Chapter 9: .sprague
I was surprised when the doorbell rang. I was even more surprise when I looked through the peephole to see Scott standing there. It was late at night. Earlier that day his superior had shouted at Scott. He was already out to break the rules. Scott didn’t strike me as the bad kind. He was hardworking and cared a little bit too much about his job. Still he decided to go through so much trouble. I guessed it was because he really wanted to solve this mystery.
Scott was no different in primary school. He had always wanted to become a cop. At one of the first days of school when we were going to present ourselves to the older kids, he said loudly: “I’m going to become an officer of the law!” I still remembered that because he was the only one that didn’t want to become an astronaut or a cowboy. Even though he was one of the older kids, he didn’t provoke fear in me. I had known I liked him ever since that moment. Eventually it had turned to more than a liking. I had a serious crush on him to the point that I kissed his picture before going to bed.
I know that might sound creepy, but that was seriously what I did. There were rumours in school about my crush, but I don’t think Scott ever knew.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I wasn’t unhappy to see him. The opposite actually. I beamed as I looked at him.
“I’m here to pick you up,” he said, taking my hand. His hand was warm.
“Are you kidnapping me?” He didn’t smile at my half-joke.
“We are going to the first crime scene. The one of Amanda Sprague,” he said. He opened the car door for me and gestured for me to get in. He was a gentleman; I could gather that much from his actions.
I got into the car and waited for him. He was standing there. Just looking into the darkness as if he could see something down there. I squinted; trying to look down the street, but couldn’t see anything. After a couple a seconds Scott came back to the car.
“What was that?”
“I thought I saw something. Probably just a cat.” I started thinking of the weird staring-guy. The man that, according to Beatrice, was looking at me in the hallway. Was is the same man that stared at me at the crime scene? I dreaded to know what he wanted from me. It was probably just a coincidence, but I still couldn’t be entirely sure.
“Amanda Sprague was a prostitute,” he interrupted my train of thought. “She lived on the streets.” I was surprise to hear this. There wasn’t a lot of crime in the city. The incident was the first thing that had happened in a long time.
“I didn’t think there was any prostitution in this town.”
“There isn’t. She came from a neighbouring city with a higher crime-rate. Amanda came here in the search of a better life. It’s a shame what happened to her. The system just doesn’t care about those that fall out of it,” he looked down before turning his car keys and starting the engine. He was driving his civilian Ford.
“She was found raped, gagged and murdered in the basement of a run-down apartment in the outskirts. There were drugs in the room. Amphetamines, methamphetamines, cocaine and crack, anything you can imagine. A fortune worth of drugs. Just sitting there as if it was waiting for us to find it,” he shook his head in disgust.
“You really don’t like drugs,” I commented.
“They destroy lives.”
“But it’s your life, shouldn’t you be able to destroy it if you wanted to?” I asked. He went quiet for a moment before opening up.
“My parents used,” he uttered firmly. “They weren’t abusive or anything like that. I wasn’t like Derrick, expecting hits and kicks. But they gave me drugs. Pain relievers, pills, and injections… I guess that counts as abuse.” I felt ill. “I got an OD as a seven year old. I got put into the system, and I got put into a really nice family. It was there I decided I was going to become a police officer.”
“I remember the day the first graders were going to get to know the older students. You said you wanted to be an officer of the law,” I smiled at the memory.
“I guess I never change my mind once I decide something,” I laughed. It wasn’t a happy laughter, but rather one filled with a deep sadness. I realised Scott wasn’t a happy person.
“Can I ask you something personal?” I asked, thinking about his relationship with Em.
“Depends on what you’re asking…”
“What was your relationship with Em?” I immediately regretted asking. I shouldn’t pry in his personal business. “You don’t need to answer,” I exclaimed.
“We’re friends, right? Don’t tell anyone, but we were seeing each other. We had been dating for about a month. I really cared for her. I know you did too.” I thought back at our memories together. Em was such a beautiful young girl, filled with life behind her brown eyes. She had sun-kissed dark brown skin and dimples. Em was always happy. Her smile was contagious. If you were around her, you knew you would get in a good mood. Though she was disorganized and hyperactive, she was one of the best at listening. And when she was listening, you felt like she really cared about what you said.
“I’m so sorry,” was the only thing I could say.
“Life is a god damn joke,” he said grimly.
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know,” he laughed with that same sadness again, ”I just had to say it, you know. I’m sorry. This drive is awfully depressing. Should I put on some music?”
“What do you have?”
“Billy Talent and Sia.”
“You listen to two things, Billy Talent and Sia? What a weird combination,” I looked down at his collection and rose an eyebrow, “and you still buy CDs. You’re probably the strangest person in the whole city.”
“I’m a sucker for “Chandelier”,” he admitted.
“It’s a pretty solid song.” The Scott started doing the one thing I didn’t expect him to do. He started singing “Chandelier”. I knew he only did it to make me feel better, but it certainly worked. He got me into a better mood at once. His voice was actually pretty good. So good, in fact, that I wondered if I was going to feature him on my next song. The one I was currently mixing I already had a vocalist for, but I needed one for my other ideas.
“I’m gonna swing from the chandelier!” he sang as loudly as he could. I looked at him with glee. I had forgotten the grim situation and the destination for our midnight drive. As Scott was singing the merry party song, I was happy. Probably for the first time in a while. I just wanted to sit there, listening to his voice, forever. I was aware of the fact that it was impossible, but that didn’t stop me from dreaming and hoping. I hoped that this was all a dream. That Em was alive, and that we in fact were driving over to her house for some late drinks. I even caught myself hoping that Scott had feelings for me. I quickly shook the thought off, and felt bad for Chris.
Scott was done singing. We were well on our way into the rough areas again. You could see it from the flaking painting on the houses and the bins that were overflowing with rubbish. No one bothered to pay to get the garbage men to come collect. Not that it was overly expensive or anything of the sort. It was just pure laziness on their side.
We drove through some weakly lit places. All of them looked pretty shady. There were no directly dangerous parts of this city. Sure, you could get mugged when you went certain places, but there were no people running around with guns or knives. Well, at least there hadn’t been until the incident. I wondered how much the incident truly changed the city. It was all over the news; it was on people’s minds and in their every sentence. I didn’t know it our city would ever be the same as it was. Up until that moment our city was the safest city in the country with a crime rate at around zero. Now it had skyrocketed. When I looked at the devastation in Scott’s eyes, I knew that the city would never be like it was before. Scott was easy to read, but that meant I got to se every grotesque detail of these heinous crimes. I didn’t want to get desensitized, but I didn’t want to be kept in the dark either. I had to make up my mind, because this current lifestyle was making me more paranoid than I would like to admit.
He pulled up at a white apartment complex. It looked pretty empty, and as I stepped out of the car I saw that it was completely deserted. It had some yellow police tape around the entrance to the basement. I wasn’t technically allowed to cross that line, but we could possibly find important evidence down there. The curiosity in me was stronger than the fear of getting into trouble. Or the fear of getting Scott into trouble, rather.
“Ladies first,” he said and held the tape for me to crawl under. I didn’t actually need his help, but it was nice that he looked out for me. I snuck under the tape and waited for Scott to do the same. Before he did so he lit the torch with one swift movement. He was probably very used to doing that in his line of work. I imagined him going out on drug raids like that. Torch in had and gun in the other. He was quite handsome as he came towards the druggies with the gunarm extended.
“Are you okay?” he asked. I blushed and held the tape for him. He did the same as me, and avoided to get grime and dirt on his uniform. I wondered if he ever washed that thing. It didn’t smell bad when he hugged me, and it looked clean enough.
The apartment was filthy and smelled of something off. Scott had to hold his breath for large portions of the time. He didn’t cope very well with this horrible stench.
“She had been her for a while when we found her,” he told me. “She had already started smelling.” The place reeked of death. It was the only smell that could stay in the walls like that. In the middle of the room, there was a table. I walked up to it and looked at the bloodstains. Some of them looked like they were slightly scraped off. Scott said it was because the analysts were testing the blood to see if they could find the killer’s DNA. It was likely, though at the same time unlikely, that she had fought back. Unlikely because she was so high at the time that she probably wasn’t aware this was happening to her.
Scott was scouring the walls with his eyes. He was looking for something. I went to the corner and looked at the small desk. I sat down on top of it and started looking at Scott doing his work. I wondered why he had brought me here. I was just an extremely snoopy teenager. Scott couldn’t possibly have this much use for me.
I looked down at the wall, and for a second I could swear I saw a red light. I dropped down from the dusty desktop and started walking towards where the light came from. I dropped to my knees and looked into a crack in the brick wall. Surely enough, there was a red light inside this crack.
“Hey, Scott. I found something,” I said. He came rushing towards me and dropped to his knees as well.
“Help me move these bricks,” he said and dug his nails into the foundation. The bricks were surprisingly easy to move, and behind we found the same thing we did at the Bashor’s house. It was a camera set-up and a lot of expensive computer equipment.
“I need to call this in,” Scott said. He left me alone in the small room. My hands quivered. I started cold sweating. That’s how freaked out I was.
I walked up to the lens of the camera and stared into it, wondering if someone on the other side could see me.
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