The soft ‘clickity click’ of typing could be faintly heard coming from the direction of the dim glow of a laptop. Pascale, looking down into the corner of her screen, could squint her burning eyes and make out “1:00 AM” in white, glowing letters. Just five more minutes, she thought. Her fingers flew over the small built-in keyboard, typing away at a post for her blog. Pascale paused for a moment to rub her eyes, shake her head, and then check the time again. “1:04 AM.”
Rolling her shoulders tiredly, Pascale fixed her eyes back onto the laptop screen. In a tab at the top of her window, black text flashed the message, “Windows says…” Windows? Pascale lifted a finger to the mouse pad and rolled the cursor up to click on the tab. The screen changed to Gmail. A little box popped up in the lower right-hand corner, with a message that said “Pascale Reed,” from ‘Windows’ at 1:06 AM. Pascale frowned and clicked on the text box.
“How…Do… You…Know…Me…?” she typed out. She hit enter and closed her eyes for a moment. Then her laptop let out a small ‘ding!’ and a new message appeared. “I know most things about you.” This time Pascale raised an eyebrow. Maybe it’s a friend playing a trick…? She cleared her throat quietly and typed a new reply.
“Who… Are… You…?” Another ‘ding.’ “You know me.” Well, then, it’s obviously a friend. Pascale tucked her hair behind her ear to keep it out of her face as she thought of who it might be. She didn’t know that many people. Maybe it’s--her thoughts were cut short when her laptop began whirring loudly. It heated up until it felt like a hot stovetop. Pascale reached to put it to the side and turn it off, thinking she had probably been using it too long, when a blinding flash of light came out of the power button.
"A murder, then?" A hand ruffled my hair as soon as I stepped into the police station. I batted it away.
“Really, just because I haven’t dealt with this stuff doesn’t mean you have to treat me like I’m new,” I scowled. “And anyways, you shouldn’t talk about it so light-heartedly. A fifteen-year-old girl, Dan. Murdered in her home. Doesn’t happen every day, and it shouldn’t happen every day.” Dan rolled his eyes.
“It’s just a job, Roy. Figure it out, catch the bad guy, get the money, voila. Promotion.” He waved his hands in an arc as if explaining math to a five-year-old.
“Yeah, yeah. Promotions. We all know that that’s the only thing you care about. We could call you the boss’s pet,” I muttered, brushing past fake plants and down the hallway. Weaving through a maze of people, I made my way towards the small conference room at the back of the building. When I got there, I paused for a moment to slick my walnut-brown hair back and straighten my tie, inspecting the reflection of myself in a window. Turning around, I rotated the knob of the door and stepped in.
“Michaelis, you’re here. Good. Now, we should start.” I scanned the room after nodding at the greeting. Around a small, oval-shaped table sat three people, not including a woman who had greeted me, who was standing next to a rolled-up white fabric screen. I sat in one of the gray swivel chairs.
“This case is… Difficult. So, we all have been assigned to it because we are considered the best in our department. I am Trina Vane, I will be lead investigator. Carver Cyprus,” a tall, stick-like man stood up, brushing black hair out of his eyes, “is on evidence. Mattew Hall,” a nervous, jittery man rose and smiled, blinking rapidly and stuttering a quick ‘hello,’ “is our forensic anthropologist. Rune Equain will be our assistant forensic anthropologist,” a young looking girl with thick-rimmed glasses smiled sweetly at everyone, “and finally, Roy Michaelis is our assistant investigator,” Trina motioned with a nod at me. I stood and bowed, then sat back down. Everyone sat in silence for a moment while Trina strode briskly to the end of the room, grabbing the pull of the rolled screen and yanking it down with a ‘zip’ noise.
“So, details,” she clapped her hands together and shuffled through a few photos and papers that sat in a pile on the edge of the table. “Victim. Female, fifteen. Name: Pascale Reed.” Trina reached up and taped several of the papers on the fabric. One was of a girl, presumably Pascale herself, with bright pink hair and a dimpled smile directed at the camera. The other was a bed, with black marks on the sky-blue quilt. The last was a Google Maps image, one house circled in red, surrounded a sea of neighborhoods.
“The victim’s body is currently in the morgue, and that is our next destination. Evidence is in the backroom, Cyprus. You can review it later. The room Reed was murdered in is currently off-limits except to us. And,” Trina paused and looked around, trying to make a point. “We are being paid as a team; we must get along as a team. Hall, Equain, you are the only two who will be working on something general without the rest of us being there, as you will be reviewing the body. Cyprus, you will be required to have two of the team members with you in Evidence. Michaels, you will be working with me most of the time. Understood? Now, back to Reed…” Trina repeated every piece of information twice, not only to help it stick in our minds, but also because there wasn’t that much information to begin with.
Without Mattew and Rune’s review of Pascale Reed, there were no identifiable causes of death. The few things we did know were that Pascale had been messaging someone aliasing as “Windows” on her laptop moments before she died, and that it was not a natural death and it was not suicide. Therefore, murder. Pascale Reed was a foster child, since the age of three, and had just recently moved into the house she was murdered in.
The family was not suspected as they were completely devastated and had been the ones to report the death. However, the laptop had been looked over before Carver could get to it, and the conversation between Reed and the alias had roused suspicion. According to Trina’s information, original forensics had inspected the conversation (still open), and had concluded that the number one suspect was this ‘Windows.’ Reed did not know who they were yet they knew “most things about her,” said one of the forensic analyzers… All these facts began forming a web in my mind as I tried stringing them together, but the chain of thought just tangled and knotted. We needed more information.
We were all given a moment for everything to sink in. I could see my team members furrowing their eyebrows and rubbing their temples as they attempted to make a conclusion without further evidence. Like me, they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Trina noticed this and cleared her throat.
“So, no deductions quite yet? Okay, if you will all meet me by the back parking lot in ten, we will proceed to the morgue. Hall, Equain, if you both can gather your necessary tools before we leave that would be great.”
A couple of minutes later, everyone had dissipated into the hallway outside. Mattew and Rune disappeared to grab their equipment while I made my way outside to the parking lot along with the rest of the team.
Opening the back doors, a rush of frigid air slapped my face. I cringed but stepped outside to hold the doors for my companions. The gray, rainy sidewalk reflected the gray, rainy sky. The sun barely peeked out of the wisps of dark cloud; we shivered in unison and shrugged on our jackets. Mattew and Rune joined us with briefcases and laptops, and we proceeded to huddle around a midnight black Corolla.
“Shotgun,” Carver called, hopping into the front seat. Trina took the wheel, leaving Mattew, Rune, and I to squeeze into the tiny backseat.
The drive there was much longer than I had expected. I hadn’t actually been to the morgue, as I hadn’t worked on a case involving a death. But I thought I knew where the morgue was, and it should have been a ten minute drive. After forty minutes, I began to grow anxious. We were headed towards the morgue, right?
My fears disappeared as we pulled into the parking lot of a large, concrete building. A large concrete building which looked quite abandoned. The fears came back.
“Okay, everybody out,” Trina said, opening her own door. We stood back in the drizzly rain again and splashed up to the doors of the building. Carver pushed on one, but it didn’t budge. I tried.
“It’s locked,” I observed. I glanced back at the others.
“Of course it is. You weren’t even supposed to make it across the parking lot, but you seemed so eager… Pity,” Trina smiled. Everyone blinked for a moment. Then it dawned upon me.
“You… You murdered Pascale Reed?” Trina nodded.
“Yes. You didn’t really think that the police had suddenly formed a team. I mean, really. A team? That has to go to the morgue together? When I heard you were the only ones who could solve this murder, I thought you’d be a bit smarter,” Trina babbled as she rubbed her eyes. Each pupil had suddenly become colored, four squares in each one. “You’re all as dim as burned-out light bulbs. But, I might as well finish you off anyways. Don’t want you going to the real professionals with a description of my face.” Her eyes began to glow, the red, green, blue, and yellow squares turning nearly white.
“Who are you?” I yelled, backing against the concrete wall of the building behind me. Carver and Mattew were to my right, Rune to my left. Their expressions reflected my own: scared, angry, and surprised, illuminated by the burning light coming from Trina’s eyes.
“My name, my real name,” Trina chuckled. “Is Windows 7.”