Detective Knox preferred the quiet. High-profile cases brought too much attention, and with it came unwanted glances over his shoulder. The last thing he wanted was to miss a connection because he was busy brushing someone aside. He found comfort in the apathy his coworkers offered on a daily basis, how he only felt noticed when someone needed his help. The relationships were somewhat parasitic, but they beat having genuine human connections with too many people at once, or so Knox thought.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
Knox heard Lane's voice, and wondered whether the question was rhetorical. No, he didn't want the company, but his partner had been clinging onto his every move, and may have thought an invitation had been extended. He had, Knox thought, become imprinted on him like a freshly hatched duckling. His mood had been improving, until this thought tied an anchor around him.
“It doesn't take two of us to drop off a drive to the tech guys, unless you think I can't walk all the way down the hall without needing you to hold my hand.”
“I was just asking.”
“And I was just teaching you that the old saying is wrong, and there are stupid questions. That was one of them.”
“Fine. I'll stay here and try to be productive.”
“You do that.”
Knox headed off, shaking his head at the damage evolution had caused in the span of a single generation. Detective Lane had a good heart, but Knox didn't believe he possessed the fortitude needed for a lifetime of laughing in the face of death. Knox didn't buy into the old stereotypes of masculinity, but there were places where the ability not to need, not to feel, were necessary. They lived in one of those worlds, and he was thankful to have had his softer tendencies driven out of him a lifetime ago.
Technology was of no interest to Detective Knox. As long as he knew how to read the results the experts gave him, he didn't care how or why any of it worked. To him, it seemed as if information was pulled out of the air, seemingly from nowhere, and the biggest sin of all would have been to reveal the secrets behind the trick. He preferred to stay in the dark, so that he would never be put in a position where he might be locked in an office with the machines, away from where the real work was done.
The technicians running the lab preferred Knox to anyone else in the building, because they knew this about him, and were relieved he had no interest in hanging around to learn how the illusion was cast. Like Knox, they preferred to work in solitude, without people questioning their every movement. Neither side would ever admit it, but they were more alike than they would care to admit.
Knox walked in, tossing the bag containing the drive onto the table, turning around before he heard it click on the glass surface. He would have left without saying a word, had he not been called back.
“What's this?”
“You're the expert, shouldn't you know?”
“Good one. What case, and what's the issue?”
“It's for the Hobbes murder. You know, the one everyone's calling the locked room mystery.”
“Oh, that one.”
“Yeah. I found this at the scene, but it's encrypted. Can you get into it?”
“Of course I can. It might take a little while, depending on how sophisticated it is, but we'll get whatever is on there.”
“Great. Don't bother me until then.”
“Why would I want to?”
“Touché.”
Knox turned on his heel, grinding the familiar wear pattern further into the sole. It was not a conscious choice, but it was one he thought he would make if it were. There was something alluring about the fluidity of the movement that didn't seem to mesh with the realities of life. He saw beauty in the dichotomy, and though it was a small detail, it made him smile.
* * *
Detective Lane was not waiting for him, hands folded. This caught Knox by surprise, not that he had given any thought to what his partner was up to in his absence. Perhaps, he thought, there was hope for him after all.
Lane sat behind a pile of beige folders, each stuffed with coffee-stained pages. They were familiar, but something Knox wouldn’t mind being overtaken by technology. It was far more efficient for him to ignore a computer screen than a piece of paper someone placed in his hands. His eyes could pretend the screen was a mirage, but the paper was all too real.
“What on earth are you doing?”
Lane looked up from the file he was reading, noting for the first time Knox's return. He held up one finger, pushing off the conversation for a moment, until he could finish absorbing whatever information he was looking at. Knox would have been impressed, if he knew Lane wasn't wasting his time.
“I thought I would be productive, so I went back and started looking through cold cases.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because we don't have any better leads right now, and you never know, there might be something in these files that could spark an idea.”
“Has there been?”
“Well, I haven't seen any other cases that look like this one. There haven't been any other novels come to life lately.”
“I didn't think there were.”
“But I did find something interesting.”
“Do share.”
“There was a case a couple of months back that bears a bit of resemblance. Like ours, there was no physical evidence of any kind, and the best suspect had a rock solid alibi.”
“So why didn't we know about this before?”
“Because it wasn't a murder. It was an attempted murder, or at least that was the claim.”
“Claim?”
“The alleged victim had mental health issues, and the officers who looked into it didn't put much credence in his claims. They thought he made the whole thing up.”
“But you're thinking he didn't.”
“I don't know, but I wouldn't be too hasty to write it off.”
Knox was pained to admit it, but Lane may have found a new lead. His ego hit him hard; excitement of finding new information weighed against the jealousy of not being the one to unearth it. Knox was not normally so crass or shallow, but he was not comfortable being shown up by his own partner. Solving the case should have been the most important thing, regardless of how it happened, but Knox found himself unable to praise his colleague.
“We should keep looking into the past until the tech guys are able to break into that drive. Maybe going backwards is the best way to move forward.”
“So you're not going to say it?”
“Say what?”
“That I may have found something. That I did good.”
“You did your job. You don't get a medal for doing that.”
“Well, actually . . .”
Detective Knox shot Lane a look, one that warned him that any goodwill earned would be forfeited if he insisted on traversing that road. Lane understood, and let the words fall apart, ceding authority back to Knox.
“There will be plenty of credit to go around when we solve this thing, but until then, we need to keep our egos in check and get the work done. Believe me, there's danger in letting yourself get ahead of the evidence.”
“You sound like you know this from experience.”
“Didn't I ever tell you the story . . .?”
Chapter 12
The Graveyard Shift
Years had passed, enough time that Detective Knox did not recognize himself in his own memories. He could recount the scenes, his senses overrun by the vivid imagery, but it felt like a life he hadn’t led. Perhaps, he thought, it was the product of a fragmenting mind, which was willing to fracture a psyche in order to bury the regrets that threatened to haunt him for the rest of his life. Regrets were nothing new, he had lived with them ever since he understood the ramifications of free will, and he was able to sleep at night with a clear conscience, because he had done everything in his power to forget the one sin he could not be absolved of.