Once upon a crime.
And some countertimes
"As I saw, you know that Enan pretty well…" mentions the man driving while surveying the surrounding like an eagle would do.
"Indeed." Answer his female passenger. "Have you any problem with that?"
"No, no. Just … well, you know. Taking tea there?" What ever the insinuation of the driver, it is quite clear that he disapproved how his acolyte treated the matter today.
She frowns, placing herself with the back half on the door side to look at the man profile.
"His circle of friends is rather limited. Nor bad, nor good. He just settled here for study purpose a year ago. He is an abroad student from England. And if it misses to your culture, taking tea with an English man is barely a mark of respect when you step by into his home. That doesn't mean you befriended him."
"But, he called you Ryllie." Replied the man with a flicker of the glance toward the right side of the car.
"Ilario, he is twenty-one years old. Have you seen by his manner that he is a teenager, still? Don't let his height fool you. He is not responsible for his genetic."
The inspector smiles.
"That is your district, after all." He says to relieve the pressure. Ryllie turns to sit fully on the seat, looking in front of her.
"Perhaps I did as worst taking up Haley's case." He offers.
"Because you know both parents?" clarifies the woman.
Ilario nods, gasping a: "Yeah."
"I'd say, then, that will cause you to become only better. You're not dealing with a suspect in there. You're trying to help them find there missing girl." She pats his right shoulder thrice.
The officer pushes whit his middle finger his glasses upward over the bone of his nose till it meet the forehead. He shifts his eyes back on the road, getting to break merely on time for a red light.
"I strongly believe it is the best that could happen to them. Having you on that case, I mean."
"You are flattering me up." He justifies with a blush.
"No, I am serious…" claims Ryllie, moving herself up on the seat, pulling on her coat then sitting back."You know them, so you have two suspect less down the list. And, you'll do better in taking care of all the emotional side."
"Not sure." He replies, succinctly.
Ryllie looks at him puzzled. She doesn't need to ask anything more. Although Ilario gets a bit uncomfortable, his gaze wondering often out the cabin interior. It raises inside him, provoking some stirring on his own seat, numerous taping on the stirring wheel , pushing continually the glasses upward as well as numerous stammering during his speech. The passenger he is driving for keeps encouraging him to open up a bit more.
"You know, in my quite eventful career, I have seen a lot. But none was totally alike the precedent. And this one less than the others. I moved to Tranquil when that post opened because I needed a calmer situation. To see a more simple and clean environment. A more simple way of living your life."
"But…" makes Ryllie.
"It hasn't turned out quite that way. Though that is a whole different set of values. You still have what makes us human." Ilario sadly continues. "I'm feed up of it. You got one Hannah Burrow. I got a whole village of it. Seems that the only activity is 'gossiping'. More over, they all have a twelve years old behavior. All has to be either white or black. You go to church so you are a good person. They will give you all you want just because you have the bible in hand. Then again, most of the time they are right about something: usually that is the strangers visiting town that cause the more mayhem."
The passenger listens, smiling or frowning. She otherwise restrains to comment verbally bout her companion digressions.
"You can perfectly sleep with all your windows opened and door unlocked even if you got all the richness in the world in your closet." He maintains.
"Then why Haley’s parents are having all those look on the door?" question Ryllie absent-minded. She has opened the folder and peruses inside during Ilario talking.
"Oh. Caith has some problem whit his ex-wife. She threatened to come in and broke all she can in the house." He responds.
The woman serves him all a glance.
"We checked for her alibi. She was four hour away in a plane. You think we could have forgotten that one? Come on!" He exclaims, stopping the movement of the car and pulling it to reverse. "As for the other people on our list, the worst thing we got are sacristy’s cockroaches that find this family very unchristian and that repeat to who want to hear it that my friend killed Haley with her own hands. For a little more, they will swear having saw Caithless eating her in his dinner. That gives you a nice picture of the situation. With all those calls leading no where, I had to ask Salima herself to stay there and answer the more tactfully possible. If we had listen them all, we would have put behind the bar half of our population, already." He silences afterward, peering over his right shoulder all he can. His hand swirls the stirring wheel skillfully bringing the vehicle to a tango between two already parked cars. It bumps shortly on the cement curb, hence the man bring the car back in the boulevard after a brief look over the other shoulder. He subsequently attempt once more, still chatting.
Ryllie is, on her side, listening by moment or restraining to shriek during the brusque maneuvers consisting of parking that old Caprice in a space very tight for her. The folder of Haley’s case is put back into the bag it was in at first after the woman almost spilled all the content out on the wet floor.
Her nails scratch the dash instinctively and she sighs when finally the key are remove from the ignition. She tights her lips to not complain in front of the invitee.
"Haley’s case is different. The misdeed in itself is very simple. Someone kidnapped a little girl. End of the description, but the rest is so thickening in complexity. We eliminated the plausible avenues for a missing child. One by one."
Ilario opens his door and extract himself from the seat. As soon as he is out, the door is slammed. He walks on the other side of the car, unlocking (even if it was not locked) the passenger door. He struggles with it, momentarily. The old sedan is obviously used for single purpose transportation. It renders the operation on that side harder to accomplish compare of the breeze it was to do it with the one of the driver side. It crashes and let way to the elegant woman.
Ilario gallantly holds it for Ryllie, completing what he was saying on the other side. "The circumstances told us she didn’t leave by herself after dusk. The evidences are more evasive. It is not illogical that she climbed out the window. Improbable, but not impossible. As for the kidnapping side, it is difficult because there is no motive. Why taking her in her home while others are tramping out freely in the street?" He bows clumsily offering the hand to Ryllie so she can stand on the walkway at her turn.
"Have you thought to sleepwalking? I saw a case like that when I began here." She pause, setting a feet on the first step leading to the police station building."The little boy had recently moved and one day he disappeared. He was also fairly young. He slept walked and we found him drown into the still filled pool in the yard. Floating under the ice. I must have thrown up a full hour, non-stop." And, apparently, the sentiment of it is not totally worn off. The woman face is white and the hand on the railing slightly shakes.
Feeling somehow shared by Ilario that seems sincerely moved. Shortly, though. He adds a shake of the head to that hypothesis.
"No, no sleep walking. The evidences are clear on that point. The exit point was the window on the second story. There was a ladder there, said ladder that is no more on the site. So there was certainly an adult with her. Now, did she followed him willingly or not?I'd say it is odd the sheet followed her, unless she was rolled in them.No?" and saying that, he also begins to climb the stair after having shut the passenger door.
No journalists, no bystanders, like if Haley's case was one among the other in the city. On the media, the affair of a future president choking on a pretzel was retaining all the scoops, even if the nation in election was not this one, but the one across the border. Only a little yellow line at the bottom of the screen is diffusing the so important message.
Ilario see it wile passing in front of the station cafeteria. He sighs.
"I used all the contact I had, and that is all the cover I got?" he mumbles.
Ryllie distractedly look at the tv while they both amble toward her desk in the main boisterous room. "Oh, that. Despite the Amber protocol, my dear, I fear that your case is a new clutter into some people brains. The kind of thing you discussed about around a meal with friend, just to grab the attention. "Do you know if they found that missing girl?" and no one will be able to answer, of course. That just make for a friendly meal appetizer. "
They arrive at the desk, the file are disposed there. "Lets look in it once again."
Ilario is silent as the partner say that. His regard is astray. "What if our lad is someone methodic, that watched carefully the family, stalking them a while. Studying them in the single aim of taking Haley away when the timing will be good for it?"
"That is not bad at all." Responds Ryllie.
"Not bad at all, indeed." Echoes Ilario after her."Lets explore that way. I'll have to call Rizpah to list some prospects."
And the man takes his cellular phone. But his confrere brings it to close the device before any communication was done. "No need to disquiet her right away. Is it not reasonable to see if it could be feasible first, and then call her to ask her more explicit questions?"
Ilario displays uncertainty. He fidgets with the phone again, then nods."You are right, as always."
"Nah…" she makes, opening the folder and dispersing the elements out of it."I am just wanting more time with you." She winks with her tongue peeking out an instant."That is well known how much bachelor female investigator are unwilling to share their male." She expresses, as serious as a funeral director.
A frown crease onto the man forehead. He gets tense, looking around in the wide open area. Many co-worker of Ryllie are trying to not convulse into laugher, hiding their mouth. But the flash in their eyes is unmistakable. That was a prank. Ilario sighs, relief.
"Serious now. What do you think of that theory." He questions.
"Tempting, very tempting. Now have we to deal with a cuckoo? "
"Hard to say, Salima is the behaviorist where we are but…" He rubs his chin with a sandpaper noises. "She doesn't like the case."
Ryllie replaces some papers nervously. "Like it or not, you do your job."
"Not in that sense. She is not in due mostly to the cold attitude she receive from the parents. If Rizpah could have killed her with her eyes, the poor lady will be well under six feet of dirt."
"Oh?"
The woman scuffle through the paper, finding the one concerning the psychology. She stays speechless time she read them up, passing over them quickly.
"I would have reacted the same way." she completes. "Your 'behaviorist' has not get out very often as I can read. Too much lab and book, not enough field."
"What do you mean?"
"Have you read it, for the love of your mother?"
Ilario stirs on his seat. "I did."
"It gave me the impression she suspected the parents to have kill their own daughter. No less no more. See, look at that line:
The environment in which the victim was living before the event was one where no adult was clearly identified as a model or parent having authority. She was mostly left to herself and deprive of the more basic support. Everyone being there, but no one taking its place. One important figure and a suspect to investigate more is Taggard Peppin. The man was once wed to the mother and is still lurking in their life, baby-sitting the victim in occasion.
And it goes like that for pages, narrowing on your friend and judging that or this. Ilario, if the social service read that, they will want to evaluate your friends capacity in raising Haley. And IF it happen that the person investigating is that closed minded…" the paper are thrown back in the folder."Your friends will no more be allowed to see their daughter again. Plus, it impedes your investigation. Each person you sent that report will be lenient and prone to inactivity. They already got three likable suspect and they refused to prosecute them, why should we help?"
The man is flustering, melting on his chair. His hand wag the air aimlessly, trying to explain, excuse but no sound is emitted. He is baffled. "What should we do then?"
"Give her a chance, to your Salima. Ask her to figure it out by herself and to re-write a report making clear she was wrong at first. Unless, of course, you suspect Taggard and your friend to really messing up that kid mind. Do you think that?"
"No,not at all." Protests Ilario.
"then you have to correct it and to bring in proof and more elements. For the moment, that folder is filled of gossip. The same stuff you said you abhorred prior in the car. I saw previous investigation, you was more methodic. What happened with that one?" asks Ryllie, out of concern.
"I am getting old…losing it?" apologizes the fat man.
"I don't believe a word of that. You simply let to someone the power to ruin that investigation. You forgot to listen to yourself in it, it shows. You taught me better. Come one, lets sort them and only keep in one file the solid indications. And that…" the psycholog's report is set apart in a new folder the woman just retrieves from a drawer swung open behind her then neatly pushed back to the original state."This is out of it for the moment."
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