A Crooked Waitress

Chapter 50

From their first encounter, Alex knew Benjamin was not an easy man to deal with; especially now that he had come to the station unwillingly. So the detective let him stew in the interrogation room for a while. That made him more cooperative.

After an hour, he entered the room and put a thick file on the desk. "How are you doing today, Mr. Peterson?"

"Where the hell have you been? I've been waiting here for two hours now." Benjamin snapped.

"I'm sorry for the delay. The sooner you answer my questions, the sooner you'll be on your way." Alex sat down.

"I already told you. I don't know anything. Early thirties, red hair, green eyes, thin—that's what I saw. Are you slow or something?" His cheeks had turned red. "Can I go now?"

Alex ignored the 'slow' remark and said. "I'm afraid not. Could you look inside this file to see if you recognize her? She probably has a criminal record. Did she have any distinct mark, like a tattoo for example?"

"Well, to my recollection, not on the parts of the body that her clothes revealed. I didn't have a chance to see the rest." Benjamin put his fist on the desk.

Considering all the time you spent in front of that window, I'll be surprised if you haven't seen everything.

"Take a look please." Alex opened the file for him.

"Wow, you expect me to look at all of these? Don't you people have a computer or something to narrow it down?"

"The photos have not been downloaded on the computer yet. And this is the narrowed-down version based on age. All these women are between 30 and 40 years old." The detective explained.

Benjamin sighed and leafed through the pages.

"I'll leave you to it." Alex left the room and saw Gibson peeked out of his office.

"Hey, Jackson. Come over here." The captain said.

Jackson went into his room and left the door open. Alex was within earshot and heard their conversation.

Gibson cleaned his nose. "I can't go on TV like this."

He had the flu and was getting worse.

"Television?" Jackson asked.

"Yeah, I want you to do the interview instead of me. I'm heading home."

"We do television now? That's a first." Jackson was chirpy. The idea of showing up in front of the TV cameras appealed to him.

"Yes. There is a first for anything. That way if it fails, the blame falls on us not them."

By 'them' he meant the police chief. And by 'us', he meant himself. Gibson was choosing Jackson as the face of a possible failure.

So was the flu a happy coincidence? Still, Alex sensed a hint of resentment in the captain's voice.

"I'd do it myself if I could," Gibson said.

Alex believed him; it was killing him to forfeit his place on the stage to Jackson, of all people.

"Sure. I'll do it." An upbeat detective answered.

"The TV crew is downstairs."