by scifiguy3553
“I was told that your shift stops around four o’clock?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Do you have some time to talk?”
Eric looked at her perplexed. “Uhh, sure…”
He followed the young detective to a more open part of the loading dock area. Given that it was Summer one was able to see indigo creeping into the early sky of the morning.
They stopped at a spot and Detective Grimes just looked at him for several seconds; making Eric very uncomfortable.
“Mr. Donland, I see you like to do a little extracurricular activities during work.”
His stomach dropped! “Detective Grimes…I, I won’t even try to pretend I didn’t do it. Barb, my co-worker and friend, tried to tell—“
“Yeah, we know that’s who two of her work buddies got their drugs from…we already have them all in custody while you were finishing up your shift.”
Now Eric was numb and, no doubt, looking quite dumfounded!
“Mr. Donland,” she continued; but with a more curious tone, “I don’t know if you realized just how lucky you are?”
“What? How’s that?”
Again, the detective gave a rather apprising look at him. Perhaps Grimes thought Eric was playing dumb? “Mr. Donland, for future reference to whatever jobs you might have later in life, you might want to be careful how you horseplay. In this post-Nine-Eleven era, everyone is video recorded in some form or fashion! Even if you don’t see a camera, there’s bound to be one somewhere!
“At the office while we looked at Beneficial’s security cameras, we noticed a very curious thing with you during those sessions…every time Barb came at you, a phone in the office would ring!”
“What?” Eric’s mind began to replay how just within the past few weeks, the phone calls began to happen during his shift. He looked up at Detective Grimes, whom was stoically nodding her head in affirmation. “But that’s crazy! OK, the RPD picked her up on drug charges, but what does that have to do with her trying to hurt me?”
“Kill you, Mr. Donland…sometimes it was a pair of scissors from a desk; other times a letter opener from another office…remember, we have it all on Beneficial’s cam records.”
“But…” Eric was almost in denial. Almost. “Why would she want to kill me?”
“You were a risk of exposing her and you didn’t even know it…”
It was at that point the detective pulled out her RPD-issued smartphone and brought up a picture of a selfie he had taken with Barb and the two women he had seen her go to lunch break with earlier that night! It was during a party at one of the other lady’s house…where Eric had, indeed, stumbled across a hidden factory for some of North America’s hardest drugs on the streets! Eric remembered he had acted as if he had never seen it whenever he was around Barb.
And that party had taken place a few weeks earlier…
By that time, Eric was shaking his head for the disbelief that a so-called friend would have, literally, stabbed him in the back. After four years of working so well together!
“Anyway,” Detective Grimes said; placing the phone back in her pocket, “I just wanted to touch bases with you about all this. Like I said, Mr. Donland, I’d cool off on clowning around any worksites from now on. Thanks for—“
“Wait a minute,” Eric said; stopping Detective Grimes as she turned to walk off. “So, Raleigh Police didn’t do those calls, then?”
“Of course not,” she said with the biggest smile Eric had seen her with since meeting her. “We’re the ones who noticed the timing, remember? Besides, when we monitored the videos, they weren’t real time.”
“So how did someone know when to call me?”
Both squinted their eyes as they thought on the question. Detective Grimes walked back to where Eric was with a hand held out.
“May I see your phone?”
“Yeah…” He simply handed his smartphone to her.
Eric could see that the detective was quite adept at maneuvering through his phone’s call history list…then she flinched.
“That call in Mr. Turner’s office tonight…was it around quarter after ten?”
Eric thought for a few seconds. “Yes, as a matter of fact. About that time. But I had gotten a call on my cell around two-fifteen…why? Were they the same number?”
For a while, Detective Grimes said nothing as she kept her head lowered; reading Eric’s phone history. “Yeah, according to RPD’s records they’re the same phone number that called you at Turner’s office and your phone. Thing is, it’s been disconnected for years. It used to belong to Barb’s dead husband.”
~~fin~~
EBOOK TEN:
Avery Snider is a high school jock, and his family had just lost a close cousin. His other set of cousins ask Avery to watch over their son, Josh, while the families go out of state to attend the funeral.
Avery and a friend both learn that autistic traits could, actually, serve as a doorway to the Paranormal…