A Detective's Guide to the Perfect Crime

XII

The station was busier than usual for a Sunday afternoon. A recent drug bust in the next town over gave Paulson new prisoners as a result of the overflow. It was supposed to be all hands on deck today, but Roman had better things to do than babysit petty criminals.

"You gonna help?" Elizabeth asked, looking from her own stack of folders to Roman.

Roman, without a glance to her, placed his folders on top of hers. "No, but you will. Thanks."

"What's the point in asking you to do anything?" Elizabeth groaned, thumbing through the criminal records she now had to enter into the Paulson Prison Database. "Most of these are just possession charges." She commented.

Roman stopped paying attention to her after that. All Detective Winslow had been doing all day was complaining about the new influx of prisoners. All the while, Roman was being faced with his own set of much worse issues.

Beside him, in a manila envelope, sat his search warrant for his family's home and vehicles. It was only good for a few more days, but he still hadn't decided whether or not to go through with it. To distract himself, he'd been tapping in to cameras around to try and catch the license plate of the car that tried to kill Margo.

Not because he was worried about her or anything. No, this was strictly professional. It was because she was his last key witness to the murder of Sam Pfizer and she was also his source of inside information.

He didn't know why, but people just seemed to open up to Margo. It wasn't like she had any kind of kind personality. Roman thought of her more like a thorn bush in that aspect.

Maybe it was just that look? That all-knowing and secretive smile. Or those pale blue eyes that were constantly working to uncover the next big thing. Or perhaps it was that brunette hair that curled ever so slightly towards the ends and bounced on her shoulders.

"Hey." A pair of fingers snapped in Roman's face. He shook the image of Margo from his head.

"Yes sir?" He looked up at the sergeant.

He gestured with a finger to the computer screen. Panned out were several camera angles from the police station building itself. "What's all this, huh?" He asked.

Roman looked from the screen and back to his sergeant. "A witness of mine got run down the other night. Just tracking to see who would've done it."

The sergeant narrowed his eyes. Roman couldn't tell what the surly man was thinking about. Frankly, he didn't want to know, either. He shuddered at the thought of being inside the mind of anyone who was living in Paulson.

Their mind was probably no bigger than the shoebox of a town they called home. Not enough room at all for the amount of deep and fast paced thinking Roman did.

He turned back to his computer after the sergeant had decided finally to leave him be. His phone buzzed in the desk drawer. His personal phone. It was an unrecognized number. "Hello?" He picked up.

"Hey. Can you come down here to Uncle Vinny's shop?" Margo was on the other end.

Roman hesitated, leaning against his desk and lowering his voice. "How did you get my personal number."

She sighed into the microphone. "Don't worry about that. Just come on. There's something you should see..."

The phone clicked as she hung up. Roman could tell she was purposefully trying to be ominous. "Alright." He stood and stretched. "Come on, partner, we've got a possible lead."

Elizabeth looked up at him. Glaring daggers. "You're seriously gonna leave with all this work we have to do?" She asked.

"Can't we do all that online?" Roman snorted. All the prisoner transfers were done online where he was from. Far less room for error.