Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator

by Josh Berk

  Before that particular question gets answered—for today, anyway—the rest of the Forensics Squad arrives. Anoop comes in first, clomping about in his old-man shoes. He hasn’t felt the need to knock at Langman Manor in years. Right behind him comes TK, and then Raquel. I see them make their way up the driveway and wave them in. It is pretty weird that they are at my house. Even weirder is the reason they are there. My mom is popping popcorn and pouring sodas in the other room while we examine the physical evidence of a murder. Just another day in the Langman life.

  “Hey, guys, I’ll let you be,” Mom says, delivering the tray of snacks and drinks. “Just don’t get any popcorn on the piano.” Why would we eat popcorn on the piano?

  “Thanks, Mrs. Langman,” Raquel says. Raquel says. To my mom. So weird!

  Mom goes upstairs into a room sadly less great. She is good at making herself disappear—a trait all parents should master. For example, Anoop’s dad is always just hanging around, adjusting his toupee, stroking his mustache, and bumping into us when we have things to talk about. Girls, mostly. Maybe he knows that. Maybe he thinks I am a bad influence. Maybe he thinks I am distracting Anoop from the good and righteous path with all my blather. Maybe it’s true. Maybe I am doing that. Somebody has to.

  I have no idea how this is going to work without Zant. But Anoop does. He takes over like he always does. I should have guessed. He’s a leader. Some people are just leaders. Some people are leaders and some people are followers and some people wear ascots and play four notes on the piano. Anoop starts talking in hushed tones.

  “Okay, you know why I’ve called you all here,” he says. He pulls the wallet out of a duffel bag. It is still in the plastic evidence Baggie. Totally unmolested. “This was found on the body earlier.”

  “Hey, what do you mean, ‘This was found’?” I say back. “I found it.”

  “Okay, fine, credit where credit is due. It was Guy who found it. But I found the body.”

  “That’s not really important,” Raquel says.

  “It’s kind of important. For chain of custody,” TK says.

  “That’s exactly right,” Anoop says. “I was going to get to that. Chain of custody is what it’s all about. It’s why we have to do this ourselves. If we turn the wallet in, they won’t be able to use it. Even though I’ve been extremely careful, technically it’s been contaminated. The best thing for us to do is process it ourselves and anonymously report our findings. It’s really the best thing.”

  “Exactly,” TK says. He has a way of saying things with a heavy period at the end that makes you know that arguing would be ludicrous.

  “First thing to do would be to lift prints, I guess,” Raquel says. Duh.

  “I think the first thing to do would be to look for any other trace evidence,” Maureen says. “Are we sure there’s nothing hidden inside? No hairs, even? A scrap of paper? Anything like that could be useful.”

  “I looked,” Anoop says. “There is nothing. Not a penny. Not a single hair. And I had gloves on the whole time, so you won’t find my prints.”

  “I don’t know what good prints will even do us,” Raquel says. “We know the identity of the kid. It’s probably just his prints. If he was robbed, the killer wouldn’t have dragged the body, emptied out his wallet, and put it back in his pocket, right? If you want to steal a wallet, you just take the wallet. Take the stuff and dump it later. The killer wouldn’t have touched the wallet. He didn’t want his money. He just wanted him dead.”

  “Kinda creepy how good you are at that,” I say.

  “If you want to catch a killer, you have to think like a killer,” she says.

  “Killer,” I say.

  TK jumps in. “There are a lot of inconsistencies in the way this went down,” he says, pacing around the room. Everyone’s still whispering, and it gives the conversation a heated edge. “The body was pretty much in plain view. It was near the electrical tower, but I think too far for it to be suicide.” He takes out his camera and flips through some pictures. “I didn’t have time to upload these and take measurements, but it just looks a bit too far for a jump. Someone bludgeoned this kid to death, then dragged the body close—but not too close—to the tower,” TK says.

  “Or they bludgeoned him, then threw him off the tower,” Raquel adds. She knows a lot about killing people. Seriously: it’s kinda creepy.

  “Ten yards or so,” Anoop says. “I didn’t get a chance to measure either, but I think TK is right. Too far to jump.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Maureen says. “I mean, it’s clear something messed up happened, but I’m not sure we can make any conclusions without—”

  Just then Mom sticks her head back in. She is holding a tray with more drinks. Everyone nearly jumps out of their skin. “Mom! Where did you come from?” She says nothing, just gives me the narrow-eyed look. “Uh, that’s cool,” I say. What? I try to shield her view of Anoop with my body. How do I explain this? It feels crazy embarrassing, her catching us playing detective. It feels like I had porn on my screen or something. So cool, Langman, having your mom bring drinks and popcorn into the room filled with your friends. It seems like something a mom should do for you when you’re little, not old enough to drive. But no one seems to mind. Cool it, Gisborne, I tell myself. Don’t think about it too much. We all have moms, after all.

  “I don’t know what that is,” she says, pointing to Anoop’s box of supplies after setting down the tray. “But don’t get that on my white rug or I’ll kick your ass,” she says. Everyone laughs, and with that she leaves.

  “Come on, master,” Anoop says to me. TK doesn’t react, but the girls look pretty surprised. I don’t feel like sharing the fact that I had already proven myself adept at fingerprinting just this morning, so I act like it’s normal.

  “Don’t you know that I’m the fingerprinting master?” I say to the group. “I’m, like, a master. At fingerprinting.” Smooth. I put on another rubber glove. The now-standard proctology jokes are made and appreciated. I set the wallet on the piano, using it as a makeshift forensics lab. It’s much easier in here than in the wind on a ledge. It’s feeling familiar, the black fingerprinting powder on the brush. I cover a few spots on the wallet where fingers are likely to touch. The room is silent and airless, like a tomb. “There it is,” I say. I don’t look too closely at it. I don’t want to. I hand it to Anoop. He looks it over. So does TK.

  “Um, I think we’re going to have to meet in the other room,” TK says.

  “Dude, not cool,” Maureen says to me.

  “Don’t call me dude,” I say. We head into the kitchen. TK squeezes next to Anoop. Anoop holds the print up to the light. They stare at it. “Dude,” Anoop says.

  “Dude,” TK says.

  “Dude,” I say. “Wait—why are we saying ‘dude’?”

  “These are some very unusual double-loop whorls,” TK says.

  “Yeah?” says Anoop.

  “Yeah,” TK says. “Very unusual, yet I feel like maybe I’ve seen them before.”

  “Don’t say it,” I say.

  “Without a doubt,” TK says. He brings up another picture on his phone and compares it to the print. “We saw this print before.” He shows me the evidence. It’s undeniable.

  There are lots of confused looks.

  “Can I tell them?” Anoop asks.

  “Fine,” I say, sighing. I feel my face flush crimson.

  “This print,” he says, almost stuttering. “The same. Here, in Guy’s attic. And there, on the dead kid’s wallet.”

  “Wait, what? Is there something you’re not telling us?” Maureen asks from the great room. “We can totally hear you. You suck at whispering!” The sound of her voice makes me jump. Da-da-da-daaaaaah. Yes, there is …

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  We try to catch the rest of the crew up on what we know. Unfortunately, we have more questions than answers. Who? What? When? WTF? Stuff like that. Before long, it’s rather late. Forensics Squad disperses like a bad party. Then i
t is just me and Anoop. Like most of my life. My sad, short life. It’s really starting to hit me. My life is going to be cut short. That is clear. Because here’s what I’m thinking: These aren’t coincidences. Someone—namely Jacques Langman—broke into my house and stole my dad’s treasure. Then he followed me to the golf course and tried to kill me. When he realized it was the wrong kid, he tried to make it look like a suicide. Or maybe a robbery. I’m a little unclear on the details, but I’m clear on the culprit. Who else would know about the treasure? Who else would want Toby (me) dead? I’m sure Jacques is the culprit. And I’m sure I’m the intended target. (Okay, sort of sure.)

  It’s starting to hit me. I’m dead. So sad, really. So many things I wanted to do. Grow a beard. Go to Africa. Punch a moose. (What? One gave me a weird look one time.) Take a pottery class. Skinny-dip in the South of France. Or the North of France, for that matter. The Middle of France—who gives a shit? Hell, I’d even skinny-dip right in the South of Jersey, when you get right down to it. The important thing is being nude on the beach. The important thing is not dying.

  Before I get too bummed in that direction, I need to figure something out. Something is still bothering me from before. Maybe two things. Maybe three things. Maybe a million things. Or I just change the topic.

  “Things with Raquel, um, progressing well?” I ask.

  “Well, they’re progressing,” he says, waggling his eyebrows. I sort of don’t want to know more. Abort, abort! Change topics again!

  “So, um, Maureen was talking about how she was writing stuff,” I say. “Some online thing. You know anything about that? Facebook or something?” I ask.

  “She probably has a JerseyGoths account. That’s what all the local Goth chicks have.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “I know lots of things,” he says.

  “Have I told you today that I hate you?” I ask.

  “I can bring up her account in like two seconds, probably.” He whips out his phone and clicks some buttons to go online. “That looks like her,” he says. I crowd next to him to see the phone. The name is Neeruam, which seems to be Maureen backwards. Clever.

  “Damn!” I say. “How did you do that?”

  “You can search by school. She’s the only one at Berry Ridge High on here. That chick from North Berry Ridge Forensics is on here too. You can send her a message, since you love her or whatever.”

  “I do not love her.”

  “What do you want with Maureen’s page? Want to read her entry from today? I think it’s about her mom.”

  I read some of her writing about her mom and I think I have a new understanding of Neeruam. Maureen. Whatever. How weird it must be to grow up with a MILF-y supermodel for a mom. You probably always feel like you can’t keep up. So you try to be perfect in school. You try to find your own thing—maybe you dress in a way guaranteed to piss your mom off. People are so predictable; they just never see it about themselves.

  Shit. Who am I to talk? Maybe this is my life. Maybe a kid of a man who did everything would try to be someone known for doing nothing. Maybe I’m who I am because I realize I can never be my father. Maybe this is why we all are who we are.

  “Are you okay?” Anoop asks. “Why is it taking you so long to read?”

  “Just thinking,” I say.

  “Thinking about how effed up this is?” he asks. “About how we’re going to catch this killer?”

  “Something like that,” I say.

  “There’s more,” he says. “Here is yesterday’s. It looks like poetry.”

  “Wait,” I say. “So you’re telling me that Maureen writes in a secret journal with black ink on black pages so no one can read it, but then posts it online for the world to read?”

  “It would seem that way,” Anoop says. “Girls are pretty freaking weird.”

  “Sure are,” I say. “So yeah, open that entry.”

  “Neeruam wrote a poem about forensics,” he says. “Ha-ha.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “She really wrote a poem about forensics? Probably about the handsome Mr. Tnaz.”

  “What?” he says.

  “It’s Zant backwards,” I explain.

  “Got that,” he says. “But did you just call Zant handsome?”

  “Shut up,” I say. “Show me the poem, Poona.” Saying names backwards is fun.

  “It’s about fractography.”

  “Who would write a poem about fractography?”

  “I think we both know the answer to that.”

  “Can I just read it?” I say. He hands me the phone.

  fractography

  to understand

  how things break

  you need to

  break things yourself

  and watch what happens

  i study how things break

  shattered windows

  busted glass

  a human being

  a heart

  a girl

  breaking things is easy

  to study how to break things

  you need to break (them) yourself

  putting them back together

  is science

  and art

  and luck

  and sometimes

  not possible at all

  “Not bad,” I say. “Not that I know anything about poetry outside of ‘There once was a man from Nantucket.’ ”

  “Greatest poem ever written,” Anoop says.

  Then I see another poem. It appears to be called “The Guy of My Dreams.” This one I read aloud.

  the guy of my dreams

  the guy of my dreams is an unfinished boy:

  a question mark, an ellipsis.

  a shrug of the shoulders, a roll of the eyes

  an untied shoe

  unkempt hair

  and softly whispering heart.

  the guy of my dreams is a wounded soul

  a wingless bird

  a teddy bear in a suit of armor

  a silk pillow that hides a knife inside.

  and someday,

  someday,

  that guy becomes a man

  and someday,

  someday,

  that guy takes my hand.

  someday.

  someday …

  …?

  “Man,” Anoop says. “Holy sheet. How did I not see it before? Neeruam likes you.”

  “Stop calling her that. And she does not.”

  “The Guy of my dreams.”

  “It just means guy, any guy, not Guy-Guy.”

  “If you choose to delude yourself, Guy-Guy …”

  “It’s not a delusion.”

  “That poem is very clearly about you.”

  “Are you saying I’m a teddy bear in a suit of armor?”

  “I would probably say an asshole in a T-shirt, but close enough.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So, Guy-Guy,” Anoop says. “Listen. I know what you’re thinking. The prints on the wallet matching the prints in your attic. The fact that Toby looked like you. It’s a little creepy.”

  “It’s a lot creepy!” I say.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asks.

  “Usually when you ask that, the answer is no, because you’re thinking about math and I’m thinking about boobs, but in this case we quite possibly are in agreement.”

  “Hey, I think about boobs too,” he says. “It’s like sixty–forty, boobs to math.”

  “I got about ninety–ten, boobs to video games.”

  “Boobs to Video Games: The Guy Langman Story,” he says. “That should be your autobiography.”

  “Okay, well, it’s going to be a short one. I think someone is trying to kill me.”

  “And are you thinking you know who it is?”

  “Is that what you’re thinking?” I ask.

  “Let’s just say the name of the guy who wants to kill you, one, two, three: One, two, three …”

  “Jacques Langma
n.”

  “Jacques Langman.”

  “He’s obviously around,” I say. “Seeing as how he came to the funeral.”

  “And pretty much nobody else knew about the coins.”

  “And the criminal record, and it’s all just …”

  “Okay, okay,” Anoop says. “But let’s not jump to crazy conclusions.”

  “I’m just not sure what other kind of conclusions we could make.”

  “Listen. It’s late. I gotta run. Good night, man. Tomorrow we look for more clues.”

  “Clues about the impending murder of Guy Langman or clues about Neeruam and the mystery of why girls are so hard to figure out?”

  “Both.”

  “Deal.”

  “Deal.”

  I head up to my room. I get out my notebook. I think maybe I should try writing my own poetry. Words of Dad’s, old proverbs, thoughts and fears breaking across the page like waves. I’m not much of a poet, though. Not really. I did write a kick-ass haiku about a robot once. My favorite poem really is the one about that guy from Nantucket. It’s got everything, if you think about it. Whitman is okay, but he really can’t hold a candle. But tonight I don’t feel like writing—not poetry, not my book on Dad, not anything. I just stare at a blank page and ask it the same question over and over again until the word doesn’t even seem to mean anything, until it is just funny squiggles of black on white: Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I’d love to sleep in, but crime waits for no man. Or something. Anyway, Anoop calls me early the next morning. He’s already been working on answering at least one-half of the mysteries on our plate. He’s been doing some reading. “They aren’t releasing much about the cause of death on Toby. They have determined that the fall is what killed him, though. He wasn’t bludgeoned before the fall.”

  “Unlike the theory of your creepy girlfriend.”

  “Raquel is not creepy!”

  “She is sort of good at figuring out the mind of a murderer, though.”