The coffee cup in front of me gave a
blank stare, matching my face. I sat in my favorite greasy spoon cafe
watching the rain dry up and the sun rise in the distance. I still
couldn't get my mind to process the fact that last night was real and
happened. Part of me wished very badly that is one of the nightmares
that had frequently been interrupting my sleep.
The truck had plates on it from
another vehicle. A car with those plate numbers had been reported
stolen two months earlier. All the information in the glove box,
registration and insurance paperwork was phony. Only thing real about
the entire situation was that a little girl had been abandoned on a
desolate rainy road in the middle of the night.
Without anything to go on, the
department had no choice in the matter. The little girl was turned
over to child protective services to become part of the foster care
system. I wished against all hope that I would find something in that
truck that was real, a clue that could lead me to people who might
care.
The truck sits in our impound yard.
The forensic team will go through it since it is considered a crime
scene. Hopefully somebody left behind enough material to get some
DNA. Even with DNA, the person still has to be in the database.
“Hey partner,” a steady voice snaps
me out of my trance, “You look like you've seen a ghost or
something.”
“Hey,” is all I can say back to
Thomas McClain, the “big T” for short.
“I heard about what happened last
night,” T remarked as he helped himself to a seat on the other side
of the booth from me, “That's some weird twisted stuff.”
“If the license, registration and
insurance hadn't been phonies I'd say we are looking for a body
somewhere,” offering my thoughts, “Like the adult got kidnapped
and the kid was left behind.”
“That's what I would come to at first
thought as well,” T said as the waitress filled his coffee cup and
put a blueberry muffin on a plate in front of him without asking,
“Thanks Suzie Q.”
“Anytime,” the middle aged woman
remarked as she moved on to the other more demanding customers.
“Weird thing is,” I say as T bites
a quarter of the muffin away in one pass, “Since they left it in
the middle of the road there are no foot prints.”
“Even if there were,” T says after
gulping down the muffin bite, “They are long gone by now. We got
almost an inch of rain between yesterday afternoon and this morning.”
“No chance of a witness.”
“Oh, somebody might have been out
there.”
“Are they going to talk to us?”
“And risk getting deported? Probably
not.”
“You're going to die choking some
day,” I observe as he finishes his muffin.
“Bad habit I picked up as a rookie.
Eat quick when on shift because you never know when that damn radio
is going to come calling.”