“You know how kids are,” the man said as he leaned back in the uncomfortable metal chair, trying to seem nonchalant but just making himself look like a badly posed mannequin. “Especially girls. They love drama. Always making shit up or blowing things out of proportion if they think it’ll get them attention.”
The “girls” he was talking about were the same age as my daughter. While she did love attention, especially when she was performing, she was also incapable of lying. The one time she’d accidentally broken a dish she’d only held out for about five minutes before bursting into tears and admitting to the crime herself. Her biggest attempts at deception were when she tried to say she’d eaten her vegetables when we could clearly see them peeking out from under her napkin.
The man, whose name I’d already forgotten, was apparently a frequently flyer at the PD. He’d been brought in for questioning multiple times over the years for different accusations, all involving inappropriate behavior with young girls. Unfortunately, there had never been enough evidence to charge him, so he’d always managed to walk away unscathed.
The fact that the man kept convincing woman to date him and bring him around the young children of their family despite his history astounded me. If I caught even the briefest rumor of questionable behavior from someone, I would never allow them around Melody, let alone choose to date that person no matter how attractive they were.
And the man wasn’t even that attractive.
So, to no one’s surprise, history once again repeated itself. The sister of the man’s latest girlfriend was accusing him of ill intent toward her daughter, and so we’d once again he’d been arrested. There was hope that this time we had enough evidence to finally make the charges stick, but it would be even better if we could get him to confess to something.
That was where I came in. The man had been dragged into the local precinct so many times that he knew all of the detectives by name both there and here at FPA. As the newest hire at the FPA, I was the only one he’d never met before, so I had the best chance of catching him off guard. I just needed to let him lead the conversation during the interview, and hope that he would get caught up running his mouth and eventually admit to something we could use against him.
So, for the greater good, I had to play nice.
Holding back the urge to vomit, I managed to put a believable smile on my face.
“I know what you mean. It’s the same reason I stopped visiting my own kid. My ex has filled that girl’s head with so much bullshit, probably just trying to get more child support out of me, but I don’t dare be alone with the kid for fear of what she might accuse me of.”
The man’s fist slammed the table. “Right? It’s so unfair. One wrong word and a man’s reputation is over. A woman can say anything and the whole world believes her, but God forbid I smile at a girl or call her pretty. That just makes me a monster.”
I couldn’t tell if the man was lying or if he legitimately believed what he was saying. Either way, it was truly impressive. I wouldalmost have believed his impassioned speech, if not for the clear evidence we had against him.
Apparently, he didn’t know that his girlfriend’s sister had security cameras in her house and caught all his actions on video.
“I know all about being labeled a monster,” I agreed, pointing to the scars running down the side of my neck and along one of my arms. “See these. Got these serving my country. You think people would respect the sacrifices men like me have made, but instead, they act like I’m diseased. I went to my daughter’s dance class once and damn near got thrown out of the building.”
“Ha,” the man called, his eyes lighting up as he slapped the table again. “I can do you one better. I actually did get thrown out of a local pool once. The pool was open to the public, but there was a swimming class going on, and I made the heinous mistake of wandering too close to the kids. You’d think those kids were royal heirs or something, the way their parents were screeching about their safety. A man makes one little mistake going into the wrong changing room, and the whole world tries to ruin his life over it.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was the signal for me to wrap up the interview. I quickly wrapped up the conversation, telling the man that we didn’t really have any evidence against him, so I would try to expedite the paperwork to get him out of here. Then, I left the interview room behind and finally let the genial smile fall from my face.
Like a dog ridding itself of the water from a bath, my whole body shook.
“Good job,” Roland slugged me in the shoulder. “I wasn’t sure if your stoic mug could pull of the ‘good cop’ routine, but you really did it.”
I rubbed my shoulder, relishing in the bruise forming there from Roland’s punch. Affection disguised as rough housing was common among soldiers, and the slight pain in my shoulder made things feel normal again. It helped me snap back to reality after the charade I’d put on back in the interview room, and I was able to focus once again.
“I was able to get him talking, but he didn’t admit to anything specific. I’m not sure it’ll do us any good.”
“Nah, this is exactly what we need,” Roland insisted as he led us over to the coffee machine. We both needed a new dose of caffeine after the emotional stress of the last few hours. “I remember that incident at the pool. Cops were called when our man in there was said to be ‘loitering’ around the kid’s swim class too much and several parents thought he was suspicious. Ultimately, nothing came of it because he hadn’t actually done anything, though he was asked to leave. However, there wasn’t any mention of him going into the girl’s changing room. We’ll have to see if the pool still has its security footage and review the incident again. We might be able to catch him in the act of something.”
The stereotype would be for me to take my coffee black. Detectives in movies were always pouring their coffee straight out of the pot and drinking it straight, probably because it made them look more hardened and badass.
However, I added plenty of both cream and sugar, turning the dark brown liquid into a more pleasant blond color.
“Does it feel a little… wrong to you?” I asked as I stirred my drink. “We should hope that we don’t find anything on those security tapes, because that means there’s more victims. Instead, we’re hoping to catch him in the act of something. We’re basically wishing for more people to get hurt.”
The break room was silent around us, with only the slight murmur of the outer offices beyond the door to interrupt the silence. My spoon knocked against the side of my mug with each stir, ringing with a sound that almost resembled wind chimes in a breeze.
Or distantly breaking glass.
Roland stared down into the swirling surface of his own mug for a moment without drinking anything.
“It does feel wrong,” he admitted after a moment. “But you know what feels worse? Letting scumbags like that go free over and over again because we don’t have enough evidence.”
He stopped and took a long drink, though from the faraway look in his eyes it was clear he didn’t taste a drop of it.
“You know what really sucks? When good people step up to save victims, they’re inadvertently making it easier for bad guys to escape. Like right now. The sister of that guy’s girlfriend had cameras in her house, which should give us a slam dunk case, right? We caught him on camera, but he was also stopped too early. The girl he targeted was saved from anything too bad happening to her, but it also means that we don’t have much we can charge him with, even with the security footage. So, yes, I hate hoping for more victims. But I’ll take what I can get if it means I can stop more victims from being made.”