[Keplaz]

“So you came?”

I let the redundant question hang in the air, the words poignantly heavy, his voice chillingly peaceful. His eyes remained focussed on a single spot somewhere along the iron bars that were caked in an orange-red layer of rust. The room was oppressively small, it's minuscule size highlighted by Dave's colossal frame as he stood upright in one corner, though it seemed as if he was right in the middle, legs akimbo and arms folded across his chest, arms that were now like the boughs of an oak tree and were knotted with thick muscle.

“You can't do this Dave. I won't let you. I made your mother a promise and it's one I'm never going to break.”

He turned around, tracing the circle slowly, and by the ashen complexion on what was once a healthy tan, I realised that prison had done more than just bulk him up, it had also scarred him. A cross hung limply across his expansive chest and a Bible lay open on the narrow bed.

“There's nothing you can do James. The execution is tomorrow mate. I killed a man, it's called justice,” he said rather cheerfully, as if talking about getting a haircut.

He looked me straight in the eye and though his eyes gleamed with an emotion I couldn't define, there was a certain brightness that was no longer there. As if the flame had been doused by the cold hand of prison, like a caged bird that had slowly lost it's song. The man in front of me wasn't the Dave I knew or the Dave I'd grown up with, this was a ghost.

“Dave I'm not going to let you do this,”

“It's done James. I'm dying tomorrow, just let it be.”

I shook my head. I'd been in the Caribbean when Dave had been arrested for murder. I blamed myself somehow for not being there to stop it, though what exactly I could have done, I didn't really know. Dave had been caught with the murder weapon in his hands, at the scene and the man who had died, just happened to have raped his wife. They had argued insanity but insanity doesn't meticulously plan the deed and then attack the man on the day of the first solar eclipse in ten years. They called that premeditated. But they also called me the psychic detective even though I really wasn't. “They” often called it wrong and more often than not, I nearly always called it right. My year's sabbatical had coincided with the trial and the new zero tolerance policy due to prison overcrowding. Dave was to be the first recipient of the death sentence in over fifty years and it was happening tomorrow.

I'd promised his dying mother, my mum's best friend, that I would watch over him all his life, the big brother I'd always been, and I wouldn't let this happen.

“Dave you are not dying tomorrow,” I said firmly.

He smiled.

“It's too late James.”

“Actually it isn't. I've been studying the case on the plane and I know for a fact you are innocent. I have all the evidence I need and it isn't Sherlock Holmes stuff about you being left handed or something. I know exactly what happened and you will not die tomorrow.”

His mouth gaped open like a fish breathing under water and the aura of indestructible confidence that had surrounded him crumbled like a sandcastle in the ocean breeze. Wild tufts of black hair flew all over the place as his hands rose to his head, he looked like some kind of Samson with his unshorn locks and then suddenly desperate as he collapsed on the thin neatly-made bed.

“You can't,” he whispered.

“I will.”

“But how?” he asked, his face even more drained of colour making him appear more gaunt, “How could you possibly know? Are you really one of those “hocus pocus” clairvoyants Jim?”

“No Dave, I believe in logic. This is what really happened.”

The answer was ridiculously simple. Too simple even for the conviction to bear any weight but a confession and human perception, can sometimes be the most powerful evidence of all. The eclipse had been timed at twelve mid-day. According to the paper, Dave had called 999 and confessed at 14:00 hrs. They attributed the delay to shock but I knew it to be something more. The perfect plan.

“I know you hated Kevin Parker as much as it possible to hate anyone and how what he did shattered any chance you had of having kids. It's ironic that the same prison overcrowding that led to your death sentence led to his early release,” I paused for a moment as thoughts of Lisa, Dave's wife, and memories of her ravaged body after Parker's, an ex-boyfriend, brutal attack. Her blood soaked clothes and damaged body had resembled a mauling by a wolf.

Dave's heart-rending sobbing had filled the cell with a mournful atmosphere, sobs that caused his body to be riddled by trembling and tremors.

“If you could have killed him then Dave, that's when you would have done it, and not out of anything other than pure rage, I've known you all your life Dave and I know about your obsession with Christianity, revenge was never your thing. But Lisa on the other hand. She was pregnant wasn't she, when he raped her, and that she lost the baby, though you never told me. Lisa was devastated and it was Lisa who killed Parker. She watched her only dream ended by his cruel lust and I have no doubts she has been planning this for years.”

Dave gasped.

“She called you didn't she, and told you what she'd done. That she was going to confess to everything. You drove to his house and when you saw her, you gave her time to leave the scene of the crime and then you took the rap. They found a smaller set of bloody footprints leading out of the house but they were convinced, by you, that you'd bought women's shoes and made the footprints to confuse things, which you eventually did.”

“But how could you....”

“I know you Dave and I don't believe you capable of murder. The biggest evidence is that the door wasn't forced. You had no opportunity to obtain the key to his house, Parker was paranoid about security, you could never have. The only logic is that Lisa gave you the keys, which she would have had, but that would have made her an accomplice and that was never suggested. Lisa killed him, and wife or not, you will not die for her sins.”

He smiled wistfully and looked me dead in the eye.

“You really aren't psychic are you? You don't know about the miracle James.”

“What miracle?”

“I would have turned her in myself but she told me something else that afternoon.”

Just then, as if by clockwork, Lisa walked in flanked by a guard. And then I understood.

She was heavily pregnant.

[Keplaz]

I'd written this for the 1000 word challenge but couldn't bare to trim it.

[Ambrose]

Not bad Keplaz. I was interested as soon as James started saying he knew the truth. I think you were a bit too caught up with the ending, and it showed. Then again, such happens when you're trying to watch your length. Personally, I think this would have benefited a lot from being a bit longer. That way you could have gotten more build up in there.

I really like the description of Dave's arms, how they were now like the boughs of an oak tree. But had he been in prison for that long?

This sentence needs to be axed: I paused for a moment as thoughts of Lisa, Dave's wife, and memories of her ravaged body after Parker's, an ex-boyfriend, brutal attack. Try rephrasing.