Simple Deduction

Simple Deduction

"Jenrice," I said thinly, putting my pen down. "I'm trying to be nice right now and you're making it hard for me. I have a paper due that will take me all weekend. I have a test to prep for in Chemistry. Let. Me. Do. My. Work. Please." I asked and when she saw the irritation in my eyes she bowed.

"I'm sorry; I should have been more considerate." She said politely and started to back away from my desk to the door. "I'll leave you to your work. We need to have you passing all of your classes." She said in a more professional matter and with that she left the room.

Sighing again I turned back to my English essay, looking down at the only half filled paper. It should only take about thirty minutes to finish an English paper in my school but this one was a finals paper for the whole year. What could be different about it you might ask? The requirements stated it needed to be a multi-chaptered story with a plot. Enough. Said. After my linguist teacher had left me for a while I finished some of my work. I only had enough time to collect my thoughts and put the pen to paper before my phone next to me let out a loud shrieking noise telling me that someone was calling. Glaring at my phone for the interruption I roughly grabbed it from the table and flipped it open, holding it my ear and picking up the pen to continue writing.

"Hello?" I asked boredom clearly in my voice as I finished a sentence on my paper before setting my pen down. "No, the only time I ever go into the guys bathroom is to get sick." Tapping my pen to my desk I listened to the accusations coming from the other end of the phone. "Well it must have been another black haired 'emo' kid." I said defensively and heard the person on the other end yelling at my assumption. "Then just someone with black hair and who's extremely skinny." I said cutting them off as they went off on me. I didn't like people yelling at me. Honestly, it bothers me. "You people blame me for everything but you have security camera's keeping an eye on the bathroom door in the hall." A quick response before I really went off on them. "Then why don't you check them before you go blaming one of your student's who's at the top of his class?" I finished gratingly and snapped my cell shut. The only thing that irritates me more than being called a loner is a liar and a thief. "Stupid faculty, even I knew what to do and I'm years younger than you people." I grumbled and turned back to my paper. My hair fell into my face and I raked my hand through it as I picked the pen back up.

After ten minutes ticked away on the grandfather clock in my room I finally gave up. Sighing I put down my pen and scrubbed my face. When the school called I had lost my writing flow. Most people don't know how long it takes to get into that flow. Picking up my phone I looked at it for a moment before flipping it open and dialing in a number.

"Since I'm not going to be getting any homework done now..." I mumbled to myself, trailing off before putting the phone to my ear and listening to the mind numbing ringing noise before I heard a click and a bright but deep voice greeted me through the phone. "Hey, couldn't focus on my homework so I thought I'd call while you were still at home." I said and I heard the deep voice chuckle.

"That doesn't surprise me." The voice said and I grimaced.

"Gage, it was actually a good reason that time." I said in defense. He really needed to know when I'm being lazy and when I'm not. "The school called accusing me of stealing some kids' twenty five hundred dollar laptop." I explained, trying to prove my point. Gage seemed to think this was a good enough reason. He was all over the comment like someone had just told him his mother had been run over by a giant flying sleigh.

"You've gotta be kidding me!" He yelled and I nodded even though I knew he couldn't see it. "That's complete B.S. man. They need to do some detective work on that situation." He said as-a-matter-of-factly before I chuckled.

"They? Come on Gage, you know that there's no way that they would be able to do that. They're just teachers and even the local police have problems." I said nearly grinning from the image that it created in my head. Gage was silent over the phone for so long that I thought he had hung up before he cleared his throat and I could hear him scratching his head.

"Why don't we find out for you? You know, together?" He asked hesitantly. My face grew grim and I shut my eyes.

"After what happened to Annabella..." I said and he sighed over the phone. This had happened nearly four years ago but things just don't really disappear.

Annabella had been one of our closest friends. It had been her, Gage and I when I had first moved to this part of the small town that my family now lived in. We were all in elementary school at the time. Our parents moved next to each other with my house in the middle and we made up the best group there was. We called ourselves "The Junior Detective League" because we all loved solving mysteries. We were pretty good at it too. Solving mysteries was fun to us and entertained our little minds. By the time that we had reached middle school things had gotten pretty serious. We were taking down actual criminals; mind you they were only petty thieves and small robberies from general stores, but they were a big deal for us. We had never been so into the detective business until our first profit was made when someone had lost their daughter. The daughter was only a small rabbit but we still got paid thirty dollars for it.

Annabella was the type of character who was always getting us into the most heated cases; running around and poking her nose into police affairs to see if they had an unsolved case we could figure out. She was always looking for something that would boost our name; which we had changed to "The Established Detective League" because we weren't eight-years-old anymore.She even got to the point where she rebuilt an old police radio and we listened in on it. This got us into some trouble by our parents but they never took the radio away, saying that it was always fun to hear the police yelling things and trying to decipher what they meant. Gage and I loved seeing Annabella work out the mysteries. She loved them so much that we wondered how she would ever deal with the real world once she had to go to college. But we didn't even realize what could happen if things got out of hand and if she didn't make it to that red carpet in high school.

One night we had just cuffed a murderer that Annabella had caught. It was our twelfth case dealing with murders and usually they just fell over crying and saying that they didn't mean it. This time though the murderer struggled and tried to run. To our luck, the murderer ran straight into the marble statue that had been placed in the room before the reveal of the murderer. While they were taking him out, the police didn't pay very good attention to him. The man had thrown a knife and it had regrettably struck Annabella in the chest, right where her heart was. That year had been a sad one indeed and her parents still didn't forgive us for what had happened. Annabella's mother had been hospitalized due to the strain of the event. Still, her mother wouldn't look at us with anything but distain whenever we came to visit the hospital. The father had also moved away from us because of it. Let's just say I never wanted to go back to how it used to be.

"This isn't as serious as that case Molvrich. I know you took Annabella's death hard but giving up on detective work like you did wasn't the best choice." Gage spoke over the phone. I know he was trying to get me back up on my feet, but the thing's he was saying weren't going to move me from my chair that easily. At my silence Gage knew that I wasn't going to answer. He continued on, trying to get me to give in and get me to work with him. "Come on, just this one case. Working on something small should be just the thing you need to bring you up on your feet again." He pressed lightly on sensitive territory and he knew it. He knew that I was still uncomfortable with the topic of deduction. "You can't tell me that you don't walk around all day trying to figure out if the secretary of our school had another late night fling with the football coach at the school the next town over, or that you don't walk down the street looking at the small details in the buildings, trying to piece together how each spot got there." He coaxed gently. Honestly, I still did that. Sure I did, but that's because I'm too hyper sensitive to my surroundings to not do that. I grew up finding all of the little details. So what did it matter if I couldn't give up on old habits?

"I may still do that Gage, but I don't solve mysteries every day like I used to. We both gave that up when the incident happened." I argued. "Not only am I out of practice, but even if we did go, what makes you think they'd let me into the school when I'm a culprit?" Yeah I know, lame excuse. He was getting to me. Gage knew it too. He was prying down into me and normally, he couldn't do it unless he knew that I would give.

"Mo, come on man, just this one thing. Come with me and we'll do it together. I really can't do it without you." Gage said and I took the phone away from my ear to mutter some profanities before sighing and holding the phone up again.

"Fine. Just this one time though." I said and even as I said it I couldn't help but feel the small tinge of excitement I felt as I snapped the phone shut.

Molvrich

We met in the usual spot; the park bench by the ugly, worn down fountain in the back of the park. Even though the excitement was still swimming in my stomach I couldn't help but look at the place where Annabella was always sitting; legs crossed with the most childish grin on her face, and feel the excitement get swallowed up by the strongest grief I had felt since her death. We hadn't been here since before it happened. We had met up and left as usual, nothing had felt any different leaving in that cold winter afternoon. It had just been another case that Annabella had found while coasting on the police radio. Sometimes I think that if I hadn't have rebuilt that thing then none of this would have ever happened.

"Damn, didn't think it would be this hard coming back here." I whispered and wiped my face with my hand in grief. A hand was pressed against my shoulder and I swung around, attempting to kick the other in the chest out of instinct. Gasping, my leg was caught by a firm but warm hand I knew all too well and I sighed, thankful that it wasn't anyone dangerous. I had learned Judo for our cases so that I could protect the others in case something happened. I hadn't kept up with my lessons since Annabella's burial. "Gage," I said in a scolding voice. Gage grinned at me, the teen's dull brown hair covering his bright green eyes. I didn't really care all that much for the color Gage kept dying his hair, but he didn't seem to care that I didn't like it. "I may not be a detective anymore but I do know how to take care of myself." Gage seemed to grin wider if that were even possible. I knew that he just loved to mess with me even when I'm in a bad mood. It's his way of cheering me up.

"Come on man, it's about another hour to the school from here if we walk." Gage said turning around and not even caring that I had almost broken his jaw. Grabbing his jacket that he so often wore, I pulled him back to me before he could get too far away.

"I got my license last week. We can just drive there." I explained and jingled the keys in front of his face.

"Seriously?" He asked and when I nodded he grabbed the keys and ran off in a random direction, giggling all the way like a child who had gotten a Christmas present he loved. "I'm driving!" He yelled from far away and I turned and walked in the opposite direction.

"Car's this way." I said, decidedly not yelling to avoid making a fool of myself. Gage's whine came from behind me and I sighed. Yeah, today would be like old times, but how much was this going to hurt me?

Molvrich

When we got to the school the police were actually there. My mind wandered and I couldn't help blowing things out of proportion in my head. I hoped that this wouldn't end up like my last case. If it did, then somebody was coming out in a body bag. A hand was thrown over my shoulder and I looked over at Gage who was giving me a nervous but encouraging smile.

"We can do this. It shouldn't be that hard. We've done it before without anything happening." Gage told me and I shrugged, causing his arm to fall from my shoulders. It's not that I wanted them there, I just felt slightly sick to my stomach.

When we got up to the cops we walked over to the chief inspector and waited until he was done speaking to his deputy before he addressed us. By now my stomach was doing flips, though I'm not sure whether it was in anticipation or fear. I could tell Gage was pretty nervous standing next to me. His hand was quivering even though the rest of him was relaxed. My own legs were trembling and my hands were clenched shut tightly in the pockets of my sweat shirt. I was starting to regret coming. I don't know if I've developed some PTDS from the ordeal or something, but Gage had me here now, there was no going back.

"What do a couple of kids want?" The chief inspector asked without turning around to look at us. The bile that had churned in my stomach before had settled a little. At least it was the same inspector from the incident. I don't think I'd be able to deal with the questioning of a different one. Gage stepped up from me to address the inspector.

"I'm Gage Turner and this is Molvrich Clegg. We were wondering if we could take a look around and see if we could find anything." Gage spoke and I felt more of the bile settle. This wouldn't be so hard. The inspector turned and looked from me to Gage and back before nodding.

"Don't touch anything." He said and I rolled my eyes. He made this seem like a murder scene. "You're The Established Detective League aren't ya?" He asked and we both nodded the ghost of a frown showing on our faces. "Really sorry to hear 'bout that girl o' yours. Real sweet heart if ya ask me." He spoke with a heavy Irish accent. I nodded before Gage quickly walked away, dragging me with him.

When we got into the building we could see why he told us not to touch anything. The school was a wasteland. Walls were torn down; lockers were thrown down the hall, a door was torn off its hinges, broken in half and in the midst of it, lying in the hallway was the body of our student body president with the missing laptop protruding from the

person's back, the top open and crushed.

"Shit..." I whispered and averted my gaze. This was the most gruesome scenes Gage and I had yet to see. My stomach did a large flip and I dry heaved before gagging and taking a deep breath. Gage had taken a step back and nearly tripped over some rubble, ending up against an unstable wall. "Gage, Come on... We can't do this." I whined, suddenly filled with fear. "What if something happens again and one of us get's killed?" I asked taking his arm in my hand and looking into his wide eyes. He wouldn't stop staring at the body. I could see he was thinking. He couldn't be seriously thinking of continuing this. We can't even stand up straight!

"The person is probably gone. Why don't we go out and ask the inspector to come give us information while we look over the body." He said and finally shook his head vigorously and turned away from the body, his face calculated and neutral.

It was then that I knew; Gage was doing this to get over his fear. He had told me once that he was afraid that he would never be able to deduce anything ever again; that without me in the lead and figuring things out he would never be able to do his dream work as a police officer. This was for both him and me. We both needed this. So when the Inspector came walking up with Gage by his side I turned to them with my game face, my whole demeanor changing from defeated to indomitable. We could do this; solving a case with a dead body was like honoring Annabella herself.

"Ready to go?" I asked and Gage grinned holding up his arm. Grinning back I crossed my forearm with his making an X. "Let's get going." I said throwing my arm around Gage and taking my first step to a new future.