One Hundred Degrees

Chapter 7: Business as Usual

"Inspiration usually comes during work rather than before it."

Madeleine L'Engle

There was still a chill in the air as Del rolled her car into the station parking lot. She quickly glanced at the text from Dev while she'd been driving.
"Going to court this morning. Check out the alibis in the meanwhile. We'll go to the morgue when I'm back."

"Ugh this means calls - he know I hate admin",Del sighed to herself. She grabbed the lunchbox packed with cheesecake from Ally , before locking her car and heading into the station.

The station was chaotic as Del entered. At reception a few people were standing and quarreling about insurance pay outs- clearly this mornings victims of an MVA. Del passed by, grateful that she no longer had to cover the front desk and work with these minor , but numerous cases.
As Del reached her desk, Thandeka flashed her a smile and walked over to her.
"Chief wants to chat to you, something about the case I think."
"Ok cool, I'll go to his office now."

Del felt her stomach churn as she made her way to Chief Makatinis office. The door was closed, but she could hear his deep voice booming over the phone. She softly knocked on the door, before pushing it open. The sight of the Chief this morning was enough to make a grown man quake in his boots. He was a big built man, tall and stern-looking, and his current mood did not help improve his fearful image. His brows knit together and a vein on his forehead looked like it was about to pop, as he snapped at the person on the other end of the line before slamming it down on the receiver.

He nodded at Del, before she took a seat across him. Del looked around the room awkwardly, as she felt as if Makatinis anger may just bore into her after his telephonic conversation- most likely a reporter, and hopefully not to do with her case.
"Detective Singh,could you try to not make it so obvious that you don't wish to be here", Makatini said in a more relaxed tone.
Del turned her head to meet his gaze, clearly his moods could shift really quickly. His expression was much softer and relaxed compared to when she had entered.
"Ah no, I guess I'm just feeling a bit out of sorts, need to start cracking on this case you know."
"Yes, yes. You haven't seem the body I presume as i5 was probably in the mortuary by the time you got to the crime scene yesterday."
Del flinched at this sharp comment from her senior.
"Devon showed me the pictures and I'll be talking to forensics and the pathologist today. Just going to follow up on the alibis and a couple of things the restaurant workers mentioned yesterday."
"Good, at least you have a plan. But I'm not here to babysit you guys. Just remember, this case landed itself nice and big on the front covers of the newspapers. So I want some sense of urgency from you and Devon, Delia. You got that straight?"
Del nodded her head meekly, " Yes Chief"
"How's your father doing by the way,I haven't seen him in a while."
"He's fine , Sir."
"What I would do to have someone like your father working for me", Makatini sighed, "You can go now Detective."
Del got up and left, closing the door behind her just as Makatini picked up his phone again. As much as she tried to escape it, she always felt as if she was living in the shadow of her father. Chief Makatini had trained under him and never failed to remind her of this whenever they locked heads. She clenched her fists as she headed back towards her desk.

*****

It was 12 o' clock already , as Del finally put down the phone. She had managed to confirm the alibis of Mr Popolous, Thebza, Ryno and Valenes alibis so far, as well as finish up some long overdue reports. Tristan's lack of an alibi still conflicted her, as much as she hated to admit it, his tears had moved her , and she could see no motive for him to kill Bell.

She quickly scanned through her scribbles from the interviews of the previous day, when she spotted a circled name and recalled Val mumbling the words "blast from the past". Could it be possible? It was just a hunch , but it was definitely worth a shot. She grabbed her phone and scanned through her contacts listed under G.
Daniel Goldman.
The phone rang about three times before he picked up.
"Hey Delia, what's up , you aren't covering one of my cases at the moment?"
" Morning Daniel, Umm no, it's actually regarding a case I'm working on at the moment. Can you spare a few minutes?"
" No problem, but not too long . My break will be up soon."
"Do you know an Isabelle Smith?"
"... I guess I should've known , that's what you calling me about. Yes, I do, well did. She was my ex-fiancée ..."
Del pumped her fist in victory, " Say Daniel, do you mind coming into the station, so we can chat to you about it later?"
"Today's pretty tight, but I think I should be able to make it there by 5 ."
"That's cool, I'll see you then."
Del smiled smugly as she put the phone down. Dev rapped on her desk, before flopping into the chair next to her.
"Judging from the look on your face,I'm going to say that there has been some breakthrough in the case?"
"You are looking at a genius my friend. I found the ex-boyfriend."
"Yeah, so what?"
"It's Daniel Goldman, that defense attorney!"
"No way- what did he say?"
"We'll see when we meet him, but he is the same person Mr Popolous mentioned."
"Nice, by the way speaking of Mr Popolous, I swear I saw him outside the station."
As if summoned by Devs words, Mr Popolous accompanied by a middle-aged lady entered the room, following one of the officers from the reception area.
Del raised an eyebrow as she met Devs eye.
Things were about to get interesting.

*****

They were back in the interrogation room with Mr and Mrs Popolous. Mrs Popolous appeared distressed, as she fidgeted with the beads of her necklace and darted her eyes to take in the bare interrogation room, with the table being the only thing between her and the police.

Del smiled at Mrs Popolous, before she cleared her throat to speak.
"What brought you to the station today Mr and Mrs Popolous."
The couple exchange a glance, before the wife nudged her husband .
"Tell them."
Mr Popolous rubbed his head bashfully, "Er, you see officers, there's something I didn't mention. My wife here says it's important to tell you, so that we are not withholding information."
"Sure, you can go ahead"
"So you see, the thing is ... there was money disappearing from the restaurant in the past few months. We weren't sure how,but the books weren't adding up. We weren't sure where all the sudden expenses were coming from and so we asked Bell . The thing is, we hadn't meant for it to come out this way, but she took it as if we were accusing her of stealing money. We had a big fight that night, before she left our place."
"Is there any reason that she would have felt you were accusing her?"
"She was in charge of stocking the kitchen, so I guess if she wanted she could claim that more was spent then she actually did. But honestly, we didn't even think of that-we just wanted her opinion in the matter- if she suspected anyone or something.
We called her and smoothed things out. Though we are still trying to figure out what has been happening."
"Ah I see, why did you suddenly decide this was important to tell us?"
"I'm just worried, it mustn't be like we were crooking our books or something, because Bell accuses us of this that night."
" Oh lord. Is there any reason for you to suspect that?"
"No,no, we have a private accountant doing our books, we no longer touch them for years now."
Mrs Popolous interrupted, " You see , Officers, we don't know if Bell inadvertently spread such rumours . So we want to make sure that there's no such misunderstanding of us being involved in tax evasion. My husband and I have spent many years building this restaurant from the ground, and it would be wrong for us to be thrown into trouble because of some baseless rumours.."
Del nodded her head, feeling a bit confused.
" So you came here, just to tell us that?"
"Yes, yes. Thanks for understanding. Can we leave now?"
"Er, sure."
"The pair got up, and shuffled out. The old man leaned on his wife's arm for support.

"Well , well. What do you make of that?"
Del shrugged, "Paranoia, who knows. What we do need to do is get to the morgue, before I get another lecture from Chief about how slowly I work."
"Ugh, not one of those. Let's have lunch and then leave ."
"Sure. Oh, Ally sent cheesecake for you."
"Sweet!", Dev grinned .
The two of them headed to the staff room to fill their stomachs, before facing the rest of the day ahead of them.