Liminal Spaces - Strangely familiar Places

Chapter 2

Kevin Knight was well aware which one of the suspects on the other side of the plexiglass was the infamous Corey Trent. A plain nobody to the world but in his own world in the slums crowned as an idol that other boys would strive to be back then when his hands were clean, but now he was all but a residential star gone bad. Someone to avoid at all cost. And with the lack of funds to bail him out, he'd be stuck here for the next fifteen years just by just a single namedrop. That was, once Kevin would stop teasing that name down the back of his throat like it was a party dildo and actually said it aloud.

Leaning against the desk in a slick, rain-darkened coat and eyes humouring the other partially innocent suspects that were thrown in here for other, more pitiful crimes because the motives were the same in that they were completely idiotic. Their eyes, also all the same, were welling up with insinuated innocence. And then again there was Corey, whose bettle black eyes bulged over twice in the most convincing puppy dog look he's ever seen.

'What are you thinking, Mister Knight?' Officer Jasper who had followed the eyewitness through everything till now returned with a new stack of folders and placed them behind Knight.

He said it would all become more clearer once they checked their records but Knight knew the convict would show the cleanest record for the dirtiest hand. There had actually been nothing but a few sightings at the trajectories location that would lead the clues to him, but sitting heavy in his pockets as three glossy photos Knight had found the road to him regardless. Previous record or not.

But he wouldn't pull those winning photos out yet, he knew there was much more behind the case than a series of suicides. They could serve Corey a sentence of maybe a decade but Knight knew he deserved an entire lifetime behind rosegold bars.

He shook his head lethargically, sneering in disgust. 'One as worse as the other,'

'Yeah, they give me all the willies. I know I wouldn't let this one 'specially,' Jasper pointed. 'take my daughter home,'

It was the one directly opposite of Knight. He had to squint through his own reflection in the sour-looking plexiglass to see him clearly, but nodded glumly when he did.

Suspect 2, Heavenly Jr. Jackson had not been in the free world for too long after sitting out his sentence for robbing a gas station for their money before he dove right into the next crime. The same crime. This time also robbing a gas station, the same silly old gas station. That's how it usually went for repeat offenders, stuck in an ever spinning merry-go of bad habits.

'No, I wouldn't either.' Knight agreed with a voice that was already falling away from the conversation. His legs were going numb for being on his feet so long already. The clock ticking past five in the afternoon and they've been here forever.

Officer Jasper sighed, which sounded to Knight's tired ears like he wasn't in the room with him but rather trailing straight out of Knight's mind into a distorted frequency, or just another fragment of it that blotted out the room around him. He was starting to feel claustrophobic. 'So we've got all the time in the world, but it would be helpful...'

'No, no don't worry about it. I'm going to say something soon.' Knight reassured him as he pushed himself from the desk and trudged towards the door. He tossed his hand half-heartedly towards the doorknob. His hand latched onto the doorknob. With the other hand he gave Jasper a peek of what he was hiding in his pockets. 'I think I just need one more of these to complete the puzzle.'

Jasper gave him a stunned look. 'There's actual evidence?'

'I will talk to you at a later time about it all.'

'Where are you going?' Jasper's figure was stuck in the doorway with a befuddled expression when Knight was already heading to the parking lot, the cold wind beating against his figure.

'I've got to say goodbye to someone first before I throw him under the bus.'

'God, Knight. What is going on?'

One last time Knight turned around to Officer Jasper whose face had by now changed to a cluster of humouring him and being confused about it. Knight could tell that the officer was seeing him in a different light, as though Knight had just upgraded to some sort of wondrous creature that had revealed it's true nature himself to him. Something insidious.

He grinned at the officer before heading east, a few blocks down where the atmosphere dragged like soot. It was perhaps the worst place to leave your tracks. For all you know, anything could follow you.

TRACK » Goodbye to the World «