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I made a mental note to call Nana again that night to see if she needed me to bring anything to the senior housing on my visit tomorrow. I tried to get there to see her every other day. I hadn’t even wanted her to move out of our home. This was the woman who’d taken me in and raised me when my own parents didn’t want me. But she said I had a life to live and she didn’t want to be a burden. Like I’d ever think that.
The senior housing allowed her a lot of freedom. She had so many friends. She even had a boyfriend. To think of her finding love after all these years was adorable and slightly terrifying, but she was happy and that was all that mattered to me.
I sighed and bent my head to get to work. I needed to focus on cases for the rest of the day. Then I had to go to spaghetti night and face Monica’s line of questioning about what she’d witnessed earlier this morning. The woman was like a dog with a bone. Paul was right, I was screwed.
“Listen, man. I’m sure you could understand why I would want someone to help me out here. Man to man.”
This fucking oily son of a bitch. I could tell he was tweaking out on something. He had a lot of nerve walking into a police station high as shit. I had to really work to hide the distaste I felt staring at him across my desk. It was Thursday night, right before the end of shift, and I’d been ready to head home before this asshole had walked in off the street. When he’d opened his mouth, I’d immediately known something was off about him and whatever he wanted couldn’t be good.
“I just want to find my brother’s wife. I just need to know if you’ve heard or seen a woman that could be her, dude,” he said when I didn’t answer. He told me his name was Larry, but who knows if that’s even his real name. Slimy blonde hair and bloodshot green eyes stared at me, like he was hoping to implore to some sort of demented bro code. I glanced across the station to my fellow officer, Nick, sitting at his desk eavesdropping.
“Listen, Harry was it?” I asked, staring him down, just hoping that pissed him off. I heard Nick snort softly. “Unless I have probable cause of some kind, I don’t have any reason to go digging into someone’s life or giving their information out. Let alone with a vague description like you gave me. Not to mention I don’t believe any woman should be described as a fat bitch. Ex or not.”
Larry seemed to shrink inside himself at my reprimand and tone. His bony shoulders curled in on themselves, sinking down in his seat. His eyes began darting back and forth frantically, searching everywhere but my hard gaze.
“You said she left your brother years ago?” I questioned, cracking my knuckles slowly, Larry’s eyes tracked my every movement with some trepidation now.
His eyes began twitching and he stuttered out, “Yeah, but he never stopped loving her. He wants to forgive her, tell her it's okay to come home. She’s not right in the head. Always making stuff up about him. He didn’t even trust her enough to knock her up,” Larry laughed again suddenly like it was the most hilarious thing he’d ever said.
The more this guy talked the more I wanted to dislocate his jaw with my fist. I couldn’t imagine his brother could be much better.
“It's your duty as a cop to help people. Not to mention, bro code,” Larry said with a bit more bite to his voice this time. I saw Nick glance up, narrowing his own eyes at the man in front of me.
I stared at him again, gripping the edge of my desk so hard that it was starting to bleach my knuckles. There it was, the damn “bro code” he thought he was entitled to. “Something tells me it would be the woman I needed to help out in this scenario, Harry,” I tilted my head, his eyes narrowing in irritation at my continued misuse of his name, and I smirked.
Anger rose in me in a way it hadn’t since middle school. I’d probably need to call Marcus tonight for some tattoo therapy to release this tension. This asshole was getting under my skin. I’d spent enough time in the force to recognize cycles of abuse. Either this guy was lying about who he was or really was a brother enabling an abuser.
“Come on,” he whined. “My boss is gonna kick my ass.”
Nick rose from his desk now, walking across to lean against the coffee station beside me, to join me in staring at Larry.
“Boss?” I replied, “don’t you mean brother?” I continued, watching his face go ashen as he looked between myself and Nick wearily.
“Tell you what, Harry. How about you give me your ID, I take your information, your ‘brother’s’ information, and I'll do some research of my own before I decide to offer y'all my detective services?”
I smirked as Larry’s face continued to pale. This wasn’t something the asshole was counting on.
“Nah. Just forget it. He’ll just have to get over it,” he stammered, suddenly eager to leave the station.
“Oh, and Harry?” I asked, biting back laughing in his face.
“Yeah?” he responded, turning back around to look at me.
“If I ever see you in my town again, I’ll follow through on that background check.” I glared.
The door slammed on his way out.
Nick barked out a short laugh, “What an asshole,” he said heading back to his own desk.
I sighed, nodding my agreement. I hated that abusers couldn’t let their victims out of their lives when they ran.
“I hate assholes like that,” I agreed.
I tilted my head letting my neck crack on both sides, anger still radiating out of me. My skin felt too tight and my pulse rate picked up. This wasn’t a small town, but it wasn’t a big city either. We had quite a few new citizens moving here within the last year, which was normal because of some of the factories in town. People would move for seasonal work and then leave when they moved onto the next job.
“We probably need to keep an eye out for a single woman who’s recently moved here. No kids,” I said off-handedly to Nick and he made a sound of agreement.
I rubbed my chin, scratching at my close-cut beard. A tingling feeling was telling me there was one specific new resident that just may be in trouble. I shook my head. It couldn’t be Becks. Larry said it was a woman without kids. Monica told me at the school Rebecca had a kid, a daughter. That put her on the safe list. I scrubbed my face with my hands. I’d have to ask the other guys if they knew of any single, unmarried, childless women who’d recently moved here.