Read Online AfterNet 01 - Good Cop Dead Cop by Jennifer Petkus - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jennifer Petkus
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also couldn’t figure out the detective’s motive for leaving the cartoon. Was it really just “thought you’d find this funny” or “we know you don’t really exist” or “we don’t think you should be taking a job from someone living”?
Whatever the motive, Munroe was now stuck with it until Yamaguchi was back. And should he even ask her to remove it? Would it brand him as someone without a sense of humor? — a death sentence, so to speak, among cops. At least they’d finally stopped stealing his chair. Maybe this was a form of acceptance from them. He’d never had any problems with Rollins, the detective who’d left the cartoon. Rollins was black after all; he should be sympathetic with the plight of another minority. Hmm, was that a bigoted assumption of mine?
Of course, the disembodied weren’t a minority. With hundreds of billions more dead than alive, some living viewed them as a real threat.
And Rollins might know that Munroe was there from the activity on the terminal’s screen, so should he respond now? Send an email to him? What should he say?
While living, this was a situation that Munroe had rarely encountered. He prided himself on being able to handle almost any situation — apart from ex-wives. He had been, after all, a white, male cop — lord of all he surveyed — although he liked to think he never let that sort of thinking affect his attitude or behavior. But now he found himself questioning his ability to act like a cop.
Well screw that, he thought. He opened up a new email window and sent a one-line message to Rollins: “Very droll.”
Let him figure that one out. Sometimes the ambiguity of email had its uses.
Munroe got out of the station before he had to deal with the consequences of his reply. He spent the morning at the same Starbucks and even got a few hellos from the crowd. This morning the table the terminal sat on also housed a few empty coffee cups — he didn’t know if this was an attempt by the baristas to make the table seem more homey or more likely just the attractive force between an open surface and an empty cup.
Munroe got into a chat with the others and found that two of them had been customers of this particular Starbucks while alive. And another person was still working as a consultant for the company she worked at while alive, just a block away, and she often used the store as her office.
Munroe had wondered at Starbucks’ financial incentive for installing the terminal, but the others online pointed out that aside from the initial investment for the terminal, it cost them almost nothing. And the consultant also mentioned that she had a meeting in an hour in the Starbucks, and her living coworkers certainly drank coffee.
The word “office” prompted Munroe to check his email and he saw that he had a reply from Rollins.
From: (Joshua Rollins) [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Missing disembodied report
Date: December 20 2004 9:15 a.m. MST
Munroe,
Glad you liked it. Hey, I was hoping you could do me a favor. I have a missing persons report filed by a Cheryl Miller on a disembodied woman, a dead Fort Carson woman, Staff Sgt. Tralawna Johnson. She was supposed to meet with Johnson in Denver last week and they never hooked up. She hasn’t heard from Johnson since then.
You know we don’t really have a policy on this. I don’t even know where I’d begin. Would you mind taking a look?
Thanks
Josh
The email had an attachment containing the missing persons’ report.
Munroe replied to Rollins, saying he’d contact Cheryl Miller, and then he emailed the woman, who was living, and asked if they could meet to chat.
While writing up the emails, he also saw that he’d got an email from Brian’s mother saying that she still hadn’t heard from him. She also said that she’d learned that Brian had a blog and gave him the address.
OK, two missing dead people reports a few days apart. He looked more closely at the report
Whatever the motive, Munroe was now stuck with it until Yamaguchi was back. And should he even ask her to remove it? Would it brand him as someone without a sense of humor? — a death sentence, so to speak, among cops. At least they’d finally stopped stealing his chair. Maybe this was a form of acceptance from them. He’d never had any problems with Rollins, the detective who’d left the cartoon. Rollins was black after all; he should be sympathetic with the plight of another minority. Hmm, was that a bigoted assumption of mine?
Of course, the disembodied weren’t a minority. With hundreds of billions more dead than alive, some living viewed them as a real threat.
And Rollins might know that Munroe was there from the activity on the terminal’s screen, so should he respond now? Send an email to him? What should he say?
While living, this was a situation that Munroe had rarely encountered. He prided himself on being able to handle almost any situation — apart from ex-wives. He had been, after all, a white, male cop — lord of all he surveyed — although he liked to think he never let that sort of thinking affect his attitude or behavior. But now he found himself questioning his ability to act like a cop.
Well screw that, he thought. He opened up a new email window and sent a one-line message to Rollins: “Very droll.”
Let him figure that one out. Sometimes the ambiguity of email had its uses.
Munroe got out of the station before he had to deal with the consequences of his reply. He spent the morning at the same Starbucks and even got a few hellos from the crowd. This morning the table the terminal sat on also housed a few empty coffee cups — he didn’t know if this was an attempt by the baristas to make the table seem more homey or more likely just the attractive force between an open surface and an empty cup.
Munroe got into a chat with the others and found that two of them had been customers of this particular Starbucks while alive. And another person was still working as a consultant for the company she worked at while alive, just a block away, and she often used the store as her office.
Munroe had wondered at Starbucks’ financial incentive for installing the terminal, but the others online pointed out that aside from the initial investment for the terminal, it cost them almost nothing. And the consultant also mentioned that she had a meeting in an hour in the Starbucks, and her living coworkers certainly drank coffee.
The word “office” prompted Munroe to check his email and he saw that he had a reply from Rollins.
From: (Joshua Rollins) [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Missing disembodied report
Date: December 20 2004 9:15 a.m. MST
Munroe,
Glad you liked it. Hey, I was hoping you could do me a favor. I have a missing persons report filed by a Cheryl Miller on a disembodied woman, a dead Fort Carson woman, Staff Sgt. Tralawna Johnson. She was supposed to meet with Johnson in Denver last week and they never hooked up. She hasn’t heard from Johnson since then.
You know we don’t really have a policy on this. I don’t even know where I’d begin. Would you mind taking a look?
Thanks
Josh
The email had an attachment containing the missing persons’ report.
Munroe replied to Rollins, saying he’d contact Cheryl Miller, and then he emailed the woman, who was living, and asked if they could meet to chat.
While writing up the emails, he also saw that he’d got an email from Brian’s mother saying that she still hadn’t heard from him. She also said that she’d learned that Brian had a blog and gave him the address.
OK, two missing dead people reports a few days apart. He looked more closely at the report
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