The Night Shift (15 page)

He turned around and saw Ian staring at him. "What is it?"

"Blackmail me one more time like that and your head'll be stuck in that sand so fast you'd think the Sandman just punched you in the face!"

"…I'll keep that in mind."

As he continued walking further from the lifeguard tower, he realized one more thing and ran over to Ian. "Wait, I forgot to ask you something!"

"What is it?"

"You remember anything weird about Jess's knife?"

"Jess's
knife
?"

"Yeah!"

"You mean the thing that the police say killed Scott?"

How many 'Jess's knives' do you know?!
"Yeah, that one!"

"Uh…I'm not sure I follow."

"Like, did someone
borrow
it or something?"

"Hmmmmm…kinda tough to remember small things like that, buddy. Uh…I think I remember Jess telling me she lent it to Nick."

Awesome! So Nick DID have it!
"Thanks, Ian! You're the best!"

"Yeah, I know, but why'd you…"

"See ya!" Collin yelled as he excitedly ran off before Ian could finish his sentence. He was too excited to even notice that his colleague wasn't finished talking.

After running back to his post (today he had his least favorite job: monitoring the bathrooms-all seventeen of them), Collin started thinking about what it meant that Jess did indeed lend her knife to Nick. But Nick didn't seem all too suspicious right now, and Collin quickly began to think about possibilities of Nick not being the killer, after all.

"Hmmm…maybe someone stole the knife from Nick?" Collin asked himself out loud. Luckily for him, there was no one around who noticed he was talking to himself. "Someone who knew Nick had the knife and thought…yeah! If someone knew Nick had it and he borrowed it from Jess, then that means there would be TWO possible suspects while the guy who stole it from Nick would be getting off scot-free! Yeah! It makes sense! Now who was…Ian! Yeah! Maybe it was him!"

Collin was getting anxious now and his blood started pumping through him much more quickly. "I'd better take
Ian
into questioning now and…ugh, no, that won't work."

He realized at that point that, even though Ian didn't want to talk about anything, he didn't seem to have an obvious motive either, but to add on to that, there was nothing that would make it seem like Collin's theory, which was speculation enough as it was, was actually correct.

"Ugh…Ian's probably told me everything he knows. I don't think I'm gonna get anything new out of him. Maybe I just need to think about who might know something about Scott dying instead of just thinking about who
did
it."

As he was deep in though, he suddenly came to a realization and was ready to hit himself on the head for missing the obvious choice.

"Of course!" he said excitedly. "I know who I should find out more from! Yeah! It'll work. I've
gotta
find something this time! There's just no way I
can't
!"

He had no idea that right next to him was a somewhat large looking man looking at him as if he had eyeballs on the side of his head. When Collin noticed the tourist standing to the side, he jumped and stood at attention. "Is there a problem?"

The man continued looking at him in a confused way; his look seemed to be asking, "Is this kid all right?"

"There's no paper in one of the stalls," the man said.

"Er…right. I'm on it."

Chapter 9
 

Another Questioning

It was right around lunch time and the staff members of Arbur Winslow were taking their daily hour off just to get some quick energy that they would need to last through the rest of the day. All of them, that is, except for Collin, who was instead standing at the door to the main office. Something very heavy was weighing on his mind.

He took a deep breath and seemed to be asking himself, "Do I really want to do this?". After ultimately deciding the answer to that question was a "yes", he knocked on the door.

"Hello?" came
a
voice from behind the door. It was Lisa's.

"It's me."

"Come on in."

Inhaling once again, Collin slowly opened the door and peeked in rather slowly.

"Hi, Collin," Lisa said, sounding decidedly neutral.

"Hi. I, uh…wanted to ask you about something."

"Go ahead," Lisa allowed, despite the fact she was feeling very suspicious about what it was that he wanted to talk about.

"Uh…about last summer with Scott…"

"No!"

"What?"

"Collin, we are not talking about this anymore, all right?! It's over and done with. Let the police do whatever they can now if they want. I'm not doing anything that'll either help'em or hurt'em."

"Yeah, but…"

"Look at
you
! You're an eighteen year old kid paying off his gas money by picking up napkins people drop. You've got the least amount of right of
any
of us to be sticking their nose into this!"

"That's not true!" he insisted. "I've worked at the station and I know what goes on there. And trust me, those guys need all the help they can get."

Upon hearing this, Lisa covered her eyes with her left hand and acted as if her head was beginning to throb.

"What do you want?"

Collin was stunned to hear that. "…what?!"

"What do you want?!"

"But you just said…"

"I know what I just said! If it'll get you to just shut up, I'll play along with your little game!"

He wanted nothing more than to lash out at her for that remark, but he held himself back and didn't want to waste that one opportunity when he might have been able to find out something interesting or important.

"Okay, thanks. Actually, I just wanted to ask if you know what happened the night Scott got killed."

Lisa sighed. Her annoyance was far too obvious, even after this first question. "I don't know," she moaned. "I wasn't there. Scott could've had a heart attack for all I know."

"So…you don't remember anything from the night of the murder?"

"Just stop it," Lisa softly scolded. "Quit trying to sound like you're some detective or police chief."

"Uh…sorry. But that's it? You don't know
anything
?"

"No."

Oh, man! I'm running out of suspects! Hmmm…
"What about the next morning?"

"Huh?"

"The morning Scott's body was found? What happened then?"

"I don't know. I wasn't the first one there."

"Who
was
?"

"Randy."

Riiiight…I forgot about him.
"So how'd Randy handle the police when they first showed up?"

"I don't know. By the time I got there and had learned what happened, Randy had pretty much taken care off everything and the police weren't really too suspicious of anyone. They spent most of the time after that just looking for clues."

"That's it? Nothing weird?"

"Nope. See? Maybe that'll teach you not to pretend you're an expert crime solver."

"Trust me. By the time this is over, I won't
have
to pretend."

"Talkin' a pretty big game for a kid your age. Look, just let the police do their job, all right? I'm sure if they wanted your help, they would've asked for it."

Ouch! Coooold…
"Yeah? Well, I guess I'll work
un
officially."

"Whatever. Are you done?"

"Actually, there was one more thing I wanted to ask you."

Lisa groaned yet again. "What is it?"

"Would Randy have any reason to want Scott dead?"

"…"

As Collin suddenly became aware of the silence, he tensed up and almost felt like he was suddenly onto something.

"Well…did he?"

"…no."

"…what?"

"No. Randy wouldn't have anything to gain if Scott died. Nothing."

"Are you…sure?"

"Yes. I'm sure."

"…all right."

There was a long and very painful silence that followed. The entire room became uncomfortable, and, not knowing what else to do, Collin walked back to the door and slowly started opening it. He began creeping his way out back into the main room before he stuck his head back in one more time and said, "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Lisa said very insincerely.

Collin strolled out of the office, trying to recover from the stabbing feeling he now had inside himself. Why did Lisa seem so hesitant about Randy not having a motive? Either way, he realized he didn't have much to worry about there. Randy was long gone from Arbur Winslow, and Collin was sure he'd never get the opportunity to talk to him and hear his side of the story. For now, he had to talk to the one person who felt could make something out of what just happened.

*  *  *

"Are you serious?" Teneire moaned.

"Sorry, sir, but,...well, Lisa's the head honcho now."

"What's your point?"

"Well, she sounded like she was hiding something, and…hey, let's face it. She runs Arbur Winslow now. She might know something that she was told not to tell anyone."

"That's absurd."

"I know, I know. But I really think we can get something useful from her if we just try to bring her in here to answer some questions."

"That's what you said about your other friends, and look how far we got with them."

"Come on! This is different! We're talking about the lady who's at the top of the food chain here! And besides, you
wanted
me to try to find someone to bring in, right?"

Teneire sighed and covered his face. "Fine. You're right. You're right. You know what? You're right. Ugh…"

*  *  *

"Is this some kind of a joke?" Lisa arrogantly demanded as she sat in the chair that the other workers had sat in before her. She was staring right across from her at Teneire, who was staring at her almost in a sympathetic way from behind her desk.

"No, I'm afraid this is really happening. You're really being questioned now."