Red sat behind his desk and thumbed through some paperwork. Not much had come down the wire. A few funny stories from the next county, but another light day here in nowhere. He had a rough night’s sleep, never able to fully settle down, and it wore on his face today. Officer PJ was sitting in the other chair directly below the oscillating fan, which caused her blonde hair to blow every which way. Red found himself peeking at her out of his peripherals and laughed to himself. Yeah, he was old, but he wasn’t dead yet. It finally got the better of him.
“Can you move, for Pete’s sake?” he said with a grin.
“Oh, sorry, Red, am I blocking the air?”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Thanks.”
PJ moved her chair closer to Red’s desk and took a good look at his tired mug. “You’re not sleeping good?”
“Not so much last night. Kept thinking about that car out there James and I looked over yesterday. It just didn’t seem right.”
“What you mean?”
“Well, you get a couple, pretty well off from a big city. They come out here for a couple days, stay at a pretty fancy place. One day they rent a car, drive it as far from any living soul as you can get . . . get out . . . walk off . . . and disappear.”
“Two of them?”
“Rental and hotel clerks said they were husband and wife.”
“Murder-suicide?”
“Could be. No blood in the car though. That’s a long way to go if one of the people don’t want to go, you know? I would assume they both drove out there on their own accord.”
“Robbery, then double homicide?” she asked as if chomping at the bit.
“Purse left in the car with a string of credit cards. Seems like that would be gone if it was a robbery.”
“Mob hit?”
“You watch too much TV.” Red chuckled. He liked the banter, no matter how ridiculous. It made him feel young, less lonely. “No, there was just something strange about the whole scene. It was like that car hit something out there. Something that stopped it cold.”
“A rock?”
“No, almost like a wall or force field or something. I don’t want to sound crazy, and maybe it’s too late for that, but . . . it looked like the air just pushed it back and kept it from moving. Makes no sense.”
“Hmmm . . . aliens maybe?” PJ smiled. She gave a girlish wink to Red and he managed to keep from showing his embarrassment.
“That’d be something, wouldn’t it? Make this easier to explain. Naw, probably something simpler, it’s just my mind won’t stop racing to the extreme, you know? Most likely scenario is like you said . . . murder-suicide. Probably one of them killed the other someplace else, and then drove out there to do themself in. That would be the most likely scenario.”
“But you don’t feel it? You don’t think it’s something simple like that?”
Red stared down at his desk in deep thought. There was a sensation like a small candle burning in the back of his skull, an idea slowly morphing but still not in a comprehensive form. He looked back at PJ, who waited with extreme interest, and shook his head.
“No. Something out there just didn’t feel right. I don’t know what it was, but I think this couple ran into something out there. What it was or who it was, I have no idea.”