Untitled Chapter

CHAPTER 7 �" not titled or bookmarked

“Yo! Ross!!” The desk sergeant was calling to me as I walked in from the street. Quinn and I had just been trying to trace the path of the woman in the park. It had been two days since she was rolled into the morgue and we'd not been able to find out much information on her. I was beyond frustrated at that point and not in the mood to deal with Baldini. He'd been in the same spot, doing the same job since before I was born. He loved it.

“What is it, Sergeant?” I asked, shortly.

“Is that any way to talk to the man that is about to make you a happy woman?” He smiled brightly.

I shot him a dark look, “You best get to the point, Sarge...”

“All right, all right! You've got a visitor waiting for you, Detective Ross.” He was teasing me by being overly formal. I'd have to remember to glue his phone down again.

I rolled my eyes at him and went into the squad room, with Quinn in tow. Fidgeting in a chair near the door was a man in his late twenties or early thirties with red hair. If worry wasn't etched into his face, he'd be rather hansom.

I extended my hand and introduced myself, asking what I could do for him.

“I want to file a missing person report. My wife...”

Now missing persons is not usually something a cop in homicide would file, those are handled the MPU, Missing Persons Unit. If this guy wasn't talking to MPU then he was probably a witness to the murder. Or at least knew something.

“Let's go some place a bit more private,” Quinn suggested, “Mr...?”

“Rockberry, Charlie Rockberry.”

“Mr Rockberry. You said you wanted to file a missing persons report?” He was ready with a his notebook, flipped to a clean page. I stood off to the side, listening. Its best to allow one person to establish a rapport in times like this.

“Yes, my wife is... she hasn't been home for a week.”

“Why did you wait so long, Mr Rockberry?” he asked softly.

“She was going to Sacramento for the weekend, for a book signing.”

“Your wife was an author?” I asked gently.

He shook his head, “Just a fan. She'd been wanting to get her collection signed for some time and she didn't want to pass up the chance to have him autograph them. You see, if you go to a signing, he puts a drawing with the autograph.” He smiled at the memory, it was a sad smile. “I had to work...” His eyes were red and marked with worry. “I couldn't get off work and go with her. She really wanted to go and said while she was in town she was going to visit her parents.”

Mr Rockberry was trying hard not to break down and it showed. Honestly, if he made it to the end of the interview, I would be surprised.

“Was is common for her to go out of town without you?” Quinn was asking.

“Not really, I was supposed to go with her, but one of my guys had a family thing. I had to cover his shift. Otherwise, yeah, we would have gone together. That was the plan. When she didn't call, I thought that she was at her parent's place. The mobile service there is lousy.”

“What about a land line?” I asked.

He shrugged, “I don't know. I wasn't really expecting to hear from her. Kate, maybe she'd call and maybe she wouldn't. It wasn't uncommon for her to not call and check on me. I knew something was wrong this morning. My mother-in-law asked if she had the timing right. She thought that Kate would be there this week, but thought she made a mistake.”

“So let me get this straight, Mr Rockberry. Your wife went to Sacramento for a book signing, was supposed to stay the weekend with her folks, but never showed up and no one bothered to call each other?” I was shocked. My folks wanted chapter and verse!

“Sam...” Quinn was using that tone that told me to shut it. “You'll have to admit though, my partner makes a point. Why did it take so long to report that the woman you love is missing?”

“Because it was common for her to not call!” He broke then, trying to be tough guy in a precinct only goes so far when you're under pressure. He loved his wife, now she was missing, and we were asking questions.

It could be the stress of his wife being missing or it could be that he felt guilty or like a suspect. Of course, I don't blame him for that last one. Someone goes missing, its usually the spouse or lover that did it. Not very imaginative, but it does follow psychology. Sure, it isn't a hard science, though it works most of the time. Quinn was thinking the same thing I was and gave me a look that said his gut was telling him this wasn't our guy. I nodded slightly. I agreed. This was not the sort man that would kill his wife with attack dogs.

“Mr Rockberry, would you happen to have a picture of your wife?” Quinn held his hand out for a couple of photographs, on was of the couple on a good day, there were all smiles. He also had one that was just of his wife, Kate Rockberry, a beautiful woman with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes. When I first saw those eyes, they had long lost their lustre. I glanced out the corner of my eye to Quinn, he'd lowered his head slightly and I think that is when every person knows. That slight shift in the eye of any cop seems to be the code that everyone knows.

“Oh god... please...” Rockberry was starting to cry.

“I fear I have some bad news for you,” Quinn's voice was calm, quiet, sympathetic.

“Where is she?”

“At the morgue, we'll need you to identify her, make sure that the woman is your wife.”

I think the poor man was in shock as we drove the short distance to the morgue. Rocky had her waiting in the viewing room and gently pulled down the sheet to reveal just her face. Charlie Rockberry took one look, said “Dear God, no”, then passed out.

Author's Note

Unedited for NaNoWriMo