Shadowplay

The weight of chains

Walter was led into a dark prison cell where he was confined for three days and during this span, he started to think again more clearly. Gradually, everything started to fall into place as his mind connected the dots around this puzzle.

His life was gone, his reputation smeared in the mud of reproach and obscenity. The first night he spent in his cell, all Walter did was cry. The voices in his head were gone, offering no comfort to his shattered heart. He wrapped his arms around his body, shivering as the biting cold seeped through his exposed skin, but the main cause of his pain was the loss of his family. His wife, brutally murdered, his innocent little girl, whom he had planned to give his all to, her life had been taken away from her even before she had the chance to live it.

“Why?” He kept muttering under his breath, his chaff lips that were stained with his dried blood quivered. “I-I didn’t kill them, I know that…” This time, he was sure, the evil voice in his head didn’t object. “I’ll find whoever did this and I will make him pay…I’ll rip off his limbs, arm by arm until he bleeds to death…I swear with every drop of blood in me.”

Day by day, he repeated that to himself. The officers threw food into his cell in a tray but Walter never touched it. For three days, no food and no water, Walter wasn’t sure he would ever have an appetite again, for the taste of his family’s blood lingered on his tongue.

After three days, he heard heavy footsteps approaching his cell, but this time, he could detect more than one. His senses became alert and he scampered to the darker side of the prison cell where he couldn’t be easily seen, then squinted at the steel-bars door. Two officers stood there, their hands firmly placed on the butt of the guns strapped to their waists, then a booming voice invaded the husky silence in the cell,

“Walter Junior,” The voice commanded, “Someone is here to see you.”

Walter’s curiosity rose like a fiery flame within him as the officers opened the cell doors. One held a handcuff in his hand while the other didn’t have his gun strapped to his waist again, instead he was pointing it directly at Walter’s chest.

Walter arched an eyebrow at him. His facial hair had a rather abnormal growth rate that required him to shave daily, so now he had a fully grown, unkept beard that itched and irritated him from time to time, “What?” He asked the officer, “Afraid I’m going to jump you?”

The officer snarled viciously, his eyes blazing like embers in the shady hallway, “You’d be dead even before you move a muscle towards me, Walter.”

Walter scoffed and nodded with a smirk. There was something that had drastically changed about these officers here. Not that he had expected any sympathy from them, by God! He never expected to be in this situation even! But here he was, and everyone treated him as though they had been praying vehemently for this to happen. It seemed like everyone was against him, willing to throw him into the harsh hands of the law for a crime he never committed.

They shoved him into the interrogation room without uncuffing his hands. Walter sighed and rolled his eyes as he came face to face with a man, dressed in a brilliant three-piece suit. Normally, at fifty one, one would expect Marcus Robbie to have a few strands of gray hair, but his sleek black hair looked ever young.

Walter sat down on the table and looked up the top corner of a wall, his quick eyes caught a camera facing directly at him and on the other side of the wall adjacent to him was another camera. His suspicion grew like a weight on his shoulders, why had they chosen the interrogation room for him to speak with his lawyer?

“They won’t take these cuffs off me,” Walter said with a little grunt as he sat down on the chair on the table side closest to him while Marcus went around the table, “Took you long enough to get here, Robbie.” He remarked flatly.

His lawyer sighed, “They think you’re a very dangerous man, Walter,” He said without sitting down, “But I don’t, so I asked for the keys to your handcuffs. He strolled over to Walter and released the cuffs around his wrists with the key. From his suit coat, he brought out a cigarette pack and a lighter, then dropped it on the table, “I had other clients to attend to, Walter and on the first night, I really couldn’t believe the absurd news going around the entire city.”

Walter flexed his palms to get blood flowing into them, then lit a cigarette and looked at Marcus, “And now?”

Marcus hesitated, “I don’t know, Walter.” He confessed, “But even if you did do it, we can-”

“f*****g hell, Robbie,” He exclaimed, shaking his head with a wry chuckle as he puffed out a whiff of cigarette, “You’re the last person I expected to say that to me. You think I’d kill my f*****g wife? You were there for out damn wedding! Of course, I didn’t do it!”

Marcus’s face dropped dejectedly and he nodded, “My bad, my bad, Walter,” He apologized, “We need to work something out before the trial, Walter. Right now, I’m sure that every possible jury the court will assemble will convict you.” His face was worried as he spoke, then he noticed that Walter kept glancing above his head. “Walter, you have to tell me everything that happened that day.”

“With those cameras up there?” Walter asked, squinting at Marcus, “I don’t trust the cops in here, Robbie and I thought everything I say to you is strictly confidential.”

“Those cameras do not work, Walter,” Marcus said.

Walter sucked on his cigarette for a few seconds, he didn’t entirely believe that, but Marcus had no reasons to lie to him. “I received a call, Robbie. I was on my way home that night when I got a call from Congressman Miller,”

Marcus’s eyes darkened, “Stan Miller?”

He nodded, “Yeah, his voice was…terrified, he was in danger and I got the address of that building my wife and daughter had been murdered in but when I got there…” His eyebrows gathered in deep thoughts, “I have no recollection of what happened. I think I was drugged or something.”

“Drugged? How?

“I don’t know.” Walter replied.

Marcus sighed and adjusted his tie, “This is a very difficult one, Walter, if that is all you can provide.”

“What the heck, Robbie? Isn’t Stan Miller’s call enough? Go question him and I’m sure this would all become clear to you. I’m being framed for murdering my own family, Robbie,” Walter leaned forward, “And now I need your help to get out of here and get that bastard that caused all this.”

Marcus rose to his feet with a look of disapproval, “Make me want to actually help you, Walter. You’re asking me to get you out of here so that you can murder someone and just end up in here all over again?”

Walter glared at him from under his eyelids, “I’m paying you to get me the f**k out of here, Robbie!” He snapped, “You’re a criminal lawyer with no morals so don’t stand there, acting like a saint. Go to Miller.”

Marcus frowned at the tone of Walter’s voice, then he placed a hand on his desk as he stopped beside him, “Pay me? And how the f**k do you plan to do that when all your accounts have been frozen?”

Walter froze and could only listen to Marcus’s retreating footsteps as he left the room. He was utterly speechless, shocked by the way he was being treated on the outside when he hadn’t even been convicted of the crime. He had enemies in the shadows, dangerous men coming after him but the issue was that he didn’t know who they were.

One the day of his court trial, Walter’s heart was hammering with anxiety as he was led into the courtroom. Why was the room so crowded? He wondered, most of these people, he didn’t even know! He was tensed because Marcus Robbie hadn’t visited him since that day and he had no idea what his strategy was and to make matters worse, he was absent in the courtroom.

He made eye contact with the state attorney, a vicious lawyer whom Walter himself had worked with severally. The SA was clearly disappointed, his eyes didn’t show anger nor the desperation to make sure Walter was convicted, he was still recovering from the shock when the case had been dropped onto his laps. Walter averted his eyes, his hands shook nervously as he waited Robbie. The chief judge had already taken up his seat and order was called to the room.

Robbie slipped into Walter’s side, sweating profusely and panting. “f*****g hell, Walter, traffic was crazy.”

“You have to be crazier!” Walter cursed in between clenched teeth, “Go get me acquitted man, I have things to do.”

But Marcus Robbie unfortunately didn’t have a plan, by the time he returned to his seat after taking up the stance, Walter was furious. In a cross examination made by the SA, where Walter was invited to the stance, he was eaten up by the SA pretty badly and the few questions he was asked that he couldn’t answer left the jury frowning at him in disdain. Walter was so angry at Robbie that he didn’t even speak to him and even before judgement was passed, his hammering heart was prepared for the worst.

Robbie requested for the case to be adjourned and possibly a change of district, but the judge refused and said the jury was ready to cast their votes in the secret room, they had seen enough. It took four, nail-biting hours before the jury returned to their seats again, with all eyes in the room fixed on them.

When their decision was passed, Walter’s face went white and his hands clenched into fists.

He was convicted of the murder of his wife and daughter.

Babe the chapter