Chapter 6 - The Interrogation of a Saint
The interrogation room at the 14th Precinct smelled of bleach, old coffee, and stale sweat. A single overhead fluorescent tube flickered with a faint, high-pitched buzz, casting harsh white light across the scratched metal table.
Nicholas Vance sat in the heavy iron chair, his hands cuffed to an anchor loop bolted into the center of the table. He had removed his black suit jacket, rolling up the sleeves of his white dress shirt to his elbows. He looked as relaxed as if he were sitting in a luxury lounge waiting for a flight.
Detective Maya Miller slammed a thick blue file folder onto the table across from him. She pulled out a chair and sat down, leaning forward, her eyes locked onto his face like two steel rivets.
"Eight victims, Nicholas," Miller began, her voice hard and raspy from a night without sleep. "Samuel Briggs. Clara Thomas and her baby. An elderly woman named Rose Gable. All dead within six hours of your 'charity run' last night."
Nicholas didn't flinch. He tilted his head slightly, his hazel eyes reflecting the harsh white fluorescent tube. "Dead? How tragic. What did the coroner say?"
"Aconite poisoning," Miller snapped, tapping her pen against the file. "The same substance we found in your Oak Park laboratory. You baked it into the bread. You targeted people who were too weak to fight back, too poor to afford medical care, too invisible for anyone to care when they died."
"Invisible?" Nicholas repeated, his voice dropping into a soft, melodic baritone. "Is that what you think they were to me, Detective? Invisible?"
He leaned forward as far as his handcuffs would allow, his posture radiating a terrifying, dominant intelligence.
"I knew Samuel Briggs's heart rate," Nicholas murmured. "I knew his cancer had spread to his liver. I knew he cried himself to sleep every night in his filthy blanket because the pain was so intense he wanted to bite his own tongue off. The city gave him zero dollars for pain relief. The shelters gave him a kick in the ribs when he slept on their stoops. I gave him a warm meal, a peaceful night, and an end to his agony."
"You murdered him!" Miller shouted, slamming her palm onto the metal table.
"I ended his suffering!" Nicholas roared back, his voice booming through the small room, his eyes suddenly flashing with a ferocious, divine fury that made Miller freeze.
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In the heavy silence that followed, Nicholas slowly relaxed his shoulders, his composure snapping back into place like a steel spring. He offered her a small, elegant smile.
"Tell me, Detective... who was more cruel to Samuel? The world that left him to rot in his own waste on a sidewalk... or the man who gave him a dignified exit with a stomach full of sweet bread?"
