Sally's Story (1.5-2): Dirty Laundry

youtu.be/uuCAFqu0-aU

	“Well Vince,” Sally started, the two hopping back into the warm sedan. “Back to the precinct?”
	“Perp’s there ain’t he?”
	“Well, yes, but-”
	“Better we get in an interview now, then,” he snorted. “While he’s still tired.”
	“Vince, I-”
	“Sal, this kid’s a nut, we know that- you *proved* it. No trouble applying a little ‘pressure’.”
	“Alright… Well, no-”
	“We can talk while you drive Sal.”
	“R-Right, sorry.”
	Snipping the stick into position she peeled away from the snoring neighborhood, slipping quietly back over the just-lightening river. Sunlight pressed at the hilly horizon, gray Autumn skies muffling the light before it was extinguished again by the towering sprawl of the city proper.
	“I just think it’s a bit… brash, Vincent,” Sally mumbled, “he’s still just a kid.”
	“A kid who’s spiking drinks!”
	“We don’t know that definitively yet, and-”
	“Sal it’s open and shut at this point, interviewing him’s a formality.”
	“It’s the law Vincent,” she murmured, some deep motherly instinct offering the youth the benefit of the doubt. “We can’t go in knowing things we don’t have proof for. We’re solving where the drugs came from, not how they were used.”
	“And we can use the one to get the other, simple.”
	“*Vince*.”
	“Yeah, yeah.” Turning left she slipped back in front of the curb by their precinct building, the gentle rush of nightshifters scurrying home whistling behind them. The building’s lights were dim, the same antsy nighttime officers and clerks waiting for the sun to send them home properly. Stepping in, a rush of warm air ruffling their hair, the two detectives tip-toed past the sleepy main desk, a flash of their badges whisking them deeper in.
	“Attorney Grayson’s waiting for you.”
	“Thanks Michelle.”

	Deep in the back offices of the precinct building, the stink of decades-old ash and tar stinging their noses, they met the pale, snivelly deputy district attorney. Launching himself up from his chair he took Vincent’s hand in his own clammy grasp, shaking it nervously, sniffling.
	“Allergy season, huh?”
	“It’s Fall, Grayson.”
	“Ragweed’s an allergy,” he mumbled, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “...Regardless we’re moving quick here, paperwork’s pushing through for the most part.”
	“See Sal, interview’s a formality.”
	“Yeah, kid in there had more than enough on him for big boy charges. Gotta keep the feds away with a stick.”
	“That much?”
	“Bags, full, in his jacket, plus more he tried to flush when the sirens started ringing. Most of it’s been impounded already.”
	“Well what do you want us to do then?”
	“Squeeze him, I don’t care. Figure out where *he* got it-”
	“Obviously. He got a name then?” The pallid man rolled his eyes.
	“Brian Sidran, kid’s a drifter beyond that.”
	“Weird name- ‘Sidran’. Well,” Vince sniffed, “we’ve got it from there I suppose.”
	“Oh, take this.” The man slipped a small matchbook from his pocket, the flat cardboard slip rolled between his fingers. “It was in his pocket, might be a good clue to yank him around.”
	“Thanks,” Vince shrugged, slipping the little book in his pocket. “Well guess that’s it for us.”
	“Sounds good Vince,” the attorney nodded, “hope your robot’s been takin’s notes.”
	“Yes, sir,” Sally murmured, the phlegmy man slipping past them. “Well Vince?”
	“Well what?”
	“Ready?”
	“Suppose, might as well go over what we want first.” Sally sighed.
	“The young man inside was arrested with a,” she breathed again, “a very large amount of narcotics which we know to be spiked.”
	“Not to mention spiking drinks.”
	“...Right. Let’s focus more on what we know for sure, yes? I think this young man is caught up in something larger, and worse, than him so I’ll work that angle, okay?”
	“And I’ll work the angle I know.”
	“Okay, Vince.” The two nodded together, heads turning to the silent interview room before them. Its wooden door, framed in a beige wall, yielded little save for the room number, adjacent a small supplies closet just for interviews. Hefting a tape recorder in his hand, Sally a legal pad in hers, the two stepped inside.

	Head down on the table the young man slowed his breathing, eyes shut sleepily. They glided beneath his eyelids, following the silent track of the cops’ feet as they stepped inside, the soft clap of dress shoes on carpet all too familiar to him. It was early, he’d been up late- playing asleep could at least earn him some sympathy. There was an unfamiliar, pointed tack on the carpet though- narrow, pin-point feet tip-toeing behind the first officer. It was a weird noise, wholly unfamiliar to him. His breathing picked up a touch at the surprise.
	“Still awake bud?” He kept his head down, he was a heavy sleeper after all. Vince watched the sleepy rise and fall of his chest, breath slowed again in waiting. A harsh knock on the desk rung in the boy’s ear, wood reverberating as the detective rapped his knuckles on the desk. He wasn’t *that* heavy of a sleeper, groggily pulling his head up and blinking in the harsh fluorescent lights. “There we go, rise and shine.”
	“Hmuh,” he slurred, locking his squinted eyes with Vince.
	“Brian? Brian Sidran," Sally added.
	“Hmyeah,” he yawned, smacking his lips. “What’s the trouble?”
	“We’re detectives la Fontaine and Sally,” Vince nodded, the young man turning his head to the nandroid. His eyes shot open, wide and aware of the silent robot clicking her pen. The gentle glow of her blue eyes met his, twisting his head away in shock as she scribbled a note on the wide notepad.
	“Lemme just start this before we continue,” she interrupted, the gentle tilt of her voice warm, kind. Some sick trick, he guessed. Brian sat up straight in his seat as Sally clicked a button on the recorder, the machine spinning to life and winding its blank cassette. Vince started their interaction with the typical boilerplate, rereading his rights just in case and clarifying the *why* of the whole ordeal.
	“So would you like a lawyer?” Tough question- his run-ins with the law were, easily, negative on the whole. Messing with lawyers was almost invariably worse though, his silver-tongued speech muffled in their cold legal council. Even the sleazier public defenders he’d been represented by failed to work the same charisma into their argument, the kind that schmoozed teachers and inattentive parents into letting him off the hook, let alone frowning diversion program attendants. Best not to, he knew- he’d talked himself out of a lot of things, this was no different.
	“No.”
	“Alrighty then,” Vince began, taking his seat. “As we said we’re detectives la Fontaine and Sally, Vice, and we’re investigating-”
	“The party, I know, I know,” Brian started, bolting out the gates to pin the detectives’ words against them. “Look, I’m a businessman as much as you are officers of the law. Whatever the hell you’re looking for is far and away from little old me. You go after me you get nothing, you go after the people I *know* you get something.”
	‘Never talk’ was a rule Brian had learned at a young age, and promptly ignored whenever it suited him. Talking now would save him a lot of trouble down the road, throwing them a bone to follow up on and slip away quietly into the background of their investigation, just another victim of a corrupt and unjust society, not the criminal mastermind too many cops had tried to paint him as before. He threw his hands up in surrender, yielding the floor to the detectives.
	“Well that’s great, Brian- it is Brian, right? Sidran?” The boy shrugged. “Well, Brian, we’re investigating a possible sexual assault and you’re our number one suspect here. If that’s what you meant by ‘party’.”
	“The f*ck are you saying?” The anxious boy’s pulse quickened, arteries tightening around nervous, tired blood as he shrunk in his seat. Leg bouncing he threw his hands up on the table, eyes locked with the unsmiling senior detective. Sally glanced between the two, not comfortable with the angle Vince was seizing on already. She jotted a note down as the boy’s leg bobbed higher, faster. “Whatever you’re saying I didn’t do that shit-”
	“We’re not saying anything, we’re saying that girl in the hospital is awake and talking-”
	“Saying what, mother-fucker? Huh?” He grumbled in his seat, mouth and lips dry as he frantically wet them between words. “Some bitch gets sick and it’s on me, I mean- f*ck, man!”
	The boy quit talking, chewing the inside of his cheek. The outburst wasn’t a good look, the robot quickly scribbling little notes onto her sheet. Folding it over she started a new page. He was getting played, hard, cuffs chafing at his wrists as he writhed in place and watched the twin, judging pairs of eyes ahead of him. Vince wrinkled his moustache, the pressure squeezing some of the resistance out of their perp.
	“I understand the anger, Brian,” Sally interrupted. Her still, scrutinizing face betrayed by the subtle glow at her cheeks. “How about we calm down some and talk, and you tell us *your* story.”
	“Heh, you’re the good cop, right,” he snorted. “So-”
	“She’s as good a cop as you’re going to get, kid. Now, would you like to relax and maybe tell us your half here? Or just sit around and fling shit while we take notes? Way things are looking you rolled up to a party to sell a- a *shitton* of narcotics, slipped some to a girl you fancied, and then freaked when she passed out and police showed up.”
	“It’s not like you didn’t know Brian,” Sally pressed, the glow evacuated from her cheek-lights. “Those quaaludes were cut through, strongly. You were selling something you wouldn’t even take yourself.”
	“Doesn’t mean I drugged-”
	“Then how’d it end up in *her* drink, in *her* cup, Brian,” Vince pleaded, pounding an emphatic finger into the table. “How’d she get enough to overdose, to go to the hospital half-dead?” Brian blinked hard at the statement, the image of the groggy girl gasping on the pavement as the medics eased her up ringing in his head, the screeching retreat of the ambulance sticking still in his ears. He didn’t even know if she was alive, if what he’d watched was some unfortunate side effect of what caused her to collapse on the couch in the first place. He’d sprinted around the home when someone dropped the words ‘nine-one-one’, scurrying about to dump as much as he could and ditch. He was ready to dip when the first officers arrived, burly arms and deep shouts corralling him back in.
	“What my partner wants to know,” Sally continued, placing a subtle hand between the two men, “is what could have occurred to bring about our victim’s overdose. It’s no question you were selling those quaaludes Brian. We want to know how you got them and how they got around. There’s a lot you can do to help us.” The young man sniffed, pulling both arms up to wipe his nose on his wrist.
	“Can I get a smoke?” Vince barely tipped his head to Sally, a quarter-nod agreeing with him.
	“Sure.” Vince fished in his jacket pocket, reeling out a just-opened pack of cigarettes. He’d been avoiding them, especially in the car, but they were a great incentive for nervous interviewees. He handed the narrow cigarette to the sitting boy, the tiring bounce of his knee still unarrested. Working it into his mouth he stuck his lips out, Vince digging through another pocket. A smile touched his face as he plucked out the narrow matchbook, breaking one of the cardboard sticks away and striking it up. The tiny phosphorus flame danced under the fuming cigarette, the teen taking a long, relaxing drag. Vincent slapped the matchbook in front of him, letting his eyes wash over it. Brian stared at the thing smugly staring back at him, the most damning bit of evidence he’d chosen not to disappear, fruitlessly, into the sewer. He pulled another puff into his lungs, feeling the nicotine etch its way into his blood and body.
	“Well,” he chuckled, dragging his tongue over his teeth, “if you’re gonna drop that so soon I know half the shit you’ve been telling me’s *bull*shit, to be technical for you.” He leant forward to spit that directly into the recorder, Sally scooching forward in her seat just to make sure the delicate, blocky machine hadn’t just been fussed with. Her updates still had to be run through the old thing, though its reliable, ponderous spin calmed her.
	“Alright, sure,” Vince stuck his own hands up, “we’re spinning a lotta *fibs* here but what we’re getting to is somehow, some *way* what you were selling ended up in a girl’s drink.”
	“Vince,” Sally nudged, tilting her head again. “What Detective la Fontaine is trying to say is that you were selling a lot just hours ago, and that’s why this is happening so quickly. With how much you had that raises a lot of questions for us.” Brian sighed- he’d denied a lawyer already, and didn’t want to bitch out in front of the detectives. Sure, it might mean a bit more trouble, but cooperating and saving *them* some trouble could be just as lucrative if he played his cards right. The sneering detective had already dealt him a strong hand, he just had to hold it.
	“Then lemme answer ‘em.”