LOVE LIKE HIS - Chapter 12 - What Happened? - An Original Story by @papa-pepper

papa-pepper (80)in #fiction • 8 years ago

LOVE LIKE HIS - Chapter 12 - What Happened?

Another detective is in the AV room already when Cromwell bursts in.

Startled by the sudden commotion, Riesler spins around with a surprised look on his face.

Cromwell ignores him and starts towards one of the monitors, thankful that Riesler has been facing the other way.

Static is all that the monitor shows. Every other screen either shows empty rooms or colleagues working, but Cromwell’s only displays static.

Something is going on here.

“Can I help you, Tim?” Riesler finally musters.

The other detective uses Cromwell’s first name as if they were buddies or something, and Cromwell despises him all the more for it.

“What did you do, Riesler? Where is it?” Cromwell is now looming over the other detective, holding back a noticeable amount of frustration and rage.

He’s added inflection to the last name in an attempt to draw Detective Riesler’s attention to it.

“What?” Riesler is as blank as an empty of paper, appearing totally clueless.

It doesn’t take the detective long to conclude that Riesler poses no threat. Cromwell slides the chair across the room and into the corner, with Riesler still seated in it.

He jumps on the computer and begins to dig through the files. Riesler quietly sneaks out of the door, which is still opened, and heads down the hall, not wanting anything to do with Cromwell’s frenzied activities. He’s seen enough peculiar nonsense over the years.

Cromwell quickly locates the correct file and opens it. The video recording began at 5:02 am that morning. The room clearly appears on the screen for a few seconds, and then quickly transitions into static. Cromwell forwards the recording.

Nothing else ever appears, just hours of static.

Cromwell hurriedly opens a different file from another day. That one seems normal, as does the next, and the one after that. Cromwell pauses and thinks, then jumps under the desk and begins sorting through the cables.

His expertise leads him to conclude the Detective Reisler has not seen or done anything. What’s happening then?

Cromwell replays the scenario in his head, and though he wishes he’d never done that there, in the room, he can’t deny that it really happened. On the streets, he wouldn’t have cared much.

He’s done worse than that to get the job done and crack the case.

It may be effective, but he lost his cool this time, and the camera saw it.

Where then is the video?

Cromwell searches computer files for another few minutes and then races out of the AV room back to the interrogation room. Gary is gone, and thankfully, there is no blood to be seen. He nonchalantly checks the barrel of his piece.

No blood and no skin.

Perfect.

He kicks the door closed and slides one of the chairs across the cement floor until it stops in the corner under the camera. Every wire is connected correctly, and nothing looks out of order.

He’ll have to catch up to Gary before too long to do some damage control, but now he needs to find out who else was in the room with Riesler.

Riesler’s desk in empty.

Cromwell rushes to the Chief’s office. His speed gets the best of him, and he can’t stop in time, slamming into the window of the Chief’s office.

The Chief’s head snaps upward, and he notices a bewildered and distracted Cromwell frantically turn the other direction and disappear.

On Cromwell’s end, he’s still in the clear. The Chief was alone, and Riesler was nowhere to be seen.

On the Chief’s end, too many questions are beginning to need answers.