Page 44 of Red Snow
I SIT ATmy desk bouncing my foot like a nervous toddler waiting to open presents on Christmas. The office is crowded like usual, but my focus is on the door. I ignore everyone, including the asshole Detective Chavis, who has already asked about the case even though we’ve only been at work for about five seconds. I’m also ignoring Sergeant Howell, who just couldn’t keep from staring me down as she walked in and strutted to her office with a devious grin on her lips. I knew she wouldn’t be able to just fuck and leave it alone, but me being who I am, I fucked her brains out anyway, and now I’m regretting it as expected. I just don’t learn, do I?
Finally, after about a million foot taps, Marcus comes through the doors I’ve been staring at. I didn’t alert him to what I’d seen on the video last night because I knew he really needed a break from the case. I know he’s working on something serious with Yolanda, and I don’t want his relationship to end up like mine did, so I left it alone. But now that he’s here, it’s back on our game. I let him slowly make his way through the office with his Grande Starbucks in his hand, wearing a typical black suit with no tie. He looks sleepy, and I think to let him sip his coffee some more before I bombard him, but I don’t have time to wait for him to wake up. This is too big.
“Chapman,” I say to him as he nods to me, his usual morning greeting.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he replies before taking a sip from the large cup.
“The second guy from the video in Koot’s. The bartender said his name was Jeffrey Chapman. I remembered it last night after I watched the video again.”
“Oh, well that’s good. We can go check his story out now,” Marcus says, sitting down in his seat behind his neatly organized desk.
“Yeah, and he better have a damn good one, because I saw something big on the video last night.”
“What are you talking about? There was nothing on the tape.”
“Well it’s hard to see anything when you’re fast forwarding through the shit like it’s a bad porno and you’re trying to find the good scenes. After I, uhh, as I was leaving, right before the video shuts off, Brenda Cox came back into the frame. She sits down next to the second guy, who we now know as Jeffrey Chapman, and the two of them chat it up a bit, then they leave together.”
Marcus’s eyes bulge behind the lid of his coffee as he sips it and quickly pulls it away from his mouth so he can speak.
“What?” he exclaims. “They left together?”
“That’s right,” I reply, nodding my head enthusiastically. “We have a solid lead, finally, but that’s not all. First thing this morning, I came in and had the clerk run a check on Jeffrey Chapman, and we got a few pings. Check this out.”
I pick up a piece of paper from my cluttered desk and hand it to Marcus who reads it carefully as I tell him what he’s looking at.
“Jeffrey Chapman, thirty-five years old. He’s had a few run-ins with the police out in Eagle River for disorderly conduct and domestics. He has few neighbors out there, but the ones who are there have called the cops due to screaming and yelling coming from the place. Apparently he lives with his mother. All the domestic calls were for the two of them.”
“Very interesting,” Marcus replies, still reading the profile. “He works at Homegrown Construction.”
“Yeah, they renovate houses and shit.”
“Alright, well I think you just gave me a reason to smile this morning,” Marcus says, grinning from ear to ear. “Wanna take a ride to Eagle River?”
“Fucking right.”
On the drive to Eagle River, I decide to tell Marcus all about my little sex adventure from last night.
“I fucked Danielle last night,” I say bluntly.
Marcus’s eyes almost pop out of his head. “What the holy fuck?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? What the hell were you thinking? Did you forget how crazy she got the last time you hooked up with her? She basically became obsessed with you, and she probably still is, she just got better at hiding it. Damn, Jarrod.”
“Yeah, I know I fucked up and I regret it,” I admit, staring straight ahead at the rows of snow-covered trees in the distance.
“Please explain to me how this happened? I’m sure this is going to be a great story.”
“I was there watching the video from Koot’s, and she offered me a drink in her office.”
“Oh my god! You fell for that?”
“Ah, shut up!”
“I can’t believe you let her play you,” Marcus says, laughing at me. “She knew you couldn’t turn down a drink, and you fell right into her trap. She seduced you! That’s hilarious. Seduced by the cougar.”
“Ugh, you’re so annoying,” I tell him, trying to hold back my own laughter while he clutches his stomach chuckling. “I was just trying to take my mind off the case for a bit, and maybe I did fall into the trap, but what the fuck was I supposed to do?”
