Dead End Job

by Ingrid Reinke

  The room suddenly didn’t seem so cold. In fact, my armpits were getting sweaty and my palms were sticky. I took a deep breath and tried to slow down my racing heart. A panic attack was exactly what I did not need at this precise moment. I stared down at the black smudges on the crappy white table, trying to zone out of the situation.

  The detectives stared at me, waiting for an answer. I had to pull myself together. I took a few more deep breaths and managed to calm myself down a little bit. I knew that I was no murderer.

  “Look, I didn’t kill Sarah. I did not, nor could I ever, kill anyone,” I said emphatically. “I had a date at a restaurant across the street from the office last night and it didn’t go so well. I got there at six-thirty but I left before eight. I was having an anxiety attack, so I walked across the street to the office to grab my medication out of the locker in my cube. Then I went home. I didn’t see anything. No one was there. I promise you, that is what happened.”

  I was forgetting something. I wracked my brain, trying to remember any detail that would make my story seem more believable. Suddenly it came back to me in a flash—the night watchman! He would remember me! Excited, I blurted out, “Chi-mo!” I was victorious. It took me a second to realize that my nickname for the night guard would make absolutely no sense to the detectives. I tried again. “There was a night guard at the front desk when I came in! I swear, the guy watched me go up in the elevator then come down and leave within five minutes. I don’t know who killed Sarah, but I know that it would probably take longer than five minutes to kill someone, rifle through their purse and desk and dump out their suitcase. There was no one in the office when I went in. I’m sure that guy will remember me.”

  “Let me get this straight,” said Detective Wang incredulously. “You went to the office just to take a pill after your date, and then you left immediately and went home?”

  “It was a really bad date,” I explained.

  The detectives looked at me, then at each other. “Excuse us for a moment,” Detective Wang said. They both got up and left the room.

  I knew from the police shows I’d watched that they were most likely in the hallway discussing the validity of my strange story and deciding how to proceed. I just hoped it wouldn’t take too long—I didn’t want to piss my pants. Much to my relief, a few short minutes later Detective Schreck came barging through the door, suddenly filling up the cramped area.

  “OK, Ms. Hallstrom,” he wheezed, staring down at me. “We’re going to contact the restaurant and night guard from last night, and if everything checks out, we’ll prepare a statement for you based upon the information you have given us during the interview. Then, we are going to have you review and sign the document. In the meantime, I’d like to take you downstairs to the lab to undergo a test to see if there are any microscopic particles of blood on your person. Do you consent to the test?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure.” The faster I could clear my name and get me the hell out of there, the better. “As long as I can go to the bathroom first,” I added, squirming a little bit in my seat.

  “Um, OK,” he replied, awkwardly. The detective then shuffled back a few inches and gestured towards the opened door, indicating that I should squeeze past him and out into the hall. I got up, and careful not to brush against his large frame, gingerly scooted out the door and into the hallway, where he showed me to the ladies’ room. He waited for me outside while I took care of that second cup of coffee.

  When I came out, the detective motioned me a bit further down the hallway to and over to a large, industrial-looking elevator where we descended to a floor marked with a large “L,” for Lab, which I discovered was just as cold and bland as the interrogation room that we had come from. There, a kind-looking middle-aged black woman entered the room and introduced herself as Shelly. Her attire consisted of non-descript navy blue pants and a navy polo shirt, and she didn’t look at all scientific except for the fact that she was wearing rubber gloves and a pair of laboratory goggles that made her eyes look cartoonish-ly enormous. Detective Schreck left the room, and seconds later I saw a flicker as the light in an adjacent room was switched on. Although his massive frame was barely noticeable through a heavily-tinted glass wall, I could see that the detective had gone to the room adjacent to observe the procedure.

  Shelly, who was unfazed, went about her business turning off the fluorescent ceiling light in the small room and switching on what appeared to be a long, portable, black light which was attached to an extension cord plugged into the wall a few feet away. I was nervous and felt fidgety, and I wanted to ask one hundred questions about the procedure, but instead I clenched my jaw and took a deep breath, forcing myself to avoid glancing up at either Shelly or in the direction of the tinted window that housed the massive frame of Detective Schreck. Unsure of how to act during a microscopic blood test, I decided that it was the best idea to maintain a professional demeanor as Shelly passed the light over my face, moving slowly and methodically, down over my arms, hands, torso each of my ears and my head. No big deal, just a teeny weeny little lab test to make sure I didn’t murder anyone, I told myself, as I was struggling to get my emotions firmly under control. I was unconsciously holding my breath, and found myself somewhere between self-asphyxiation and bursting out laughing at the mixture of stress and ridiculousness of my predicament, even though the entire experience was feeling more and more invasive, like an involuntary, semi-public pap smear. I somehow was able to talk myself into taking a deep breath as Shelly efficiently lifted up my hair to wave the light over my neck and under my arms while I stood in various positions (arms up, arms down, turn to the left, etc). I bit down hard on my front lip and managed to keep breathing, albeit unevenly, as she also had me hold each position for several, uncomfortable seconds while she snapped multiple pictures of each area, expertly wielding a small digital camera. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally switched off the blue light and turned on the fluorescent light on again.

  “You can relax now, my dear, we’re all done,” she said in a motherly tone.

  She flipped the light back on while Detective Schreck got up from his chair and made his way back into the lab. He looked at Shelly expectantly, ignoring me. Shelly looked up from her paperwork at him, and shaking her head, said, “She’s all clear, Gary. Not a speck of blood showed up on the light test. I’ll give you my full report tomorrow morning.”

  Whoo, Lord. I must have been holding my breath through the entire process because when Shelly spoke, I exhaled suddenly, and felt more than a little bit dizzy. Because he wasn’t going to collect any useful evidence against me, the detective, naturally, looked disappointed. He escorted me back to the elevator and up to the interrogation room rather silently, gestured that I should go in, shut the door behind me and left without a word. Feeling much better than before, I waited around by myself in the cold room for what seemed like another hour or so. Someone had brought my bag into the room and left it (I was hoping it was Rocky), so I played a mindless game on my cell phone until Detective Wang finally entered the room, carrying a one page document.

  “Ms. Hallstrom,” she said formally, “this is your statement based on the information you gave us this morning. I would like you to review the document for accuracy, including your full name and address, and sign here at the bottom.”

  She slid the paper across the table and stood over me while I tried to read through the description of the morning’s events. I was doing my best to concentrate on the words in the statement, but Detective Wang’s sudden reappearance shot my anxiety back up to critical mass, so my nerves were totally fried. It didn’t help that as I was trying to make sense of the statement, Detective Wang hovered over me, glaring. I knew it was stupid to sign something as important as this without fully understanding it, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wrap my brain around the words on the page. Wanting to just get the hell out of there, I gulped down the bile rising in my throat, hoped that everything would be fine and signed the docum
ent. Probably shouldn’t have done that Louisa, said the rational part of my mind. Too late. Detective Wang snatched up the paper, quickly folded it into thirds and held it tightly in to her breast as she spoke.

  “Thank you,” Detective Wang said curtly. “We have requested the surveillance tapes from the restaurant, but your alibi checked out with the bartender. He said he remembers you because your date was very upset after you disappeared,” she added snidely. Seriously, you have to make a dig on my bad date etiquette? I was going to make a snarky comment back to her, but it wasn’t worth it: I could’ve cared less what this lady thought about me, as long as I got out of that damned room.

  “What about the night watchman?” I asked, curious.

  “My team reached out to building security this morning as part of their investigation. The security guard who you saw last night left this morning on a camping vacation in Idaho. We’ve tried to reach him, but unfortunately he seems to be out of cell phone range.”

  “How convenient for me,” I responded sarcastically, before I could stop myself.

  “Indeed,” she snipped. “Don’t worry, our team will interview him when he returns from vacation. Regardless, at this point I would like you to take my card and call me if you can think of any more details about your evening that might help with this investigation. Also, please do not leave town, as we might have you back in for further questioning.”

  Although I was elated at the prospect that this whole process was coming to a close (at least for the day), Detective Wang seemed to feel the opposite. I smiled at her dumbly, and she responded with a cold glare. I was betting that she was put out that I wasn’t a viable suspect and she wouldn’t be able to wrap up the investigation with a confession right away.

  “This way, please.” She opened the door to the interrogation room and we walked out, heading the opposite direction down the hallway and back into the lobby where I had entered the building earlier that morning.

  After she walked away I realized that I didn’t have my car; it was still in the parking garage a half-mile away. I stood in the middle of the lobby, resigned to my mission, when I spotted Rocky walking up to me from the hallway to the left.

  “Hi Louisa,” he said. “Detective Schreck told me that they’re done with you for today, so I’m going to give you a ride home now.” He didn’t wait for me to respond. He just smiled and put a big hand lightly on my back.

  “You can just drop me at my car, it’s in the garage at the hotel over by the office,” I said. Even though I would’ve loved to spend more time with him, I didn’t want this guy to go to any more trouble for me. “I can probably just drive myself home.”

  “No way, Jose,” he said, his hand still lightly resting on my shoulder. “I’m going to take you home myself. You are party to a murder and this department has instructed me to keep tabs on you. We don’t want you trying to leave the country, now.”

  “Really?” I asked. “I thought that I wasn’t a person of interest anymore, or suspect person, or bad guy, or whatever you call it. I mean, Detective Wang said that I could go home and I signed that statement, right?” I had been happy to see him, but now was starting to lose it. “Do I need a lawyer or something? I don’t know any defense lawyers. I guess I could just find someone on Yelp, but I don’t really have any money to pay for it right now because I’m not getting paid until the 30.” I was nervously rambling. My heart was pounding. I started walking faster, away from him.

  “No, no, no! I’m just kidding around with you, Louisa,” he said, catching up to me and stopping me by putting both hands squarely on my shoulders. He turned me to face him and looked me in the eye. I didn’t breathe. “All kidding aside, I’m driving you home because you seemed pretty shaken up this morning, and I want you to be safe. It’s just a precaution, don’t worry about it.”

  “Oh, OK, thanks,” I said in a whisper. I felt hot tears forming in my eyes and looked down at the ground, embarrassed. Feeling dumb around this guy was getting to be a habit for me. I stepped away from him, blinked a few times and tried to recover. “I did have a pretty bad morning, and you’re being really nice. In fact, you can hold my purse again if you want.” I held my bag out to him in a lame attempt at humor.

  To my surprise, Rocky turned to me and smiled. Then he laughed a deep booming laugh that seemed to echo through the hallway. It was really a great laugh. It was infectious, and I started to giggle as well, not because what I’d said was really that funny, but because I was so relieved.

  “I think you can do it yourself this time, my dear. Don’t push it,” he said playfully and winked. We were both smiling when we got off of the elevator in the garage. He again opened the door for me on the passenger side of his cruiser, which was parked in the same spot we had left it. I like to think that he had been waiting for me at the station, knowing that I was not guilty and would need a ride home, not a ride to the city jail. It was a nice thought.

  As we drove through the city Rocky asked me questions about myself. He wanted to know where I grew up, what I studied in school, and where my family lived. I asked him how long he had been a police officer and he told me he was going on 12 years with the SPD, and before that he had served in the Air Force.

  As we drove along north on Highway 99, away from downtown, I realized that I had not told him where I lived, and said as much, but he smiled and said that the police department keeps pretty good records and for me not to worry about it. He told me that he lived across town in West Seattle, and liked to run along Alki beach during the summer months with his Rottweiler, Harry. I told him about my lame attempts to run around Greenlake, and he laughed again.

  When he pulled up to my apartment, he parked illegally in front and turned off the engine. He got out of the car before I could even pick up my bag and opened the door for me. We walked up to the front, still chatting, and he turned to me and put his massive hand on my shoulder.

  He looked me in the eyes sincerely. “If you need anything, let me know, OK? Here is my card with the department number, and I put my cell phone number on the back as well. Get some rest.”

  “Thanks Rocky,” I said. Surprisingly, I suddenly found myself fighting the urge to hug the big man. I was so grateful to be home, and the short car ride with Rocky had made me forget about Merit, Sarah, and the murder. The few minutes I’d spent with him had been strangely intense. I pushed away my impulse, thinking that it would probably be a little bit weird to throw my arms around this near total stranger, so I just smiled at him again, and then quickly broke eye contact.

  I rushed in the house and shut the door without looking back. By the time I’d climbed the two staircases up to my room and peered out the window, he had gone. I felt a surprising pang of sadness. I also didn’t know what to do with myself, so I did what every full-grown, independent woman does in time of crisis: I called my mother. After we spoke I looked at the clock by my bed, and it read 11:23 AM. God, this morning had felt like a fucking eternity.

  Kathy had taken Winston out for a walk, so the house was completely empty. I sat down on my bed, chucked my bag, grabbed the soft cuddly micro-fleece blanket that I had pushed onto the floor that morning, balled it up and hugged it. It was only then, in the silence and solitude of my bedroom, that the reality of the day’s events really hit me. I took a couple of deep breaths, and then a mountain of emotions began to surface. I lay down in my bed still wearing my clothes and shoes. My body started to quiver and shake uncontrollably, and I had no other choice but to close my eyes and let the stress, shock, and sadness wash over me. I cried myself to sleep.

  Chapter 6: Death and Trivia

  After the trauma of Wednesday, I slept through most of Thursday morning and roused myself at noon. After lying in bed and staring off into space for a couple of hours with the TV on, I got myself up and decided that I was going to go about my day and not let Sarah’s untimely death ruin my life. I went into the kitchen and got myself pumped up with some coffee, then put on some old gym clothes. It was at e
xactly the point when I was tying the new black running shoes I’d scored at the outlet mall the week before that I realized my car was still downtown in the garage at Merit.

  I considered asking Kathy for a ride downtown, but she wasn’t around, and I didn’t want to have to call her and relive the previous day’s events by explaining the entire situation to her over the phone. I decided that I would just be an adult and call a cab. Maybe I could even get reimbursed for a work-related expense.

  I fumbled around in my dirty clothes for my cell, and when I picked it up I discovered that I had missed several calls. The first one was from my sister, Elin logged the night before. As soon as the message started, I heard her best operatic voice singing a song from the Sound of Music soundtrack:

  “When the dog bites, when the bee stings,

  When I’m feeling sad, I simply remember my fav-o-rite things and then I don’t feeeeeeeel sooooo baaaaaaaaaaaaaad.”

  She finished the message by breaking away from her performance and yelling “call me back, bitch!” into the phone.

  OK then, so Elin had definitely spoken to our mother.

  I rolled my eyes and clicked through to the next message, which was from Elaine at Merit.

  “Hi Louisa,” she started in her nasally, whiny voice. “I hope you are doing OK, we are all thinking about you, and when you come in tomorrow, let’s sit down and discuss what happened with Sarah. Call Mark if you have any questions…”

  It was obvious that Elaine expected me in the office tomorrow, and her veiled attempt at checking up on me was actually to tell me exactly that. I guess my vacation was over.

  The last message was from a local number that I didn’t have stored in my phone.

  “Hi Louisa, it’s Rocky. I hope you are doing well. I just wanted to tell you that I know you probably need a ride to you car, so I’m going to swing by your apartment at around 1:30 to pick you up.”