Chapter 6

Detective Roman Clawser discovers a cliche

Chapter 6

Detective Roman Clawser drummed his fingers on his desk. He was waiting for an important email. It was late and he just wanted to go home. See the wife and kids, maybe rub one out. However, it didn’t look like that was going to happen.

Such is the nature of police work, especially unsanctioned police work. He had to call in more favors than he was comfortable with and he managed to convince an old friend of his to stay late and check out this body.

The official story was that a drug dealer got high in his mobile cook station passed out while he waited for a batch to cook and left it to go to long. Their entire van essentially became a bomb.

This didn’t make much sense to him.

The first thing that stood out to him was that there wasn’t any evidence of drugs being made there at all. No charred boxes of sinus medicine, or Bunsen burners, or really anything that suggested any illegal activity whatsoever.

Sure, the van wasn’t allowed to park there overnight, but maybe the guy got drunk and decided to pull over and sleep it off. It’s illegal, sure, but any cop worth their salt would have driven the man home with a slap on the wrist.

The other thing was that the Chief told him this story before he’d had even made it to the accident.

He refreshed his computer for what could have been the hundredth time. Still nothing.

“D****t, Jason,” he whispered to himself, “how long does it take to run a damn drug screen?”

He relaxed, this was the type of thing you could get fired over; best to let him do his job right so we don’t have to risk it a second time. The official autopsy had already been completed and the case filed away, that’s what you do with open and shut cases after all. As far as the Police Department and the city-at-large were concerned, the matter was over.

The office was mostly dark; all of the beat cops were out doing their job and off in the distance Clawser could see the light in the dispatch office. Benny and Sherry were probably working tonight. He could hear them giggling.

Clawser always liked those two, there was something going on between them, it was fun to watch it develop. It brought him back to the early days of him and Gwen, before the years of marriage hardened their relationship to a loving indifference. It wasn’t such a bad thing Roman thought, it just meant that they were comfortable enough with each other to ignore them. 

It was now getting near one and he began to wonder if there was any reason for him to go home at all. It would take him at least forty-five minutes to get home, an hour when you figure in a shower and at most two hours of sleep before he’d have to get up and reverse the process.

Ugh, he thought, it was going to be one of those nights, or was it days? He was starting to skirt that line.

The Detective decided to do some idle web searching to pass the time. Most people browse Facebook, Twitter, or whichever social outlet enticed them most, Roman Clawser wasn’t that kind of person. He just didn’t get it and didn’t care. Maybe he was too old and the concept of social media just passed him by, or maybe he just didn’t have that many friends. That’s the problem with being a detective with any renown; you end up having more enemies than friends. Even his friend that was doing the autopsy was just some guy he was friendly with who happened to owe him a favor.

Instead, he went from news site to news site in an attempt to stay current. Nothing much of interest other than the usual Fire and Brimstone craziness brought about by the current political climate. The only thing that caught his eye was a report saying that Howell Park’s owner and COO Archie Mills was set to deliver a press conference in the coming days. That could prove annoying, Roman thought, him and Gwen were planning to surprise the kids with a trip to Howell Park for their birthday, and it looks like it’s going to a pain in the a*s. Whenever Howell does anything the media goes nuts and people flock to the park.

Roman jumped back over to his email and saw that Jason had gotten back to him.

“Finally” he said.

Detective Clawser opened the attached file and read it over. He was right, there wasn’t a trace of narcotics of any kind in Mister Rozen’s system. Why would the Chief make up a story like that?

The answer was obvious; he was dirty.

Now he had to figure out who was pulling the strings.

It was going to be one of those nights. 

Author's Note

I don't know how I feel about this chapter. Is it worth keeping?