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“Never expected to see you here, Inspector Cabanela.”
It’s cold out, and his prison clothes don’t do a thing to stop the wind. Still, he turns and lifts his arms in surrender without shivering. It has been five years since he felt the wind on his face. He doesn’t want to complain about it now.
“I beliiieve that’s my line, my old friend.”
Cabanela is older. There’s a portrait of him in Jowd’s cell, with the same hawk nose, keen eyes, and flashy scarf. Now, he’s been struck grey at the temples, and his jaw has grown sharper. Time suits him. His coat is pure moonlight.
“What are you doing here?”
Jowd wants to indulge in Cabanela’s slick one-liners, to smile, to choke an I missed you, old friend, but he never has before, and it’s not a good time to start, what with the gun pointed at his head. He knows Cabanela’s finger isn’t on the trigger— he’d always been fastidious and disciplined when it really mattered, despite appearances. It isn’t a comfort, though. The same part of his mind remembers how quick a finger twitches, and how quickly a life can end.
“I beliiieve that’s my line, too, clearly.”
It’s a nothing answer, and Jowd knows it. He stays silent, staring down the barrel, waiting for him to continue.
“I came to… attend your execution,” Cabanela admits, making the vaguest gesture with his wrist. “They told me what time it was. Couldn’t get into the chamber, so I was observing a moment of silence here.”
Five years with no visits, only to show his face now. Jowd doesn’t blame him for it, but the irony isn’t lost on him, either. For a moment he imagines it– Cabanela’s smiling face and white coat, flouncing into the maximum security prison to chat with the disgraced detective who shot his wife. It is a joke. He doesn’t laugh.
The sadder image is the real one: Cabanela alone under a streetlamp by the back door, mourning someone who wouldn’t have seen him if he’d tried.
“…and when I looked up, my eyes full of tears, there you were, baby.”
The trick with Cabanela is that despite the cleverness, the lines and the jokes, he always says just what he means. There is sincerity to his words, on his face, so sunshine-bright that Jowd can’t help but avert his gaze.
“It’s just the way things turned out,” Jowd explains, by not explaining. He isn’t sure he could if he wanted to. He had died tonight, and now, if his trust holds out, he will die again. The details don’t matter, there is only the ending, which is the same. “I took part in what seemed like a fun game, and here I am.”
Cabanela furrows his brow at that last part. Jowd can read his thoughts on his face: the detective instinct to pursue, and then the decision not to take the bait. He had always been a hound when he was chasing down suspects, and Jowd had always known to trust his instincts. Now, here he is, on the other side of that coin.
“Here’s what I wish for you, my old friend,” Cabanela says, after a moment. “Wish it was anybody but me who found you here…”
Jowd swallows. They’ve been circling it this whole conversation, an inevitability, like pennies dropped from opposite sides of the sink, spiraling tighter and tighter until the sudden drop down the drain.
“‘Cause now that I’ve found you, maaan… I have to turn you in.”
Jowd breathes out, meeting Cabanela’s eyes. In this moment, he may as well be an angel.
“You have to stay spotlessly clean, after all.”