Determined Detective

It’s a motel for me tonight, again. The front desk guy has gotten familiar with seeing me and doesn’t even really ask for my license anymore, he just recognizes me and checks me in. I stay in the same room every night I’m here, room 314. I think there’s comfort in some things staying the same. I keep trying with Hope, but she doesn’t want me back in the house. It’s been a bit strained since I started hunting down my suspect. Strained might be a bit of an understatement considering she’s wanting to file for divorce. I wish I could just make her see. I wish I could make the entire department see that this guy needs to be caught. I guess you could say I’m willing to risk it all to do it too.

            The elevator ride up is bumpy, per usual, and I’m always left slightly unsettled by the grinding of gears that sound like they could use a good greasing. I’d take the stairs, but my damn knees hurt so bad that it seems like a fair trade. I don’t know when the last time this elevator was serviced, but I step off once I get to my floor and try not to think about it. Hopefully I won’t be here much longer, I’m getting close, I can feel it. I slide my keycard in the slot and feel the click of a luck receding, a green light blinking to let me know I can enter.

            The room looks the same as ever, same bed cover, same beige walls, same art that looks mass produced. It even still has that damp smell that I’ve grown accustomed to. Not accustomed enough to enjoy the scent, but still, it’s something familiar. This place isn’t too bad I guess. The front desk is nice, it’s cheap, and they let me keep using the same room over and over. Which is good, because I’ve got quite the collage on the wall behind the dresser. Just like a board in the office, there are pictures and dates pinned anyplace I could find the room to pin them. The wall is covered in speculation and maybe even some evidence, but none hard enough for me to use in my case. The cleaning staff don’t bother taking it down because every time I say I might be finally going home, they know, and I know that it’s not true.

            Billy Montgomery, 23 years old, and a presumed affiliate with the Mafia. He was arrested after one of our undercover guys on the inside, my partner Donny, was found dead in a motel similar to this one. We assumed that they’d figured out he was undercover somehow, after years of hard work to earn their trust and respect. One day some punk sees Donny get into my car handing me some files and going over any intel he’d gained. We didn’t notice that the kid was watching from around the corner until it was too late. I told Donny we should have taken him in right then and there, but Donny had such a soft spot for some of those younger guys and insisted it would be fine. Next day is when Donny turns up dead in a motel room. It didn’t take long to find the kid that had seen us talking was Billy.

            We took him in for questioning while forensics did their thing, but without any hard connection other than him seeing Donny get into my car, we couldn’t hold him for long. They wouldn’t even let me in to interrogate him because they said I was too close to the case. Maybe they were right. Donny was more than just my partner, he was the best man at my wedding, and he was like a brother to me. We went to college together, joined the academy together, and joined the department together. He was my best friend and they just wanted me to give up the case because they couldn’t pin it on anyone. But I knew, I knew that somehow Billy was mixed up in this, I just needed to prove it. Donny had defended him only to wind up mercilessly shot, and it made me hate the kid even more.  

            I sunk all my spare time into tracking him down and when I ran out of spare time I started using work time too. I got close to him a few times, but by that time the bosses had caught on to what I was doing, and I was suspended for a week. I was told that if I couldn’t let this go, the next step would be possible termination. It consumed my mind every minute of every day. Hope was understanding at first, she knew what Donny meant to me. He was the closest thing I had to family and to lose him was devastating. I guess when my obsession didn’t end after the appropriate amount of time, it became too much for her too, but I still couldn’t let go. I snapped at her when she interrupted my thought process or when she came into the study after I’d told her not to. I was a bad husband and I know that. I don’t blame her for not wanting me around after the way I acted. Billy went missing after they tossed his case, and I’ve been tracking him ever since. I know he’s somewhere in town, I just know it.

            After hours of staring at the pictures on the wall and taking notes on how the information could be connected, I can practically hear my stomach crying out for food. I didn’t even think to stop for dinner and my lunch had consisted of a banana I grabbed from the lobby on the way out the door to work. I toss on my sweatshirt deciding to head down to the vending machine on the first floor. A cold pop-tart would definitely hit the spot right about now. The doors are just about to close, taking me down, when a voice calls out, “Hold it please!”

            I throw my arm out just in time and the doors bounce back open as a young guy wearing a hood steps in, “First floor I’m assuming?” He leans against the wall, “Yes sir, that’d be the one.” His voice sounds familiar, but I can’t quite pin it. The door close with a shake when he takes his hood off, his eyes closed as he hums along to quiet the elevator music. That’s when it hits me, and it’s almost enough to take my breath away. He’s quite a bit leaner, and his hair looks like it’d been dyed, but it’s him. It is, without a doubt, Billy Montgomery. Slowly, I reach towards my hip, cursing myself as I realize I’d left my gun and my cuffs in the room. He opens glances at me, doing a double take as if he too is realizing he knows me from somewhere.

His eyes widen, but before either of us can say a word, the elevator jolts to a stop sending both of us into the wall. The lights flicker and there’s a squealing sound coming from what I assume to be the gears of the elevator. The music stops and the lights stop flickering, instead becoming a little dimmer, but steady nonetheless. Billy rushes to the door, frantically pressing buttons in an attempt to get the doors to open, his breathing sounds ragged. I wonder if it’s because we’re stuck, or because he’s realized he’s stuck with me.

“It’s no use,” I grunt, “It’s stuck. We’ll stay stuck until the fire department shows up.”

He turns around with his hands up, “Look, I don’t want any trouble.”

This makes me laugh, “Oh Billy, I’ve been looking for you a long time. You don’t have to worry about me making any moves towards you, once that fire department gets here and I tell them you’re a wanted man, they’ll hold you for me.”

“But” His voice almost sounds like it’s trembling, “Detective Holt, I’m not a wanted man. They dropped my case because I didn’t do anything.”

Rage fills every part of my being, “Just because there was no hard evidence doesn’t mean you aren’t the reason Donny is dead. I know you ratted on him. I know you’re the reason. Besides, why would you run if you weren’t guilty?”

“I’m not running from the police; I’m running from the Mafia.” He stops and looks down at his feet before continuing, looking like he might cry, “I knew Donny was undercover. I knew for a while, way before I saw you two in that car.”

He starts sobbing, and I’m left beside myself, “Donny looked out for me like nobody ever had before. I would never have ratted him out.”

My gut tells me he’s being genuine, “So, who killed him? Who killed Donny?”

“Detective, If I knew, I wouldn’t be running.”