Authors: Jack Parker
"I dunno," Collin answered. "But I can. I mean, this is a rogue's gallery here. I've gotta figure it out if everyone who it could possibly be is right here!"
"…not everyone."
"What do you mean?"
"You're forgetting about Randy."
"
Randy
?! But I thought you said you knew for a fact he didn't do it!"
"And don't you remember what you said when you were questioning me the other day?"
"Uh…"
"
Ya hear that, Mr. Teneire?! Randy's in love with Lisa. They break up. Lisa hooks up with Scott. Scott dies a few months later. Randy leaves a few weeks after that. I don't know about you, but I think that'd be enough to make Randy a person of interest now!"
"
If you think about it, he would've had a motive and an alibi. All he had to do was say he wasn't working that night and he'd have all his coworkers back him up."
"I know I said that, but…you really think Randy could've done it, too?"
"Isn't that what you were driving at?"
"I guess, but you knew him better than anyone else here and you made it sound like there was no way he could've done it. But if even
you
got doubts…"
Christine gasped as she continued eavesdropping. She covered her mouth with her hand and inaudibly whispered,
"Randy…"
. She immediately ran quietly from the break room with neither Collin nor Lisa seeing her.
"All right, if you REALLY think he could've done it," Lisa started, getting more irritated with each passing moment, "Then by all means,
please
do your homework and see if you come up with anything."
"You really want me to see if I can…"
"I want this thing to be over. All right? I don't care if you have bring Ian, Jess, Randy, me, my
dog
in for questioning. Just do whatever you need to do to get this thing shut up once and for all, all right? I'm
sick
of it!"
Collin didn't know what to say, so he decided it was best to keep his mouth shut. After about ten seconds, he choked out, "All right. You got it."
* * *
The rest of the day went by at an excruciatingly slow pace. When the final seconds ticked down and Collin was ready to leave, he noticed Nick was standing at the counter and writing in
a
large book that had a completely black cover. As Nick scribbled quickly in the book, he didn't even notice Collin was standing there.
"Nick?"
Nick jumped quickly but regained himself when he saw it was Collin. "What is it?"
"What are you writing?"
"You mean this?" he asked rhetorically as he pointed to the open book in front of him. It's the log book."
"Oh, yeah, right. I remember Lisa telling me about that. She said we're only supposed to write something down in there if something big or weird happened."
"Yeeeeeaaaaah?..." Nick asked, not picking up on the hint.
After a short and awkward pause, Collin continued with, "Well, what happened?"
"Some guy drilled a small hole in the girls' bathroom and started looking in at'em."
Collin made a face. "That guy's sick. What happened to him?"
"Well, the police had to show up. And Lisa had to deal with them. Heh, if the police know what's good for'em, they won't
show
their faces around her 'till next
month
, she's getting so fed up with them."
"Yeah…hey, did you just finish writing in that thing?" Collin asked as he pointed to the open black log book.
"Yeah, why?"
"Mind if I take a look at it?"
"Knock yourself out. Don't get excited, Coll; this isn't even
bathroom
reading."
Collin walked over to the book and read the passage Nick had just written:
a guy showd up and he put a whole in the girls's restroom and he looked and he got caught and nick toled leesa who called the police.
and
when they showed up they arrested the guy and he got taken away and leesa filled owt papers. 4:49 pm july 12nd.
As he read, Collin made
a
very confused and puzzled face.
How did this kid pass school?...or DID he?!...
"See? Told ya."
"Yeah, Nick, you were rig…hey!"
"What?"
"Have you completely filled up
a
log book before?"
"Yeah. Like, fifty times. Why?"
"Do you keep them when you're done with them?"
"Yeah."
I think I'm getting somewhere!
"Can I take a look at the one that was used around the last week of July last year?"
"Nope," Nick bluntly responded.
Collin didn't realize he was smiling and holding his breath until his entire body deflated. "What do you mean, 'nope'?"
"The police have it. They took it last year when Scott got killed and they never gave it back."
"Oh…right."
"Yeah, that kinda puts a dent in your plans, doesn't it?" Nick asked with a cocky sneer. "Hey, you used to work there, right? Go to the sergeant and sweet talk him, and maybe he'll let ya take a look at it."
"You know what, Nick? You're smarter than I gave you credit for! That's a
great
idea."
"Smarter than you gave me credit for? What's
that
supposed to mean?"
Well, after seeing what you wrote in that log book…
"Nothing. I was just kidding."
"Yeah, sure."
"Anyway, thanks a bunch, man!"
"Uh…whatever."
Excitedly, Collin ran out the front door to headquarters and hopped right into his car. He pulled out of the parking in
a
way that violated just about every traffic law that he could have possibly broken in those circumstances, and he speedily drove over to the police station.
After parking the car with little or not attention paid to getting it straight, Collin burst through the front doors and quickly walked into Teneire's office; he opened the door without even knocking first.
Teneire looked up and looked astonishingly disappointed with who it was that was standing at the door.
"What is it now?"
"Sir, I'd like permission to look at some of the stuff you collected last summer, if you don't mind."
"Don't
mind
?! I can't do that!"
"Yes you can! But if you don't want me to look at anything, just say the word."
"I wouldn't mind it if you
could
look at some of the evidence-that's what you meant, right?"
"Right!"
"Yeah. Well, like I said, if I could, I'd let you, but it's illegal. I'd lose my badge," Teneire explained. It was all too obvious that Teneire was simply using that as an excuse not to let him look at some of the older evidence…which was nothing less than what Collin was expecting.
"All right, then," Collin said sneakily as he reached into his pocket. "Then if it's not legal, what do you call
this
?"
As he opened up his palm, Collin revealed the badge that Teneire had given him the summer before for helping out at the station.
"What's that?" Teneire asked, now looking nervous.
"I think you know perfectly well what it is, sir. That right there is the badge you gave me. You told me I had all your privileges if I showed it to you."
"What?! You can't be…"
"I
am
serious, sir. When you gave me this badge, you gave me the right to look into the evidence room. So…can I
please
look at something in the evidence place?"
Teneire looked at his
former
worker in astonishment. He looked like he wanted nothing more than to find something to say that would foil Collin's plans, but he couldn't think of anything off the top of his head.
"Ugh…fine. You
do
realize that if someone catches you in there, I'm gonna have a LOT of explaining to do."
"Don't worry, Mr. Teneire. I'm well aware of the consequences you'll have to face," he said in mocking way.
With a last grunt, Teneire stood up and started fumbling with the key chain around his belt. He picked through the keys around it until he got to the one that could unlock the door to the evidence room.
"Don't take too long, all right?"
"No problem. I'll be in and out in a jiffy."
"Good. Oh, before I forget…you're gonna have to put on a pair of rubber gloves before you go searching through all that stuff. You get your fingerprints on any of that evidence, and there's gonna be trouble."
"I understand."
"Good. The gloves are on a table right next to the room. You have ten minutes to find something good, all right? If you're in there any longer, you could really mess up a lot of the stuff in there."
"What do you mean?"
"Just don't move a lot of stuff around and put it back wherever you found it, all right? You can't just throw pieces of evidence into a room with no pattern, you know."
"Yeah, all right. Don't worry about it. I'll keep everything nice and straight.
"Good."
Before Collin even realized it, Teneire had stopped; they were both standing right in front of the evidence room. The door leading into it looked very heavy and there was a large sign on it that read DO NOT ENTER- FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ONLY, which only added to the intrigue and made Collin want to see the inside of it more.
Teneire inserted his key in the lock and opened the door up. Collin was almost disappointed to see that the inside was hardly anything more than plain white walls with several file cabinets spread amongst the walls. There were also some larger items that were carefully wrapped in plastic that were leaned up on the sides.
"All right, the stuff for last summer's case should be right in here…" Teneire mumbled aloud to himself as he unlocked one of the file cabinets. "What exactly were you looking for, anyway?"
"The log book."
"The
log book
? Yeah, like none of us have looked at
that
yet."
"You never know. I might find something in it that your guys missed."
"You never know. Maybe you're too optimistic for your own good."
Ouch.
"All right…you're
only
allowed to touch THIS stuff, got it?" Teneire clarified as he pointed at the small pile of evidence that was collected and stored in the drawer.
"Don't worry. There won't be a paper out of place when I'm done here."
"Good. Now make this fast."
Return of the Boss