The Enigma’s Anomaly

Mikey is behind one of those glass window things with the telephone, and it’s really disheartening to see the guy sitting there. He doesn’t belong behind that glass, I do. I hate seeing him actually in prison. He’s actually a felon at the moment.

It hasn’t been awful for him yet, but his trial is in a week which means that he has approximately eight days to live. I decide not to tell him that though, because he really doesn’t need to know he’s going to die unless it’s actually going to happen. I will not let him go down for this though. I would sooner turn myself in, but I’m really hoping that I don’t have to do that.

“Mikey, there’s a few things that aren’t adding up about what happened. I looked at the police report, okay?” I start and Mikey nods, “but the times on here don’t make sense. You reported a broken lock on your door, and didn’t touch anything, right?”

“Except the doorknob, I didn’t touch anything.”

“Explain how you found your apartment, how did you know it was broken into immediately?”

“Well I got home and put the key in the lock, but it didn’t turn so I tried the door and I just figured I’d left it unlocked or something. When I opened it I saw that the lock was completely broken so that’s how I knew. Why do you ask?”

“Well that’s what the problem is. You had to have touched the doorknob to have realized that it was broken because it wasn’t ajar or anything, according to the report,” I continue.

“Okay?”

I begin my analysis, “So I looked through the report even more and I saw that it only took four minutes for police to respond to your call. That’s way too quick for the police to have come. It should’ve taken them several more minutes, and a robbery isn’t exactly high priority so it might have even been hours, but it was only four minutes.”

“Well the guy said that he was in the neighborhood.”

“Yeah, but you live on the fourteenth floor of your building, correct?”

“Yes,” Mikey says and Gerard is starting to look at me curiously too.

“Well unless he was waiting right outside your apartment building, then there’s no way he could’ve possibly gotten all the way up to the fourteenth floor in four minutes. The elevator would have been too busy at that time of the night, and the stairs wouldn’t really have been an option either because then he’d have gotten there and been all sweaty and tired, because that’s a lot of stories to climb in under four minutes.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Well it’s possible that someone had previously reported a crime in that building and that’s why he was there, but I think it’s unlikely. I’m going to take it up with the arresting officer, but it doesn’t make any sense. Then there’s the matter of the fingerprints,” I say.

“What fingerprints?”

“See that’s the thing,” I say, “there were no finger prints almost anywhere there should have been. There were no fingerprints on the kitchen counters, there weren’t any on the coffee table, none on that laptop, and most especially none on the drawer where the gun was being kept, and none on that doorknob. Not a single pair. It was wiped clean. Now if the police were trying to convict you for attempted murder they would have been much more careful than as to contaminate your apartment. So why is it that almost every daily-used surface in your apartment was wiped clean?”

“I... I don’t know?”

“But the biggest worry is that the doorknob and drawer with the gun were wiped clean. Mikey, when you entered your apartment you grabbed the doorknob?”

“That’s right, I did,” he says and Mikey is looking at me like he knows that I’m onto something.

“And if you entered your apartment by grabbing the doorknob then how come your fingerprints weren’t found on it?”

“Beats me,” Gerard says.

“The only way that that doorknob was clean after you entered your apartment was if it had been wiped clean after you got there,” I conclude.

“Oh my god,” Mikey says looking dazzled.

“And when I looked even further through the report I saw that the time when the attending officer called for more people after arriving at the scene, was no more than three minutes later, which is an even shorter amount of time then it took for him to climb those steps.”

“I’m not following,” Mikey says.

“No neither am I,” Gerard agrees.

I roll my eyes and continue, “If he got there within four minutes, then I assume you gave him a brief summary of what happened, then began looking around your apartment, I would guess that that takes up about two minutes. How come it took him so little time to find that gun in your drawer? How did he know precisely where to look? And if he did find that gun in that drawer like the report says, then his fingerprints would be on that drawer too, but it was wiped clean,” I say, and I’m starting to realize that I’d make a damn good lawyer. Or maybe a detective. Oh, I could be Sherlock Holmes, or Ellery Queen, or Shaun Spencer or something.

“Frank!” Gerard says looking amazed, “that’s fucking genius!”

He grabs me and kisses me full on, which I wouldn’t complain about if his brother wasn’t right there.

Mikey seems to be on my page and clears his throat, “ahem.”

Gerard pulls away a moment later looking red, but he doesn’t say sorry and instead says, “So it sounds like we need to have a talk with the officer that first responded.”

“You can say that again,” I tell him. “Mikey, is it okay if we head out early so that we can go clear your name?”

Mikey shrugs, “I don’t know if that’s enough to get me out of here-“

“It’s reasonable doubt. A jury will likely see that, and I think you’d fair well under the scrutiny of a trial anyway. Even if you were guilty, you just really don’t look the murdering type.”

“Well thanks I guess,” Mikey says.

~*~*~*~

We get down to the police station not long after and I hate it in here. There are so many things wrong with being surrounded by cops that it hurts. It’s a person of my professions’ worst nightmare, but this really can’t be done over the phone, because we’d sound like imbecils.

“Mr. Way, how can I help you?” It’s the same cop that came to his apartment not too long ago. I feel uncomfortable being near her, but I don’t say anything about it.

“We were wondering if we could speak with the officer who originally reported to my brother’s apartment,” Gerard says.

“This isn’t about the kidnapping?” She asks and looks at me.

“Well no, the kidnapping was done by the guy whose trying to kill Gerard, and amazingly the man behind it all managed to sort that all out from prison,” I say sourly and with spite, but she doesn’t seem to like my attitude so I shut up and start staring down at my toes.

“That was Officer Roland, I’ll go get him,” she says quickly and walks away.

I stand there looking at the plain ground which is tiled with an ugly brown color, and scuffed from dirt and shoes. This whole office sort of seems depressing to me, but I’m not really a fan of it for reasons other than its interior decorating. I don’t like being a criminal, any more than the police dislike criminals.

I look up a minute later to see Gerard looking at me critically.

“You okay?”

“What? Yeah, I just don’t like it in here. No reason,” I lie to him, and then feel instant guilt.

“I can see why,” He says, but I know he doesn’t. He can’t possibly understand why I hate it in here. He just thinks I hate the feeling of it. Gloomy and hopeless, like the criminals that walk through here.

I look around him to see the female cop walking back over to us and she’s deeply wrapped in conversation with a man, another cop.

I look at him and my heart stutters a little bit. I almost fall down where I stand, and my body turns to lead as my entire brain starts to flame.

I think I might faint. I think I might actually faint.

“Whoa Frankie, are you okay?”

I can barely talk right now. I’m probably ghostly pale or green. I’ve experienced sheer terror before. I’ve felt the inevitability of my own demise before, but nothing compares to this. Not a single emotion in the world compares to how I’m feeling right now.

“G-Gerard, that man,” I point to the guy who’s still walking toward us with the other cop, “th-that’s one of the men who kidnapped me.”

Gerard looks back at him in shock, and I feel my heart racing far past a healthy rate. That’s mister-sadist man. Mister-sadist man is a cop.

And that’s when I actually do faint.