Interview Room #1 was the opposite. Stark and windowless; the only break in the concrete block was a sixty-by-forty-eight-inch acrylic two-way mirror. It wasn’t supposed to be comforting or calming. It was meant for interrogations. To break people down. To strip them of “nothing but the truth” until they had no option but to confess to their criminal misdeeds: murder, rape, coercion. Hudson wasn’t ready for that yet; however, he knew if he ever made the move to Robberies, he’d have to learn a thing or two about commanding that room.

It was an ironic commentary on Black Harbor. The fact that they only had these two spaces, for conducting either soft interviews or hard interrogations. There was no in-between. It was a black-and-white setup that forced people to be put in one room or the other, despite the fact that most people lived in shades of grey. Including Hudson, himself. And Kole, from what he’d heard.

The viewing room was the size of a narrow closet. It would be large enough for a twin bed and nothing else. There were two metal chairs facing the glass, neglected by the two people already in the room when he arrived. Sergeant Kole and Investigator Riley stood in identical poses, arms crossed, bodies squared up with the mirror. A pair of mint-colored headphones hung around Riley’s neck. She leaned forward a bit, then, bouncing on the ball of her right foot, like a runner waiting for the sound of a gun.

Hudson pulled the door shut behind him and stood next to Kole. They were all three swathed in darkness now, the only light coming from the other side of the glass. At the stainless-steel table, a hulking figure sat, meaty hands folded. There was a bottle of water in front of him, and an unopened bag of chips. The man looked around, his gaze sweeping from the four corners of the room to the ceiling, like an animal surveying its cage. The rolls on the back of his bald head glistened with sweat. A bruise marbled his cheek.

An investigator who Hudson recognized from the roll call following Garrison’s death entered the interview room. Dressed in jeans and a sweater, he looked as though he’d come straight from a Christmas party.

“Hi, I’m Detective Jerome Kasper from Wesson Police Department. I’m leading the investigation into Officer Garrison’s death. How are you?”

The hulk shrugged his shoulders. It sounded as though he had cotton in his mouth when he mumbled, “Been better.”

Kasper squinted, tilted his head as though assessing damage. “You might want to put some frozen peas on that. Stop the swelling.”

“My cousin got me with a lamp.”

Detective Kasper smiled. He had square teeth that were spaced apart, his mouth framed by a goatee. “You get him a shitty gift, or what? Sorry, bad joke.” He cleared his throat. “My colleagues from this department said you’ve got some information concerning Officer Garrison, who was shot and killed just shy of a week ago.”