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exchange for a visitor’s badge, and
she led me down to the records room. “He didn’t seem too bad today,” she said,
her cheerful voice sounding forced. “Didn’t ask you anything personal, at
least.”
                She wanted to. It was clear by her tone
and the fact that she kept sneaking glances at me when she thought I wasn’t
looking. Thankfully, at least so far, she was hesitant to ask. Maybe she
thought I would stop talking to her, or maybe she really didn’t want to know.
Some people were like that. Would act as though they wanted to know all the
deep dark secrets someone held, and then be completely unprepared to deal with
the knowledge. “Nope,” I answered noncommittally.
                “The
files are…?” I let the question dangle as I glanced around the room as if in
search of them.
                “Right,”
she sighed. “Over here. I put them on the table for you already, but you’ll
have to sign the register that you looked at them.”
                After
I signed, she stood around for a moment. Sheila watched me open the files, and
then she walked away, apparently deciding I wasn’t going to converse anymore.
My relief was instant, and the tension I always felt around the police seemed
to melt away. Nothing I’d done in the past would be cause to arrest me, but how
much would they appreciate the fact that I’d killed two men a few years ago? If
they found out who I was and where I came from, it wouldn’t take much for them
to discover what had happened in my past.
                It
was time to focus on the present, so I looked at the file on Shawn Henderson.
The missing person’s report had been filed the day Shawn hadn’t returned home,
so apparently his mother was quick on the uptake. I would have thought she’d
have filed it the next day at least, in case he’d simply gone to a friend’s
house without telling her. What had made her believe so quickly that he was
missing?
                The
reports on his friends told me that Shawn was a good kid, even by their
accounts. Ready at a moment’s notice to help with tutoring or volunteer for
student functions. It was rare that he’d get home before eight at night.
                The
report had been filed at ten. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. How would she
have known he was in trouble? I read though her statement carefully, almost
missing a line in the middle. She’d received a call that had made her panic.
Why would there have been no follow through on the phone call? If someone had
threatened her or her son, wouldn’t the cops have figured it out?
                For
once I wasn’t annoyed when Nickels entered the records room. “Officer Nickels,”
I called out. “May I ask a question?”
                He
glanced at me, obviously surprised I was the first to speak. It was not the
normal way our interactions went. “Sure. What’s up Jason?”
                Explaining
my confusion about the seemingly threatening phone call my client had received,
he came over to glance through the file. “Here,” he said, pointing it out while
I struggled to hold myself still and not back away as he leaned in near me. “We
had someone dig up the number, and it was one of Shawn’s friends. They figured
it was a prank.”
                “A
prank that turned out to be pretty accurate,” my voice clearly conveyed my
disbelief. “She got a phone call and only a few hours later her son was
missing. Does that really sound like a prank to you?”
                Nickels
looked a little aggravated now. “We did talk to the kid who owns the phone,
Matthew Slauch. He seemed genuinely upset that his friend was missing after he
made such an ill-advised call. He apologized over and over during his
interview. Believe it or not, Jason, we are pretty good at what we do.”
                I
held up my hands, finally backing away