Valerie smiled and waved at fellow officers as she walked through the building, ignoring the strange questioning glances on some of their faces as they greeted her. It wasn’t unusual for a police officer to wonder why someone from internal affairs was walking through the building because it usually meant one of their comrades was in some sort of trouble.
“Good morning!” she chirped to everyone as she opened the heavy glass doors to the forensics lab. She caught sight of the man she was looking for over in the corner so she immediately headed in his direction.
Timothy Baker was a thinker plain and simple. Puzzles, riddles, and ciphers, he could do it all without so much as a frustrated pause or having to sleep on it. There weren’t too many things that left him wondering what the answers were. He was called upon from time to time from various organizations to lend his mind to their cause and help them process clues that they’d become stuck on. He often worked on cold cases, kidnappings, serial murders, and of course the odd piece of evidence that threw everyone for a loop.
He watched as a stunning young Latina woman approached him from across the room and he felt a sense of déjà vu, like he had met her in the past. He couldn’t quite describe it; it was if he’d never met her but knew everything about her. He drew his thin, lanky body out of his seat, giving her a smile as she finally came to stand in front of him.
“Sergeant Baker,” she said as more of a statement than a question and he slowly nodded his head, “It’s good to see you.”
“Have we met before?” he asked bluntly, reaching out to shake her hand, “Officer…”
“Torres,” Valerie answered with a big grin, “And we have crossed paths.”
“Okay,” he felt compelled to take her word for it, “What can I help you with today? I’m assuming you’re bringing me something to work on?”
“Of course,” Valerie nodded then reached into her black satchel to pull out the zipper lock bag that contained the small matchbook, and handed it over to him, “On the inside there seems to be some sort of message or code that I was hoping you might be able to figure out.”
Baker noticed the lack of registration on the item, and he silently wondered whether this was for an actual case or if this woman was having him look at personal problems, “Is there a case number?”
“Not yet,” Valerie shook her head, “I’m not sure if this has any relevance. It’s for a cold case I’m working on, I happened to find this but it wasn’t tagged as evidence so I wasn’t sure if anyone had noticed the inscription on the inside. I thought maybe something was overlooked. If you figure out it’s nothing then I won’t put it into evidence.”
“I’d ask what case but given your position I don’t imagine you can tell me anything,” Baker commented, knowing by the badge hanging around her neck that she was IAB. He didn’t want to know what cops were in trouble again, not that Officer Torres would have been in a position to tell him. He might just be a brain, and not actually out in the field but the rules of police loyalty still applied. Had she mentioned anything about an officer being questioned in an investigation it was an unwritten rule that he couldn’t keep that kind of information to himself. Otherwise, she would have gone to someone within her own department.
Valerie smiled, “Sorry no, I can’t really tell you any details about the case. How long do you think it will be before you can take a look at this?”
“I don’t have a lot of cases backlogged right now, so I’ll take a look at it right away,” Baker offered.
“That’s fantastic, I really appreciate it!” she grinned and handed over the matchbook.
“Would you like to lend me a hand since I can’t really share this with someone else?” he felt compelled to ask her, taking the bag from her hand.
“And here I was under the impression you were the master. Why would the master need help?” Valerie joked and took a seat in front of the desk, dropping her purse and coat into the chair opposite her.
He chuckled and shook his head modestly, “I’m not the master but thank you for the compliment. I like to throw ideas around, get feedback from other people otherwise I could get way off track and never know it. I also like to know if people think I’m out of my mind insane, so I know when to start going back to the basics.”
“This should be interesting,” Valerie grinned and watched Baker as he took the matchbook out of the bag.
“Hmm,” he sounded thoughtfully after taking his first look at the matchbook’s cryptic list.
“Figured it out yet?” Valerie teased, watching his face change to a variety of expressions as he thought over the multiple possibilities.
Baker laughed heartily, “I’m good but I’m not that good…not recently anyway.”
Valerie smiled then reached over to hit play on the IPod powered stereo perched on the man’s filing cabinet, “To help you think,” she explained when he gave her a curious glance.
“How did you know that?” he asked, getting a strange vibe from the female officer. Since the moment she had walked into the room he had felt like there was something special about her.
She chuckled and folded her hands in her lap, shrugging innocently, “Maybe I’m psychic?”
“If you were psychic we wouldn’t be here right now, would we? To be honest I’ve been kind of wishing I had psychic powers lately. Ever felt like you’ve hit a brick wall professionally?”
Valerie nodded slowly, “I can’t be much fun bring the man with the answers if you don’t have the answers people are looking for.”
“That’s exactly what I mean!” he exclaimed, then drew back, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” he added.
“People say I’m easy to talk to,” Valerie confessed, “So what answers do you have for me?” she swiftly changed the subject with ease, drawing Baker’s attention back to the matter at hand.
“I have a feeling the people who made this couldn’t have been too clever,” Baker theorized, “What are you able to tell me about the case? Some details would really help. Otherwise the possibilities could be potentially endless.”
“Homicide – white male in his twenties, killed execution style and dumped on the beach. I have reason to believe the initial location was some sort of warehouse then the body was moved, this was recovered from the victim’s car,” she explained, hoping he wouldn’t ask why she thought he was killed in a warehouse because she didn’t think she could explain the fact that Nick had told her as much.
“Could just be a way of writing himself notes. I’ve seen so many cases where things we think are messages or clues just turn out to be someone’s special way of keeping track of things or reminding themselves to pick up milk on the way home. The amount of people who use ciphers continue to surprise me,” Baker thought aloud, “I’m leaning towards no for this one though something about it is telling me it’s not a simple reminder. Does November 3rd have any significance?”
Valerie’s lips pursed in thought, “Not that I know of. The crime happened in August, and I haven’t seen anything else that would lead me to November being a point of interest.”
“The first section is a date and time, maybe a meeting time or delivery time?”
Valerie watched intently as Sergeant Baker went verbally through his steps of deduction, going over each part of the list section by section making various assumptions and predictions about what it could mean. Everything he suggested was subject to change and frequently one thing became another entirely. Valerie thought over his suggestions, wishing Nick had come with her so things might start to make sense to him. He was the key to knowing what things made sense and what were completely out of left field.
After a very lengthy pause Baker finally looking confident as he looked up at Valerie, “Does the victim work on the docks?” he asked as he copied the list onto a new sheet of paper, adding crucial spaces and notes that brought the truth of the message to life before their eyes.
“No, he was a singer,” Valerie stated and a look of recognition crossed the man’s thin, weathered face.
“Well whoever wrote this had some kind of interest in them.”
Valerie raised her eyebrow curiously, “What makes you say that?”
Baker smiled proudly then held up the new version of the list, along with a map of the dockyards,
11 / 03 / 0145 / 1BD / KINNA
11 / 20 / 1539 / BLB1 / FUMI
12 / 09 / 2212 / GLB8 / FELICITY
01 / 18 / 1427 / WHT4 / PRINCESS
“The date, the time, the dock name and number, and what I’m assuming is the name of a container ship. These are just acronyms for the dock names that are commonly used in shipping schedules but the ordinary person wouldn’t use them. I’ll double check on the names of the ships and whether or not they were in port on those particular days but for the first time in a long time I’m confident that I’m right on this one.”
“A shipping schedule?” she questioned rhetorically, taking the sheet of paper out of the man’s hands.
“Does that help clear anything up for you?”
“I’ll still need to know who owns the ships and what was on them.”
Baker chuckled and placed the matchbook back into the plastic bag, “That’s your job, not mine. My work here is pretty much done.”
“I still can’t believe that’s it, it barely took you two hours. I was expecting a wait,” Valerie complimented.
“Sometimes the answer is really simple, right in front of your face, and you just need another set of eyes to take a fresh look at it. Plus it helps that I have things like dock lists and airport terminal lists and a map of everything imaginable that could be used in an acronym across the city.”
Valerie nodded thoughtfully, “Yes, that’s very true, its better that a guess be an educated one. Thank you for being my extra set of eyes, at least now I have some leads.”
Baker shrugged modestly, “That’s my job.”
“People should get gratitude even if it is for their job,” the woman told him honestly, then went on her way, needing to find Nick and Brian. Nick’s place of death, the warehouse, was suddenly starting to make sense. The person who had lost the list was in shipping and obviously either owned or worked at the dock where they’d taken Nick to kill him. She know had the how, where and what all she was left with was why and who.
