One
Police interviews always go the same way.
First I let the scumbags wait. Fifteen minutes or more, until they’re starting to wonder if they’ve been forgotten. Then I make a loud joke outside, something about gas or traffic or my blood sugar levels, and I enter the room with my beer gut and shirt stained yellow at the pits.
I offer an iced tea or Coke before collapsing in my chair with a fat grunt. Loosen my tie and wipe my brow, push the table against the wall with my foot. Now I can see their entire body and I can watch their every little movement for clues as to my way in. I keep my face disinterested, of course, almost apologetic. This is just paperwork, after all. Everyone here knows that you’re not our guy.
Most suspects start talking right away. They’re eager at this point, to get their stories out, so they trap themselves. Details, specifics, inconsistencies, holes. Most days I feel like a line worker at a factory looking for defects.
But the man in front of me today is different. He doesn’t even flinch when I offer a Coke or an iced tea. In fact he’s stone-walled before I even walk through the door. His cool narrow eyes follow me as I act out my routine. When I wipe my sweaty brow with the back of my hand, when I heave my feet up on the table and lean back, making a big stupid show of it, the man leans back too.
The hairs on my arms raise. This is a man with a system. A man accustomed to evading consequences. He’s probably air-gapped himself from his crime and knows we can’t pin him with what we have, so I cut the shit and go in hard and heavy.
“You posed as the owner of a foreclosed house on Pine,” I say. “Fake name. Alibi at the bar called Malone’s. Cash deposits from three victims stuffed in your pockets. The kind of trick that lands a man six if he’s sloppy enough to end up in that chair.”
The man’s eyes narrow, his head tilts. He’s young, but when he smiles there are deep lines around the mouth. Go on…he seems to say.
“The email you used for the property advertising website is linked to an online banking service who have provided us with a picture of your face and driver’s license,” I click my teeth with my tongue. “That was not a wise string to leave dangling.”
“Maybe someone used my account,” he says in a voice that is slow and endlessly drawling.
Over the next fifteen minutes, the guy gives me nothing. His replies are so lethargic and stunted that I find myself leaning forward in my chair, watching his mouth, fascinated, and I start to ask myself if his tongue is even working, making the right shapes, because I can’t seem to hold onto any of his words.
Then the interview is over, and I stand, trying to control my ragged breath and blood rushing to my head. Such untrained talent!
“I’ve got your number,” I say.
The man scoffs audibly. He thinks he’s passed the test.
He won’t recognize me at first, when I turn up at Malone’s without my uniform. Won’t recognize the hunger in my eyes. But this guy wants more than pockets - they all do. Soon enough, after I work him a little, he’ll let down his guard. My time, finally, to play the real game.
