Arlo’s eyes grow heavier as he half-heartedly washes the coffee mugs in the sink. It was 1:03 in the morning, and the stranger on his sofa was becoming more of an acquaintance - perhaps even a friend - by the minute. He was pgued with the anxiety-ridden thoughts swirling in his brain of what might happen to his badge if his captain found out what had happened: bonding with a witness to an active crime and drinking coffee with them into the early hours of the morning. You didn't have to be a detective to know that didn't sound good. Twisting the tap off, he turns to observe Eli, disbelief growing in his chest at what he was about to say.
“Did you want to stay here tonight?” Eli raises his eyebrows and smirks as Arlo quickly adds, “I can make up the sofa for you.”
“Thank you, but I don't want to impose on your space.” Standing up, Eli gnces down at Arlo's clothes he was still wearing, “Let me just change back into my clothes and then I’ll be out of your hair, they should've dried by now.”
Arlo nods slowly and worriedly chews on his bottom lip as he watches Eli disappear back into the bedroom. Both of them were well aware that he had nowhere to go and no idea where he was; letting him stay would've been a bad idea, but this one definitely felt worse. Suddenly he springs to action rummaging through various kitchen drawers until he finds what he's looking for - his old mobile phone. Praying it had any life left in its dipidated shell, he pushes the power button and sighs a breath of relief when he sees the familiar Samsung logo pop up. Rummaging further through the drawer, he pulls out a matching charger and coils it up. Fully booted up, Arlo grasps the phone and is once again filled with relief at the sight of no passcode lock to bypass. His old SIM card is still inserted, so he quickly deletes any sensitive information and photos and adds his current mobile number to the phone's contacts just in time for Eli to exit the bedroom wearing his original clothes that were quite obviously still uncomfortably damp. Brows furrowed and head swimming, Arlo scans over this ludicrous pn one st time before holding the spare phone out toward Eli, definitively deciding this was the only correct decision. Eli eyes the smartphone being presented to him and gives Arlo a puzzled look.
“Take it. My phone number’s on it and the contract’s still being paid for.” Eli opens his mouth to protest, but Arlo hastily continues, “You need some form of security if you’re going to stay out there. Please, just take it.” Their eyes meet and Eli cracks a small smile as he reaches out to take the phone.
“I’d be careful, detective, you’re getting dangerously close to making me believe you actually like me.” A flicker of bemusement crosses Arlo’s face, but only for a second.
“Goodnight, Eli.”
“Goodnight, Arlo.” Eli pauses halfway out the door and looks over his shoulder, shoots Arlo a warm smile and says, “Thanks for the coffee.”
?
Arlo jolts awake at the sound of his arm bring the same Arctic Monkeys song that irritates him every morning, mentally checking off another day of forgetting to change it. Eyes still squeezed shut, he pathetically waves his hand around, hoping to hit the snooze button on his phone, but instead almost flings a half-full gss of water to the ground. He huffs and reluctantly opens his eyes just enough to seek out the source of the racket, turn the volume all the way down, and turn back over, completely prepared to jeopardise his dream job for a five-minute y-in. If the arm went off, that must mean it was 6am, which means he had an hour to get ready, call a cab, and ride it to work. The drive takes twenty minutes, ordering a cab might take ten, showering could easily be a five minute job, and the need for breakfast is a myth, “So if I think about it, I could just go back to sleep for twenty-five minutes.” he muses to himself. Unfortunately, though, ADHD-fueled mental maths is the perfect way to restart an unconscious brain, and Arlo’s eyes spring back open, fully awake.
As he groans at his groggy, bedraggled reflection in the bathroom mirror, pictures of st night fsh in and out of his brain, and he can’t help but wonder whether or not Eli had managed to find somewhere safe to sleep. His chest grows hot as anxiety gnaws at his stomach like a rat trying to escape a cage. “He’s survived alone every day for over a decade,” he thinks, affixing his reflection with a stern gaze, “he’s not your problem to fix.” A thousand what-ifs and one fully thought-out worst-case scenario ter, Arlo finally manages to convince himself that Eli’s probably still alive, but the anxious gnawing remains. Quieter, but still present.
The drive to the precinct is just as uneventful as ever, and Arlo, relieved to be freed from the awkward shackles of small talk, practically jumps out of the cab before the wheels fully stop moving as it pulls up next to the precinct. As he has done every day since he moved to the vilge, he reminds himself he desperately needs to learn how to drive a car, bike, skateboard, anything. The usual 6:30am small talk with a complete stranger in a vehicle you can’t inconspicuously stop, drop, and roll out of without the police getting called on you really wasn’t going to cut it forever. Needless to say, the Arlo that woke up this morning was not quite the same Arlo that invited a stranger to stay the night st night.
The precinct was alive with chaos on this particur morning, there was already a crowd of rowdy civilians around a few desks exhibiting various levels of distress. Something must’ve happened st night that Arlo didn’t know about. He scans the room until he finds a familiar fsh of red hair and hastily makes his way over.
“What’s going on?” Arlo blurts out as soon as he knows he’s within earshot.
Sophie looks concerned and chews her bottom lip nervously - commotions like this weren’t all too common in this town. “They found a body this morning at the bottom of the canal. Can’t have been dead for more than 24 hours.”
Arlo’s heart sank. He knew that death would be part of the job, but it didn’t make encountering his first any easier.
“Was it…? Did he…?” Unsure of how to finish the question he wanted to ask, Arlo stutters and trails off.
“Do it himself?” Sophie finishes.
“Yeah.”
“They think so, they found rocks in his pockets. Smart man - he knew to make sure there was enough weight on him to stay anchored to the bottom.”
Arlo’s brows furrow. “Rocks in his pockets? That sounds more like a suicide than foul py to you?” “That sounds more like foul py than suicide to you? How many crime shows do you watch?” Sophie asks, eyebrows raised. “There hasn’t been a murder here in decades. There’s no way this is one.” She shakes her head definitively and begins to walk to the break room with Arlo swiftly in tow.
As the mechanical whirr of the coffee machine fills the silence between the two detectives, Arlo continues to eye the desperate cluster of people between the half-open blinds, fiddling with a loose thread on his shirt. He had always had a phenomenal intuition - not to mention excellent deduction skills - and the simple fact was that the bance of probability that a man found with rocks stuffed into every fold of clothing at the bottom of a canal on a random Tuesday night had killed himself was arguably slim. On the other hand, he was new, and this town was - admittedly - a lot safer than his old one, so perhaps Sophie was right. Could it really be that unlikely for it to be murder? He knew he was way out of his depth even considering trying to weasel his way onto a case like this on his second day doing real detective work, but once his brain fixated, there was little anybody could do to get him to focus on anything else. Unluckily for Arlo, there was another brilliantly intuitive detective in the room with him, and she had already read his mind.
“Don’t even think about it, it’s Torres’ case, the only murder in that mystery would end up being yours.” She says as she exits the break room with her freshly made coffee in hand.
Arlo huffs, disappointed. “Shit.”
There was one upside to Arlo not being put on the canal case - it meant he didn’t have to go on duty with Torres again, which, as he discovered very quickly, made the job one thousand times more enjoyable. Instead, he was paired with Sophie to go and investigate another robbery, albeit a significantly less dramatic one. Instead of robbers who looked like they got stoned and watched a bad heist movie before deciding to target the first establishment they came across, today it was a forty-something-year-old woman trying to shoplift alcohol from the local corner shop. Less threat and running, more gaslighting and verbal abuse. Such is life.
After fighting a never-ending battle of words with said woman and the poor sod whose shop she decided to target, Arlo and Sophie finally leave the tiny convenience store. No words are exchanged once out of the store’s range, but they could both sense the other’s displeasure at how they had spent their day. Sophie pulls a carton of cigarettes and a lighter out of her back pocket, popping one in her mouth and sparking it up in one swift movement. She holds out the carton, offering Arlo one, and he politely declines, suppressing the grimace creeping onto his face. He had never understood the attraction to smoking. He had rendered himself so against the act that he swore he could feel the lung rot creeping into his organs every time he walked past somebody with a cigarette in their mouth. Of course, this was just Arlo’s mispced resentment and spite manifesting as a growing ball of anxiety whispering worst-case-scenarios in the forefront of his mind every time he got a noseful of secondhand smoke - this he knew himself - but he figured he had to be at least somewhat justified in being judgemental toward a pastime that results in death and disease. In comparison, jumping into a canal didn’t seem so tragic.
“Arlo?” Sophie’s voice jolts Arlo out of his spiral and he blinks, suddenly aware he hadn’t been paying attention to where they were going. Sophie looks amused and says, “You didn’t hear a word of what I just said, did you?”
“Uh… no, not really.” Arlo scratches the back of his hair and gives his partner an apologetic look, which is met with more amusement as she ughs and rolls her eyes.
“I said I’ll let you report to the captain by yourself. I need to call my wife and, quite frankly, the solo credit wouldn’t hurt you.” She pauses for a moment to take a drag of her cigarette, “I’m honestly surprised there haven’t been any more calls yet today. The guy in the canal must’ve freaked out all the other petty thieves and wannabe street racers in this town, they seem to be taking the day off.”
“Well, even criminals need mental health days. They’re probably holed up in their collective clubhouse pying Scrabble.”
“Or they’re out testing another precinct’s patience.”
“Nah, they’re pying Scrabble.”
Despite the detectives being out for almost three hours, the precinct is still bustling with chaos, and the crowds of people only seem to have gotten rger. Arlo and Sophie exchange concerned gnces and turn to go their separate ways, Sophie to the breakroom to make her phone call, and Arlo to the captain’s office to report back. Captain Huxley’s gratuitous response to his recount of the day's events almost made the subpar case worthwhile; thanks were offered and genuine smiles were shared, a luxury Arlo had never experienced before with any of his old bosses. Exiting the office, he feels a wave of relief from his persistent anxiety wash over him as he weaves his way to his desk to begin the monotonous slog of paperwork he has yet to do. He taps his login details into his keyboard and sighs as the computer fans whir increasingly louder, clearly displeased that he had the sheer audacity to cause micro-mechanical warfare by requesting the dusty machine do its job. Arlo sits and scrolls mindlessly through various news and media apps on his phone, waiting for the computer to stop dispying those infuriating spinning dots. The further he scrolls, the more the realisation hits him; he really did live in the middle of nowhere. There were no articles, tweets, or even forums about the death in the vilge, it was as if the town didn’t exist. No one knew about them, no one cared. If a man dies in a nowhere-town that no one outside even knows about, did he ever really exist? The spiral Arlo was about to enter was abruptly interrupted by a text notification popping up, covering the topmost section of the article he was reading. His breath hitches as he clicks on the notification, both intrigued and terrified at the anticipation of seeing an unprompted message from…
…Cara.
He exhales in relief - or perhaps disappointment, he couldn’t tell - and reads the message.
hey, i heard there was some sort of emergency down where you are. a guy jumped into a river or something? are you okay?
“How the…?” Puzzled, Arlo quickly taps in his reply and hits send.
How on EARTH did you hear about that? There’s no media coverage on it.
Response bubbles appear immediately, followed by a sharp buzz.
arlo i literally own the internet, i have connections everywhere
You definitely don’t own the internet.
let me dream, my job is so dull
You’re literally rich.
doesn’t mean it isn’t DULL
Quit and become a rodeo clown?
genuinely tempting
so?
what happened??
Are you really that bored that you want me to break police confidentiality?
yes
…
Okay so-
Arlo was never one to break rules or risk jobs, but tely, he felt just a tad rebellious. Plus, if there was one person who could keep confidential information safe, it was Cara. She didn’t work in cybersecurity for one of the biggest digital corporations for nothing. Mainly the money.
After Arlo finishes gossiping to Cara about the test in the precinct - wherein he took extra special care in shielding his phone screen from the other detectives for fear they’d find out about him disclosing private information to a nosy twin sister - he pces his phone back in his pocket and combs his fingers through his hair, exhausted with the constant noise around him. He looks at the clock and sighs. It was just after one, as was confirmed by his stomach growling, willing him to take his lunch hour. Grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair, he swings it over his shoulder and pushes his way back through the crowds to exit the grounds. His mind cycles through various nearby cafes and fast food pces before he settles on deciding to eat as he usually did, opting for the cheapest meal deal the nearest corner shop had. Finding a nearby bench, he contemptes sitting for a few seconds before deciding against sinking into the cold metal bars. He continues meandering aimlessly down the street as he tears open his sandwich, discarding the packaging in the bin as he strolls past. One upside to moving to this nowhere town was the rare views you would only catch if you dared to look up from your feet once in a while. To Arlo, the yellowy green grass and knotty trees of the parks that pop up on every other street were a welcome and soothing sight from the big city environment he hailed from. Growing up, the only parks he was able to visit were multi-storey and filled with cars. He pauses for a mere moment to take in the sound and smell of the breeze rustling through the leaves, he takes a deep breath and can swear he feels the world halt around him. His eyes move to the murky - yet still strangely beautiful - water he can hear trickling through the canal.
The canal.
Arlo checks his watch. He still has a good 45 minutes left of his lunch break, and a morbid curiosity he was done suppressing. Shovelling the rest of his sandwich in his mouth, he sets off following the canal, refocused. If he couldn’t get himself on the alleged suicide case, he may as well investigate himself.
?
Elijah’s eyelids gently flutter open. The cold air stings his cheeks and the st of the morning dew kisses his fingertips as they brush the tips of the yellowy-green grass that reach up to him from below his park bench hotel. Room jumping in an actual hotel wasn’t exactly on the cards st night since this tiny town only had one, and from slightly sketchy past experiences he knew that staying in the same hotel two nights in a row was far too risky for his liking. After leaving Arlo’s ft, Eli - happy yet half-asleep - meandered to the nearest expanse of green he could find and settled down for the night, a strange warmth of satisfaction pooling in his chest, repcing the persistent confliction he was so used to. It was there he colpsed onto the first bench he saw and slept peacefully under the stars. He runs a hand through his hair, neatening the blowout the nighttime breeze had inadvertently given him.
“Eight thirty-ish.” He guesses, squinting at the sun peeking out from behind the clouds.
The ability to tell the time of day by the angle of the sun was a skill Eli prided himself on learning at a young age, a necessity for a life lived with no wristwatch or kitchen clock. Of course, despite his confidence, he was entirely wrong. It was just past noon.
Swinging his legs off of the bench, he reaches down to release the shoes he had tied to the metal leg by their scruffy ces and pulls them on, pausing as he notices the same little bunny motif on his ankle that had delighted him st night when he had found them pced atop the pile of dry clothes Arlo had left for him to change into. He hoped the detective wouldn’t miss them too much. Eli scans his surroundings, taking in what he couldn’t see hours prior under the darkness of night. The pungent odour of cigarette smoke from the ashtray-topped trash can permeates his nostrils as he scrunches his nose in annoyance. “Smells like dad,” he thinks to himself, quickly pushing the memory aside and stemming the irritation. He continues to scan the area until his gaze falls upon his first task for the day; a small unbranded corner shop. Sleeping in mildly damp denim will give a person that signature eau de mildew smell, and, if given the choice, he probably would’ve preferred reeking of the ashes smudged into the tray beside him.
Eli pushes on the fky green door frame of the shop and a sad robotic whine sounds from a hidden electronic bell in dire need of a battery repcement. He makes his way to the back of the aisles, maintaining his usual air of confidence and nonchance as if he were a regur customer, shopping for his daily pint of milk and scratchcard. He peers over the shelves towards the cashier, taking note of whether or not they’re paying attention well enough to spot or care about a small case of shoplifting. Thankfully, the poor sod who got called into work at the asscrack of dawn whilst too hungover to function is currently staring - gssy-eyed and mentally spent - at a particurly uninteresting pop-up stand of off-brand sellotape. He isn’t going to be an issue.
Elijah quickly locates the essentials aisle and scans the dispys for the deodorant section. He hastily grabs the first aerosol can he sees, and, flicking the cap off, sprays himself and his clothes until the damp smell fades. He takes a tentative sniff of his shirt and the aroma of an entire flower garden floods his senses. Looking down, he reads the words Bright Bouquet surrounded by a colge of pink flora and snorts in amusement, surprised and delighted. He pces the can back on the shelf and bounces back down the aisle, quite literally feeling fresh as a daisy. Task one complete, on to task two; being homeless didn’t afford you many opportunities to use toothpaste. Eli usually got by exploiting the access to free toiletries on his hotel adventures, or he’d purchase those awful-tasting chewable toothbrushes from decrepit vending machines in fuel station bathrooms with what little change he could scrounge up. Generally speaking, he kept up decently well with his personal hygiene for someone with no home base, but sometimes, desperate times called for desperate measures. Approaching the counter, Eli fixes his hair and clears his throat, gaining the attention of the cashier. Their gssy eyes scrunch closed, the overwhelming scent of Eli’s newly donned scent wreaking havoc on the pain their hangover was already causing them.
“Long night?” Eli asks sympathetically, with a charming smile. There’s a small grunt in response, which he assumes means ‘yes’. “I’m terribly sorry to bother, but I don’t suppose you could give me some directions to the town centre?” Still fshing that charming smile, Eli leans on the counter with one arm, while the other fishes around the small dispy of chewing gum attached to the front of the desk. He smoothly slides a pack of spearmint up his sleeve unbeknownst to the cashier, who’s now slogging through some incredibly vague and unhelpful directions with all the enthusiasm of a dull rock.
Eli exits the store with a skip in his step as he pops a piece of gum into his mouth, chewing as the icy coolness traverses his veins and shocks his synapses fully awake. As he goes to stuff the packet down into his jeans pocket, his hand comes into contact with something else instead. He pulls out the phone Arlo gifted him the previous night and the screen lights up, dispying a blinding array of colourful bubbles behind the white text dispying the time, 12:14. Eli furrows his eyebrows at the screen, looks up at the sun, and back down to the screen again.
“Well, I fucked that one right up.”
?
It’s as if the atmosphere shifts somehow when Arlo turns the corner into the park. Remnants of crime scene tape were still attached to the trees, fluttering in the breeze as if urgent to escape and fly away.
“If this were a murder,” Arlo thought, “they would have found something. Anything. Detectives would still be here.”
Could it really just be a suicide after all? Was he in over his head trying to make up some conspiracy just to py the amazingly smart detective, the only one who could crack the case? It was beginning to look like it. They must have pulled the body out of the canal, whisked him away, and evacuated the scene all in under an hour and a half. Surprisingly, save from the occasional bike rider, the park was completely empty - everyone and their mothers must’ve beelined for the precinct once the news spread. Eyes glued to the canal, Arlo’s lip threatens to quiver as an empty pit begins to form in his stomach.
A man died here.
He keeps repeating the same sentence in his head, over and over.
A man took his own life right here.
It still didn’t feel quite right. They didn’t teach you how to manage this feeling in the academy, they didn’t prepare you for it. Or was he just being oversensitive? Mum always said he was oversensitive. Arlo’s breathing quickens and he turns on his heel so his back is to the canal.
“Now is not the time to have a panic attack, Arlo, breathe.” He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, willing his heart to stop racing. Movies and TV shows can’t convey the sheer density of the atmosphere of pure tragedy that hangs low over a location where someone’s recently passed. If they could, Arlo was sure cinema would be an art form only sampled by the self-loathing and masochistic. “Focus on the sounds, Arlo, what can you hear?” As much as he liked to believe she didn’t do anything that truly helped him, Arlo’s childhood therapist sure had a one-way fast track into his subconscious.
He closes his eyes and focuses. Sounds of nature flood his ears and he mentally separates and analyses each one, breathing slower and slower as he organises the weather from the wildlife. His soundscape of nature, however, is abruptly interrupted and his eyes shoot open as his phone begins buzzing erratically. Three short buzzes, a pause, and then the familiar vibration of a phone call. With that many texts in a row and a call, it could only be Cara. Arlo whips his phone out and hits the green ‘answer’ button all within one swift second.
“Hey, Cara. I’m in the middle of something right now, is this important?”
No response.
“Cara? Hello?” Arlo removes the phone from the side of his face and checks the call is still active. As the dispy lights back up, confirming the call, his eyes travel up the screen to the caller ID and his breath hitches. He brings the phone back to his ear, “...Eli?”
“Hi, detective.” Arlo couldn’t help but hear the smile in Eli’s voice. “Is this a bad time?”
“No.” The speed and certainty of his own response confused him, wasn’t it a bad time? He y a hand on his chest to find his heart rate returned to its normal steadiness. “What do you need?”
“You’ll never believe it, detective-”
“Arlo.”
Eli chuckles under his breath at the speed of Arlo’s interjection. “-Arlo,” He corrects, “but I think I’m lost again.” he finishes sheepishly.
Arlo ughs, an innocent, genuine ugh, and sighs, smiling. The smile stays stuck to his face as he replies. “Eli, I’m standing at a crime scene right now, I can’t come get you.”
“No, no, I just need directions to town, that's all! I’m right by a park and some houses and a green corner shop, does that sound at all familiar?”
“That is absolutely useless information to navigate with.”
“So… that’s a no?” Somehow Eli still sounded chirpy, and it was making Arlo grin.
“Find a street sign. I’ve only got twenty-five minutes left of my break but I’ll stay on the phone while I can.” Arlo walks away from the park, leaving it forgotten, and starts the trek back to the precinct, phone in one hand and the other scratching the back of his hair, as it so often was. “Why are you going into town, anyway?”
“I have no bloody idea.” He hears light chuckling coming from the phone speaker, followed by, “I think I’m on Merchant’s Row.”
Before he can stop it, words are tumbling out of Arlo’s mouth. “You must’ve barely walked away from the building st night, that’s my street. You can go back and wait for me to get home if you want to, I’ll make you another warm drink. I mean, if you’re not pnning on actually doing anything or going anywhere anyway, I would hate for you to be outside in the cold and-” he catches himself, mid-sentence and out of breath, “Sorry, I’m babbling. You don’t have to do any of that, to be clear. The offer is there though.”
There’s a painfully long pause, and Arlo’s face scrunches up, contorted in embarrassment and anxiety. He wasn’t doing very well at the concept of not getting involved; so far he had spent the night having tea with a homeless-guy-ssh-witness, nosed into a crime scene he had absolutely no business nosing into, and then practically begged that same homeless-guy-ssh-witness to come home with him again not even a day ter. He figured he was probably having some sort of mental breakdown, or perhaps it was a strange dream and he’d wake up and be back in the academy studying a book on everything you shouldn’t do as a detective. Either way, he was sure he was losing it. The ever-engulfing silence, however, was suddenly broken.
“I’ll see you when you get home, detective.”
Arlo hangs up the call and squeezes his eyes shut, feelings mixed in a confusing cocktail of anxiety and regret, but also …excitement? Suddenly remembering the texts he received before the phone call, he opens his messages and snorts at what appears before him:
ELIJAH ASHER
hrllo detextove :)
wgy csnt i ptess yhe rifht letters???
im cslling yiu.
