Follow the Clues...

This would be my office one day. I’d never sit on this side of the desk again, either, staring at staged pictures of arrests that Chief Remington had nothing to do with that were hung beside pictures of his kids. Poor things looked just like Chief, too. I wondered what his daughter would look like if she grew his bushy mustache, she already resembled him so damn much. Did those kids also eat fast food out of a paper bag like the one sitting on Chief’s desk? Did they get the meat sweats too?

I started to wonder how long it’d take to get Chief’s stench out of my future office when his booming voice interrupted my thoughts.

“This one’s a doozy, boys. We’ve had that body in the morgue for days now and nary a damn lead.”

Thinking ahead, I’d went to the morgue that morning to inspect the body. Mid 30’s, white male, no apparent signs of trauma.

Time to impress Chief with my foresight and preparedness–

“What is a doo-zee, Mr. Police Chief?” The high-pitched voice. The accent. Damnit, Esteban!

Like me, Esteban was a new hire. Originally from Spain, he spoke perfect English. And by perfect, I meant it was as if he read straight from a grammar textbook when he spoke. They needed to do a better job back in Spain preparing their students for how we actually talk here.

“This is going to be tough to solve, Nunez. We’re waiting on the toxicology to come back; if there’s nothing, we’re out of leads. I’ve been pulling my hair out with this one. This entire investigation’s been one big dumpster fire.” Esteban began scribbling furiously in the notepad he carried everywhere.

I’d heard about Detective Griggs’ mismanagement of the case – it was how I knew to check in at the morgue. The detective shifted his weight, not bothering to look up at the rest of the officers gathered in Chief’s office.

Esteban stopped writing. “Were there burn marks on the victim?”

Chief shook his head, squinting. “Who said anything about burns?”

Esteban checked his notepad. “Did you not say that the investigation involved a ‘fire in a dumpster’?”

Chief Remington opened his mouth to respond then stopped, slack-jawed. I’m sure my face looked very much the same. I whispered, “No, he’s just saying the investigation has been handled poorly so far.”

It was Esteban’s turn to look confused. I whispered that I’d explain later.

“If you two are done horsing around…”

“Sorry, Chief.”

“Our vic’s name was John Copeland, a 37-year-old accountant and a married father of three. Wife was much younger; his kids were from a previous marriage. Honestly, I’m suspicious of his young wife. Hell hath no fury…”

Everyone nodded as Chief trailed off. Everyone except Esteban. His eyebrows raised as he leaned in towards Chief, expecting more. He whispered to me, “Hell does have fury, what is Mr. Police Chief talking about?”

I shook my head. “I’ll explain later.”

The Chief continued. “Our big problem is that Channel 6 News was the first to find the body; they’re working hard to get their ratings up with this one. It’s adding fuel to the fire.”

Esteban shouted before I could stop him. “News pours gasoline on the fire in the dumpster? That is crime scene tampering, no?”

Chief looked around the room. “Someone explain it to Nunez later, I don’t have the time.”

The task would fall to me, of course. I knew it already.

“Back to what I was saying. There’s another reason I’m watching the wife that the press doesn’t know. Mr. Copeland was rumored to be a gay man who was about to come out of the closet. His wife, she’d have been gone in a New York minute… or maybe worse. That’s what I need you all to find out.”

“Yes sir,” we all sounded off in unison. Except for Esteban. He was scribbling furiously. Again.

“I hope I’m preaching to the choir here, but that’s only the first angle I want y’all to pursue. You’ll pursue other suspects, of course; keep an open mind.”

Chief turned to the shamed detective. “Ring a bell, Griggs?” The detective grimaced but never looked up.

“This isn’t rocket science guys. Wife’s a possible suspect. So is Mr. Copeland’s colleague Johan Gutenberg; those two were thick as thieves. There may be others as well, so get out there and do some police work.”

By that evening, I was sitting in my unmarked Grand Marquis. Binoculars in hand, I was staking out the Copelands’ residence located smack dab in the middle of suburbia with their well-manicured lawns all encased by perfectly trimmed hedges and picket fences. It sickened me, the false lives these people led while murdering each other.

If Mrs. Copeland was worried about being tracked, she didn’t let on. She went about a normal routine, making dinner, giving baths, and cleaning the kitchen. She was getting ready to take a shower when my phone lit up.

Esteban Calling. I pressed ignore.

A few seconds later, it lit up again. I ignored him again and put my phone away, hoping he would get the hint. The light shining from my pocket seconds later showed me how foolish that hope was.

“What?” I hissed after answering.

“Good evening, Officer Torres. Real quick, what is the bell restaurant with where you can get the Mexican foods?”

I pulled the phone away from my ear and squinted at the screen as if he could see me. “That’s what you called me for? Taco Bell?”

I heard a gasp then he exclaimed “That’s it! Thank you very much Officer Torres! Have a good night!”

“Uh, yeah. You… too?”

I arrived late in the morning, my hair stuck in the worst cowlick ever after falling asleep in my squad car. I needed to review my notes of the case, see if I’d missed anything. The Copelands seemed a normal family, but I wasn’t giving up before I figured out how Mrs. Copeland did it. I could feel it in my bones; she did it. I just needed proof.

The mood in the station seemed upbeat; no one even mentioned my late arrival. Behind me, I could hear Jenkins. “…in one night? It’s insane! There must be something in the water over in Spain!”

What did Esteban do now? He wasn’t at his desk, though his knickknacks were still there. They hadn’t fired him… yet.

I was running through the possibilities of what he’d done when I saw him walk out of Chief’s office. Every head in the station turned. Esteban grinned a sheepish grin and waved…

…as everyone began clapping.

Officers slapped Esteban on the back and congratulated him. One rather excited deputy almost knocked over the much smaller Spaniard. Esteban finally reached his desk next to mine after going through a gauntlet of deputies. I had to ask.

“What happened?”

I expected to see him smiling given all the praise. When he turned, though, his expression reminded me more of a stressed-out mother of five than a celebrated police rookie. “I solved the case.”

“The ca- what? The one Chief briefed us on yesterday?”

He was already flipping through his notebook, reviewing handwritten notes. “Yes, that one.”

“How… wh- I don’t, huh?” I watched the Copeland house all night. When did they get her?

“I found the killer.” He said it in such a matter-of-fact way as if he hadn’t solved the biggest case in the department in no time.

“How did she do it? How did you pin it on her?”

“Her? The priest is a man, not a woman.”

“Priest?”

“It’s all in the profile.”

I was more confused now than when I walked in. “Profile?”

“Yes, profile. Mr. Police Chief gave all the information needed to create a suspect profile.”

Esteban, there’s no way. Chief didn’t tell us that much, he mostly just bitched and hypothesized.”

Esteban let out a deep sigh and flipped back a few pages in his notebook. He began to rattle off aspects of his profile. “First, he say that it was not a scientist who builds the rockets. Then, he…”

“Wait, when did he say that?”

He ran his finger down the page of handwritten notes. “Right here, he say it is ‘not rocket science’.”

“Wha- that’s just… no, that’s not what he meant!”

“But he was right. It was not a scientist of rockets.”

I threw my hands up. He had a point.

He proceeded down the list of attributes, running his finger along the page to show the quoted statements that tipped off each attribute. “He say the man was fat, bald, from New York, and was a priest.”

I followed his finger, shaking my head harder as I saw each written note. These were the "clues" he used?

"...thick as thieves..."

"...pulling my hair out..."

"...in a New York minute..."

"...preaching to the choir..."

"...come out of the closet…"

“Whoa, whoa, coming out of the closet? That’s incredibly prejudicial, Esteban, you can’t assume all priests are pedophiles who- ”

A pained look flashed across Esteban’s face. “What do you mean?”

“You associated coming out of the closet with a priest, why else would you?”

“Oh! That? A priest has the closet he goes into for confession.”

“Oh…” That’s all I could say. Who was the prejudicial one after all?

“I look into Mr. Copeland’s religion and find that he attend mass at St. Benedict Cathedral on Sycamore Street. I inform Mr. Police Chief, and they pick up Father Mooreland this morning after questioning him.”

This is what everyone was celebrating? “Do really they think it was him? Based on this profile?”

“He already confess.”

I gasped. “He what?”

“That’s what Mr. Police Chief just tell me. Father Mooreland kill Mr. Copeland to keep his son quiet about what Father Mooreland was doing to him.”

I had it all wrong. I was parked outside a grieving widow’s home having never stopped to consider that I might be wrong. That Chief had gotten it wrong. And here, rookie Esteban Nunez solved the entire case by… by, by nothing more than pure luck.

Even though he should’ve been celebrating this massive win, Esteban still looked distraught. He returned to his notebook, flipping back to the page he was reviewing before.

“Shouldn’t you be celebrating?”

“This case not solved yet. I have another suspect, an accomplice.”

Everything he said exacerbated my confusion. “Huh? If Mooreland confessed, the case is over. Who else is a suspect?”

“Mr. Police Chief.”

My eyes shot open, my jaw dropped. “Chief? How do you figure?”

“He know too much about the murderer. He give all the details. He should not know so much if he innocent.”

I wanted to laugh, I wanted to shout. I didn’t know what to do. This was all too much.

“Fine, let’s say Chief is a suspect. What are you planning next?”

“Check the dumpster outside, find his trash from yesterday. You help me figure out the final clue last night.”

I looked around to make sure no one heard Esteban try to take me down with him. “Whoa, whoa, I had nothing to do with this.”

“You tell me the restaurant. Mr. Police Chief make one big mistake. He say “ring a bell”, but that clue had nothing to do with Father Mooreland. I could not figure out what he meant. Then I remember the paper bag on Chief desk yesterday while he tell us about this case. I need to know what was in that bag.”

Taco Bell. This kid was committing career suicide in front of my eyes, and I provided the round for his weapon of choice. I almost told him not to do it right then and there…

…but he did just solve one of the hardest cases in the department’s history. Using nothing more than the smallest of clues. What the hell did I know?

“Fine, let’s go dig in the trash.”