Decay

by Zach T. Stockwell

  “Uh, I think so, man. Forgot about those, honestly, but I’ll have to ask my manager if they do or not.” Anthony left the table, heading into the kitchen.

  Marco and Gene sat tight while awaiting his return, hopefully bearing good news. The placement of the cameras would almost ensure a good angle at his face, and then they could get an ID on who could shape up to be their guy.

  Anthony returned with news that gave life to the case. He waved for the two gentlemen to follow him back into the manager’s office, and so they did. Inside sat a short, stubby man who was reviewing film.

  “Gentlemen, this is the owner, Chuck.” Anthony turned to the man and said, “Hey, Chuck, these are those detectives asking about the cameras.” Chuck stood up, pushing his chair out of the way to shake their hands. Doing this caused more inconvenience for himself than he had intended, as the already small room was cramped by the four men. Folders dated and color-coded were stacked in bins from floor to ceiling, and the desk was an unruly mess of papers. Standing up in the cramped room only caused a mess, as he knocked some of the papers into the floor and turned over a bin from its resting point, causing the whole tower to come tumbling down.

  “Well, shit. I’ll have to clean that later,” he grunted.

  He was wearing a nice button-down dress shirt and a tie, and was by far the most formally dressed person in the bar, while each of the employees had their standard uniform of a company t-shirt and jeans.

  “Hey, guys, I’m Chuck.” Without wasting any time at all, Chuck sat back down and directed their attention to the computer monitor, which was displaying some surprisingly high-quality video. “The security system I uses monitors everything twenty-four seven, and uploads everything directly to the internet. There’s no tape or CDs or anything. It just goes to the cloud and deletes itself after a month if there were no inquiries made. Luckily, it sorts it by date, so I already have that night pulled up.” Chuck, who was now pointing to a spot on the screen, continued, “Here is your girl, sitting right there. Anthony told me she was talking to a guy that night, but he isn’t there yet so I’ll fast forward.”

  Chuck continued to fast forward until the image of the man came on screen, and then he put it back into real time. There he was, the first real suspect.

  The camera was a view from behind the bar, but it was high up and aiming downward, so it was hard to make out the image of a face. He was looking down to talk to the seated Zoey, so the top of his head was more exposed than his facial attributes. After a second of smiling and talking to her, though, she invited him to have a seat, and his face finally came into view.

  Handsome indeed he was. He had the jawline of a sculpted statue, and a perfectly sized nose - not too big and not too small. His skin was much darker than Zoey’s, but not quite as dark as a light-skinned black man. It looked likely that there was some sort of ethnicity in his blood, but if there was something, it was faint.

  Marco instructed Chuck to take several screenshots, zoom in, and take more screenshots. After getting several decent photos, they fast forwarded the tape once more, until the two started to stand up. After they were out of the field of view for Camera 3, they turned their attention to Camera 2, and watched as they passed through its sight. As they disappeared from view again, they focused on Camera 1, which was situated directly over the doorway, and Chuck paused the film.

  Then there it was. The most clear and ideal photo of their suspect was ripe for the taking; it was positioned so perfectly, and taken at such the right angle, that it may have well been his Facebook profile picture. Again, Chuck took a screenshot, and Marco instructed him to send all of the photos to the email that was listed on his card.

  “You guys don’t know how much you’ve just done for us. Thank you very much for your cooperation,” Gene said, shaking their hands aggressively. Marco followed the lead and shook each of their hands as well. Chuck and Anthony nodded and returned the typical response: something about it being their duty, or just being happy to help.

  Gene walked out of that office and through the bar, feeling a certain kind of rush and euphoria that only this job could bring. The intense, unmatchable excitement brought him happiness that nothing else could.

  When his wife died, he missed the excitement of his work. Although he couldn’t make himself get out of bed most mornings for the following year, he did still miss what it felt like to be happy. More than the work, however, he missed coming home to his saint of a wife. Through long days and work that sometimes ran well into the night, she never wavered in her love and undying support. And after a stressful day of dead ends, nothing made him happier than to see his wife on the couch, patiently waiting to hear - or not hear, depending on how he felt that moment - about his day.

  The euphoria he felt after a big break like this one used to last all day and night, into the following morning, but now that good feeling is extremely fleeting, quickly disappearing into the same void his wife left behind. Once it was time to go home, that was the end of his happiness for the day.

  Now in the car with Marco, Gene said, “Let’s go back to the station. You can forward those to The Computer Guy and we can try to match his face up.”

  During the ride back, the inside of the car remained eerily silent. Gene was not ready to go home for the day, just to be alone again, and Marco had nothing to say. They were both through the roof with excitement, but neither of them showed it. Each of them remained in their own heads, locked into their own reality, and their own thoughts. Marco was thinking of home, and what he had left to do. Then he thought about the case, and how he felt that it was finally coming along, and maybe they weren’t too far out from shutting the books on it. Then, of course, Gene thought more of his wife. He remembered the way he failed to cherish her how he should have. He realized over the years what loneliness felt like, and how he must have left her feeling alone through much of their marriage. He realized she deserved better in her far too brief time on Earth.

  These things crossed his mind far too often. Intermittently throughout the day, his wife crossed his mind. After work on the drive home, again she would appear. Walking through the door to a silent and dark house that was once his home, he remembered her. And going to bed alone, far too small on the king size mattress, he still would sometimes cry, remembering what it felt like to be next to her. He realized after a couple of years that time can heal all wounds, except for that one.

  ---

  Marco and Gene walked into the side doors of the station, and caught the Captain on his way out.

  “Hey, Cap, we finally got something on the missing girl case,” Gene said, stopping the Captain in his tracks. “Marco, pull out your phone and show him the photos.”

  Marco did as he was instructed, and found the email he had received from Chuck. He handed his phone to the Captain and allowed him to scroll through them.

  “Wow. These pictures couldn’t be any more perfect. How’d y’all get these?”

  “We tracked her to the bar she went to that night and this bar just so happened to have the coolest security cameras I’ve ever seen,” Marco huffed.

  “Nice job, guys. Get this down to The Computer Guy and let him run the facial software and see if y’all can get a match.” The Captain felt no need to stick around, and walked briskly out into the January cold.

  Marco followed Gene down to The Computer Guy’s lair, but they were met by a closed door and windows that peered into a dark room. He was gone for the day, and there was no one to work nights, so that meant this important job would have to wait until the morning. Or, it would mean that, if Gene hadn’t learned early in his career to be more assertive.

  “I’m gonna call this guy, Marco,” Gene said, “I’m gonna make him come back down here. They won’t hire a guy to work the computers after five, so this guy gets to work a little late today.”

  Gene stomped off to the address book sitting in his desk. He knew he had the man’s cell phone number in there somewhere.

  Marco conti
nued just to stand alone in the hallway outside of the door, unsure of what to do next. He allowed Gene his moment alone to convince the nice Computer Guy to come back and work late, and instead found a way to occupy himself by exploring the computer lab. He checked the door to see if it was locked, but to his surprise it clicked and opened. He walked in, flicked on the lights, and stood there, looking around.

  The room was mostly nothing. It was not at all small, but rather extremely narrow, not like a normal office, and only had a desk in the back of the room, and a computer station closer to the door on the right wall. The computer station had two large flat screen monitors, a backlit keyboard, a mouse pad, and strangely-shaped mouse - like one that was meant for gaming. Underneath the station, in the same opening that was meant for legs, sat a tall desktop tower that was plugged into the wall, and had only a few wires running out of the back that were being fed through a hole above. It seemed almost like a PC gamer’s delight, not something that would be used for police work.

  Marco explored the room, walking slowly through, looking at the pictures that sat on the computer station, the desk in the back, and the book shelf behind it. They were all of a man and his wife; there were no children or anyone else present. It seemed that this Computer Guy was very proud of his wife, although strangely so. The pride was lost on Marco; he thought she looked more like a troll than a female human.

  The man in the photos was young - probably mid-twenties. His long brown hair resembled that of a rockstar from the eighties, minus all the hair spray and glitter. It was kept very clean, at least in the photos that exhibited such joy.

  Gene walked into the room to join Marco.

  “He was pissed about it because he apparently just got home when his phone rang, but he’s headed back now. He lives in Garland, so it’ll be like forty-five minutes before he gets here.”

  They sighed. It had been a long day for the both of them, even for Gene, despite the nap he’d taken.

  Even though it had been a success, much of the grinding of the day was filled with letdowns and disappointment, and it was not lost on them that without Terry’s call, they probably never would have found the correct bar. So even though they felt triumphant, they knew they owed their success to blind luck and Terry, and nothing more, and that made them failures in a way.

  Gene walked out of the room, and Marco followed him, turning out the lights and shutting the door again, as if they had never intruded in the first place. They walked into Gene’s office and took seats. For a while, it was mostly silence accompanied by rhythmic thumping, as Gene tossed a tennis ball against the wall repeatedly. Then Marco spoke up to break the silence.

  “So, did you ever consider going private? Like opening up an agency?”

  Gene stopped throwing the ball and pondered the question briefly.

  “I think everyone does at some point, at least once or twice. For me, I was always fed up they kept looking past me to the next young hotshot for a promotion.” Gene spun around in his wheel-equipped office chair and continued, “You know Captain Cole is the fifth Captain I’ve seen in my time here. They haven’t stuck around very long, or they haven’t made it, or they get fired. There’s always something. Yet I’ve been here basically my entire adult life, and never once did they consider promoting me. They’ve looked past me each time when the Sergeant’s position came up, too. And Lieutenant. It’s always some political bullshit. Someone knows somebody, or is the brother of somebody else, or is married to someone’s daughter.”

  “So why didn’t you leave and be your own boss?” Marco’s curiosity came from his own desires to go private one day. He felt, even in his short time and little experience, that police work was sometimes extremely bureaucratic and political. He felt they were sometimes wasteful and inefficient, and that a private agency could be much more resourceful, if need be.

  “Well, I considered it.” Gene stopped wheeling around back and forth. “Actually, I was about to quit with what savings we had, and open up my own PI agency. My wife and I were going to cut back expenses temporarily so that we could live cheaper, and give me a real shot at making it work.”

  Gene quit talking. The pause was so long that Marco again began to speak, asking for more information, but then Gene cut him off.

  “But then she got the cancer. She refused treatment, and then passed seven short months later. I lost all ambition for opening my own agency. I just didn’t care for it anymore. I didn’t really care much about a promotion; I didn’t care about being passed over. I just wanted to do my time, count my days, and retire. I had nothing left to work for, so I just gave up on it.”

  Then, after being totally sure that he was done speaking this time, Marco tried again. “Do you ever regret not doing it? I mean, do you think you would have enjoyed it more?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve heard some people love it, and love owning their own business, and love not being told what to do. They love that it’s contract work, and they’re paid a rate, and some guys even make way more money, too. But for every story I’ve heard about how great it is, I’ve heard one for how awful it is,” Gene swallowed and cleared his throat, then went on. “Like for example, a lot of people say it’s mostly following people around and taking pictures, then delivering bad news to someone. Or finding a cheater. Petty stuff like that. And I’ve always thought I’d rather do real good for less money than do petty work like that for a quick buck. I don’t know. I could be totally wrong, but I’ll probably never know, because I never tried.”

  Marco picked up on the vague hint of remorse in his voice. He sounded ashamed that he had never given it a try. And perhaps, maybe part of Gene felt that he did his wife a disservice by not following an ambition. But, after her death, it was hard just to return to work that mattered. Trying to start a new business only to find out that the work was unimportant and uneventful would have been impossible.

  Marco decided to leave it alone, and not make any comment. He thought about consoling Gene, who clearly was disappointed in himself for never trying, but gave it a rest instead. It was his fault for dredging up old memories, and he realized after seeing Gene’s blank stare at the wall that he should never have pried.

  “So,” Marco sighed, changing the subject before the room got any heavier, “tell me about your daughter. The one trying to be an actress.”

  Gene laughed, and his face sparked a bit.

  “Well, after high school, she stayed living at home and working. She refused to go to college. All the way through junior high and high school, she did one-act play performances, and fell in love with acting. So, she decided she would work to save up enough money, and then move to Hollywood. And she did. I supported her while she lived at home and worked so that she could follow her dream, and now she’s out there doing it. She took the leap, and she seems very happy.” Marco smiled and respected the courage of a young woman like that, then Gene continued. “She hasn’t got much work. I mean, she’s done a few commercials and short appearances in a couple of TV shows, and had several auditions and tryouts, but no big jobs yet. But she’s making enough to get by, especially with the savings she built.”

  “How long has she been over there?”

  “A few months now. She’s barely twenty-one. Carol and I had her very late. I was almost forty-four, and Carol was thirty-nine when she was born. But she saved money very responsibly for three years before she moved out. There’s no way I could stop her from doing what she loved doing, even if the odds of her being some big movie star were basically zero. She had the passion for it and, hey, if anyone has a shot at it, it’s her. I think.” Gene laughed again, “I don’t really know. I was usually working during her shows.” His laugh died as quickly as it started. “I realize that now. I didn’t do enough for her, either. But she’s happy out there and she calls me all the time to give me updates. Maybe when I retire, I’ll move out to California to be closer to her.” Gene drew silent and set the ball down on his desk.

  Marco now understood that t
alking about Gene’s personal life is a no-no. Perhaps the reason for his reservation was that he had nothing else to be happy about, and Marco felt relentlessly guilty that he brought it up. His thoughts must be poisoned throughout the day, and Marco had only made it worse.

  “I’d like to meet her one day.” Marco tried to lighten the subject. It worked, and Gene perked up a little.

  “Well you can see her right now. Let me just get on the YouTube. I think she put her commercials on there,” Gene said, with his eyes now focused on the computer screen. He typed and clicked away until he found the proper page, and pulled up one of her commercials.

  Then Gene and Marco sat there together, laughing and watching commercials, as Gene pointed her out in each one. They watched many of them, close to a dozen. And in between each video, Gene would stop and talk about her for a moment. He would recall stories of her childhood and how she looks so much like her mother. For almost an hour until The Computer Guy arrived, the atmosphere was nothing but lighthearted and gleeful.

  By the time it was time to get back to work, Gene was in high spirits, and just ready to talk to his daughter again. His mind rested at ease, knowing she was two hours behind, and by the time he was done working for the day, she would probably be home and resting herself.

  After the Computer Guy showed back up (in a grumpy huff, albeit), the three of them got to it.

  TEN

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 14TH

  I’ve come to realize that I’ve had a false view of what it meant to be pampered. Before, I’ve had access to all sorts of luxuries: expensive, high thread count sheets, a high-dollar mattress, professionally-prepared food, et cetera. But he’s pampering me in an entirely new way.

  Instead of comfortable sheets, he has reminded me that I took money and its power for granted when spoiling myself, and instead I have an old quilt. Instead of an expensive mattress, he reminded me that humans survived happily before memory foam mattresses had ever been invented, so I sleep on the dirt. Instead of gourmet, carefully crafted dishes and desserts, he reminded me that food is a necessity for survival, not an indulgence, so instead of eating it three times a day, I get a bucket of slop once every three days. Bare necessities. Returning to my roots.