The Night Shift (Mystery & Adventure)

by Jack Parker

  But something soon happened that Collin wasn't expecting. When he was right by the bottom of the lifeguard tower, the metal detector started getting increasingly loud and aggressive, going from beep…beep…beep…to BEEP BEEP BEEP.

  A bit surprised by the sharp response, he turned to the camper and asked, "Were you by the lifeguard tower at all this morning?"

  "No," the camper replied, evidently surprised as well.

  "Well, it's definitely picking something up."

  Collin dropped the detector and started digging his fingers into the sand in an attempt to unearth what would hopefully be the camper's car keys. Instead, something else happened.

  "Ow!" he yelled suddenly as he dug a little deeper.

  "What happened?"

  "I just touched something sharp, but I don't think it was a key or something."

  "What is it?"

  "I dunno."

  As Collin dug deeper, he could feel a part on the object's end that was less sharp and could easily be gripped. When he was able to pull it out of the dirt and saw what it really was, he gasped, as did the woman behind him.

  In his hand, Collin was holding a knife-a knife that looked disturbingly familiar. Choking on his breath, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the camp issued knife that he had been given just a few days before. He held the two in front of his face and confirmed that the two knives were exact matches. The knife that had just been found buried in the dirt was issued to an employee at Arbur Winslow State Forest.

  The surprise continued when Collin looked to the tip of the knife and saw what were clearly dry blood stains on it.

  Going completely numb, he stared at the knife in disbelief for what seemed like hours before he finally turned his attention away from it. A short while later, Collin remembered something very special about those knives. As he looked at his own, he remembered that the name of the employee who it belonged to was written into the blade near the handle.

  Not waiting a second longer, he looked near the base of the blade and read the name inscribed on it: JESS MALDAVO.

  His heart beat began increasing at an extremely fast rate; it had finally happened-he had perhaps gotten a lead on the murder. He found what he believed could have been the murder weapon. He didn't even know for sure if the blood on the knife was Scott's, but he cast aside any doubt and hoped that it was the lead he was looking for.

  Stuttering, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his walkie-talkie again. Trying to control his shaking hands and keeping his gaze fixed on the knife. "Winslow-Seven to Headquarters…"

  A few seconds later, an electronic beeping noise was heard and Lisa's voice came in through the other side of the receiver. "Loud and clear, Winslow-Seven."

  "Lisa…" Collin started nervously, his voice almost being too shaky to even talk at all. "I think I found something you might want to see…and bring the police, too."

  It was roughly an hour later. Collin and Lisa were standing at the side of the beach as large crew of police officers and investigators were scavenging the beach, looking for any other item that might prove to be suspicious.

  The whole time, Lisa just stared at the police doing their job with her hands on her hips. She tried to remain calm about everything happening in front of her, although it was difficult, given the circumstances.

  "So you say a tourist needed to find her keys, and when you used the metal detector you found Jess's knife?" she asked Collin, making sure she understood everything about the situation thus far.

  "Yup. That's what happened. Hey, you don't suppose that knife was the…"

  Lisa sighed aggressively and put the underside of her hand in front of Collin's face. "Collin, please. That's the last thing I want to think about now."

  On cue, Collin shut his mouth. But a moment later, Lisa turned back to him and said, "That was the whole reason you started working here, wasn't it?"

  "What?"

  "You wanted to try to get to the bottom of that killing that happened here last summer, didn't you?"

  Collin had no idea what to say, and as a result, he just stood there silently for several seconds. But after a while, it became too much for him, and he let out a defeated sigh. "Yeah, Lisa. You're right."

  Lisa didn't say anything, giving Collin the impression he was supposed to continue talking. "But you don't get it! I worked for the police department the last two summers, and when Scott died here last summer, I really, REALLY wanted to find out who did it!"

  "Collin, I don't care, all right? Look, the police are the best investigators around and they couldn't solve it. You think some seventeen…"

  "Eighteen."

  Lisa sighed, the annoyance becoming all the more obvious. "…Eighteen year old could figure it out when they couldn't?"

  "Hey, it was worth a shot."

  "Well, look what's happened now because of it. Now all these tourists are gonna get uneasy around here and they'll all leave. It'll be just like last summer."

  Collin promptly shut his mouth to avoid a confrontation with Lisa any further. A few minutes after that, the captain of the police squad went over to her as if she had something important to say. The captain was a woman in her mid-forties and had a light brown ponytail hanging out from the back of her hat.

  "Ms. McNorr?"

  Lisa turned her full attention the captain. "Yes, ma'am?"

  "We've done a search of the beach and haven't found anything else. It looks like the knife was the only thing here worth looking at. Now, I understand a murder happened here last summer?"

  "That's right."

  "And the victim was a man named Scott Halpin?"

  "That's right."

  "All right, we're gonna have to take this knife then and run a few DNA tests on the blood to see if that's Scott's blood on there, all right?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "And would you happen to know who the owner of this knife is?"

  Now a bit nervous about answering, Lisa only stuttered and replied, "The person's name is usually written at the bottom of the blade."

  The captain looked near the base of the knife and read the name out loud. "Jess…Maldavo? Is that the name of someone who works here?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Okay. Should this turn out to be Scott's blood on the knife, we may have to take Ms. Maldavo in for questioning, all right?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "All right."

  The captain beckoned for some of her subordinates to gather all their equipment together and to leave in an organized fashion. She handed the knife (now tightly wrapped in a plastic bag) off to one of the other officers, who promptly walked away with it into the police cruiser.

  The captain looked once more at Collin and Lisa. She tipped her hat to both of them and said, "Have a good one."

  "You, too," Lisa weakly replied.

  The captain walked away and sat down in the passenger's seat in the cruiser leading the rest of the squad. As the cruiser drove off, Collin received a nasty look from Lisa that seemed to very strongly be saying, "Why did you do that?"

  Without even letting her talk, he started with, "Hey, I didn't know I'd find a knife! The woman just lost her car keys and I was doing what you've told me to do!"

  Lisa covered her eyes with one hand and started massaging her temples as if she was getting a migraine. "Collin, did you have to let the police know?"

  "Uh…yeah, I did, actually. I mean, come on, it was a knife with blood on it."

  "I know, but…ugh, it's happening all over again."

  "What's happening all over again?!"

  "After Scott got killed, a bunch of crap started flying around about this camp left and right. And just as it was starting to die down and people were coming to their senses, something like this happens. Now everyone's gonna stop coming here, because for some reason, they think they're gonna get stabbed. And people are gonna start a bunch of rumors about us and the police will be breathing down our necks for the next couple of months."

  "…uh…sor
ry," Collin impatiently responded. He thought Lisa was laying it on a little thick, especially since she probably would have had to do the same thing. "But you know I didn't plan on finding that knife, right?!"

  "I don't want to talk about it," she coldly stated as she ended the conversation at that moment. "I've gotta head back to my office now."

  Without another word, Lisa walked away, leaving Collin standing there all by himself. It was a pretty strange feeling for him; every day, ever since the murder first happened, he wanted to figure out what had happened. Now that it looked like he could possibly find out the truth, he was getting very hesitant and questioning whether it was all worth it. If it was going to cause this much trouble and upset, was it really worth it?

  Collin instantly shrugged that thought aside. "Oh, man…this is awesome!"

  The rest of the day went on just as hectic as it had been when the police showed up. As soon as his shift was over, Collin hopped in his car and drove over to the police station as fast as he could. After doing a somewhat messy job parking, he hopped out and nearly broke through the double glass doors at the speed he was going. Sprinting, he ran through the station until he eventually got to the front of Teneire's office. Without even knocking, he opened up the door and saw Teneire on the phone.

  As soon as Teneire saw Collin, the look on his face showed that he knew exactly what Collin was getting excited over.

  "Uh…yes…yes, right away. Okay. Bye," Teneire said as he hung the phone up. Before he even let Collin say something, he said, "No, Collin, we can't open it back up yet."

  The excitement instantly faded. "What do you mean?!"

  "That knife that I heard you found that had blood on it?..."

  "What about it?"

  "We don't even know that it is blood. And then we have to confirm that it was Scott's. Then, maybe, MAYBE I'll reopen the case."

  "Oh, come on!" Collin argued, letting desperation get the better of him. "Don't you want this thing to be solved and put away?!"

  "Of course I do!" Teneire scolded, coming very close to losing his temper from Collin's whining. "But we have other things to work on, Collin. Trust me, I want to get this thing solved as much as you do."

  "Then let's open it back up!"

  "Collin!"

  That was enough to get Collin to shut his mouth. He stared at his former boss looking a bit disappointed that the meeting wasn't going the way he hoped that it would, but he was far from completely losing hope. At this point, the only thing he could hope for was that it was really Scott's blood on the knife. If that was the case, then Collin believed that would be all the motivation Teneire needed to reopen it.

  It was about 10:00 that night. Collin was in his room, sitting at the computer and logging into his NetPub profile. As he entered his e-mail address and password, his profile page loaded, the first thing to catch the eye being a picture Collin took of himself about half a foot from his face while looking really serious at the camera and sharply dropping one eyebrow. In the upper right corner of the page was the same picture (except much smaller) and the words "Welcome, Collin" were written right next to it.

  After the page loaded, he went to a page where he typed in his new status, writing "Collin is hoping one year of suspense will finally end soon."

  Normally he would've been annoyed at the fact the goofy profile picture of him and the words "Welcome, Collin" were still visible on the new page (as well as every other page on NetPub as long as someone was logged in) but he was too excited to care about that minor pet peeve now. He thought that he was going to solve the crime almost single handedly and that he would be the big hero.

  Before long, he was day dreaming about figuring out who did it and being recognized by the whole staff at Arbur Winslow, as well as the town. He pictured himself on the news doing interviews and appearing on the front page of the newspaper. As he thought more and more about this fantasy, a wide smile started spreading over his face.

  Almost every day afterwards, Collin found time to go to the police station and see what the details were on the knife. One day, about a week after the knife was found at the lake, Collin stopped by to see Teneire again. This time, Teneire sounded like he had news.

  "Collin…I think you'll want to hear this," he said seriously.

  Collin clenched his fists and tried not to look too eager, although he hoped what Teneire was about to say would be what he had been waiting to hear for what seemed like forever.

  "We got back the lab results back a while ago…and…the blood on the knife…is Scott's."

  "Yeah!" Collin yelled enthusiastically as he pumped his fists in the air. "All right! When does it get reopened!?"

  "Collin, calm down," Teneire ordered calmly but sternly. "You don't just say, 'Okay, I'll start working on this again'. First of all, we need to recap everything that we already know and we need to see if that knife offers us any leads. If it doesn't, we might as well leave the case closed and not waste our time and money trying to solve it."

  "But what about Jess? Now that we know it was her knife used…"

  "She's a person of interest," Teneire admitted as he cut his former worker off. "We may have to call her in for questioning if we find anything else suspicious about her."

  "Take her in for questioning?"

  "Yes. You don't remember what that is?"

  Collin forced a fake chuckle. "Probably because you always had me bring doughnuts to everyone and you never told me about what was going on."

  Teneire sighed. "Questioning people is when we take them into a small room-just me and the person I'm questioning-and I record the questions I ask her and watch them back for anything suspicious."

  "Can I help out the next time you bring someone one?!"

  "Out of the question. It's exclusively for police officers such as myself, not kids who spent the summer here making nine-twenty an hour to clean up the staff room. And don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think you'd be much of a help."

  "Oh, come on!" Collin begged, beginning to sound pathetic. "How do you know I won't be helpful unless you let me give it a shot!?"

  Teneire had a look on his face that made it obvious he knew Collin was going to use that argument. "Look, we have to look back at some of the older tapes first, all right? If I find Jess said anything strange in the interview I gave her last summer, then I'll bring her in again."

  "So you'll let me help?!"

  "Collin! When did I say that?"

  "Oh, pleeeease?"

  Teneire sighed. "You're acting like a little baby, you know? Ugh…tell you what. I'll at least let you watch the interviews from last year, all right?"

  "You will?!"

  "If it'll make you happy and shut you up, then yeah."

  "What if I find something strange that you missed?"

  Teneire looked like he was using every ounce of professionalism to hold back his frustration. "Don't push it, kid. All right?"

  Still grinning widely, Collin shook his head. He had been waiting for something like this to come by for over a year, and it was finally happening.

  Grunting reluctantly, Teneire went over to a large shelf in the corner of his office stuffed with DVDs of interviews and question sessions from years past. After searching for a minute or so, he found the one with Jess on it from the previous summer and popped it into the disk drive on his computer. After a few seconds, a small window popped up with the first frame of the video in the window. The video started playing when Teneire hit the right button.

  The picture was in slightly blurry black and white imaging. Teneire was sitting in a chair with his back to the camera while Jess was sitting right across from him, looking a tad on the nervous side.

  "Were you the one who killed Mr. Scott Halpin on July the twenty-seventh?" Teneire asked in the video, his voice sounding a bit grainy.

  "No, sir."

  "Do you know who could possibly have done it?"

  "No, sir."

  "Do you know how Mr. Halpin was killed?"

/>   "Yes…it was a knife wound to the neck, from what I've heard."

  "Now, from what I understand, you and your workers were issued knives to work with on the job. Is that correct?"

  "Yes."

  "And did you have your knife on the night of the killing?"

  "No, sir."

  "You didn't?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "I lent it to one of my other co-workers. A kid named Nick."

  "You lent it someone else?"

  Collin's eyes immediately shot open and he tried thinking back to a conversation that he had had several days ago with Jess. He clearly remembered something Jess said when they were helping Nick cut off some of the branches after he had just found out he would be filling in for Ian as a lifeguard the next day.

  "Hey, how come you're not using your pocket knife?"

  "Wha?" Jess asked, obviously not expecting that question. "Oh. I, uh, kinda lost it."

  "You lost it?" Collin again rhetorically asked. He didn't think his next question would get him anywhere, but he decided to ask it, anyway. "When'd you lose it?"

  "Uh…last summer."

  Almost like he had just been jolted alive after being in a coma, Collin slammed his hands down on Teneire's desk and eagerly yelled, "Jess just lied!"

  Teneire turned around abruptly and looked at him like he had just walked in wearing women's makeup. "What are you talking about?"

  "Jess just lied in that video!"

  "How do you know?"

  "I was talking to her the other day, and I clearly remember her saying she 'lost' her knife, not giving it to Nick!"

  "Huh?"

  "Sir, she was either lying to me or she was lying when you filmed this!" Letting his excitement get the better of him, he continued with, "And the time Jess told me she 'lost' her knife…was last summer!"

  Teneire didn't look too phased at all from hearing about this slight inconsistency, but Collin thought it was the key to the case at this point. "Teneire, that's a BIG inconsistency! We have to find out what really happened!"