First
Contact
The next day Jessica
returns to the sheriff’s office. She is still irritated about her lost luggage
and wasn’t looking forward to the encounter with Detective Swarovski. She had gone
to Allie’s last night for a quick bite and had learned a few things about the
wayward detective.
One: he was, of course
taller than she thought he would be - Probably in the six foot three to four
range and maybe two hundred-twenty-five pounds. He wasn’t totally unattractive
in a backwoods kind of way. Ironically, he reminded her of the survivalist guy
on one of her Dad’s favorite TV shows. Two: He likes to play billiards. Three:
He likes to get loud after a few drinks and run his mouth about some “Bitch detective from Cleveland coming to show him how to do his job” .
And four: He likes to drink.
Jessica parks around back
of the station today and enters through the service door. She slowly pulls
herself up the steps and navigates an empty maze of cubicles, finally to the
desk of “Detective Dominik Swarovski”. She knows this by the
cheap brass name plaque that sits on top of it. The same kind ordered from most
cut-rate Chinese mail-order businesses. “Tacky”,
is all she could think. Swarovski is on the phone when she approaches. He turns,
sees her, and gazes at her five-foot-two-inch form from head to toe in a lewd way.
Her olive-complexion is as exotic to him as it is enticing. He turns away from
her quickly and speaks quietly to the caller on the phone, “Hey man, I gotta go.
Something’s come up that requires my undivided attention. I’ll give you a call
back when I can”. Jessica doesn’t say a word
but sits in the chair facing his desk.
After hanging up, the
detective then turns to address Jessica, placing his elbows on the desk and resting
his chin on his hands. “Well, hello Miss”, he says with a sideways grin. “What
can I do to assist you today”? The sideways grin never leaves his face. She
looks him coyly in the eyes, “Well, as a matter of fact there is something you
can do for me, uh Mr. Swarovski, is it”?
“Uh, no need for formalities
here, Miss”, he says as he leans closer, “You can call me Detective if you
want. You must be new to Lancaster because I know just about everyone in town,
but I don’t think we’ve ever met”. Unflinching, Jessica leans in even closer.
Close enough to whisper in his ear, and says, “That’s because I’m the bitch
detective from Cleveland here to show you how to do your job”. Swarovski turns white
as a sheet, his mouth gapes open, and he quickly stands straight
up. So quickly in fact that he smacks his thighs on his desk and stumbles
backward over his chair. “I’m Detective Reddit from the Cleveland joint task
force on cold cases. Now that we’ve been properly introduced, can you please
show me where these files are located so I might get to work”?
Swarovski stumbles to his
feet apologizing and embarrassingly leads Jessica down the narrow corridor,
down some stairs, and to the storage room where cold-case evidence is kept. The
accompanying files are also kept in this room in a separate filing cabinet than
the “active cases”.
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