Will Hetfield hated walking. More times than he could remember, he circled a parking lot for five minutes in hopes that somebody with a good spot might be pulling out soon. It wasn’t that Will was out of shape, far from it; he just hated getting a bad parking spot. He didn’t know why, but it was always a pet peeve of his. A pet peeve that seemed to always get exposed in his work as a police detective. He found the best spot he could, and eased his Impala into it. Once out of the car, he pulled his badge out just in case anyone didn’t know him. He glanced to the west. The sunset had turned the clouds purple on the bottom, and a light rosy pink on the top. It was a nice send off to a calm day, but the night would be a long one.
“Detective Hetfield, this way please” came a familiar voice. A female officer gestured him towards her. Her brown hair was pulled back into a bun, but the long day had caused it to give up enough hair to almost make it look like she’d slept in it. The rest of her normally pleasant face also looked a bit slept in, the way a face does when sleep is the farthest thing from memory.
“Sure thing Tina. What’s the word on the street?”
“Oh man Will, this day has sucked. The pile up on 229 and now this. Sioux Falls hasn’t had an officer lost in the line of duty in over seventy years.”
“I haven’t heard yet, who was it?”
“Jeff Stevens.” Tina lifted her glasses for a moment, as she wiped her eyes. “Someone shot him twice in the head.”
Will lifted the police tape so they could both enter the apartment. The apartment was crowded, and the CSI team was already on location. Stevens was still lying in the middle of the apartment. “Anything?”
A man stood up from by the coffee table. “Not anyone too professional. They didn’t police their casings.”
Will turned to Tina. “I want to speak to the apartment manager.”
“Yeah, about that…he’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yup. He’s not answering his phone, his car is gone, and from looking in the windows, it looks like he’s either a slob or he left in a hurry. The owner of the building gave me a name. Geoff Pryblinski.”
“Well, let’s consider him a suspect for the moment, until we have any better ideas.”
***
“So, let me get this straight. You two went to your dead friend’s apartment to get a video game, then you met up with some crazy Asian girl who shot a cop, then she chased you onto 229, and you escaped while she shot up a highway patrol car. Then, you dodged her again in a few blocks, found some kind of tracking device and tossed it in some poor sap’s truck, then ditched your car. You somehow found your way to the place I was, then hid in my car in hopes of getting a free ride back to your place?” Bob and Phil looked at each other, then at Old Man B.
“Basically. That sounds about right” Bob said, as he nodded.
“Let me ask you two something” said Old Man B, as he put his pistol back in the glove-box.
“What’s that?” Phil asked.
“Are you both idiots recently, or were you two born that way? You hide in the one car that’s probably going back to the place where either the police or this Asian nut are going to look for you? This really seemed like a good idea, hiding in the back of my old car?” Bob and Phil both looked down, a bit ashamed that their plan had not only been found out, but was being picked apart by an old man they found parked outside an adult bookstore. Old Man B put the car back into drive, and drove forward.
“So” Bob said, “are you turning us in?”
