Suspicion

"Mr. Kaminski?" The officer at the door was careful not to crack a smile. All business.

"Yes, that's me." It was late, wait, no. It was actually early. 2:00 am. "What's up?"

"I'll need you to come with me, Mr. Kaminski."

"Come with you where?" At this time of the morning I should have been in bed, dreaming of seducing a beautiful brunette, not verbally sparring with this meat puppet.

"Headquarters, Sir." The boy in blue responded firmly. "Detective Moran would like to talk to you. Please come with me now, sir."

"Hell, I wasn't doing anything anyway." I said, only mildly sarcastic. No point in upsetting this young man. We made our way down the drive. When we got to his cruiser, he opened the back door and offered to protect my head from hitting the frame. As he closed the door, I realized there was no way out of the car. I was locked in and bars kept me from accessing the front seats.

He must have noticed a change in my demeanor.

"Nothing to worry about, sir." He stated almost cheerily. "You're not under arrest or anything like that. Just need to ask you a few questions."

With that, he put the car in gear and off we sped into the night.

***

"Mr. Kaminski, I want to assure you that you're not in any kind of trouble." Detective Moran never made eye contact. In fact, he never took his eyes off of the notebook he had taken out of his breast pocket. "But I would like to know where you were on the night of Wednesday, June 15th."

"But I'm not in any kind of trouble?" This line of questioning made me think that maybe there was some trouble I could find my way into.

"That's correct Mr. Kaminski." Moran finally bothered to look up at me. "We just need answers to a few..." he paused, tapped his pen on the table a few times. "Disturbing questions."

"Disturbing?" I queried, skeptically. "Disturbing how?"

"Mr. Kaminski, do you see the white stripe on the edge of the table in front of me?" That was an odd question. The white border went completely around the table. It wasn't just on the side in front of him.

"Yes, Officer. I see it." What was he getting at?

"That's Detective. Well, you see, Mr. Kaminski, this side of the table is for the detectives. Your side of the table is for the detainee." Moran was flipping the pages of his notebook, but he was looking directly into my eyes.

"And you'll ask the questions." I said with resignation. "I get it. Sorry, I'm just a bit confused by all of this."

"I understand," Moran was looking at his notebook again. "Now if you'll just answer the question."

"The 14th? " I muttered mostly to myself. "That was a Wednesday, right?"

"15th" Moran corrected and looked on calmly.

"Ok. Let's see, I was at work until 4:30." I was looking at the ceiling, trying to figure out what he was looking for. "Fifteen minute drive home. Fixed some dinner. I think I fried a burger and heated up some fries."

My sarcasm seemed lost on this guy. He just nodded and continued to write in his notebook, never looking up.

"It was a rough day at the office. I just put on Netflix and streamed some crap."

"What crap exactly were you streaming?" Now he was looking at me again.

"I honestly don't know, Detective." I tried to sound sincere. "I clicked the Surprise Me button. I don't really know what was on. I was probably asleep in 10, 15 minutes."