Ashes

"This is getting ridiculous!” Zacky muttered as he walked up the steps to the Mayer residence. He rang the doorbell and waited for someone to come to the door. He shifted from foot to foot impatiently and he was beginning to think that nobody was home. He rang the doorbell again and heard shuffling on the inside.

“Hold your fucking horses! I’m coming!” someone shouted.

The thundering footsteps got louder and louder and then suddenly the door was ripped open.

“Yes,” an unkempt looking man barked.

“Good day sir. I’m Detective Zachary Baker. Are you Mr. Joseph Mayer?”

“Depends on what you want?” he replied.

“I’m one of the detectives working on your daughter’s case. I just want to ask you a few questions.”

“Ask away.”

“Can I come in first?” Zacky asked him.

"No. Whatever you want to ask you can ask it right here."

"Okay then. I just wanted to know if any of your daughter's stuff was missing."

"Look here Detective Baker, we've been asked that a million times and I can tell you, as I've said before, the answer is no. Nothing is missing."

"Well just to be sure can I take a look around. The other detectives might have overlooked something."

Joseph sighed but stepped aside to let the detective through the door. He ushered him to a room near the back of the house. It was a small room with only a twin bed and a dresser but what made it stand out was the large seat under the window.

Joseph watched from the doorway as the detective searched through the numerous draws. It all seemed familiar to him. When the incident had just happened, two detectives had gone through the same draws and found nothing. It was all a waste of time.

"You policemen have been through every nook in this room. I'm sure if something was there you would have found it by now," Joseph stated.

Zacky ignored the man's comment and continued to look through the draws. He could feel Joseph's eyes following his every move. It was unnerving. He hated people breathing down his neck while he did his work but he couldn't ask the man to leave. After all he was a guest in the house.

Zacky then looked up at the many pictures that were pinned to a cork board on the wall next to the mirror on her dresser. Many of the pictures were of Carrie-Lyn and her friends. He did a mental check of all the people they had already interviewed and from what he remembered all of them had given some sort of statement. The one picture that caught his attention was of Carrie-Lyn herself. The photo was at an angle as if she had taken it herself with a camera placed not too far from her face. She wore a one of the biggest and brightest smiles Zacky had ever seen. He couldn’t help but smiling back at the picture. She was definitely beautiful with her clear blue eyes and perfectly straight teeth. He couldn’t understand why someone would want to kill her. Zacky studied the other pictures but he kept going back to that same picture. He couldn’t help but feel drawn to it, as if it held all the answers he needed.

“Would it be okay if I took this picture with me?” He asked Joseph while pointing to the picture in question.

“Nope,” he replied. “I can’t let you have that picture. What does it have to do with the investigation anyway?”

“I just get the feeling that I need to have that picture,” Zacky explained. “I think it may have the clues about her killer.”

“It’s just a picture,” Joseph stated.

“Exactly!” Zacky said. “So you should have no problem with giving it to me.”

“You can’t force me to give it you! You want to know why you can’t have it? It’s the only recent picture we have of her. It was taken the day she was murdered. I can’t let you have it. It can’t leave this room.” Joseph informed him.

“Okay,” Zacky said pulling out his phone to check the time while sneakily taking a picture of the picture. He quickly replaced the phone in his pocket. It was the one time he was glad he let Brian talk him into getting that expensive phone. It took great quality photos.

"But that's even more reason why you should let me have it." Zacky mentioned to him not really caring what his reaction would be.

"The answer is still no," Joseph said firmly.“If you’re done now I would like you to leave.”

“Asshole,” Zacky muttered as he walked out of the house and into the squad car. He didn't care how much of a dick the man was to him. He couldn't shake the feeling that they were closer than they ever were to solving the case.