With a cup of coffee in one hand and a towel in the other, Kevin sat down at the small kitchen table. He first took a sip of the coffee and then set it down to give his wet hair a vigorous rub with the towel. One thing about short hair, he thought, it’s easy to dry. He leaned back and flipped the towel through the door of his bedroom in the direction of his laundry basket. It hit the edge and sailed past to land in front of his closet.
He turned and focused on the cup of coffee. By the third sip, he was beginning to feel the caffeine as the cobwebs in his head slowly dissolved. He held the cup in both hands and leaning on his elbows he closed his eyes and lowered his head. He could still feel the sleepiness nagging at him. Caffeine or not, he thought to himself, four hours of sleep was simply not enough. He might have drifted back asleep had the phone not rang.
He sat back, paused, set his cup down, and pulled himself up to go answer the phone.
“Yeah.”
“Kevin,” the Chief couldn’t help but laugh, “You sound rough.”
“Yeah, well that’s why I get the big bucks. I need to go pick up Walser, right?”
“No, sorry, I had some guys take care of that already. In fact, I just spent some very productive time with him in our wonderful Interrogation Room.”
“Great, you probably used up all of our rubber hoses. So, did he confess to the Lindbergh kidnapping?”
“No, but I got a lot of great info on Memorites. I’m still undecided if this is our guy, but that’s not why I called. The Memorites are sending someone in to ‘help’ with the investigation.”
“Oh great,” Kevin groaned.
“Their flight arrives at 8:45, so you need to be there to pick them up.”
“What does he look like? How will I recognize him?”
“I’m told that he will recognize you. Apparently, they have your picture.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” Kevin shook his head.
“Kevin, I hope I don’t need to remind you...,”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, make sure they’re happy so they’ll send us one for good. I got the memo.”
“Good, just keep it in mind.”
“If I forget, I’ll just ask the Memorite, they’re supposed to remember everything.”