As I sat there watching Gilpatrick walk away with Officer Johns in tow, I realized how weird that was. You'd expect the Police Officer about to question somebody to be the one to take the lead, but Gilpatrick clearly had his own ideas, and the Police Officer seemed as swept up in his wake as I'd been, at least metaphorically. Still, by the time they got to the closed off side room they were walking side-by-side, Gilpatrick telling him some story that apparently required big, expansive gestures with his arms. At least once Officer Johns barked out a laugh, even though he seemed to be trying to keep his professional game face on.

I just sat there toying with our leftover bits of food and looking over my notes until Officer Paulson came back from interviewing Denise. When she did, she remained standing, an obvious effort to remain the upper hand in the conversation. But with the table between us and all my notes and laptop taking up the space, I felt more like she'd come to speak with me in my office instead of her questioning me in an interrogation room. In keeping with that, trying my best to imitate Gilpatrick's smooth understated control of whatever situation he was in, as she flipped open her notepad, I l said, "how can I help you today, officer?"

She stood there with her mouth hanging open, like she couldn't tell if she should answer me and let me take the initiative or ignore it and try to regain control of the situation. After a second, she realized that she'd already paused too long to 'take the initiative', so she shook her head and replied, "not what I expected you to say."

I tilted my head the slightest bit. "So, what did you expect me to say?"

She shrugged. "Not quite sure, but probably something about wanting to see a warrant or not being a snitch."

I raised an eyebrow. "Really, officer? I'm not sure if I'm more upset at being stereotyped as an academic or as a Person of Color."

Her pale skin showed the beginnings of an embarrassed blush really well. "I'm sorry, Mister Samuels, but I didn't intend to express any prejudice based on your profession or race." Her professional smile went a little lopsided. "I'm just used to people not wanting to talk to cops, and looking for reasons not to."

Kind of weird that I'd actually managed to pull off Gilpatrick's maneuver even this much. "Well, I'm not unwilling to give you a statement. This one's pretty open and closed, after all."

Her eyes narrowed, "you really think so?"

I shrugged, "yeah, pretty much. Some guy decided to rob a Denny's to start his Super Villain career, and he had the bad luck to do it on the same morning I was here interviewing a Super Hero. Agent of Karma did what he does best, taking down a violent unpowered Villain without causing any civilian casualties. He got some pretty good quips in, too."

"No casualties? What do you call the kids that got cut up by the broken glass, or the old guy who damn near had a heart attack?" Her pen kept moving while she asked, but that kind of multitasking was pretty much a requirement for any kind of interview.

I nodded, then said, "I didn't say there weren't casualties. Just that they weren't caused by Agent of Karma. The older gentleman hit the floor before the Agent did anything, and the Soldier was the one who kicked the door in and broke the glass, all entirely before the Agent announced himself too."

"So the Agent allowed the Soldier to destroy the restaurant's property and harm it's patrons before engaging?"

Her pen kept moving; I had to be careful about how I phrased things. I also was losing control of the conversation. "That's not what I said, and I'd prefer you not put words in my mouth. The Agent couldn't just attack someone until they showed themselves to be a threat. That would be assault. Don't you think so?"

Lame assed question aside, I'd kept myself from saying anything that could land either of us in jail. I think. Then again, if the cops got really pissy, they could throw both of us in holding cells for a day, which would suck, especially if they rifled my stuff and found the video recording Gilpatrick didn't want me showing them. Officer Paulson frowned down at her notes, then looked back at me. "Are you saying that's what he did?"

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Not even close, officer. He'd already let Denise know who he was when he headed off an earlier situation with a guy who tried to dine and ditch. So since the Soldier made the first move, it was a legit Super takedown. He called you guys the moment the action was over, leaving you nothing to do but paperwork and getting credit for the collar." Shit, I hadn't meant to be that adversarial, or to let her know about the earlier guy. She pounced on it.

"Someone else tried something and the Agent stopped them? Where's that guy?"

I shook my head. "No idea, and there wasn't really a crime. Turns out the guy was a down on his luck Veteran; the Agent gave him some cash to pay his bill and maybe get a hotel room to get cleaned up in."

"You sure it wasn't a payoff to his co-conspirator to make him look good?"

I rolled my eyes at her. "Look, even if it was, and I'm not saying I think it was, nobody got hurt with that one. Restaurant got their money, dude got a meal, and the Agent scored a little credit with Denise maybe. So even in the worst case nothing illegal happened."

"So how sure are you he didn't set something up with this 'Soldier of Fortune'?" Her smile told me she thought she had me cornered.

I really didn't like that, and wanted to lash out at her, but years of experience at not getting my ass thrown in jail for the de facto crime of being unapologetically Brown helped me keep my temper. "I'm sorry, officer Paulson. I didn't intend for this to get adversarial, and I didn't mean to say anything to confuse the issue. To the best of my knowledge, the Agent of Karma's sole actions today have been to help out an out of work military Veteran, then stop a would-be Super Villain from taking a restaurant full of people hostage." I paused, looked around a bit. "Okay, not exactly full, but you get my point. At least four employees, at least six customers."

Her eyes narrowed again. "How do you know how many people work here?"

"I've seen two waitresses other than Denise, the hostess, and I'm assuming they've got at least one line cook in the back making the food. Might be more. Might be less if the waitresses are pulling double duty and making the food, too, but I don't think the owners are quite that cheap."

She frowned, sighed, then looked down at her notes. "Okay, sir. Do you have anything else that might help us put this guy away?"

I shrugged and was about to say no when I realized I had something that might just help them keep the armed asshole off the streets for a bit longer. "Just a moment." I turned and opened my email on my laptop. "What's your email address?"

"V Paulson at police dot vinelandcity dot org." She also handed me a card with her official info. Officer Victoria Paulson, her official contact info, the department administration office address, that kind of thing. "What did you have for me?"

I finished typing in her email address, reached over to hit 'stop' on my audio recorder, and pulled the file from this morning onto it. "There's a lot of other stuff from my interview with the Agent on there, mostly us going off on tangents about Supers and similar things, but my whole morning is on that recording. It's also got our conversation as well if you need to back up anything you took notes on."

She blanched a little at that, but nodded and said, "that will be very helpful, Mister Samuels. I'm going to ask you not to stay in town if you can, or let me know via email if you're heading out. I'll contact you if we need you to come to court."

"Am I a suspect in any of this?"

She shook her head at that, "not as far as I'm concerned, although of course if we find something incriminating that could change. But depending on how hard 'Soldier of Misfortune' lawyers up, we may need you to come to court to testify."

"Sure. Just shoot me an email if you do. My schedule isn't exactly open, but I'm my own boss, so I can shift things around if you need me to help keep that guy off the streets."

She looked a little surprised. "Brave of you. Not many people will commit to testifying in court against a Super Villain."

I smiled up at her. "I deal with Supers on a regular basis. At least I study them a lot. I've come to realize that they're just people; other than the ones who literally claim their powers are magical, there's nothing magical or mystical about them. I think if that guy is the sort who can bust out of prison on his own, he wouldn't have been taken down by a guy armed with a spoon."

She blinked. "What?"

I laughed a little. "You heard me. He'd picked one up when he went to go talk to the Vet, and I guess he still had it on him. Used it to jam the Soldier's pistol. He might be unarmed and not have anything you'd think of as 'powers', but he seems really good at improvising. Not to mention being really good at hand to hand, with how he took out a guy a head taller than him."

She scribbled that down on her notepad, and I winced internally. Never tell the cops nothing isn't a motto I live by, but I try to keep myself from just blurting stuff out. Hopefully nothing about that would bite him in the ass. She didn't make me feel any better when she said, "thank you, Mister Samuels. You've been very helpful."

"Just trying to do my part, officer." I really hoped I hadn't fucked Gilpatrick over with that last bit of info, but something told me I might have.

Hopefully that was just my ingrained prejudice talking. Hopefully.