MOSAICS: A Thriller by E.E. Giorgi

carefully. His complexion had absorbed the dull and gray co lor of the walls. A sagging wrinkle across his neck was reminiscent of his pre-jail chubbiness. Brown hearing aids sat behind his ears—from a trauma or genetic condition, I guessed, as he didn’t look older than fifty. He picked up the pack of cigarettes, plucked one out, and pocketed the rest. Satish produced a lighter and lit his cig. I inhaled and held my breath. I couldn’t hold for too long and eventually resigned to yet another reek filling up the room.
    “I did n’t do the fag,” Olsen said, sucking on his cig.
    “We heard you weren’t exactly fond of him, either,” I interjected.
    Olsen unplugged the cigarette from his mouth and blew smoke toward me. I made a face. He stretched his lips and showed me two rows of yellow teeth, too small for his big mouth. “You don’t smoke, Detective?”
    “Hate the smell,” I said.
    His lips stretched further.
    Satish rapped his fingers on the table. “My partner gets easily irritated. I suggest you help us out, Mr. Olsen, so you can enjoy your cigarette and we can be out of here soon.”
    Olsen wiped the smile off his face. “What’s in it for me?”
    I shifted in my chair. “Besides the cigarettes?”
    Satish sent me a sideways glance. “We can talk to people, Mr. Olsen,” he said. “We’re after Amy Liu’s killer, whether the killer did it again, like you say, or he’s just a copycat. Help us out and we’ll help you out.”
    Olsen shook his cigarette and tiny flakes of ashes fluttered to the ground. “I already said what I know. To the other cop s. They didn’t help me out. Why would you guys be any different?”
    Nausea crawled from my stomach up to my throat. I banged a hand on the table in frustration.
    Olsen leaned forward and locked his eyes onto mine. “You hate it here, Detective, don’t you? You hate it just like me. You hate the smells, I can tell from your face. The banging, the shouting, the moaning—I don’t care for any of that.” He shrugged and tapped the hearing aid behind his right ear. “I just turn these off and I can forget all of that. But the smells…” He sucked on the last bit of his cigarette, dropped it to the floor and crushed it with the tip of his shoe. “Can’t tune out the smells. Urine. Shit, from when the smart asses clog the latrines. Sweat. Freaking disgusting.”
    “I hear Vacaville is better, Mr. Olsen,” Satish said. “We can get you a transfer. Tell us what you told the other cops and we’ll work from there.”
    Olsen lifted his chin and squinted. He dipped a hand in his pocket and plucked a new cigarette out of the pack. This time Satish didn’t reach for the lighter.
    I pushed my chair backwards and got to my feet. “We’re wasting our time, Sat,” I said and walked to the door.
    Olsen stuck the cigarette between his lips. “Nail polish,” he said.
    I turned and looked at him.
    “It’s your clue. I told the other cops, too, but they didn’t believe me. There was a car that night. I saw it when I walked the dog. An Oldsmobile Alero, black, one of the older models. The driver was smoking. When I walked by, he rolled up the window and left. And I smelled nail polish after the car.”
    “Nail polish?” Satish repeated.
    He snapped. “What do you expect from homos?”
    Satish asked, “You got a plate number?”
    “Arizona plates. That’s all I remember.”
    I strode back to the table, turned the chair around, and straddled it. “What night, Olsen? If you’re gonna help, you might as well try a little harder than some manicure bullshit.”
    His lips closed around the cigarette butt, his eyes smirked. “The night the fag got whacked, of course.”
    I banged a hand on the table. “Wrong,” I said. “According to your wife, the night Callahan was killed you stepped out to walk the dog at least one hour before the murder. If you saw the car leave—”
    “So? He could’ve driven around the block and come back. Like he’d done