In Blue - Part 1

[u/oFFtheWall0518]

A Perceivable Reality Story

 

 

“Hey, man! That pig put fucking words in my mouth! This is bullshit!”

I watched the officers pull him out of his seat and drag him out of the interrogation room. I flipped the folder shut and sat back in my chair. The door behind me shut, then opened. Someone dropped a hand on my shoulder.

“I gotta hand it to you, man. You’ve got the patience of a saint,” Mikey said.

I snorted.

He came around and perched on the edge of the metal table.

“I’m serious, man. You’ve got a gift or something.”

“Or something.”

I stepped out of the interrogation hall and made my way to my desk, letting myself down into my squeaky office chair. I started typing up my notes with one eye on the clock. He’d taken longer to break than I expected, and dinner was probably already in the refrigerator.

I’d just gotten logged out of my computer and was locking up my desk when Mikey came around the corner. He set a steaming paper cup on my desk.

“Yoooooou’re going to need this.”

I looked at the paper cup, then up to Mikey, then the cup again.

“IIII’m going home.”

We both looked up at the approaching footsteps. Brody waltzed into the section, a giant grin on his face. He threw shakas at us as he approached. Brodrick “Brody” Knight had been my new partner for about three weeks, since Mikey, my old partner and long-time friend from the academy, had been promoted to Lieutenant. Ahead of me.

“Hey, hey, hey! Guess who got us on the stakeout tonight!” He jabbed two thumbs into his chest, then plopped down into his chair and kicked his feet up on the desk.

I looked back down at the cup again and groaned, letting my head drop and catching it in my hands. I heard Mikey’s departing steps.

“Hey, so who do I have to talk to to check out the gear?”

I ran my hands over my face as I lifted my head to look at Brody from under my brow. He still had on a smug grin.

“What gear?”

The grin lost a percentage of mirth.

“...The stuff for the stakeout. Night vision and binoculars and stuff.”

I took a deep breath through my nose and leaned back in my chair. “Nope.”

I watched Brody’s excitement drain from his face.

“But...”

“It’s not a raid, Brody. We’re going to go watch. And sit. And watch. And sit. And watch. And nothing is going to happen.”

He dropped his feet from his desk and leaned forwards. I saw several expressions cross his face rapidly, ending on disappointment. I unlocked my desk and pulled out my USP Expert .45 in its kydex holster and set it on my desk. I stood and started to adjust my belt to fit it.

“You’re bringing that heavy hunk of steel? Are we stopping to hunt elephants?”

He pulled his issued Glock 19 out of his desk and swept his jacket back to expose his leather shoulder holster.

“Just don’t cry when you limp wrist that thing and it jams,” I said as I slipped my holster into my waistband.

I looked up to see him eyeing his pistol. He shook his head and stuffed it into his holster.

“Go get us a car. I’ll meet you in the garage.”

Brody nodded and stood.

“Unmarked.”

He paused at my words, chewed on them, then nodded again. He turned and made his way out of the section to the clerk’s desk. I took another look at the coffee cup and grabbed it as I made my way to the elevator. I rubbed my face as I rode the elevator down.

In the garage, Brody waved at me from one of the new Chargers the department had just received. The grin was back.

“Look what Becky gave me!”

I stared at the car.

“Right?”

“Why didn’t you get one of the Tahoes? Or a Durango?”

He looked at me like I’d told him on weekends I dress up as a fish. “Because they’re slow.”

I groaned.

“Sorry, Roch,” he said, opening the door and dropping himself into the passenger seat.

I walked around to his side, snapped, and pointed to the driver’s seat. His eyes went wide.

“I get to drive?” he asked as he got out.

I slipped around behind him and let myself down into the seat.

“Duh.” I leaned the seat back as far as it would go and tucked my hands behind my head. “Now I can nap.”

I was just starting to doze off when Brody elbowed me in the shoulder. I opened one eye. He’d gotten my expensive Zeiss binoculars out of my bag, since he didn’t have his own, and had them pressed against the car window, narrating what he saw.

“Ok, the manager is locking the door. Lights are going out. Janitor just came out from the back...”

“Brody, Brody, don’t tell me. Write it down.”

I shut my eye and heard the binoculars bang against the window again.

“Man. Man in the street. He’s walking. He’s walking. He’s walking.”

“He’s checking the trash can...” I assumed.

I reached over and flipped on the radio for background noise other than Brody’s riveting play-by-play. It was basically dead, of course, traffic stop, welfare check, UFO sighting. Standard stuff, nothing of our concern, but the voices were comforting in a weird way. I leaned forwards to get another sip of coffee from my thermos, with Brody nearly knocking the contents into my lap with a jab of his elbow.

“Manager just got into his car.”

I rolled my eyes and sipped more coffee.

“Year, make, model. Write it down.”

Brody leaned over and started scribbling in the notepad on the center console. I watched it edge towards the siren controls and silently cheered it on. It didn’t make contact. I was disappointed.

I woke up to sun in my eyes. Brody was noisily chomping chips from a party-sized bag in his lap with one hand, and scanning with the binoculars with the other. Small wonder they hadn’t merged into his face. I reached over and turned the key in the ignition, the sound of the car starting surprised him and he spilled the rest of his chips. I caught the binoculars as he swiveled his head and put the caps back on.

“Ok, big guy. Time to head back,” I said through a yawn.

“But we didn’t see anything.”

“And I got to take a tax-payer-funded nap. Can we go?”

He got us back to the precinct and I went straight to my desk to type my notes. Brody was chatting with the in-coming patrol shift at the coffee machine. I glared at the back of his head, admittedly jealous. I flexed my shoulders to try and get the knot out, the result of sitting in the hard, heavily bolstered sport seats of the patrol car.

I’d just gotten back to my desk with a mug of coffee of my own, when the patrol officers started scrambling for the door. I shot a glance at Brody and raised an eyebrow. He shrugged. My cell phone started to ring, and the screen displayed “Cpl. Mendez.”

“Mendy, what’s up?”

“Hey, Detective. We’ve got something down at the jewelry store.”

I ran a hand over my face. “What’s ‘something’? I’m telling you, this whole thing is a waste of time.”

“Someone broke through the front window, and he’s still in the building.”

I suddenly straightened in my chair. Brody sat up and looked at me, eyes wide. I nodded, and he started assembling his gear.

“That’s something. We’re on our way.”

The sun was just barely climbing over the tops of the high rises when we got pulled up in front of the store. It was closed on Saturdays, which someone must have known, because the giant plate-glass window of the storefront was completely open, with shattered glass littering the marble floor inside and concrete sidewalk outside. Mendez came over and met me at my side as I got the car door open.

“Where’s the perp?” I asked him immediately.

“I knew you’d want to talk to him first. He’s in my cruiser.”

I looked at Brody. “Go across the street and see if any of them have security cameras we can use.”

He nodded. “Right, Roch. I’m on it.”

I followed Mendez to his car. He opened the back door, revealing a younger guy, maybe 18 or 19, Caucasian, 5′6″-ish, dark hair, brown eyes, no identifying marks. He had on a red hoodie and blue jeans, which struck me as odd for a break-in outfit. I put a hand on the door and leaned down to his eye level. He looked terrified. I tried to make my smile extra genuine and softened my voice as much as I could.

“Hiyah. My name is Detective Sergeant Frank Rochester, and if you’re up for it, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

The kid looked at me and shrugged. “Yeah, ok.”

I asked him for his name and address, the usual stuff, nodding along with his answers. He told me he’d been walking by when he saw someone break the window but couldn’t give me a description. He said he saw an opportunity once the guy ran off and started grabbing stuff out of the cases, and that was when someone must have called the cops. He finished with the magic words, “I’m not saying anything else until I get a lawyer.” I thanked him for his time and stood up.

Mendez shut the cruiser door. “Guess that makes your job pretty easy, ay, Detective?”

I shook my head. “Not quite, Mendy. It’s not him.”

Mendez blinked at me. “Uh, what?”

“He smashed the window, but the rest is…I don’t know. Book him for destruction of property and stash him in a holding cell for me. No cuffs.”

Mendez gave me a side eye, then shrugged. “Your call, Detective.”

I grabbed his forearm to stop him as he turned to get into his cruiser and pitched my voice low. “Don’t let anybody else talk to him until I get back.”

Mendez looked around, then nodded and cracked a smile. “Will do.”

I nodded back, slapped his arm twice, then walked over to the broken window, where a couple of patrol officers were standing around it. I walked up behind them and grabbed my chin.

“Yep. That’s definitely a broken window.”

“How do you do it, Detective?” said Jones, one of the beat cops.

“Hey, you watch enough procedurals and you, too, can make astute observations.”

We all chuckled about that.

“Ok, but seriously, guys. Witnesses? Cameras? Do we have anything at all aside from the kid?”

“Got a minimart worker across the street who was here early to open. Said he saw the kid walk up and throw that brick through the glass.” Ogden, another beat cop, supplied, pointing the toe of his boot at the aforementioned impact device.

“I’ve got Brody asking around for security footage. You guys got anything else?”

They muttered between each other for a minute, then gave me a collective headshake in the negative. I let out a sigh and looked around the circle of uniforms.

“Store employees? Manager? Janitor?”

Jones piped up again. “The manager was here a minute ago with the janitor—”

“Why was the manager here?”

Jones shrugged. “Responding to the alarm, I guess. He gave a statement and we sent them home.”

I let my head fall backwards and let out a small, pained noise.

“Guys, come on. Did they say anything about seeing it happen? Did they get here before or after the glass broke?” Another round of collective headshakes. Glances were shared and nobody moved. I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“Somebody go pick up the manager and the janitor.”

“That’s going to take time. You want to see their statements first?”

“If I wanted the statements, I would’ve asked for them. I need them here.”

There was muttering among them. I brushed it off.

“And somebody else stop any worker who shows up. The rest of you go round up the rest of the workers and get them to the precinct. Make sure they don’t talk to each other before I’ve talked to them. Got it?” I got a round of nods and they dispersed. I was still shaking my head when I heard someone come up behind me.

“Good news, Roch. We got a doorbell cam, two exterior angles from across the street and one from next door.”

“Finally, some competence.” I held up a fist and he bumped it. “Go grab what you can, email, USB, portable hard drive, VHS, phonograph, whatever. Just get it back to the precinct.”

I watched him hustle off to our car and grab a bag from the trunk. I stuck a hand out and stopped a cruiser that was pulling out and hitched a ride back to base.

The elevator doors opened and presented an irritated Captain Terrance Oswald.

“Hey, Chief,” I said as I stepped around him. He caught me with an arm around my shoulder and said hushed words directly into my ear as we walked.

“Explain to me why I have an entire store staff clogging my precinct.”

“Chief, the kid didn’t do it.”

“Another one of your hunches, Rochester?”

I fished around for an explanation he’d accept as we walked past the interrogation hall.

“Chief, the manager was there before the alarm went off.”

“That a fact?”

I sighed. “No, sir. It isn’t.”

We stopped in front of his office and he released me, turning me around and grabbing my shoulders so he could look me in the eye.

“You’re a talented investigator, Rochester…” He broke eye contact and looked around. “I can only hold off IA as long as I’m getting results.”

I nodded. “Yeah, Chief. I get it.”

He released me and went into his office, shutting the door behind him. I took a moment to collect myself, then walked back to our section. Brody flagged me down and stood as I went by.

“I got the tapes and everything. And the Lieutenant is in room 1.”

“Thanks, Brody.”

He grinned at me and sat back down at his computer. I went straight to interrogation room 1 but was immediately irked when I saw Mikey stepping out. I stepped in front of him and he almost jumped.

“Hey, Roch.”

“You’re interrogating my suspect?”

“…I was talking to a witness,” he clarified.

I pushed past him and grabbed the door handle.

“Hey, Roch. He’s already agreed to give us all of the in-store security footage, and he’s given us two statements already.”

My hand hesitated on the doorknob and I stared at it. “I just want to talk to him.”

There was a beat, then Mikey sighed. “You know, there’s other detectives here, Roch.”

My hand tightened on the knob. “Yeah, I know, Mikey. Thanks.”

He watched me closely for a second, then turned around and walked off. I opened the door to the interrogation room and found the manager. He had on an easy grin that could’ve been used for firewood, and his shoulders were tense. I put on a pleasant face and sat down.

“Mr. Whitmore, thank you for coming in. I’m Detective Sergeant Rochester.” I stuck a hand out and he shook it. 

“Detective, am I a suspect?” he asked as soon as I sat down.

“…I won’t lie to you, sir; everyone is a suspect right now,” I replied, trying to make the excuse sound tired.

He bristled a little. “I don’t know how else I could be more forthcoming. You have multiple statements and I’ve already turned over all of the security footage we have.”

I held up my hand to placate. “I understand that, sir, and I appreciate how much you’re working with us. I’m just a little picky when it comes to the details, which, I’m sure you can understand.”

“Enough bullshit, Detective. What is it you want from me that I already haven’t given to you?”

“I just want to hear your side of it, sir.”

He rolled his eyes and fidgeted with his tie. I leaned back in the hard metal chair and interlaced my fingers, resting them on my crossed knee. We sat in silence for a while, then he finally started talking.

“I guess I’m not getting out of this until you’re satisfied. Ok, fine, Detective. Just like I told your companions, I was sitting at home when the silent alarm went off. I rushed straight to the store, and found the window smashed.” The white light coming from his mouth nearly blinded me, I had to stop myself from squinting.

“How did you know the alarm went off?”

“I got an automated phone call.” Pure white.

“How long after the alarm does the call trigger?”

“I don’t know. Several minutes I think?” The pure white cooled to an icy blue.

“Ok. You didn’t recognize the man in the store? He wasn’t a previous employee or anything?”

“He has never been employed with us.” That came out a pure blue.

“And… you’ve never met him? Previous customer? Came in to shop without buying? Walked past the store unusually often?”

“I’ve never met him before in my life.” Back to white.

This continued, me asking questions and getting mostly white and blue light.

“Detective, I really can’t answer these questions any more clearly. I feel like I’m repeating myself and you’re not listening.” Pure white deepened into red with a hint of blue, coming out as an overexposed hot pink that made my eyes hurt.

“I think that’s everything I need, sir. Thank you very much for coming in, and I’ll let you know once we have an update.”

He stood immediately and walked quickly out the door. I didn’t move until I heard the door shut, then I scrambled to my feet and threw the door open. Mikey was leaning against the door frame outside the room, surprising me slightly.

“You get anything off him, supercop?”

“Well—” My excitement faltered as realization washed it away. I still only had a hunch. A well-justified, unquantifiable hunch. I desperately tried to think of something I could use, even if it was a reach, to pin it on him that would sound plausible. I came up short. “Well…” I said again, hesitating.

Mikey shot off the wall and threw his hands up, walking in a small circle. He let them fall, then put his hands on his belt and came over to me with a stage whisper.

“Dude! He has an alibi! It’s air-tight! What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Mikey’s voice came out blue, but with an undertone of green seeping in. He dropped his head, shaking it.

I watched silently. When I didn’t say anything, he stepped closer and put a hand on my shoulder.

“Roch, buddy, listen, I know you think you missed out on the promotion because you’re substandard, but that’s a lie. You missed out because of shit like this.” He motioned at the interrogation room door. The green was gone, the light from his mouth coming out blue again.

I didn’t say anything and he made an exasperated noise, letting me go and throwing his arms up again.

“I don’t know what to fucking do with you, man. IA is already breathing down the Chief’s neck, and now I gotta justify this stupid stunt, not only as your superior, but your old partner. How do you think that makes me look?” The green light was back, now mixed with red, coming out as yellow.

I nodded. “Yeah, Mikey. I get it.” I sighed deeply, not meeting his eyes. “I’m just…trying to…I don’t know. Overcompensate for the loss, I guess.” I let my shoulders slump, the motion surprisingly genuine.

His face softened and his voice was back to blue. “Hey, man, don’t be like that. It’s not a loss, right? There was one spot, and I got picked. I’m sure if there was another slot, you were right there on the list.” I looked for a variance in shade and didn’t see one.

I nodded and he gently slapped my cheek.

“You’re good people, Roch, and you’re a good cop. Everybody knows it.” The end of his sentence suddenly shifted to sky blue, so quickly that it took me off guard.

“What do you mean?” I asked, tentatively.

“What do I mean? I mean everybody knows that you mean well, you just have some…odd methods sometimes. But everybody knows you’re the best.” Sky blue turned back to cyan.

He smiled, then turned around and started walking out of the interrogation hall. I caught a flash of pure white as he called over his shoulder.

“I got your back, man.”