by Scot McAtee
***
We brought the evidence back to the lab. Again I was back to questioning everything, and while I did, I heard many conversations. Everyone was talking back and forth trying to find answers to their own questions. Rushing around in their rubber gloves excited with the new information.
“Can we hack into that website?” someone asked.
“I’m not sure…” someone else answered.
“Look up that name!”
“Plug in the flash drive.”
“Check the fingerprints on those passports first!”
I began to join in the research and walked over to the computer where they were about to install the flash drive. When they inserted it, it began reading the flash drive. We hovered over the computer, anxious for the results. On the screen gave a list of the files downloaded on the flash drive. There was a file for pictures, and one for different documents. Before I got to see them someone interrupted me.
“Agent Eve, come look at these fingerprints! They match up with Nathan Harper and Jared Part. How could we not have noticed they have the same fingerprint?” said the man scanning the passports.
“Well that’s impossible! Try it again,” I answer.
“Agent Eve! We hacked into that website, and it is just a list of names,” said someone else taking my attention.
“Look up their names!” I yelled in response as, once again, someone else spins me in a new direction.
“We contacted his parents, and they can come in later to see the box and necklace charm.”
“Great, keep me updated,” I said.
Then John came up to me with some surprising news.
“Eve, we looked up Nathan Harper. He is a criminal...nobody has been able to figure out his crimes, how he does it, and how he gets around like everyone else. It says here,” he said pointing to the computer screen, “they lost sight of him again just last week.”
“That looks like Jared!” I yelled.
“Everybody, come look at this!” he exclaimed getting everyone’s attention.
Jared Part is Nathan Harper. How does he do it? I wondered.
Everyone was talking in a group, things like, “He lives two lives. Wait. Who killed him then? Was it the police in secret or someone he worked with?”
“The parents are here!” I heard someone say from the other room.
“Okay I’ll be right there.”
The depressed parents were sitting awkwardly in their chairs. I thought to myself, they don’t really know their son at all.
“Hello Mr. and Mrs. Part. Please come in here, we have a few more questions than we first thought.”
They walked into the small room holding hands, almost in tears. They sat down at the table and looked at the metal box then the necklace charm.
“Have you seen these before?” I asked them.
“My mother gave him that box,” said Mrs. Part, “but I have never seen that charm. It looks expensive! Why would he have that?”
“What about you Mr. Part?”
“I haven’t seen the charm before either…” he answered.
“Okay. We have got some information that might explain some of this. We have not figured it out, but I will try to tell you all I’m allowed.”
“Thank you,” they both said.
“Has your son ever left home for a long while?”
“Yes all of the time. He was very independent,” said Mr. Part.
“Did he say where he went?”
“Not exactly. I think he usually just went to hang out with friends,” Mrs. Part responded.
That was enough for me right now. I led them out and went back to the lab to be bombarded by people.
“The names of people on the website are people Nathan has victimized.”
“The pictures on the flash drive were of people that matched up to be the victims.”
“What did the parents say?”
“Can you explain this, Eve?”
We spent all night looking at the facts. Jared, or Nathan, was a criminal. We pieced everything together. How he lived his double life and how he finally stole the priceless necklace charm. The last question we had is...who killed him? We have no evidence of that. We found no fingerprints in his room to help us. We are stuck with this question...who killed him? We didn’t wonder for too long before we received a dramatic confession.