I opened the door and met a flash of a camera before anything else. One of the deputies was taking photos of the crime scene. The living room was small and dressed in classic décor. A fresh coat of gray covered the walls, giving it a modern catalog swankiness. Walnut hardwoods lined the floor underneath a green Parisian rug. An aroma of brewing coffee wafted into the living room from the attached kitchen.
I could tell it was Jeremy's house immediately. The house had more books than Blu-rays and just a pinch of alternative flare mixed in with its overall sophistication. His mild OCD was on full display on one side of the room, where everything was perfectly placed in its designated spot. The other side of the room was violently marked by the struggle.
I pulled a pair of latex gloves over my hands and scanned the living room, leading into the kitchen, taking mental snapshots of the scene. A chair and side table were overturned, a lamp laid on the ground with it's shattered lightbulb sprawled on the floor before it. A clock with a shattered face had fallen from the table – it read 9:17 just as the Sheriff had mentioned. As this was the baseline for our investigation, I needed to verify it.
I flipped the clock over and opened the back compartment. I pulled two AA batteries from it and threw it to the deputy on the scene. He fumbled the catch not because he was off guard by the objects flying toward him, but because everything about this deputy said he was clumsy.
"Aaron?" I started to make out the face muddled by the chubbiness in his cheeks.
"At your service..." he bowed awkwardly. Aaron Grimes was a large, bumbly fellow who never grew out of his country boy appearance. He was never the brightest light bulb in the pack but he had a big heart and a bigger smile. He was on the wrestling team – two years below me. He didn't go to college and you could tell he only barely passed the police exam. He had been bullied his whole life for being overweight but he had risen above it. He had the warmest presence and an awkward, chubby smile that only a genuinely happy person could have.
"Good to see you... you look..." I searched for the words. He had gained more weight and was bedraggled as ever. The front tail of his police uniform had fallen out of his pants under his paunch gut. The truth was he looked like crap, but that was par for the course for Aaron Grimes. "You look..." he perked up like a black lab hoping to have his head patted. "You look like one of Hallow Springs finest...."
By his arched eyebrows and induced excitement, he took it as a compliment. He then lowered his head to what was in his hand – the two double AA's I had thrown him. "I want you to check those batteries and make sure they work." He stared at his hands confused.
"How?" His stupidity was somehow endearing.
"Put it in something and see if they work!" Peters interjected, never missing a chance to bully him.
I gave Peters a look that said, Come on, we're older than that. He shrugged, frustrated with what he had to deal with on a daily basis.
"You running prints?" I asked Peters, keeping him on task.
"Yes we are—"
The TV cut on behind me, causing me to jump out of my shoes. I swiveled and saw Grimes with a remote control in his hand.
"They work!" he inflated his chest, proud that he had added something to the investigation.
The TV was now blasting ESPN at full volume. Grimes tried to turn down the volume but flubbed the remote in his hand, dropping it to the floor and then kicking it away from him as he stepped to pick it up. It slid to Peters who shot him a glance, picked it up and muted the television with it.
I further examined the clock, trying to ignore the dynamic in the room. "Okay 9:17... is right." Peters leaned in upon overhearing my observation.
"He was reported missing at midnight on Wednesday. That means 27 hours passed between when he was taken and when the Sheriff arrived here. A lot can happen in 27 hours..."
"Yes it can..." my voice drifted as I continued probing the floor of his living room.
"His sister found him and has since been sent to Sacred Heart Medical Center, she passed out from shock and hit her head..."
"That's odd."
"Odd? She just found her brother's house like this..."
"I've seen a lot of these. That's odd, even for something like this. What did the neighbors say?"
"They didn't see anything that night," Peters explained.
Of course... good fences, make good neighbors but they also make horrible eyewitnesses.
I inspected every plank of the hardwood until I came to a startling sight – blood was smeared on the ground, streaking back towards the kitchen. I imagined Jeremy's body as the brush, streaking blood across the walnut floors as it was dragged out to the back door.
I returned to the lamp on the floor and noticed the base of the lamp – a close inspection revealed blood and hair. By the tone of the hair, it was most likely Jeremey's.
Most likely a knock out blow to the head... I logged the information away as I continued to process the crime scene.
I lifted to my feet and approached a stack of papers on the kitchen counter. Atop the stack was a pamphlet with mountain landscapes. It said, Pavillon – A Center for the Treatment of Alcholism and other Drug Addictions – Mill Springs, NC. This pamphlet struck me as curious. I didn't take Jeremy for an alcoholic or a drug addict. I checked the fridge – no alcohol. The trash can – no empties.
If this isn't for Jeremy than who is it for?
I continued my inspection of the rest of the crime scene.
"Any sign of forced entry?" I asked Peters with two steaming coffee mugs. He handed one to me.
"None." His expression was a mixture of perplexed and hopeless, as if it he had been staring at a puzzle all night and couldn't look at it anymore.
"So, our kidnapper was let in... Jeremy probably knew his captor."
"What if the door was just unlocked? That's not uncommon for these parts." I started shaking my head and stood back up from the debris.
"Jeremy, would've locked his doors. He's reclusive, cautious – even borderline neurotic."
"Would you call him ... obsessive?" Peters asked. It was an odd question, seemingly irrelevant. But he wore an expression that made me yet again think that he knew more than he was letting on. Even Grimes kept a slight grimace on me. I didn't know there was an elephant in the room until it had stepped on my chest, crushing me under its weight.
"No, I wouldn't say that..." An eerie feeling crept through me as their eyes remained on me. "Why don't you tell me what everyone else seems to know but me?"
Peters motioned toward the other side of the room – the orderly side.
There on the coffee table, largely undisturbed, was an open shoebox. I checked back to Peters, but he remained silent, knowing that my curiosity was peaked. I sat on the couch in front of the shoebox.
There, inside, lying atop a stack was a ripped out page of a book. I picked it up and read it.
When to the Sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe,
And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
- Shakespeare – Sonnet III
I slowly peaked at what was underneath the page. My mouth slackened and my eyes widened. There was a picture of me atop a stack of 4x6's. I considered it sideways. I was probably in 6th or 7th grade in the picture, smiling a mouth full of metal. My first thought wasn't about how my acne covered my face or how awkward I was. It was the fact that my picture was behind a love poem, which by the sound of it was addressed to a lost love – a friend for that matter.
"What do you think it means?" Peters asked over my shoulder.
"Jeremy was always a lover of great literature, he was a big Shakespeare fan. I motioned to the bookshelves where many of his plays stood. "Okay so he has a picture of me and an old poem. So what?"
I tried to shrug it off but Peters expression persisted. He was as serious as a heart attack. Upon meeting his face, mine fell. Heat began to rise up behind my ears – something else was amiss.
I came back to my picture – the awkward twelve-year-old version of myself. I flipped to the next one and there I was again – this time a cute nine-year-old. Then I flipped to the next one – I was now sixteen. I began flipping quicker as shock began to settle in. Each and every picture in the stack was of me. There were pictures of me from when I was in Kindergarten all the way up through High School. Then, I paralyzed by the sight, as it was not some innocent crush, but an obsession. All I could hear was the distant sound of Peters saying I told you so.
"Still think your relationship with him is irrelevant?" His question in the car echoed in my ear. He leaned in and asked one more question. "Why do you think the Sheriff asked for you?"
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