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The corkboard is old but trusty. A bit worn down but still holds up to the task. He’s used it for multiple cases before this one, but never has it been this full. There are newspaper clippings, black-and-white images taken from a distance, posed photos, post-it notes with his illegible scrawl, and a red string that connects the pieces to each other and to the map displayed in the middle.
He absentmindedly picks on his Chinese takeaway noodles while watching the strings crisscross on the board, trying to find something that makes sense anymore. The food is already stale and some of the meat pieces are chewier than he’d like but for a 2 am noodle run, it isn’t half bad. And Tim Rockford has been on plenty of those in the past and it’s clear he won’t cut this particular habit anytime soon.
There’s something about this case, something about the grandma and the way she’s been acting during the interviews that rubs him wrong. He knows he’s not getting the full story but can’t figure out why. What is the grandma hiding? Who is she protecting? The granddaughter? Someone else? And how does the pie recipe fit in all of this?
All the questions nag at him, the unknown gnawing on his insides like a parasite. They chase away his ability to sleep like a hawk protecting its nest and Tim is sure that metaphor makes a lick of sense, but his brain is too fried to come up with anything clever. He snorts and curls his lip in a self-deprecating manner; he’s never been savvy with words and sleep-deprived him is not going to be changing that. But no matter, he needs to focus on the case and not his lack of the intricacies of the English language. He focuses on the Polaroid picture of the grandma and her granddaughter.
“What am I not seeing here?” Tim murmurs to himself, picking up more soggy noodles and slurping loudly, chasing the food down with a cup of coffee that really should be labeled as hazardous waste. But like the 2 am noodles, it’s what he has available and he’ll take it. The bottle of whisky bouncing in the bottom drawer of his cabinet is reserved only for when nothing else helps.
Or maybe… maybe now would be the time for that whisky, he ponders, mulling the temptation and revelation over in his mind. At this point would it really hurt to fill his cup with the amber liquid and ask for a miracle at the bottom of the bottle? Maybe that’s what he needs to see the patterns currently hidden from view.
Decision made, Tim rises from his seat, holding the backrest for support to ease the aching pain in his knee. It’s an old injury that never healed properly but with the help of the station physical therapist, it’s not as painful as it has been. But the chair is low and cheap and he’s using it wrong and leaning his chest to the backrest, so the pain does usually strikes when he rises to his full height.
Today is no exception and Tim grimaces when the pinwheel of agony rolls up and down his tendons. He crouches down, rubbing one hand over the knee in an attempt to soothe it. He really needs to book another session with the therapist. Putting a mental note on that, Tim’s eyes sweep across the silent and dark room when he sees it. He sees the link.
The fucking link was there this entire time and it took all this time for him to see it.
Pain forgotten, he crosses to one picture on the corkboard and snaps the picture from it. Bringing it closer, Tim adjusts his glasses and a wide grin spreads on his face. He can already see the pattern forming in his head, a kaleidoscope of information forming a new, clear picture in his head. Resisting the urge to jump and whoop out loud, he places the picture on another section of the board and draws a string to link it with the map. Confirming the placement, he moves a few other items on the board as well, linking and merging bits and pieces as he does so.
“Grandma, I believe you just made your first mistake,” he nods at the arrest photo of the grandma. His tenacity paid off tonight. And tomorrow … tomorrow he’ll visit the mansion to confirm what the link already told him.