The police had been called nearly three hours ago, and the expensive downtown office building was only twenty minutes away. Truthfully, Marcia hadn’t bothered to hurry: she knew that the local police needed her. They couldn’t wipe their own asses without asking her permission first, let alone fill out the paperwork for a suicide. She had them by the balls, and consistently showing up late was her way of proving that. She was in charge, and no one, especially Romeo, had better forget it. She hated him. He wasn’t an officer of the law; he was a goddamned boy scout. One way or another, she was going to break him. Confirming a suicide would take all of ten minutes, but since Romeo had to wait for her, she decided to take her sweet time. No doubt, he had already let everyone else go home, and he was there all alone, staring at his cell phone and sighing. She smiled, finally deciding to give up on her game of solitaire and leave the office.
The young officer was in the middle of phoning Marcia for the fourth time when she walked casually through the front door. “Marcia,” he said, a cold breeze chasing her through the door as she stepped inside. Romeo tried to hide his annoyance. He was missing his kid’s school play because some schmuck decided to off himself for Christmas. He flinched, internally scolding himself; of course it wasn’t the poor guy’s fault. He was probably depressed, probably in debt, probably alone, probably scared, no way out, hell, he could understand that, he was human, he had a heart… no, this was Marcia’s fault…if that bitch bothered to show up on time every once and awhile he wouldn’t have to worry about making up time with his family.
“What have we got, Romeo?” Marcia said, forgetting to say Merry Christmas or even hello. Instead, she said
“Holiday special?” and snapped on a latex glove she had pulled from her pocket.
“Looks like it, Marcia. We should be in and out pretty quickly… speaking of which, what took you so long?”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, stepping over the tape line. “Poor bastard. Did he leave a note?”
“Not that we found.”
“Well, look harder. He’s young…” she said, crouching in the shattered glass of the mirror and lifting the victim’s head, “Ugly bastard too. Look at his face—Christ, face only a mother could love. Am I right? Ha ha ha.”
Romeo paused. “Um…Detective… maybe…I was hoping… my kid has a play tonight… he’s Joseph in the Nativity Play and I was hoping I could…”
Marcia stared at him. “You were hoping you could what, officer?”
“I was hoping I could… maybe…leave early?”