Violet rubbed at her temples and found herself, not for the first time tonight, longing for a cup of coffee. What she'd give for an unpaid intern right about now. Witness interviews were their usual edge of your seat brand of fun and got crap all kind of information for it. Mostly just glances, some strange noises but each of them had arrived on the scene too late or had stayed clear of things for fear of getting involved. As any sane person might.
One candidate had gotten their attention though. A Mr Marcus Dobson, another security guard that'd been on shift that night. Reno had brought up his profile after he'd come up with a few hits on the system.
Having previously attended several anti- Meta Human rallies. A couple of which had gotten out of hand when the home crowd had gotten rough with protesters.
Marcus eyed up the piece of ass giving him the question and lamented that he hadn't met her in a bar. Would have been nice to wreck her six ways to Sunday.
"So what exactly do you think happened?" he asked, leering at her. "You think I walked into the guy's section, shot him, and walked back to my spot, huh?" he patted the empty holster on his belt. "I mean I got a look at that asshole's body before the cops showed up. He got shot. You got my gun. Run one of them ballistics tests. Ain't gonna be a match, 'cause I didn't do it."
'Well I'd love to do one of THEM ballistic tests, Douche nozzle, but unfortunately the bullet was taken out of the corpse.' Whether he was playing dumb about that was another thing though. If he actually thought that tumor of a lip huger was a good idea then it probably wouldn't be too hard.
"Did you know your co-worker was a registered meta human, Mr Dobson?" Violet folded her hands in her lap, opting for the cold open. Wait and see how he played out.
"Yeah I knew," Dobson replied. "Fuckin' disgusting, him walking free like that. Ain't it your job to keep people like him away from people like me?"
Violet held back the bile that was brewing in the back of her throat at that one. 'So many choices. so little time.' Banter never was her strong suit and kicking this guy in the nuts under the table didn't seem like the best way to open a dialogue.
"Our duty is to help maintain a healthy relation between meta and non-meta groups." Straight out of the brochure. " Something I'm told you've had a little trouble with in the past."
"Yeah well, speaking out is my Second Amendment right, ain't it?" Dobson replied. "Gotta exercise it to stop this country turning to shit."
"True enough but the situation changes when that talk turns violent. You've got a bit of a history with that, don't you Marcus?" Little bit of prodding the bear there. "Must have stung, seeing one of them being around you every day. Looked like he went around flaunting that power of his two. Managed to catch a lot more shop lifters than someone who can just run. I wouldn't be surprised if management wasn't getting our victim lined up for a raise - maybe even a promotion."
Dobson shrugged. "He mostly kept it to himself. We only knew 'cause it's a requirement for people in a 'forceful profession' like security to make that shit public to the entire staff, not just the management. 'Sides that, he was just kinda a dumbass. Anyhow, like I said, I didn't kill him. Keyed his car once, but that's it."
'And he admits to vandalizing someone's property, maybe we can at least get him fined for that.' Violet mused to herself. She could get kinda petty when she got tired.
"Can you tell me where you were at the time of the murder, Mr Dobson?" She asked, soldiering on.
"Well I don't know exactly," Dobson replied. "'cause I don't know exactly when the murder happened, do I? Heard some scuffling about at one point. Reckon I was in the pharmacy section when that happened."
Christ this was turning into all the others, if it weren't for the crappy attitude and skeezy looks she'd have just let him go like the rest, but he'd earned her ire and Violet could at least ruin his night while she dragged him through the mandatory questions.
