There Is More Light Than Dark

Chapter Twenty Nine

Wed August 10

Dean McCoy sighed heavily and without a thought for those on the surrounding desks who looked over at him with annoyance.

He put the third house burglary file he'd looked at for the morning away without adding to it or really paying attention to what it contained.

It had been more than three weeks since he'd submitted the report to Frank Young regarding Avery Prosser's death. He knew every word on those twenty two pages by heart, not so much because he'd written it as the fact he didn't believe it was complete. He'd had to make things fit, either leaving out things that could be considered unrelated, or at least not directly involved in the findings the coroner had provided, and making bits that were square feel round.

Harper Lewis had stayed at a respectful distance and she had tried to create something of a competition with McCoy with the burg files to take his mind off the murder file that she knew he wasn't satisfied with.

But every single file he'd picked up since might as well have had Avery Prosser's face on the front if it, such was the anguish her cold, stiff frame he'd seen and touched gently in that bed still riddled him with.

Chloe got it. She couldn't do anything about it but she understood he wasn't someone who could just let things be; be satisfied with a result when the result didn't feel right.

She saw him alternatively glower and sigh as he rode the emotions of hearing other officers that were congratulated for doing menial work, work that didn't help anybody directly; work that could have been done by monkeys. And here he was basking in the darkness left behind by a shitty case that no one had cared for any more than they had for little Brodie Renshaw when she was pulled out of the lake five years ago.

McCoy had thought about talking to Frank Young about that one. That time he'd given McCoy more rope because he believed in him then. But it wasn't McCoy that had changed in the meantime, not much anyway. It was Young and his fucking badge and stripes, his arse kissing of the hierarchy that had put him close to them and left good cops like McCoy wallowing in the system that felt like molasses and smelled like shit.

Chloe had suggested they take a holiday and he had the Webjet site open on his desktop but every time he saw the blindingly white buildings, the tanned models and the obscene price tag he clicked back on the open file that he didn't want to try to deal with.

Dean McCoy had become a cop because he couldn't become a lawyer.

And he was still trying hard not to become like those around him who either gave up, got fat and towed the line or aimed for the stars and advocated dereliction of duty over principles.

The afternoon of August 10th though brought Lewis walking over to his desk with a decent stride and a smile barely hidden. He rocked back in his chair and folded his arms.

'What have you got, hot shot?' He tried to start off light to smack himself out of the mire he was in.

She sat on the edge of his desk opposite where he sat and crossed her arms.

'Remember what I told you my Dad would have said when we had to call the Prosser thing?'

McCoy drew a deep breath and sighed, half feigning disinterest and half meaning it. He acted as though he was thinking hard. 'You know what, Lewis, I don't. He seems to have so many fucking sayings and pieces of advice I can't possibly remember them all. Remind me.' He smiled as he finished as he saw her face grow a little dark with his initial veiled insults.

'Well he would say that if you were going fishing and your line went slack that your loss would at some stage be someone else's gain.' She looked at him with a sparkle in her eye he hadn't seen before. McCoy nodded and responded, 'Yeah, I do remember that. I liked it, only that I'm not a fan of some other prick benefitting from our work, you know.'

He suppressed a feeling that she might have something that would draw them back into the case, but just couldn't anticipate what could possibly do that. He wasn't even totally sure she was referring to the Prosser case, but he knew she was sharp and she knew how much it was eating at him. Her distraction technique with the burg files didn't carry the verve she had on her face right now.

'Well, do you reckon you might ever hook the same fish a second time?' Her smile broadened.

McCoy felt his pulse rise.

'What do ya mean, Lewis? Spit it out already.' He grabbed his coffee cup which was empty, just so his hands were occupied to save wringing them as he waited.

Harper Lewis placed a photo on his desk. McCoy leaned forward and looked at it. It was an evidencial property photo, used to identify things that were either involved in a burglary or handed in and might need to be identified by an owner or a third party. It had been taken with the usual white table top in the background. He looked up at her quizzically.

'A skateboard? What do I care about a fucking skateboard?' But the words had hardly caught the air when he registered the photo from Vincent's bedroom. There'd been quite a few that annoyed him but the one with his cap on backwards, holding the skateboard had taken the cake. The penny dropped as he looked up at Lewis.

'You think this is....?'

She nodded assuredly. Slowly.

'I've checked the pictures from his room, the one where Avery..... died.' She still found it difficult to be plain about. Vincent still didn't seem like the sort of guy who would hurt anyone. She was somewhere between practising keeping an open mind and thinking like a hard-core detective. Maybe she was still caught somewhere between her attraction and her job.

'If this isn't it then I'd go he.' She said it like McCoy would have said it himself.

McCoy thought back. They hadn't found a skateboard at the house. But they hadn't really looked for one. This was never a full blown murder investigation, even though he felt like it should have been.

He was caught somewhere between trusting his hardened and practised instinct and fulfilling quotas for his prick of a boss.

His mind swam.

'So, what...... where did this thing come from. Where is it now?' He looked at Lewis and knew she already had the answers.

'A woman broght it in nearly three weeks ago. Said her son found it in the weeds behind a train platform and had used it for a week before they realised he didn't own one. They brought it straight in as a lesson for him, been sitting in lost property ever since.'

'And how did you find it?'

'I went down to the property room to look at a camera I thought might have been from the Shaftesbury Avenue burg and this was sitting right at the front of the cage.' She smiled even wider.

Dean McCoy looked closely at the picture of the well-used Santa Cruz with flame red wheels and the stars that had faded began to align.

Detective Sergeant Dean McCoy felt his pulse rise and his fists grip tight.

He was back in the game.

'You know, Lewis, maybe your Dad's sayings do have a place in this department.'

And right at that moment Harper Lewis could have burst but she squeezed her fist tight inside her jacket pocket and nodded. She turned and went back to the hallway as McCoy followed her down to the property room to get the board.

They had some digging to do.