Super Meals: Part Nineteen

Jane wouldn’t stop screaming.

Mimi had taken her by the shoulders and was trying to force her backwards out the door of the hotel room, but she pushed back and refused to leave. She swiped at Mimi, Donnewicz, and the other uniformed officer who was trying to help Mimi hold her back, but even the three of them together weren’t enough to stop her.

Jane threw herself across the room and collapsed next to Bethany’s corpse, pawing at her and mumbling denials. Donnewicz shook his head and stepped outside while the uniformed officer moved towards Jane again, but Mimi stopped her. “No,” she said. “Give her a minute, officer…?”

“Young,” said the officer. “Jo Young.” She gestured towards the parking lot and said “I was up the block when the call came in, I was the first officer on scene.”

“You got the hotel locked down?” asked Mimi.

“Yes ma’am. I’ve got other unis interviewing the remaining guests and called in the plates of all the cars in the lot. The duty sergeant is interviewing the desk clerk now.”

Mimi was impressed at the young lady’s initiative. “Good work, officer Young. What’s going on with the cars in the lot? All of them accounted for?”

“No ma’am, there’s one extra.”

Mimi paused, daring to be hopeful that whoever did this was dumb enough to leave their car behind.  “And?” she asked.

“It belongs to a local rental agency who delivered it to that top-shelf hotel downtown on the corner of second and rose.”

“What time?”

“A few hours ago. They—“

“What do you mean ‘a few hours ago?’ Where’s the paper trail? This is a godsdamned rental car, where’s the fucking receipt?”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, they didn’t record the exact time that it was delivered. I’ve got a squad car headed to pick up the desk jockey who dropped it off and we’re running the name of the guy it was rented to, but so far everything’s coming up blank.”

“Who was the car rented to?”

Officer Young took a notepad from her breast pocket and flipped through it briefly before stopping on a page and saying “The name on the credit card used to rent the vehicle was one Mister Robert Afett.”

Mimi thought for a second, then said “Fuck.”

“Ma’am?”

“We’re fucked unless we can get a print off the car…” Officer Young looked confused, so Mimi continued. “Jo, when I’m done talking you’re going to call CSI and tell them to bring over their full forensics kit. Before you do that, though, you’re going to point to the car and tell me that nobody’s touched it since you got here.”

Jo raised a shaky finger and pointed to the extra car in the lot, then spoke into her police radio, asking for the crime scene investigation team. Mimi stomped towards the car and yelled out “Nobody touch this car! Everybody back up, and until CSI gets here I want a clear ten feet of space around this vehicle at all times!”

Jo followed after her and asked “Wait, detective, what’s going on? Who is Mister Afett?”

“It’s not ‘Mister Afett,’ you jackass. Robert. Afett. Bob. Bob Afett…”

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah, somebody scammed a rental car company using a fucking Star Wars name. That’s why you can’t find him in the system anywhere.”

“Wait – Boba Fett was based on a real guy?”

“Don’t be stupid, officer. You were really impressing me tonight until now.”

“Sorry.”

Mimi sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Alright officer, you now get to keep an eye on this vehicle until the forensics team gets here. Anybody gets within ten feet, shoot them.”

“Where are you going, detective?”

“I get to go deal with…”

“I’m fine,” came Jane’s voice from the door to the room. “I’m gonna do my job, then call my parents and tell them their other daughter is dead. Just do your job and promise me you’ll get the fucker who did this to my baby sister.”

Mimi nodded and said “You got it.”