M Sellars - The End Of Desire

As I sat staring at what I had decided was most likely the fossilized remains of a coffee spill, I could hear one of the ballasts on the fluorescent light fixture above me humming toward extinction. It wasn’t terribly loud just yet, but I suspected it would be in the not too distant future. Hopefully, I would be out of here by then and wouldn’t be around to hear it when it finally died. Of course, given my current predicament, there were probably worse places I could be.

The officer who had brought me here referred to the building as The Bureau. I hadn’t seen much of it, but judging from what I had glimpsed, I assumed this was where the detectives were based as opposed to the uniformed officers. That wasn’t much of a surprise either. Given that I had cajoled my way into a sealed crime scene, it stood to reason that I had raised more than a few eyebrows in all the wrong places. I’m sure I had probably managed to make myself a suspect of some sort.

My sleep-deprived brain mulled that over for a moment before forcing me to let out an involuntary harrumph. So far, Felicity had been accused of the murders, new evidence pointed to the real killer being a half-sister she never knew she had, and now I was up to my neck in the wrong side of the investigation. I suppose there was nothing quite like keeping it all in the family.

I had just set my sights on identifying a different stain a foot or so over from the first when the relative silence of the interview room was broken by the sound of the door swinging open. I looked up in the direction of the noise and saw a disheveled looking man enter then push the door closed behind him. He appeared to be somewhere around my own age, maybe a few years older, and from the looks of him, I would have guessed he was running on nearly the same amount of sleep as me.

He didn’t say anything initially. Instead he simply took the few steps over to the metal table that was positioned in front of me and stood there silently reading something in a manila folder. After several languid moments, he shut the folder and tossed it onto the surface of the table.

“Get up and face the back wall,” he grunted.

I slowly rocked forward in the chair and stood, then made the quarter turn in place, finding myself once again staring at a panorama of putrid blue-green. It was a good thing my stomach wasn’t bothering me at the moment, or I might have added another stain to the carpet.

I heard the rattling of metal against metal and felt the pressure encircling my left wrist ease up, then the strain on my shoulders as well. After another rattle, I could feel the bracelet being removed from my right.

“Thanks,” I muttered, not sure if I should say anything or simply remain quiet.

He didn’t acknowledge my gratitude. Instead he simply said, “Sit down and keep your hands on the table in front of you where I can see ‘em.”

I complied and waited.

The detective pulled out the somewhat matching chair on the other side of the table and took a seat. He remained mute as he shuffled the file folder over in front of himself then settled in against the backrest. After a long pause he reached into his pocket, withdrew something, splayed it open and tossed it on the table in front of me. It was my wallet, complete with the toy badge pinned inside.

“Care to explain that, Mister Gant?” he asked.

“It’s a long story,” I offered, knowing the comment was stupid the moment it exited my mouth.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he replied. “Neither are you.”

Keeping with my established pattern of inane answers, I said, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“You’d be surprised,” he grunted. “I’ve heard it all.”

“I doubt you’ve heard this one.”

“Try me.”

At this point I figured I had little to lose, so I sighed and answered with a tired drone in my voice. “I’m trying to stop a killer.”

“Really? I thought that was a job for cops,” he harrumphed then nudged the fake badge. “But, wait, you’re a cop, right?”

“Obviously you know I’m not,” I replied.

“You’re not?”

“Look, Detective…?”

“Fairbanks.”

“Detective Fairbanks. Do you think you can dispense with the sarcasm?”

“Why? Does it annoy you?”

“Honestly, yes.”

“I guess we all have something that gets under our skin,” he offered. “Personally, sarcasm really doesn’t bother me much. What really gets to me is people who pretend to be something they’re not.”

“Let me guess. Especially when they pretend to be a cop.”

He leaned back in his chair, regarding me with a cold stare, then nodded and said, “Yeah. That’ll do it.”

“In my defense,” I explained, “I never actually said I was a police officer.”

“No, you didn’t,” he replied as he leaned forward and flipped the file folder open. Peering through the glasses resting on the end of his nose, he read aloud, “Special investigations consultant with the Saint Louis Major Case Squad is what you said.”

He looked back up at me and waited.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Something like that.”

“Uh-huh. See, the problem is this,” he nudged my wallet again, “You flashed a fake badge in order to gain entry to a crime scene, and that shows intent. So, no matter what you said, you were impersonating a cop. It’s kind of one of those actions speak louder than words things.”

I knew my argument had been lame when I made it, but I was too tired to think of anything else. Besides, lying is what had landed me here in the first place, so making up a new fabrication probably wasn’t my best course of action.

“What if there’s an element of truth to that story?” I asked.

“What, so now you’re telling me that you actually are a cop?”

I shook my head. “No. But I actually am an independent consultant for the Major Case Squad in Saint Louis.”

“Really?”

“Sometimes.”

“Define sometimes.”

“It largely depends on the case and who happens to be running it.”

“So, which is it right now? Sometimes yes, or sometimes no?”

I didn’t answer.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

Once again my mouth overrode my brain. “Look, Detective Fairbanks, you’re right. I impersonated a police officer. But it’s not like I did it to assault anyone, or to get free donuts or something.”

“Free donuts. That’s funny.” He wasn’t laughing.

I shook my head again. “Sorry. I haven’t had much sleep in the past few days.”

“Welcome to the club.”

“Okay, so, other than annoying you, what kind of mess have I managed to get myself into?”

“That would be up to the judge,” he told me. “Impersonating a law enforcement officer and violating a sealed homicide crime scene could get you five. Maybe a little more if we throw the donut comment in on top of it.”

I let my head hang for a moment as I felt my shoulders fall. “I suppose I should call my attorney then.”

“That would probably be a good idea, unless you can give me a damn good reason why you shouldn’t be charged.”

I wasn’t sure if he was just stringing me along, or what. However, I looked upon his comment as an invitation to get myself out of this debacle. Not having a reasonable explanation that didn’t sound utterly insane, however, I took the only course of action I could think of and played a card I wasn’t even sure I was truly holding.

“Any chance you could call Detective Benjamin Storm in Saint Louis?” I appealed. “I’m sure he could clear some of this up for you.”

“Storm,” he muttered as he leafed through the papers in the file folder then stopped at a handwritten page of notes. “Would that by any chance be the same Detective Benjamin Storm who said, and I quote, ‘Jeezus H Christ. Fuck me. Just throw the book at his sorry ass’?”