The Night Shift

by Jack Parker

  "Yeah, yeah. Just remember that Scott was dead when I got into work a few hours later. All right? I had nothin' to do with it!"

  Chapter 12

  Looking for an Edge

  "Sir, I finally got to talk one-on-one with Randy today," Collin said as he pressed his hands at the front of Teneire's desk.

  Collin's shift at Arbur Winslow had just ended and he had spent the entire day trying to figure out how Randy could have been connected to Scott's death. Unfortunately for him, he ended the day with no clearer idea than he did before he met Randy, but he thought he knew a way that could potentially bring more information to the light.

  "And?" Teneire asked.

  "I'm thinking we should bring him in for questioning. I think we've got everyone else who was working when Scott died."

  "What does that have to do with anything?"

  "Think about it: Nick, Ian, Jess, Lisa…none of those guys were much help. But Randy's the boss and he probably knows more than they do. And sir, I really think he knows more than he's letting me in on."

  Teneire looked at him with a blank stare and shook his head. He crossed his arms and, in an almost disappointed tone, he said, "Collin?"

  Collin instantly snapped to attention and seemed completely serious. "What is it, sir?"

  "Let me ask you something: how much investigating have you done so far?"

  "How much have I investigated? Uh…I guess ever since I started trying to figure this out. Why?"

  "No, no, that's not investigating."

  "What are you talking about?! I'm digging deep to learn what happened, aren't I? Isn't that investigating?!"

  "Collin, all you've done is talk to other people and you brought them here for me to question."

  "Hey, I've helped out, too!"

  "That sorta depends on what your definition of 'help' is, but like I said, that's it."

  "Well, isn't that investigating?"

  "No. I told you, that's just talking to people. I have yet to see you do one bit of investigation outside of this department building."

  Collin's face was plastered with confusion. "I'm…really not sure I get what you're saying."

  Teneire sighed. "You have any idea what a real murder is about?"

  "What?!"

  "Do you know what a real murder is really about? To me, anyway."

  "Uh…someone killing somebody else?"

  Teneire let out another sigh. "No. That's only what triggers it."

  "Uh…I…you're not making any sense!...sir."

  "Let me put it this way: of all the murders I've dealt with, the killing itself has never been what it's all been about."

  "Do I need to graduate from the police academy to know what you're talking about, or do you just like talking in Pig Latin?"

  "I thought you'd have understood by now. Collin, I mean exactly what I've said about eight times now: whenever I'm investigating a killing, the killing is never what it's all about. When I'm investigating, it's all about what happened before the murder."

  "Before the murder?"

  "Yeah. Murders don't just happen out of thin air. You know that, right?"

  "Yeah, but…"

  "Good. That means something has to happen before the murder, right?"

  "…You've completely lost me."

  "Come on, Collin. Use your head. I don't investigate how the person died. The guys who do autopsies do that for me. You know what I investigate? Everything that happened before that led to the person getting killed."

  Collin thought he was faintly beginning to understand.

  "You get it now?" Teneire asked. "What have you been asking every single person who's come in here for questioning?"

  Collin thought about it for a short while before his heart sank. "Uh…how Scott died?"

  Teneire nodded his head. "And how did Scott die?"

  "He…got stabbed in the neck."

  "So you know how he died, but you still ask about it."

  "Uh…"

  "Why did you waste all that time asking people about something you already knew full well about?"

  Collin was now completely silent.

  "So, I'll ask again. Have you done any investigating yourself-about what happened before Scott died?"

  Teneire could have stopped there and Collin would have understood the point perfectly, but he instead decided to keep adding more pressure. "Have you tried figuring out what might have happened before Scott died that could have led to it?"

  "Sir…why are you just asking me about this now?"

  "I just realized it. I would've thought you'd be smarter than that, but I guess I was wrong. You know, maybe this work is a bit much for you."

  Without even realizing what he was doing, Collin slammed his hands down on the desk with full force. "Sir, that's not true!"

  "What?"

  "All right, so I haven't checked out everything you think I should've! That doesn't mean I'm not up for the job! I can still do it!"

  "Collin…"

  "If you wanted me to just try looking for stuff in a different way, all you had to do was ask! Don't you worry, sir. I'll start trying to figure out everything that happened before!"

  Teneire sighed. "Do you have any idea what you're going to do?"

  Collin smiled. "Of course. I want you to bring Randy in for questioning."

  Teneire suddenly became furious. "Collin, what did I just get through talking to you about?!"

  "You told me to not just bring people in and ask them about how Scott died."

  "Yes, and look what you're doing!"

  Collin began smiling, even though he was reaching his boiling point from getting yelled at for so long. "I'm not calling him in for questioning about that."

  "What?"

  "It's like you said. I'm not gonna waste our time asking him about how Scott died. You're right- we do know how it happened. Trust me; this time, I'm going to ask him about what happened BEFORE the murder."

  "I don't think so. Every single time you've told me you'd do something different, all you've done is made an idiot of yourself and this department."

  "Well, we got the big guy coming in, right? If I could get some juicy stuff from him, would that kinda cancel out all the stupid things I've done?"

  Teneire sighed. "I can't believe I'm doing this…you really won't leave me alone if I say no, will you?"

  "Nope," he said proudly.

  "Ugh…fine. But this is your last chance."

  "Great. I promise you, I won't…"

  "Hold it!"

  "Wha?"

  "You said you wanted another chance, right?"

  "Yeah. Why, weren't you giving one to me?"

  "First, you gotta earn it, Collin."

  "Earn it?"

  "Yeah."

  "How?"

  "I'd tell you if you stopped mimicking every single thing I said."

  "Sorry, sir."

  Teneire gave a glare that seemed to say, "you should be", but left it at that. "All right. Here's what I mean: I want you to prove you understood what I just told you, all right? Your task is to find something that will either teach us something or verify what we already know and bring it back here."

  "Don't worry about a thing!" Collin said proudly. He was actually expecting this to be a bit hard, but he realized he had to bluff as well as he could if he was to convince Teneire that he was capable of the challenge assigned to him.

  "Good. If you can do that, then I'll let you bring Randy in for questioning."

  "Thank you, sir!"

  * * *

  After a sleepless night of wondering what he might want to look for if he was going to shed new light on the mystery, Collin arrived at work the next morning at his usual time, although he knew he wouldn't be putting his best effort into his work today.

  All right, gotta find something…gotta find something…he kept telling himself. Come on! Think, Collin, think! What did Teneire tell you?... "find something new" or "something verifying"…something new?...something verifying?...


  As he thought about this, Collin completely left his mindset as a worker and instead began prying his brain for ideas about what he could bring to Teneire that would astound him.

  The day went on, and still he came up with nothing. When the time finally came for his break, he instead decided to eat lunch in the warehouse that Nick showed him the first day on the job. He figured he'd get much more peace and quiet so he'd be able to think easier if he was in a more solitary location.

  His only option was to sit down on the hard wooden floor, and the stuffy temperature took away what little appetite he had to begin with. As he threw away the large portion of his lunch that he didn't eat, he started looking around the warehouse to see if there was anything hidden away in there that would prove useful.

  Most of the junk in the warehouse seemed pretty typical, and the only thing that he spotted that bore even the slightest connection to the crime was the metal detector that he used to inadvertently find Jess's knife, which triggered the whole situation now.

  But the metal detector was leaning against something: the large state forest sign covered in small holes and graffiti. After looking at that sign and studying it for a long time, Collin suddenly had a thought.

  Wait!...what's BEHIND that old sign?

  He anxiously ran behind the sign (it was slanted against the wall) and looked behind it very carefully, only to be sorely disappointed to find nothing but a blank space behind it.

  "Dammit!" he cussed. I would have thought something was being hidden behind that sign. Errrgghhh…

  The rest of the time went by very uneventfully and even less successfully. When the time for his break was over, Collin left the warehouse and headed back into headquarters to make a quick stop at the bathroom.

  After he finished, he opened the door and saw Christine was standing there, apparently wanting to use the facilities as well.

  "Oh, sorry," Collin stuttered. "Hope I didn't keep you waiting too long."

  "Don't worry about it," she cheerfully said as she walked in and closed the door behind her.

  After Christine closed the door, Collin turned around and started walking towards the front door out of headquarters. But as he was leaving, a golden opportunity was presented to him: the door to Lisa's office was wide open, but Lisa herself was nowhere to be seen. Collin assumed she was still on lunch break.

  Realizing he might never get another opportunity like this, Collin looked around to make sure no one else was watching him. When the coast was clear, he charged in and started going through all the drawers that weren't locked.

  Another stroke of luck hit him when he opened up a drawer and he saw a large selection of filled folders that read WORK RECORDS on the tabs at the top.

  "Hmmmmm… something "verifying"…" Collin said to himself, excitement slowly starting to return to him. "Maybe if I could 'verify'…"

  He dug through the folders for a short while before he finally found the original records that were used the day Scott got killed. Anxiously he checked the night records, and, just like the copy Teneire had in custody at the police station, there was nothing but a blank white box as the first slot on the night shift work forms.

  Initially, Collin didn't think that 'verifying' that no one was working on the night shift when Scott got killed would be enough to convince Teneire to bring Randy in for questioning. However, Collin noticed something else instead.

  In one of his hands, Collin held the work records that were kept on the fateful night Scott got killed; in the other, he had records of several typical days at work.

  A large and disbelieving smile spread on Collin's face as he tried looking at all the regular work records. He was staring intently at something on them and was comparing something on those records to something on the night shift records. Then it finally clicked in his head.

  "Ha ha! I knew there was something weird about these records!" Collin gleefully yelled to himself as he looked at the night shift papers.

  He turned around at full speed, still brimming with excitement, only to see Lisa standing in the doorway, back from her break.

  "Having fun rummaging through stuff you're not supposed to?" she asked very suspiciously.

  Collin let out a surprised and frightened, "Ack!" He quickly tried to recover with, "Lisa, just let me explain. Hey, you were out, you left the door wide open and you kept these records unlocked. If you're gonna be mad at someone, be mad at yourself for being careless!"

  He could hardly believe how he was talking to his boss, but he was in a state of mind where logic simply didn't matter as much to him in situations like this.

  "Calm down!" she said. "I didn't say I was mad, did I?"

  Collin's fired up state-of-mind was quickly brought to an end and he let his guard down. "You mean you're not?"

  "No. Why would I be mad if you looked through some old records that don't matter at all, anyway? Just as long as you put them back where they belong, you can look at'em as much as you like."

  "Really? Thanks! Hey, sorry I snapped just now. I just got kinda…"

  "Save it," she said promptly. "Let me guess…you were still busy playing detective, right?"

  "I…guess you could say that. Except this time I had a reason for doing this."

  "Oh? And just what was that reason?" she asked, still sounding a bit suspicious.

  "Well…"

  Collin explained everything to her-about how Teneire told him to find something new or verifying and that if he wanted to continue helping, he'd need to bring it in as quickly as possible.

  What Collin didn't realize was that Christine had long since walked out of the bathroom and noticed the confrontation between him and Lisa. Christine couldn't help but eavesdrop on the whole thing, and when she realized that Collin was starting to sound very suspicious and that he was onto something new about the murder, Christine could hardly keep herself quiet. Anxiously, she ran off, with the encounter between her coworker and boss ringing in her mind.

  Lisa continued to be understanding and decided to let Collin go without giving him much of a lecture, despite the fact he had just rummaged through her office without permission. As she walked out to head back to her post, Collin looked anxiously at the records in front of him.

  "Oh, man…just wait until Teneire sees this!"

  * * *

  "You found something already?" Teneire asked with a grin of disbelief when Collin walked into his office.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, what have ya got?"

  "Work records."

  "Work records? What are those gonna do?"

  "You'll see. Here, take a look at'em."

  Collin first handed Teneire the original records that had been kept on the night Scott got killed; he then handed Teneire a series of separate records from random days.

  Teneire stared puzzled at the sheets of paper he held in his hand. "Aaaaaand…what exactly do these prove again?"

  "You see the ones I just gave you? Take a good look at those…actually, just take a look at the first box."

  Teneire did as he was told. After looking at the black splotched papers a few times, he looked back to Collin to see what he wanted him to do next.

  "Okay, now look at the records from the night Scott died."

  Still not seeing the point of it all, Teneire let out a soft, yet reluctant sigh. "I don't really see your point."

  "You will soon. Now look at the other records at the same time. Just focus on the first boxes, all right?"

  Teneire rolled his eyes but followed his instructions anyway. After several seconds, he said, "I don't see it."

  "Really? Do me a favor and look at the records for any regular day and tell me what you see in the first box."

  "I see Jess's name."

  "Uh huh. What else do you see?"

  "Uh…a bunch of black ink spots?"

  A smile suddenly shot across Collin's face. "Exactly! Now look at the work records that were kept when Scott kicked the bucket. What do you see in that box?"
<
br />   More puzzled than ever, Teneire looked at the box. "No one's name is there."

  "Right. A name's not there. But something else is missing."

  "What?"

  "Notice how there were a lot of blobs of ink on the first couple of records?"

  "Yeah."

  "Do you see any of those black spots on the record that was used when Scott died?"

  Now suddenly piecing everything together, Teneire anxiously looked at the work records from that night and didn't see any ink spots at all in that box.

  "Uh…I see your point," Teneire said a bit dully. "But what exactly are you trying to prove just by saying these records are different? How do you know a different sheet wasn't just used?"

  "Because…look at the other spots of ink on the night shift records. Those ink spots are exactly the same shape, are exactly the same size and are in the exact same position as the ones on all the other records."

  Teneire now seemed even more confused. "Wait, what are you saying?!"

  "Sir, no offense, but it's kind of obvious. Those records have the exact same ink spots on them, except for the one in the box where whoever was on the night shift would write down their name."

  "And…"

  "That means someone tampered with the records."

  "What?! How'd you figure that out?"

  "All right, here's what I'm thinking: obviously, these records were all photocopied from a sheet that had a bunch of these blots of ink, right? There's no other way those ink spots could be the same on every single record."

  "I get that much."

  "All right. These night shift records are exactly the same, except the first box is blank when there should be some of those spots of ink in it. And if you look at that box even closer, the blank white spot actually looks a LOT paler than the other parts of the paper without ink."

  Teneire looked closely at the box and eventually looked back at Collin. "You know, that you mention it, it kind of does. Still, you haven't said what that's supposed to prove."

  "Well, like I said, someone messed with this record and made the box look that way. The only thing I can think of is that whoever did this used white out."

  "What?"

  "How else could he have erased all the black spots of ink and made the sheet look paler than normal? So here's what I'm thinking: there was someone working on the night shift when Scott got killed and a name was written down on the records. Then, for some reason, the name that was written down got whited out by someone. That's why there aren't any black splotches and there's instead just an empty white space."