Emoticon

The garish, overhead light belied the intimate size of the room and its sparse furnishings. There was one small table and two metal chairs with torn vinyl seats. Noticeably absent was the tell-tale, two-way mirror that typically identified such a chamber as an interrogation room. It was that glaring omission that frightened him. Still, he hadn't been handcuffed and had been treated fairly by all standards. That didn't keep him from jumping up nervously when the steel door creaked open.

 

A slender man entered the room with a manila folder in his hand. He had a disheveled look about him – his shirt, the armpits of which began to show the yellowing stains of perspiration, was nearly un-tucked on one side. His collar was unbuttoned and his well-worn tie sat askew across his chest. His unkempt hair and the dark circles beneath his eyes told the tale of a man who hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in weeks, most likely.

 

The man sat down at the table and opened his folder without speaking. For several minutes he flipped through its pages as if there wasn't another, frightened man standing in the room with him. Brock Boxer wasn't usually intimidated, but the coolness with which the man, presumably a detective, ignored him was unnerving. Boxer was about to speak when the detective broke the silence.

 

"Do you know why you're here?" the man asked without looking up from his paperwork.

 

"I don't know, why don't you tell me?" Boxer replied pointedly. "What is this all about?"

 

"Sit down."

 

He stood for a moment before obeying the command and took the seat opposite the stoic detective. "I'm sitting. Now can you please explain to me what I'm doing here?"

 

"What do you know?" the man asked cryptically.

 

Boxer took a deep breath and tried to control his growing anger. "I was home. I was sitting at my kitchen counter eating a meatball grinder when four S.W.A.T. officers came rushing in, grabbed me, dragged me out of my house and tossed me in the back of a truck with no windows. We got out in an underground parking garage and they brought me down a long hall to this room, where I've sat for over an hour until you walked in. I'm assuming we're at PD Headquarters, but I don't recognize this place. Now," he continued, about to ask again why he'd been brought there. The detective cut him off.

 

"What do make of this?" he asked as he slid a photograph across the table towards Boxer. Boxer looked down at it in disgust and pushed it back.

 

"I'm not in this business anymore."

 

The exhausted detective waved his arm in the direction of the tiny, reinforced window in the door behind him. A moment later the door opened and uniformed officer entered, handed the detective a large, padded envelope, and left as quickly as he'd come. Detective Andre Baptiste wanted to give Boxer the package about as much as Boxer wanted to accept it. He'd heard about Boxer and argued that his presence wasn't necessary to no avail. And now, here they were. Baptiste dumped the contents of the envelope onto the table with two loud clunks.

 

Boxer looked down and scoffed. "Is this a joke?"

 

"I wish it was."

 

Brock Boxer, Detective Brock Boxer, reached forward and took his shield in his hand. It had been nearly two years since he'd even touched it, and even longer since he'd worn it. He flipped it over in his hand a few times before gently setting it back down on the table. The other object was one he didn't recognize. It was a small, black square, about a half inch in thickness and roughly three inches on each side. There was a button in the center.

 

"What's this?"

 

"Your locker key."

 

"I told you, I'm not in this business anymore."

 

Baptiste grew irritated and leaned forward. "You don't seem to understand me, detective. Not only are you back in this business, but you're going to help me solve this. It's either that, or the truth comes out and you'll end up in a hole even worse than the one in which we found you."

 

Baptiste let his words sink in for a moment or two until he saw a look of mournful recognition in Boxer's eyes. Brock's body stiffened, and then relaxed. In some ways he understood that this moment was inevitable, and though he fought it, he'd expected it. The circumstances of his dismissal were exaggerated, to some extent, and he'd accepted the consequences in the promulgation of the greater good. That was supposed to be the end of it. It wasn't.

 

Boxer slid the odd locker key and his shield to the side and reached for the photograph. It turned his stomach. Had the woman in the photograph not been brutalized and murdered, she would have been strikingly beautiful. Long blond hair, slender build, tanned skin. Her face was frozen in eternal beauty – at least the killer had left that part of her alone.

 

Carved into her belly, however, was the following symbol:

 

>:)

 

"Raped?" Boxer asked.

 

"Yep."

 

"Strangled?" As if he had to ask. The bruising on her neck was obvious in the photo.

 

"Right again. Care to go for three?" Baptiste asked dryly. Boxer didn’t have to. He already knew, but said it anyway.

 

"Right index and middle fingers severed at the first knuckle."

 

"We have a winner," Baptiste replied. The two men stared at the picture, and then each other. Boxer stood and grabbed both the key and his shield.

 

"You're my new partner?" he asked.

 

Though Baptiste wasn't found of the idea himself, he acknowledged the fact. "Until this is done."

 

"Well then," Boxer answered, "Let's get it done. Take me to the lab."

 

Baptiste pounded on the door. Boxer was through it before it had been fully opened. Baptiste followed, muttering under his breath. Brock waited for Baptiste to take the lead and the two proceeded down the hall and disappeared around the corner.

 

Two years. For two years things had been quiet. Two long, emotional years had passed since the last killing in a case that had, in his mind, ended Boxer's career. And now here he was, putting his badge back on and committing himself to finding a murderer he'd been sure had already been caught. They were all sure. So much so, in fact, that the department had buried the truth and they'd all gone about their lives. Until now.

 

When they entered the lab, a technician nodded to a much larger, thicker file on the examination table in the center of the room. The identification label read simply "Emoticon Killer." Boxer took a deep breath and flipped it open.

 

 

© J.J. Goodman 2014. All rights reserved.