by Jack Parker
Wait, WHAT?! Collin thought to himself. Teneire's just gonna let him go NOW?!
"You mean it?" Randy asked. "You don't have any more questions?"
"Don't think you're done altogether. But for now we don't have any other questions for you. You're free to go."
"You've gotta be joking!" Collin violently yelled as he went over to the door and blocked it. "How can you…"
"Collin!" Teneire yelled. That in itself was enough to motivate Collin to step aside and let Randy leave. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Kayson. If we have any more questions we'll be sure to call you in."
Randy nervously left his seat and walked over to the door. He slowly opened it up and looked back at both Collin and Teneire. In a very quiet and uneasy voice, he continued staring back and forth at them and said, "Both you guys have a good day."
With that, he left the room and slowly, but forcefully closed the door behind him.
Chapter 14
Recovering What Was Lost
Collin groaned as he slammed his fist against the wall of the room.
"Errrgh…how could we have pulled everyone in for questioning and still come up with nothing?!"
Teneire let out an exasperated sigh as he crossed his arms. "Collin, there's a very good reason this case has been unsolved, you know. Don't you think if we had any more leads we woulda finished it up by now?"
"I guess, but…I just thought finding out that thing about the work records and all that would've helped us out. But if Randy doesn't know anything about it, then who would?"
"Good question," Teneire bluntly answered. "Why don't you go find out?"
"Huh?"
"Go see what other people know."
"But we've already pulled everyone else in for questioning. There's no way we're gonna get anything new."
"Collin, I thought I already explained this to you. Didn't you just ask everyone a bunch of general questions and nothing came up?"
"Huh?...uh, yeah…I guess."
"But now that you want to find out more about those work records, why don't you go try asking someone else to see if they might have any idea whose name was on that piece of paper before they erased it."
"Why would they know that? I don't think any of them would really make an effort to find out who's working every single shift. And besides, wouldn't they have already told us if they knew something?"
"Maybe it'll jog their memory. I've had a lot of people who have come in for questioning a bunch of times and they keep remembering something useful every time they come in. Who knows? Maybe it'll work if you give it a shot."
"I don't know. I don't even get why you're suddenly feeling so confident in me."
Teneire chuckled. "Just keep doing your best, all right? As long as you do that, you've got my complete trust."
Collin smiled. Feeling a new surge of confidence, he warmly said, "Thanks, sir!" and walked out of the room.
As soon as he left the room and Teneire could hear his footsteps were long gone, he sighed and said, "Ugh…how much longer do I have to keep up this game before he realizes he can't solve that crime just because he wants to?"
* * *
Collin had the following day off, which was spent thinking about which people he should ask about the whited out work forms. He didn't come up with any particular strategy, which ultimately led him to deciding to ask the first person he saw at work if they knew anything.
Unfortunately for him, no one who he asked had any clue about whose name was erased from the night shift records. Still, he persisted; he was sure that everything else would fall into place and the erased name on the form would potentially reveal the name of the killer.
An unexpected stroke of luck came his way when he tried asking Jess a few questions.
"Sorry, but I don't really remember a lot of the stuff that happened around then," she confessed.
Jess was at her post, which was more or less picking up trash around the wooded areas that day. She seemed to be encouraging Collin to ask her questions due to the boring and tedious nature of the trash-picking job that she would spend the next few hours doing.
"Really?" Collin rhetorically asked, the disappointment on his face mounting. "That's too bad."
There was a bit of a silence before he spoke up and said, "You don't think anything that happened around that time would jolt your memory, do you?"
"No, sorry," she sympathetically answered as she continued working the picker and scooping trash into the white bucket she was holding.
"It's okay, I guess. But really, nothing? At all?"
"Nope."
"Those loud thumping noises that were going on that night…the fight you told me about…"
Jess looked like she was becoming sick. "Please…don't remind me of that."
"What? The fight?"
"Yeah. Really, I don't even want to think about those two. All that bickering…ugh, they sounded like small children instead of grown men."
Collin smirked. "Yeah, I guess I'd be annoyed by that, too. But I can kinda understand Nick acting like a small kid. I mean, he's only a year or two older than me, right?"
Jess looked confused. "Yeah, but what does Nick have anything to do with it?"
Collin was perplexed at that question. "What do you mean, 'what does Nick have anything to do with it'? Wasn't there a fight between them that happened just a few days before Scott got knocked off?"
Jess looked like she was deep in thought for a moment before she said, "Oh, NOW I know what you mean. Sorry, I thought you were talking about the other fight."
Now Collin was even more confused. "The 'other' fight? You mean there was one besides the one Nick and Ian had?"
"Yeah. Sorry, I didn't tell you?"
"No, you didn't."
Jess now looked a bit guilty. "Sorry about that. When you first asked me about that fight you only mentioned Nick and Ian, so…"
"It's okay. Just…what was that other fight you just mentioned?"
Jess sighed. "Randy and Scott had a fight around the time of the murder, too."
Collin's jaw dropped halfway to the ground. "WHAAAAAAT?!"
The air around them suddenly got very stiff. "I didn't know Scott and Randy had a fight, too! Quick! What was it about?!"
Jess was stunned by Collin's outburst of anxiety, but she also understood why he'd be excited to hear this news for the first time.
"I…don't really know," she said a bit nervously. "Sorry, but I really don't."
"Come on!" Collin insisted. "Maybe it'll come to you if you just think about it for a little while."
"Uh…well, I definitely remember stuff from it, but I don't know what it was about."
"Just…tell me what you know!" he ordered.
Jess appeared to be a little annoyed at Collin's sudden bossy nature, but she tried to ignore it and began recounting what she remembered about the fight Randy and Scott had had.
"I was just walking by Randy's office," she said, sounding like she was doing her best to remember what had happened. "I think I was just leaving after my break ended when Scott charged into the office. He looked like he wanted to rip Randy's head off."
"Sounds like Scott was a bit of a scary guy," Collin nervously said as he looked away.
"No, he wasn't scary or anything like that. He just had his moods, is all. Anyway, I just started kinda walking away fast before the argument got really intense. When I was just walking out the door, I heard Randy scream something like, 'Will you go away for a minute', and then Lisa came running out of the room."
"Lisa was there, too?"
"I guess so. At any rate, I just heard the two of them bickering. I have no idea what they were so heated about, and I really didn't care. I just wanted to get away from them before the fight turned physical."
Collin's eyes widened. "They started slugging each other?"
"No, I don't think so. But it sure sounded like they were about to."
"Wow. Sounds like it was a pretty bad fight."
"I…I
guess," she casually answered.
"And then what happened?"
"Nothing, really. I just walked away and didn't ask any questions about it."
"Hmmm…so you don't know what it was about or anything?"
"No. Sorry. If it was about something that happened in the forest, then you'll probably find it in the log book."
You're right. Too bad the log book it would have been recorded in is in police custody right now, Collin coldly thought to himself. "Uh…yeah. Thanks."
There was another minute or two of tense silence before Collin thanked Jess again and walked away. "Grr…what now? That wasn't much of a help, but maybe now that I know that there was another argument…wait a minute!"
He suddenly realized something important Jess mentioned in her recount of what happened when Randy and Scott had that argument. She said Lisa came running out of the room…so that means she was there when the fight started! I should go ask her before I run back at the station to look at the log book!
Without spending another second thinking about it, Collin promptly began sprinting to the State Forest Headquarters as quickly as his legs would carry him. When he finally arrived, he ran up the wooden steps and in through the front door. He dashed behind the counter and all the way to the back room. He opened the door without knocking.
Luckily for him, Lisa was at her desk. She seemed to be busy doing some paperwork until she heard Collin burst into her office.
"Collin? What is it?"
"I wanted to ask you something," he choked out amidst some huffing.
"What is it?" she repeated.
"Do you remember about a year ago when a big fight happened?"
Lisa's exasperation immediately became clear when she realized what he was talking about. "Collin, I'm done answering these questions. And why are you asking this, anyway? You know Ian and Nick got into a fight."
"I'm not asking about them!" Collin aggressively insisted. "I'm talking about Scott and Randy!"
As soon as he mentioned that, Lisa looked really uneasy. "…what about it?" she nervously asked, confirming that a fight between the two had actually happened.
"What happened during that argument?! I talked to Jess about it and she said she clearly remembers you walking out of the office after the argument started getting pretty intense."
"…so?"
"I just want to find out if that argument could've had any connection to Scott's killing!"
"I don't think it did."
"Why not?!"
"Well, because…it just didn't."
"Come on. Can't you at least tell me what happened?"
Lisa started trying to recall what was happening when the argument started. "I…I was just talking to Randy," she said, giving in without much of a fight. "He and I were talking about what we would be doing that weekend."
"So this is before you dumped him for Scott?"
"No. This was a few weeks after that. He wanted to talk to me and tried to get me back together with him. Anyway, we were just talking it over, and then Scott barged into the room. Randy got really heated about that and wanted to know what Scott was doing in there, and…"
"Scott was just telling him to give up and that he had his chance with you and it was over, right?"
"Actually, I don't think that's it."
Collin's eyes widened. "Really?"
"Yeah. Scott said there was something he really wanted him to see."
"What was it?"
"I don't know. Randy just got really loud and started yelling at Scott for interrupting our conversation."
"And you just left after that?"
"Actually…Randy kinda told me to leave the room."
"He did?"
"Yeah. He just pointed to the door and told me to get out."
"And what'd you say?"
"I just walked out without even giving it a second thought. I walked outside quickly and had to get, like, thirty feet from headquarters until I didn't hear them shouting at each other anymore. I still could hear them bickering, and at point I even heard someone slam a drawer really hard."
"…is that it?"
"I think so."
"You don't remember anything else about the argument or what either of them said?"
"No."
Grrrr…that doesn't do much for me. "Well, I was just gonna go to the police station and check the log book to see if they wrote anything about the argument in there."
"Don't even bother," Lisa answered. "Randy wrote something in the log book a few hours later. He just said he and Scott had a 'mild discussion'."
Mild discussions don't involve drawers being slammed? I don't think so. In fact, that soun…wait a minute! A DRAWER SLAM?! "Lisa, did they both start fighting? Like, a fistfight?"
"No."
Collin was stunned to hear this. "Really?"
"Really really. I saw Scott and Randy again later that day. Neither of them looked like they had been beat up or anything like that."
"But…why was a drawer slammed?"
"It was probably just Randy venting some of his anger," Lisa casually answered.
"Hmmm…was he filing anything in those drawers when you were talking with him?"
"No."
"Uh…did Scott do anything that would've made him slam a drawer or something?"
"I don't think so…wait a minute!"
Collin's eyes lit up. "What is it?!"
"When I was leaving the room, I saw Scott pulling something out of his pocket."
"Really? What was it?"
"I only saw it for about a second and I didn't think much of it, but it looked like an envelope or something."
"An envelope? Any idea what was in it?"
"Nope."
"And I take it you didn't see what Randy did with it after Scott gave it to him?"
"No. I was outside, remember? I was walking away from headquarters as fast as I could."
"Oh…right. Hmmm…you said that all Randy wrote down was that he had a 'mild discussion' with Scott in the log book, right?"
"Yeah. Why do you ask?"
"Well, if he didn't mention anything about the envelope, then…"
"Then that means it was completely pointless and has nothing to do with anything," Lisa flatly said, doing her best to hurt any theory Collin was trying to cook up in his head.
"Either that, or that means he never opened it," Collin countered, now beginning to smile his trademarked grin.
"Why do you think he never opened it?"
"Well, Randy hates Scott, right?"
"Pretty much."
"And he and Scott just had a big argument, right?"
"Right…"
"So do you think Randy would really want to read anything Scott had to say after he just had a big fight with him?"
"Probably not, but…"
"That's just it! Randy was probably in no mood to read that letter, so that was probably why you heard the drawer slam shut: Randy was just dumping the letter Scott and into the drawer. Simple as that."
"Collin, I don't think that's very likely."
"Really? Why's that?"
Lisa suddenly looked shocked to hear that counter argument. "Uh…well…"
"See? Can't poke any holes in that one, can ya?"
"Well, even if that's true, it won't do us a lot of good."
"Oh, really? And just why not?" Whoa, I can't believe I'm actually talking like this to my boss.
"We'll never find out what was in that envelope."
"Why not?"
"Because even if Randy slammed it in a drawer and we wanted to find out what it was, he would have had to completely forgotten about it. Either that or he would have to had to never bothered to open it and take a look at it."
"Uh…well, I guess there's that, but…"
"And don't forget that the police ran a complete check on this office looking for anything. So if they found any letter that would've been suspicious, they would've taken it."
"Maybe he hid it from them."
> Lisa's expression turned flat. "Why would he do that?"
"Well, if he never opened up the letter, then he'd have no idea what was in it. So, maybe there was something in the letter that would have made him look suspicious. If he thought there was, then he would've wanted to hide it. You get my drift?"
"I think so…"
"So here's what I'm thinking: he had no idea what was in the envelope and probably wouldn't care what was on it, so he never opened it. But if it said something bad about him or something that the police would find suspicious, then he'd probably have the police all over him if they found it…especially if he hid it somewhere."
"What are you talking about? You're not making sense anymore."
"Sorry. I'll just try to make it simple. He couldn't keep the letter on him, because if the police searched him and found it he'd automatically be considered suspicious. But he also couldn't hide it, because if the police found it in a hidden spot, that would just make him look even worse, right?"
"I guess so, but…"
"So, if he didn't hide the letter but also didn't keep it on him, then what do you think he did?"
Lisa seemed completely confused about what Collin was trying to say. "How could he not do either? It's not possible!"
"Actually, it might be easier than you think. Do you think he would even think about the letter after Scott died?"
"What?"
"Scott just gets killed and he's a suspect. You think he's gonna remember the envelope at a time like that?"
"Probably not, but…"
"There you have it."
"Collin, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm sorry."
"By the time the murder happened and he was under suspicion, Randy was probably too stressed and panicked to remember the letter. Don't you think so?"
"Sure, but…ugh, just what are you getting at?"
"Randy probably forgot all about the letter, right? After being interrogated by the police a bazillion times?"
"I guess…maybe…"
"So if he forgot about it, then that means he doesn't have it. Which means if he never had it, he never was able to hide it."
Lisa was silent for a little while before she looked like something just clicked in her mind. "Collin, are you saying?..."
"I sure am," he said, grinning wider than ever. "He never hid the letter because he never touched the letter again after Scott gave it to him. You know what that means: the letter is still in his desk!"