I complied and waited.
The detective pulled out the somewhat matching chair on the other side of the table and took a seat. He remained mute as he shuffled the file folder over in front of himself then settled in against the backrest. After a long pause he reached into his pocket, withdrew something, splayed it open and tossed it on the table in front of me. It was my wallet, complete with the toy badge pinned inside.
“Care to explain that, Mister Gant?” he asked.
“It’s a long story,” I offered, knowing the comment was stupid the moment it exited my mouth.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he replied. “Neither are you.”
Keeping with my established pattern of inane answers, I said, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“You’d be surprised,” he grunted. “I’ve heard it all.”
“I doubt you’ve heard this one.”
“Try me.”
At this point I figured I had little to lose, so I sighed and answered with a tired drone in my voice. “I’m trying to stop a killer.”
“Really? I thought that was a job for cops,” he harrumphed then nudged the fake badge. “But, wait, you’re a cop, right?”
“Obviously you know I’m not,” I replied.
“You’re not?”
“Look, Detective…?”
“Fairbanks.”
“Detective Fairbanks. Do you think you can dispense with the sarcasm?”
“Why? Does it annoy you?”
“Honestly, yes.”
“I guess we all have something that gets under our skin,” he offered. “Personally, sarcasm really doesn’t bother me much. What really gets to me is people who pretend to be something they’re not.”
“Let me guess. Especially when they pretend to be a cop.”
He leaned back in his chair, regarding me with a cold stare, then nodded and said, “Yeah. That’ll do it.”
“In my defense,” I explained, “I never actually said I was a police officer.”
“No, you didn’t,” he replied as he leaned forward and flipped the file folder open. Peering through the glasses resting on the end of his nose, he read aloud, “Special investigations consultant with the Saint Louis Major Case Squad is what you said.”
He looked back up at me and waited.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Something like that.”
“Uh-huh. See, the problem is this,” he nudged my wallet again, “You flashed a fake badge in order to gain entry to a crime scene, and that shows intent. So, no matter what you said, you were impersonating a cop. It’s kind of one of those actions speak louder than words things.”
I knew my argument had been lame when I made it, but I was too tired to think of anything else. Besides, lying is what had landed me here in the first place, so making up a new fabrication probably wasn’t my best course of action.
“What if there’s an element of truth to that story?” I asked.
“What, so now you’re telling me that you actually are a cop?”
I shook my head. “No. But I actually am an independent consultant for the Major Case Squad in Saint Louis.”
“Really?”
“Sometimes.”
“Define sometimes.”
“It largely depends on the case and who happens to be running it.”
“So, which is it right now? Sometimes yes, or sometimes no?”
I didn’t answer.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
Once again my mouth overrode my brain. “Look, Detective Fairbanks, you’re right. I impersonated a police officer. But it’s not like I did it to assault anyone, or to get free donuts or something.”
“Free donuts. That’s funny.” He wasn’t laughing.
I shook my head again. “Sorry. I haven’t had much sleep in the past few days.”
“Welcome to the club.”
“Okay, so, other than annoying you, what kind of mess have I managed to get myself into?”
“That would be up to the judge,” he told me. “Impersonating a law enforcement officer and violating a sealed homicide crime scene could get you five. Maybe a little more if we throw the donut comment in on top of it.”
I let my head hang for a moment as I felt my shoulders fall. “I suppose I should call my attorney then.”
“That would probably be a good idea, unless you can give me a damn good reason why you shouldn’t be charged.”
I wasn’t sure if he was just stringing me along, or what. However, I looked upon his comment as an invitation to get myself out of this debacle. Not having a reasonable explanation that didn’t sound utterly insane, however, I took the only course of action I could think of and played a card I wasn’t even sure I was truly holding.
“Any chance you could call Detective Benjamin Storm in Saint Louis?” I appealed. “I’m sure he could clear some of this up for you.”
“Storm,” he muttered as he leafed through the papers in the file folder then stopped at a handwritten page of notes. “Would that by any chance be the same Detective Benjamin Storm who said, and I quote, ‘Jeezus H Christ. Fuck me. Just throw the book at his sorry ass’?”
Obviously, I wasn’t holding the cards I thought I was. I nodded and said in a flat tone, “Yeah. That would be him.”
“Yeah. We found his card in your personal effects.”
“Maybe if you called…”
He cut me off, “Special Agent Constance Mandalay with the FBI Saint Louis field office? Storm said you’d probably toss her name out there too.”
“Sounds as if you two had a pretty in-depth conversation.”
“Yeah, we did. A couple of them, in fact. Nice guy.”
“At the moment I guess that assessment depends on which side of the table you happen to be sitting.”
“I guess I can understand why you’d think that, but actually, Mister Gant, you owe him big.”
“How do you figure?”
“Easy. Besides warning me that you’d probably make a nuisance of yourself-which was dead on the money, obviously-your friend filled me in on everything that’s happened to you and your wife in the past few weeks.”
“Everything?”
“Of relevance,” he replied with a nod.
“Then you should know that I’m doing all this to help her.”
“That’s what Storm says. And, fortunately for you, according to him there really is an underlying truth to your story, just like you said. He did, however, stress to me in no uncertain terms that you are not here in an official capacity with the Major Case Squad…or any other branch of law enforcement for that matter. The way he explained it, you’re here of your own volition, and you’re supposed to be on a quick fact finding trip, nothing more.”
“That was the original plan,” I agreed.
“Of course, it would appear that you got a bit overzealous in your search and deviated just a bit.”
“Maybe so, but if you…”
He interrupted me again, “Gant, just agree with me and call it good, okay?”
I paused as what he said filtered through to my temporarily dense grey matter, and then I nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
“So, after his understandable initial reaction to my more recent call, he calmed down and had a change of heart about havin’ me throw the book at you. Actually, he even asked if I could do him a favor and cut you some slack.”
“And you said?”
“I told him I’d think about it, but I wanted to have a one-on-one with you first.”
“Which, I take it, we’ve pretty much just had.”
“Pretty much.”
“How did I do?”
He shrugged. “You proved to me you’re a bit of an asshole, but under the circumstances I think I’m willing to understand why that might be the case.”
“Reach any other conclusions?”
“Yeah, actually I have.”
We sat staring silently at one another for several heartbeats. Finally, I cleared my throat and asked, “Do you plan to share?”
He flipped the folder shut then scooped up my wallet and sat back in the chair. While he fiddled with the clasp on the toy badge, he said, “Storm said you told him you have a return flight to Saint Louis Saturday afternoon.”
“That’s true.”
“I’d suggest that you exchange your ticket for a flight leaving today. The earlier, the better.”