Fred Forchelli - Chapter 7

Chapter 7 – The Police Report

Fred woke up on Wednesday morning with a raging headache. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the intensity of the past two days of this case, the fact that he had consumed two large cups of iced diet Pepsi (one at lunch and another at dinner), or the double pepperoni meat-lover’s pizza he had ordered for “dinner”. Maybe it was a combination of all three. But whatever the cause, he took an extra-strength Tylenol and went back to bed for a couple of hours.

Thus, it wasn’t until just before noon that he unlocked his office and prepared to spend the rest of the day working on the remaining hints in the envelope from Monday. He had brought lunch with him today – a PB&J sandwich and a chilled bottle of water from his refrigerator. He figured he had enough caffeine in his system to sustain him for a while. The sky was overcast so his office was not quite as warm as the last few days. But he turned the fan on low anyway and the simple stirring of the air was quite comforting. Then he plugged in his laptop. While waiting for it to boot up, he opened the solitary folder on his desk and pulled out the police report.

 

There are two kinds of police reports. One is the original that is filled out by the police officer when someone is detained or arrested. The other is a computer printout of the information after it is all recorded and transcribed. This was one of the former – not the original itself, but a photocopy of it. Fred wondered how his client had managed to obtain it. He (she?) must have had some inside connections at the police department.

Like any typical original document, everything was in the handwriting of the police officer who filled out the form. There were several boxes of things to check off or separate fields to be entered such as the date, the name of the individual, etc. There was a large central box where the officer could free-form all the details. This particular officer wrote everything in block letters, but even then it was difficult to read much of it – perhaps because it was being filled out in haste, or perhaps because the writing surface was awkward such as the hood of an automobile or a porch railing. The officer’s signature at the bottom was unreadable, but his/her badge number in the appropriate field could be checked out if necessary.

The report did not seem like any significant event. Apparently, someone had noticed an unknown car parked in their neighborhood and, concerned that it might be a burglar, had called the police department to have it checked out. When the policeman arrived, he saw that the car was occupied and running, but that one taillight was out. Approaching the car, he asked the driver to provide identification, registration, etc. This was all recorded on the report. The driver did not appear to be intoxicated, but there was a bottle of pills on the seat next to him. Upon checking, the pills were identified not as narcotics, but some type of heart medication, so there was nothing illegal. The driver had explained that he was from out-of-town and, finding himself on an unfamiliar street, had parked to take a short rest before getting back on the main road and driving back to the city where he lived. The driver had been given a warning about the non-functional taillight and advised to park in a more public place than a residential street if it should happen again. No charges had been filed.

Fred had been hoping for something a bit more dramatic or with obvious ties to the other “hints” that he had studied the previous day. Now he was disappointed. And how was he supposed to make sense of all of this? After completing the detailed notes of what those block letters said, he set aside the police report and took up the final piece of paper that had been given to him.

 

The only writing on the picture was a date on the back. Otherwise, it was just a picture of two men shaking hands. While the picture was not very clear, it was not so blurred that the men would have been unrecognizable. But Fred was not familiar with either of them. Both were smiling and were probably pleased. They did not seem to be aware that their picture was being taken. Upon studying it closely, Fred believed that this picture was probably taken at long range where the photographer would not be seen by the men and that it had been blown up so that the men could be identified. That would certainly explain the graininess. But in blowing it up, the context of the picture had been lost. There were few clues on where the men were, except that it must have been a time-of-day where the faces were fully illuminated. There were no other individuals or buildings visible, and the few trees that could be seen on the one side could have been anywhere.

Fred studied the two faces closely. He wanted to imprint them in his mind so that if he were to see another picture of either of them, he would be able to connect them. But at this point the men were just two unknown individuals shaking hands – apparently on the date on the back of the picture.

 

Fred put his fingertips together and leaned back in his office chair to take stock of his situation. He’d been paid in advance for two weeks of work – but for an unknown client and on some probably illegal/illicit situation that was not yet known.  He had a rapidly filling pad of notes, but much of it was probably useless – in fact likely all the work from Tuesday morning. All his checking into the individuals and companies who had received awards from the Chamber of Commerce were likely just a distraction as the only significant award was the one that had been deliberately cut out before the newspaper article had been copied. And all the names and backgrounds of the people on that society page were similarly wasted time as it was the obituary on the reverse side that was tied to this case. Fred was now pretty well convinced that the copying of the wrong side of the page had been deliberately done rather than just a simple mistake. He leaned forward and drew a long slash mark across all the pages of notes from yesterday morning. He’d leave the pages there and readable. After all, it was possible that he might need them later – or in some future case – but he wanted to avoid being distracted by all those handwritten notes for now.

The article on the fracking had probably been genuine, although how it related to this case was not at all obvious. The editorial opinion was also likely valuable – and at least he had found out before he spent any time on investigating any of the ads or other information on the backside of that page. And the work he had done this afternoon was pertinent, even if he did not yet know how it fit.

It was all very frustrating! He felt he was deliberately being manipulated by his client and he’d have some choice words to say to her when he was able to. (Ouch, he thought, there’s that feminine pronoun again! Why did it keep thrusting itself into his thoughts?)

Straightening up in his chair, he turned off his laptop and put it and the power cord back in his briefcase. He turned off the fan that was rapidly becoming a necessary fixture in his office, switched off the overhead lights, closed and locked the door, and made his way down the familiar hall toward the stairwell. His review of the “hints” now complete, he’d start tomorrow on trying to make sense of them all. But he wasn’t sure at all on where this was taking him.

 

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