NaNoWriMo 2012

Sargent Unger drove slowly to the police substation where he was assigned to. He thought that the traffic was moving nicely after an accident. He observed that there were more teenage drivers on the road these days. Some of them were driving the correct way with eyes on the road and both hands on the steering wheel. Only once in a while did he notice a teen, usually a very young person singing to the radio. It made him laugh to himself to think that teens still thought of themselves as the next super star singing sensation.
As he pulled into his station, he looked at his watch and saw that he had about one hour until he could sign out and go home. Many of his friends were also returning from their drive through their area. His best friend Gerald Taylor was already in the station. They both went through the same training. They also got married in the same year. And the best of all, they both had children the same year. Gerald had a baby boy, named Richard and Ronald’s only child Maribel was born one month later. It seemed like only yesterday that they were at Maribel’s baptism. But that was eighteen years ago.
He picked up the bag with the scanner and got out of his patrol car. He noticed that one of his tires was a bit low and that there was a lot of dirt on the car as a whole. He made a mental note to include the things that needed to be done to the car for the time he was not using it. He was happy that tonight his car was due a maintenance check for the rest of the weekend.
He walked into the old station. He heard one of the rookies telling the punch line of a joke. Next there was a loud emission of laughter. A friend exclaimed that this was the joke of the day.
As Ronald walked down the hall he noticed that his shoes had a slight squeak. He reached the central area, many of the men looked up and started to walk away. The officers behind the desk cleared their throat and looked for some papers to pick up and file.
He walked up to the front desk and greeted everyone. “Well it looks like our very finest is having a nice day.”
A few younger officers slightly blushed. They acknowledged Officer Unger and then excused themselves to go look over some reports before going on patrol. In the background was an announcement for several people to come to the meeting room.
Unger looked at Rico Martinez who picked up a pile of papers. Beside the papers was Rico’s half eaten lunch. It smelled like Rico had made a nice chicken salad sandwich for the day.
Unger looked at the sandwich. "Is your daughter still in that cooking school?"
"Yea, she dreams of being a chef some day."
"Yes, but how many times will you have food poisoning until she graduates?"
"Well my cousin's son is in medical school, so I'm covered." Rico answered.
Both men laughed.
“Anything new happen while I was out on patrol?” Unger asked as he put the plastic bag with the scanner on the counter top.
“If you mean officer wise, not much.” Rico picked up some more papers. “Oh, Officer Franklin’s wife had a baby boy. Nine pounds and six ounces. He also had a full head of hair.” Rico smiled.
“Good for Manny and Gina! They had lost two babies before and this is a real blessing.” Unger pulled out a note pad. He wrote down the information he had just heard. “I’ll tell Cilia to send a gift with blue ribbons. We wanted to wait to hear good news from Manny first.”
“Yes. And you get a special recognition for having all of your paperwork in first this month. That is if you can get it in before Officer Taylor doesn’t get it in before you.” Rico showed Unger Gerald coming out of the report room with a hand full of papers.
Officer Taylor, a slim brown-haired man came up to the front desk and looked through the papers on his clipboard one more time. “I thought I heard the rumor that you were here.” He put his clipboard down and picked up the plastic bag with the scanner. “What’s this?” He looked at the back of the scanner. “Are you picking up junk from the road now?”
“No. There was an accident on the freeway. One of the vehicles exploded and had a fire.” Unger retrieved the bag and put it on the desk again. “There may be something special on the scanner that we need to know so I brought it back for our computer expert, Joel to check it out. “ He pointed to the bag. “I just have one of my feelings that we need to give it a look see.”
“Yea, I heard about that accident.” Taylor shifted weight onto his left side.
“Well Joel took a day of personal leave. Something about his kid is sick and the wife is coming back from her mother’s house tonight.” Rico told Unger.
All three men stared at the plastic bag with the scanner. It seemed like no one wanted to touch it. Finally Unger picked it up. “Well I’ll just put it in the evidence room with a note on it. Maybe Joel will be able to come in tomorrow.” He turned and walked down the hall to the evidence room.
“I hate it when he says that.” murmured Rico. He reached over to the counter to pick up his sandwich.
“Yea, he’s got a pretty high average of being right when his gut starts talking to him.” Said Taylor as he shook his head and handed in his papers.
They both looked at Unger as he walked to the evidence room and silently closed the door. The phone began to ring and both men jumped a little. Rico let out a sigh as he picked up the receiver. “Police substation 14, Officer Martinez speaking, how may I help you?”
Officer Taylor turned to go to the check-out area to head home. He had dotted all of the ‘i’s’ and crossed all of the ‘t’s’ on his report and felt that he could call this day one to be put into the category of average. Those days were all too infrequent these days. He checked out and began to leave. He only wished that the apprehension about what his friend Ronald Unger would go away. It was best to not borrow someone else’s trouble.