Retrospective: Paris - How things happened

3.5. Francesco De la Cruz - Interrogation
Fall 1993, Paris police headquarters

Francesco and Mae had waited at the station for about fifteen minutes, but to him it felt already like an eternity. The waiting increased his nervosity. And the longer they waited, the stronger his instincts told him to just run away and leave all the shit behind.
Mae's chatting nonsense was the only thing that kept him brooding too much on what could possibly go wrong with their plan. By now he knew Charlie's and Artie's whole family background, all about which clubs to go to (the ones that had the good Mai Tais) and which rather to avoid, and about fifty different ways of how to make a pie.
She was nervous too. Her speaking pace was faster than usual, and her eyes soaked in anyhing that happened in the big room.

His fingers brushed against her hand and unconsciously he wrapped them around it.
"Are you sure he'll come inside here?", he whispered.
She stopped her monologue to think for a second. "Not quite", she admitted. "But he'll have to use the bathroom too, I guess..."
Great.
If they didn't manage to run into the police investigator in charge, they might not be able to stop the broadcasting of his photo. He saw it already in his mind.
Runaway boyfriend wanted for murder. Caution, might be dangerous.
If Charlotte was right and they wanted to look for him already in the evening news, the picture must have reached the police by now.
The sharp announcement of their waiting number pulled him out of his ponderings.
They had to drag this as long as possible.

The officer in charge took their personal data and Francesco's complaint.
Francesco's and Mae's plan was to use the robbery this morning as a reason to spend as much time as possible at the station to run into the investigators assigned to the murder case by luck. Like this they had a chance to avoid the search warrant and still keep Charlotte and Arthur out of trouble for sharing confidential information to outsiders.
The police officer asked the usual questions about the robbery. Nothing Francesco wouldn't have expected, how did it happen, what did they take, did he know them, would he recognize them and so on.
He tried his best to act as if he had to think long before answering, and for once he wished he had Mae's talent for endless talking.
She was looking aimlessly around the office, occasionally dropping in some useless questions to the officer to stall time.
Nevertheless, the interrogation was almost at end, and still there was no sight of any detective fitting Mae's description. Dark hair, neatly dressed, not-so-tall, angry face.
"I'll take your complaint, but I must inform you that it's a rare case that we can get your belongings back", the officer said, pulling a sorry face.
Just keep your fake sympathy.

Suddenly Mae jumped up.
"But you are the police! You can find at least his guitar!", she exclaimed.
The whole room turned their heads towards them.
Fuck, did she always have to exagerate –

But then Francesco's look fell on the man that just left one of the closed offices.

Their eyes met, and Francesco saw the recognition in his face.
He wondered if Mae had seen him coming.
Well played, then.

"Bonjour", the man said, full of confidence. "I'm inspecteur Leroux, and I might have a few questions for you."
"Might?" Francesco cocked an eyebrow and hide his nervosity. He felt Mae's and the officer's gaze rest on him. They had stopped talking.
"Depends if you can help me, Monsieur", the inspecteur pulled a corner of his mouth into a sloped sly smile.
Francesco couldn't stand him already.

"Mademoiselle West – ", the inspecteur noticed Mae now, "I cannot say I'm happy to see you here in this place so unfit for a young girl like you."
He placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Hi inspecteur Leroux. I'm just here with a friend", she said casually, completely ignoring that he obviously crossed a line.
"This man?", he was surprised. He cleared his throat. "I must apologize Mademoiselle, but I have to take him away for questioning. The gardien here will be happy to lead you into a more comfortable room where you can wait, and fetch you a cup of coffee, or tea."
"Oui, inspecteur!", the officer jumped up, ready to fulfill his duty.
Mae shot Francesco a quick conspirational look, then left with the police officer and a part of his confidence.

Again, Francesco gave his personal data to the police, only this time the inspecteur asked him and he confirmed.
"What a coincidence to meet you here, Monsieur De la Cruz", Leroux said when they finished. "You save me a lot of work looking for you. What brings you here?"
"I got robbed today morning and filed a complaint. You can ask the other officer about it."
"Interesting...", the other man mused. He didn't look too interested, though.
Then he sat up straight and pierced him with his eyes. "In what relationship you stand to a certain - ", he paused for a more dramatic effect, "Diego Santiago?"
"He was my boyfriend", Francesco replied.
"Was?", it came sharply. 

Damn, be more careful about the choice of words.

"Yeah. I broke up with him a couple of weeks ago. We had some differences."
The sly smile appeared again. "Differences, huh."
What a pinche pendejo.
"What's with him?", Francesco asked, trying to act as if he didn't know already.
"And where did you stay then? You weren't seen at his appartement for a while and you haven't registered another residence so far either", Leroux avoided to give him a reply.
"Because I hadn't found anything yet. I stayed with friends here and there."

"I see, I see", the inspecteur mumbled and made some notes. "And when did you see Monsieur Santiago the last time?"
"Dunno", Francesco shrugged his shoulders. "It was when I picked up my stuff and left."

"He didn't look like this then, I suppose?"
The inspecteur slammed an open folder on the desk, and a few photos, showing Diego's body, fell out of it.
Drama queen.
"Woah... uh. Is he dead?", Francesco asked weakly.
How did one act to show sadness when there was none? Or at least surprise? Only Mae's over-exagerrated teary demonstration came into his mind, and he definitely didn't want to give the inspecteur a show.
What made it harder was that despite the nausea the sight of the bloody corpse caused, he couldn't help but feel the satisfaction of seeing that mierdoso dead.
"Exactly!", Leroux exclaimed. He paced through the small room, his excitement filling it up completely. Francesco had the impression the inspecteur didn't really care about his reaction.
"Killed by three shots, one in his head, and two in his chest. This morning!" 

He slammed his hands on the desk.
"What can you tell me about it?", he added, almost whispering.
"Uh -"
Nothing that Francesco wanted to, of course.
"Monsieur De la Cruz, where have you been this morning? Precisely, between 4am and 6am?"
There it was, the question Francesco knew would come sooner or later.
"What, am I a suspect now?", he asked, trying to sound casually.
"That depends on your answers, Monsieur De la Cruz", the pendejo showed his sly sloped smirk again, "I have to consider my options."

Francesco hesitated a little to think.
"Finished my shift shortly after 4, got robbed, met a friend, then went to her place to sleep", he recited. "Not sure how long everything took."
The detective raised an eyebrow. "You work? We have no information on that."
Crap! He forgot that he didn't work officially in the bar. Now a fine for moonlighting was the last thing he could use. And he probably could forget to work there again, too.
"I had a trial day."
He hoped he could fix this slip up as soon as he got out of here.

"Name and address of the place, please."
Francesco gave Leroux what he asked for. Stick to the truth as much as possible to avoid suspicion, was one of the agreements he had with Mae.
"The Môle, huh... And there was nothing unusal, you noticed? Besides the robbery, I hope you won't have to put up with those regularily," the pendejo cackled, yeah, he was so funny, "nothing that caught your attention?"
Francesco knew exactly what Leroux wanted to hear.
He focussed.
Don't show any nervosity.
"There was something...", he started slowly. "Mae – my friend, and I just had met. We were on our way to her appartement, when we heard a car nearby, and then something like shots."
The inspecteur was quiet for a few seconds.
"And then?"
"We went to her appartement."
"You didn't check what happened?"
"No. I was tired. And I just got robbed."
"You didn't think of going to the police?"
"Why? It could have just been the engine. The car went quite fast and did a hard break while I heard the shot sound."
"I mean – you didn't think of going to the police after you got robbed?"
"I'm here now..."

Francesco got tired of all the questions. No matter how much he tried to keep his focus and avoid looking suspicious, the feeling that he did exactly the opposite increased.
The inspecteur was far from being done with questioning him, though. He kept picking on any little detail that could or could not have happened this morning, and Francesco felt grateful that Mae and he had matched their story throughoutly before they came here.
After what felt like hours, the inspecteur shuffled his notes and stayed quiet for a minute.
"I'll need the full name and address of the friend that accompanied you before, so we can find them to verify your testimony."
"Mae West. She's waiting outside."
Leroux pulled an I-was-afraid-so face , then shot him another piercing glance. "How very convenient for you. Otherwise I must have asked you to be our guest until said witness would be found. I believe you understand."

Francesco did not. He swallowed down a bunch of insults that wanted to escape his mouth. "Can you even do that? Lock me up without a reason?"
"I have very good reasons to do so. One of them is that you have no current residence where we can find you in case there will be further questions."
Further questions, my ass.
"I'm currently staying at Mae's place", Francesco said and gave him the address. The inspecteur flinched subtly. It felt like a tiny victory at least.
Leroux made another note, then waved through the window to an officer to bring Mae in.

"Franny, everything ok?", she smiled when she entered, but he could sense her tension. He nodded.
"You have some – unusual aquaintances, Mademoiselle West", Leroux said.
Francesco didn't like the way the inspecteur looked at her. He was at least thirty, dirty old motherfucker.
"Eh. Well, we're friends. He's like my cousin, or so", Mae shrugged it off.
"I wish you would be more careful who you surround yourself with", the motherfucker sighed and closed the opened folder in front of him.
Mind your own business, shitface.

Leroux cleared his throat and turned back to him. "Monsieur De la Cruz, I must ask you to wait outside until I have finished speaking to Mademoiselle West. The gardien will kindly accompany you", he pointed to the officer that had brought Mae in.

Mae smiled again when he got up.
I got this, her smile said, and he knew he could trust her.
But he couldn't shake off that feeling of uneasiness that haunted him from the moment he set foot in the inspecteur's office.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author's note:

This chapter features another gorgeous sim donated to me by my dear friend.
Thank you very much! <3

Tristan Leroux by Maladi