiple pages, but he didn’t like how certain Chase was before starting. A longer story was sometimes useful when verifying details. But it also meant a much messier situation to clean up. This kid had been mixed up with the killer for quite some time, it seemed.

“I’ll see to it that you have as much space as you need,” Lyle promised.

Chase was already writing, however, so Lyle pulled out his tablet and put a request into the office chat. In the meantime, he decided to ask a few questions. He wasn’t supposed to interrupt the statement while it was being written. There was a chance he’d influence what was included. At the same time, he had a troubling feeling. An urgency he couldn’t explain. He didn’t have a talent to tell him when something was wrong. But experience was almost as good. And his partner’s behavior was really bothering him. So he broke procedure.

“This statement is important, but it’s not what matters most right now. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions while you write?” Lyle tried.

Chase paused and met Lyle’s eyes. “Whatever helps stop her,” he agreed.

“Her?” Lyle pushed. “So you know who the killer is?”

“Violet Asher,” Chase responded immediately. Like the name had been living in his mouth and hammering at his teeth, and it broke free the second it saw an opening. It didn’t sound like a name anymore. But a confession and an accusation all together. From the look on the boy’s face, the words had a foul taste, but the context in which they were spoken made them sweeter.

For Lyle’s part, he had about a dozen emotions at once. The first thought he had was silly. It was the memory of Bouvier leaving a smoothie shop. 

The killer is violet. 

It wasn’t a surprise the phrase popped into his head, but it wasn’t reasonable to assume Bouvier would just... say that if he’d meant a name rather than the category. Especially since Lyle had been the one to specifically ask, and Bouvier had said he was “right.”

It was a stray thought, and not one to lean into.

The second thought Lyle had was about the surname provided. “Asher.” It was perhaps the last name he wanted to hear from the boy’s mouth. And it made more sense than Lyle cared to admit. If it was a student, Lyle could probably have her arrested. So long as she wasn’t Category Cyan or higher, the Ashers would easily give her up to maintain appearances. There were rumors they had their less valuable children disposed of, anyway. But if she was an important Asher? Lyle didn’t know what he was going to do. 

Thankfully, Demetri had described a young girl in a uniform. So if the accused really was the culprit, at least she probably wasn’t important. Still. The accusation was too severe to carry in with his current interrogation.

“I’m sorry, I have to look into something,” Lyle said, dismissing himself. He had more questions for Chase, but the Asher name changed things. He had to find out if this kid had any other motive to make this accusation. Any grudge, vendetta, or generalized insanity. Any other name he’d have investigated that first. But an Asher? He needed to learn everything he could about how Chase and this “Violet” knew each other. He was not going to investigate that family without a good reason. 

He’d only made it a few steps from the interrogation room when he was stopped by a smug detective. John was holding a large photograph, and one which looked extremely similar to the composite sketch.