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I take in the building as I approach, a new location for the Thorncrest Police Station. I remember when it was a Walgreens. A few years ago, the city bought the building using government funds intended to revitalize the community. They removed the awnings, added bulletproof windows and a large brick wall around the perimeter and called it the new (and improved) police station. To me, it still looks like a Walgreens.
The front doors slide open as I approach. The waiting room is blinding white and smells of paint and stale coffee. A row of plastic chairs line the room. A few awards and news articles hang crookedly on the walls, a not-so-subtle reminder of the excellency of the station.
I am not alone.
A haggard-looking woman sits in the corner of the room, her skinny, frail body vibrating with nervous energy. She reminds me of a poodle, one of the miniature ones. For a second, I wonder if she’s high. The woman is on her phone, hunched over, elbows on knees, long, curly blonde hair falling over pointy shoulders. She is wearing a wrinkled, white blouse tucked haphazardly into a pair of khaki slacks. A Louis Vuitton handbag sits next to her foot, a diamond ring, almost as large as the bag, on her finger.
I recognize her but can’t quite place her.
A loud, frantic voice echoes from the other end of the phone. The woman is shaking her head, waiting to respond.
Naturally, I eavesdrop when she speaks.
“… the day before yesterday. He seemed normal. … No, he didn’t seem off, or anything weird—weirder than usual anyway. … No, I don’t know why the hell he would leave, or where he went, or, hell, even if he’s okay.”Her voice shakes.“Three days,”she snaps.“Seventy-two hours. I swear to God when I find him, I will kill the bastard myself…”
I clear my throat and look away. It is obviously some sort of domestic issue. Thank God I’ve never married. I have absolutely no desire to be involved in that kind of crap on a daily basis.
The receptionist looks up from under fake eyelashes as I approach, chomping like a Clydesdale on a massive wad of pink bubblegum. There is no friendly smile as our eyes meet and I assume I’ve interrupted her Tinder scroll.
I step up to the little silver speaker box in the middle of the glass, the letters feeling heavy in my purse.
“Hello. I’d like to speak to an officer on duty please.”
“Okay,”chomp, chomp,“What’s this about?”
“I, ah, received a few… odd letters on my doorstep.”
Her painted brows lift in interest. I now have her full attention.Ha.See? I’m interesting.
“Name?”
Nerves tickle my stomach. “Sylvia Stone.”
“What kind of letters, Miss Stone?”
I am relieved when she doesn’t recognize the name. “Well that’s what I would like to speak to an officer about.”
The woman studies me for a minute, waiting on the rest of the story so that she can gossip with her girlfriends later. When I don’t oblige her, she picks up the phone. Indicating“one minute,”she lifts a long, skinny finger with an acrylic nail hanging on for dear life at the tip. Baby blue, just like her eyes.
She must have muted her end of the speaker because I can no longer hear her, but I watch as she relays my request to the officer on duty. Likely a sixty-something overweight beat cop with a handlebar mustache.
The jittery blonde woman in the corner is now texting ferociously on her bejeweled phone.
Dammit, IknowI know her. I just can’t place a name with the face.
A few minutes later, the steel door opens and the on-call officer steps into the waiting room.
My assessment of him was off by about forty years.
The tall, painfully skinny twenty-something looks like he’s just stepped off the set of the Andy Griffith remake. A modern-day Barney Fife, right here in the flesh. Big, wide brown eyes, a nose far too large for his face, and a downturned, skeptical mouth which I’m guessing he knows is his only form of intimidation. The officer’s uniform is at least two sizes too big, his pants cinched at the waist. The only physical altercation this man is capable of handling is in Call of Duty, where I have no doubt he holds at least one record.
I fight a grin. It is almost comical how much the two resemble each other. Surely he has to know.
The blonde surges out of her seat, addressing Mr. Fife. “Have you found my son?”
Her son?
“Detective Stroud will be out in just a second,” the officer says in a jarringly deep voice that doesn’t match his skinny body.
