UnderSurface: a Novel of Suspense by Mitch Cullin

Author:Mitch Cullin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781453293805
Publisher: The Permanent Press

II. Surface

Once inside the downtown police department (after being directed upstairs to where Rosas expected him), John Connor quickly discerned that the reality of law enforcement was somewhat different than the gritty detective dramas or overwrought thrillers he had watched throughout his life, all those naturalistic crime shows depicting an abradable realness; contrasting such vivid stereotypes, the office space containing Rosas’ cubicle was not a maze of cluttered desks with ringing telephones, of wary investigators bustling about a locker room-like environment.

Cigarette smoke didn’t hang like fog at the ceiling.

Fluorescent tubes didn’t flicker and hum overhead.

Instead, he entered a modern, well lit, seemingly proficient office corridor (gray industrial carpeting, standing partitions, computers and fax machines and Xerox copiers, not a hardened criminal apparent among the intent faces he glimpsed within the cubicles). No one, he observed, held a Styrofoam cup in a hand and sipped stoically while recording someone’s statement.

A uniformed officer brushed past him, arms cradling a stack of thick manila folders.

“How’s it going?”

“Good,” he replied. “Yourself—?” he asked, but didn’t look back.

“Pretty good,” the officer answered from behind, the words trailing away as he spoke.

“That’s good,” he said, suspecting he wasn’t heard.

No one was shouting, no one spoke too loudly.

Petty criminals weren’t handcuffed to metal chairs and questioned.

Without a doubt, this wasn’t a place where iconoclastic cops often erupted at their superiors during heated disagreements.

“Hello,” a black woman said, glancing from her computer screen when he went by her cubicle.

“Hi,” he said absently, continuing forward.

Like a corporation, he thought. Like a brokerage house.

Cubicles on the right and on the left.

Ahead was a wall of full-length windows, which, as he approached, juxtaposed his reflection against a view of downtown buildings (his ethereal face and neck meshing with a parking garage, his eyes made gray from concrete). Then, realizing he was wandering aimlessly, he about-faced, returning to the black woman’s cubicle.

“Pardon me,” he said, “but I’m trying to find detective Rosas.”

She looked up from the computer, her fingers still punching the keyboard.

“Just missed him,” she said.

“I did?”

He checked his wristwatch.

“By about eight feet,” said the black woman, grinning at either herself or the confusion evident on his face. Her hands left the keyboard and she pointed, indicating an adjacent cubicle. “He’s next door.”

“I see,” he said, “must’ve walked right past.”

“You sure did.”

Overhearing their conversation, Rosas’ voice suddenly came from the adjacent cubicle: “Mr. Connor?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Come on in,” Rosas said. “Don’t let Lea Anne scare you away.”

He hesitated, staring at the black woman as she chuckled and pivoted her head back toward the computer screen. Then, resisting the urge to flee in the opposite direction, he found himself navigating those eight or so feet, stopping abruptly in front of Rosas’ cubicle.

“There you are,” Rosas said, reclining behind his desk, a newspaper spread limply across his thighs. “Have a seat.” The detective waved him into a nearby chair; after that, while folding the newspaper shut and depositing it on the desktop, Rosas gazed at him inquisitively.

John shifted uncomfortably, crossing his legs, avoiding eye contact by scratching dirt off his left shoe.

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