Chapter Seven: Charlie will Get His Man:

-Back in Detroit-

Detective Charlie Springer got the case on his desk. The thirty-five-year-old man looked at the folder.

“This is the prison van crash, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” Lois, the secretary, said.

“Since it truly was an accident, the idea is to round up the escaped convicts. Am I correct?”’

“Yes.”

Charlie sat back in his chair with his arms behind his head. “So the boss is sending me on a hunt, huh?” He threw back his head, sighing. “It must be a slow day if the chief is asking me to look for prisoners in another county.”

“They could be dangerous.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Charlie picked up the folder and looked inside. “How many prisoners are we looking for again?”

“Twenty-eight,” Lois said.

“I see.” Charlie flipped through the different files. “I see we have a couple murderers. Some con artists.” He stopped at one particular record. “Hey, Lois.”

“Yeah?”

“Why is this girl among a group of male prisoners?” He held up Sayuri’s file for the curved woman to have a look. Lois tilted her head.

“I don’t know. They haven’t released any information about the escaped convicts yet.”

“I see.” Charlie turned the file back to himself. “She must be super dangerous to not ship her to a woman’s prison.”

“Probably.” Lois noticed a little twinkle in his eye. “Charlie?” She waved his hand in front of his face. He slapped away her hand and looked up, grinning.

“Tell me,” he said. “Do we have any more information on the convicts?”

“Not yet, they are still working on it.”

Charlie clenched the file tightly in his hands. “That’s not good enough! I need more information for this challenge!” Lois patted him on the shoulder.

“Calm down,” she said in a low voice. “You’re drawing too much attention to yourself again.” Charlie looked outside of the office where Lois pointed. Two interns were staring at them with stacks of paper in their hands. The older detective raised an eyebrow at them.

“What are you looking at it?” he asked. “You have work to do! Get back to it! Shoo! Shoo!” The interns ran off as he shooed them away. Charlie turned his focus back to Lois.

“Fired up?” she asked.

“Hell yeah!” he shouted.

“You do realize that you have to catch all twenty-eight convict dead or alive, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Charlie rose to his feet. “Where did the van crash again?”

Lois pulled out her phone and did a quick Google search. “It was out along highway Blue 28.”

“I see.” The detective got on his cell phone. “Honey, eat dinner without me. I’m working late tonight. Bye.” Charlie hung up and got his coat. When he reached the door, Charlie looked over his shoulder.

“The boys already at the scene?” he asked.

“Yeah,” the secretary said, nodding.

“Good, good. Wish me luck.” Charlie winked before heading out the door. Lois put her hands on her hips.

“Don’t get so cheeky on me now, you here?” she asked. “You are a married man!” Charlie was already gone.