I'll See You Soon

I'll See You Soon

         It was a normal Friday evening. I had just gotten off the bus from school expecting to walk into the front door of my house greeted by the smell of boiling water and tomato sauce. It was almost a ritual at this point. Every Friday my mom would cook my father's favorite meal, spaghetti. We would all sit down around the table and talk about how our week had gone. It was the only time my father would discuss my performance in school with me. He was a busy man and some in our small town even called him "important". I never saw why. I mean, I understood why people respected him, after all he was the sheriff of our small tight knit town, but to say he was "important" was a little exaggerated. Maybe it was because I always saw the goofy side of him. Whenever he was home with mom and me, he never showed the qualities of a cop. He always seemed more goofy and almost immature. Looking back on it now, I respect him for that. The amount of pressure he must've felt as the sheriff must've been enormous, yet he always tried to hide the stress he felt from me. Though sometimes I would catch him sitting at the kitchen table in the dark. I never worked up the courage to confront him during these rare moments. Instead, I opted for ignorance, choosing to look the other way and pretend like I never saw his moments of vulnerability.
         This week had been a rough one for my father, or at least it appeared to be one from the outside. Almost every night I had caught him in his midnight trance at the dinner table. I had spent most of the bus ride home from school debating whether I should ask him if he was okay or not. By the time I had reached my front door my stomach was in knots, my mind had been made. I was going to ask my father how he was doing, something I had never done before and something that truly scared me. To me, my father was an unbreakable object. If he answered it wrong, I subconsciously feared my opinion of him would be altered and he would no longer be that brave and goofy man I had grown to respect and love. I shouldn't have been so selfish and waited so long honestly.
         When I opened the front door, I was greeted by silence. The normal Friday air, created by a mixture of boiling water, salt, and spaghetti sauce was absent. Instead, the entrance to my house had become stagnant. I stepped into the entrance of the house and closed the door behind me. I heard my mom dart up from the couch, "Zora is that you honey?" Her voice seemed off, her normal quiet and soothing cadence had been replaced by a quiver of fear. "Yeah, it's me." I began to say as I headed towards the living room. "Are you ok- "I stopped. Once I reached the living room, I understood why my mother had an inflection of fear in her voice. Baron, my father's deputy was stood in the living room next to my mother. In his hand he had a badge. My mother's face was covered in streaks of mascara that trailed from her eyes down to her chin. It was obvious to me what had happened. My father wouldn't be coming home for dinner tonight. I wouldn't have to worry if he was okay or if my opinion of him would change tonight... He was dead.
         Later it came out he had been investigating a series of murders throughout our town that had been linked to gang activity. I guess the investigation was going well for my father and he was on the verge of having enough evidence to arrest the leader of the gang, Tiny. After my father's death I imagined that someone would carry his torch and continue the investigation to honor my father and bring justice to the criminals that murdered him. Instead, the investigation just vanished, and after two weeks of mourning my father, everyone pretty much stopped talking about him all together. I guess looking back now, this is what drove me to become a cop. I grinded through my last year in high school and the day after I graduated, I went through the police academy. I quickly became a local hero. I was the daughter of the previous sheriff and the first female to join the police force in our town. I was showered with praise and admiration, but none of that mattered to me. I had only one goal as a cop, and that was to find Tiny and kill him.
         The first two years of being a police officer were very slow. I was always attached to a senior officer and very rarely did anything outside of traffic stops. This never stopped me from pushing to investigate my father's death. Baron, my father's previous deputy, had now become the sheriff, and I attempted to use this to my advantage and become the new lead on the investigation. Baron always shot me down though. Saying that it was "too dangerous", and I was "to green" to even think about heading an investigation of that caliber. Deep down I knew he was right, but the more that I thought about how over two years had passed and there hadn't been a damn inch of progress in my father's case, the more it pissed me off!
         My third year as an officer is when I was finally released from being supervised by a senior officer. This gave me more freedom than ever, and I knew exactly what I would use this freedom to do! I would start by reading through the precinct's cold case files. These cases had gone unsolved for several years and by now were expected to go unsolved forever. My father was revered as the best investigator our town had ever seen and he received that title thanks to his success in solving cold cases. My thought process was simple, if no progress had been made in the case on my father's death, then that could only mean that our precinct currently did not possess the investigative skills necessary to push the case further. I would take on that burden and develop and hone my investigation skills just like how my father did. If I can solve a few cases that went cold, then I should be able to solve a case that is only three years old.
         I entered the evidence room and began to search for the first cold case I would begin to investigate. The evidence room was a small room, barely the size of a coffee shop, lined with shelves on every wall. The middle was also packed with shelves, creating three separate aisles. On these shelves there were brown boxes and on the front of these boxes there was a strip of white masking tape. Every single piece of tape had something different written on it to identify what case file was contained within the box. I began to slowly walk along the first aisle, brushing my finger along the labels on the top row. Examining each name closely, looking for one to stand out and grab my attention. I finished examining the boxes on the first aisle and focused my attention on the middle aisle in the room. As I began to examine the title of the boxes on this aisle, I realized that there was no organization of the boxes at all. The first aisle seemed to be categorized almost alphabetically apart from one or two boxes. This middle aisle, however, was a complete mess. It jumped from "C" to "W" down to "R".
         I made it halfway down the right shelf on the middle aisle when I came to an abrupt stop. "Shepperd, R." was written on the label in black sharpie. My heart began to beat faster, and my stomach quickly tightened in knots. The handwriting on this label was familiar. It was the handwriting I would always trace when it came time for progress reports in middle school and I was too afraid to let my parents see it. It was my father's handwriting! I quickly grabbed the box and exited the evidence room. I made my way to my desk and sat down, placing the box directly in front of me. I opened the lid and pulled out a manilla folder that contained reports on the case. I opened it and began to read through it thoroughly.
         Randolph Shepperd used to work for the local pharmacy downtown. He went missing three years ago, two months before my father's death. I turned to my father's notes on the investigation. It read:

"Upon further investigation it appears as though Mr. Shepperd was involved with a local gang that cooked and sold meth. Mr. Shepperd would sell large quantities of "ingredients" to the gang in exchange for a sum of money. It appears that Mr. Shepperd had a falling out with the leader of this gang and soon after, he went missing. We currently have no leads."

         "Zora!", exclaimed Baron. I jumped, slamming my knees into the bottom of my desk which made the evidence box fall, scattering its contents on the floor. I quickly got on my knees and began to recover the contents and place it back into the box. "What are you still here?" Baron asked. "I found one of my father's cold cases, sir. I wanted to read over it." Baron bent over and picked up the manilla folder. "I remember this case. Your father suspected Shepperd of being involved with that Pale Raven gang." Baron hand the manilla folder to me. "In the end though he had no leads and began to focus on the gang itself rather than Shepperd." "W-wait", I stuttered. "This case started my father's investigation on the Pale Raven's?", I asked. Baron looked at me with an expression of sorrow, like he regretted mentioning that name in front of me. He sighed and started the rub the back of his neck, something he did whenever he felt awkward. "You could say that... I guess.", he stated. "It was more like the final straw for you father. He was already investigating them but when he was unable to bring closure to the Shepperd family he became obsessed with arresting every member." His hand dropped to his side and his face was no longer reflecting an expression of regret. Now his eyes almost seemed annoyed and angry. "Zora, remember, you are forbidden from getting involved with the Pale Ravens and especially their leader, Tiny!", he exclaimed. "But- ", I began before Baron interrupted me. "That's an order Zora", he said. "Yes sir."
         Baron looked at me a little longer with that expression of anger before sighing. He turned and headed back towards his office mumbling something under his breath as he walked away. I placed the manilla folder back inside the box and began to recover the remaining fragments of reports scattered on the floor. When I had picked up every piece of paper and placed it back inside the box, I placed the lid back on it and set it back on my desk. I resigned into my chair and starred at the label on the box. Examining my father's handwriting. I began to feel a flood of tears attempting to make their way out of me. I quickly stood up to hold them back. Once I had, a yellow sticky note fell to the ground. "I guess it got stuck on my uniform when the box fell over.", I thought to myself. I bent over and picked it up. Written on the sticky note in my father's handwriting was an address. "165 Maple Wood Ave."
         I looked over into Baron's office. Through the window I could see him sitting at his desk on the phone. It seemed like it was a very heated discussion he was having. I placed the note on my desk and made my way out of the precinct, passing by Baron's office. I waved goodbye to him, and he waved back. Once I exited the building, I made my way to my car. I got inside and instantly typed the address into my phone. It wasn't far. A 20-minute drive east. I started my car and began towards the address. Once I arrived, I parked on the shoulder of the street and turned the car off.
         The house was a rundown trailer. The shudders on the middle window that appeared to be peering into the kitchen were missing. The window itself was blacked out. The yard was overgrown, and an old Ford Taurus covered in rusty polka dots sat in the driveway. I don't know why, but my father thought this address had some importance. So, even if it is a waste of my time, I am going to double check my father's work. I turned on the radio and leaned my seat back to be hidden. I began watching.
         I was woken up by the reflection of headlights from my rear-view mirror. I shot up and saw a car pull into the driveway of the ran down trailer. I began to shake with anxiety. The driver stepped out of the car. My heart began to pound harder than ever before. Standing outside of my car, roughly 300 feet away, was Randolph Shepperd. A man that was previously thought of as dead, is alive and right in front of me. He locked the car door and made his way around the back of the house. My mind began to race. I couldn't think straight.
         "What does this mean?", I thought. "What do I do?" I immediately picked up my phone and called Baron. As it rang, I realized I went against his orders. "Hello?", Baron said. Instantly I hung up. Fear washed over me. I am sitting across the street from a man my father believed was killed by the same gang that killed him and I had no back up to go investigate further. "What if this is my only chance?", I thought to myself. Without a second thought I quickly hopped out of my car. I ran around the back of the trailer. The backyard was filled with garbage. There were old car parts scattered across the over-grown lawn as well as several broken and rusty household appliances. I carefully made my way through the yard onto the back patio. The backdoor to the house was cracked open. As I got closer to the door, I could smell a very potent odor escaping through the small crack of the door. I pulled out my handgun and reached for the doorknob.
         BANG! Suddenly, a warm wet feeling began to cover the front and back of my stomach. This was followed by an immense pain as I toppled over onto the concrete patio. I quickly darted my head from side to side. There wasn't anyone around me. "I told you...", a voice said from behind me. I quickly turned and was greeted by a familiar presence. Baron was stood behind me with his gun drawn. The smell of gunpowder began to mix with the already present smell of chemicals. "I told you not to get involved. It was an order remember?!", Baron exclaimed. "Like father like daughter, I guess. You two just couldn't leave well enough alone." Suddenly the back door to the house swung open and Shepperd was stood in the doorway. "Tiny, what the hell happened?", Shepperd exclaimed in a panicked confusion. "Shut up and go inside!", Baron yelled. "I'll handle this." Shepperd retreated inside the trailer, closing the back door behind him.
         "Tiny?", I said. "You are Tiny?" Baron walked towards me. He stopped when he was over my now limp body. He aimed his gun towards my face. His eyes reflected a pure rage. Almost animalistic. The person standing over me now was not the same person I knew as Baron. This was a stranger. Tears began to roll down my face. I began to think about my father's death. I thought of how confused he was when he was shot by Baron. I wondered if he felt the same feelings of fear and confusion that I feel now. I wondered if he cried out for my mom or me right before he was finished by someone, he considered to be a partner.
         I closed my eyes. The feeling of fear slowly left my body. I started to feel cold. Tears continued to stream down my cheeks. I smiled. "I'll see you soon dad."