I was fascinated those old mysteries when I was a kid. The Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot or any number of other great fictional detectives used to fill me with wonder as a kid. I was kind of brainy, so I loved the idea of solving murders with nothing but your mind and clever observation. I used to daydream about being Watson, trying in vain to solve crimes as Sherlock looked impatiently on while I bumbled before providing the correct solution and I faithfully transcribed his every action. So when I was faced with a real-life mystery of my own, I was ready to put into practice all I learned from the greats.
The woman in the apartment across from me had gone missing. The police hadn't been called as of yet, as she had something of an unsavory reputation in the building. But I knew from my close observations that she always came home some time the next day if she hadn't turned up the night before. She tended to sing to herself, often still in the bag whenever she would come home. I know this, no matter when I decided to take a nap she would always choose just then to come back and I would always wake up, much to my consternation. Anyway, she hadn't been back in so many days and it didn't fit her MO.
Although in many ways I found her annoying, I wanted to find out what had happened to her. I didn't want her dead or anything, after all, and she'd been gone for 5 days. I decided to call the cops in. I had just dialed 9 and 1 when I had a thought. No one else knew she was missing. *I* didn't even know for sure. Maybe I could try to piece together what had happened. If I didn't find anything, I could always call in the pros. So I put the phone down and I thought, where do I start.\
Well, the most obvious place to start would be her apartment, but I had no idea how to get inside. Luckily for me, when I went to the door it was unlocked so I just went inside. The thick stench of used cigarette smoke and mouldy takeout containers hit me full in the face. I could feel it settle down onto my skin and clothes. Trying hard just to breathe through my mouth, I looked around for clues. Everything was a mess, but based on the smell alone I deduced it was probably always like that. The floor was more old newspapers and discarded clothes than tile. After a couple of minutes looking around helplessly I heard the phone ring in the other room and made my way towards it. it was in a similar condition to the living room, but the stench was less overpowering thanks to a window propped open with a brick. The phone was on a simple bedside table with a notepad beside it. It continued to ring, but since I wasn't supposed to be here in the first place I decided against answering it. Instead I noticed a message on the notepad scrawled hurriedly in eyeliner. My first clue!
The pad read simply JOEY74Alpine all together like that. I knew this couldn't be anything but an address and so I quickly noted it in my head and hurried back to my place for a map. It turned that 74 Alpine Road was in a bad area in town, but it was all I had, so I decided to go for it.
It wasn't very hard to find the place. It was a rundown area and most of the buildings had been boarded up. In fact, 74 was the only building that wasn't completely in shambles. With some trepidation I went up to the metal reinforced door in the front of the building. It was worn down but still newer than the surrounding structure, leading me to believe it had recently been installed. Locked. I went around to the back to see if there was a door back there. It was off one of its hinges and hung crookedly off the other, as much open as closed. In for a penny, in for a pound and all that, so I moved the door aside and went in.
It was dark, but I could hear voices almost right in front of me. I crept forward down the increasingly dark hallway until I entered a large room in which I saw several musclely tattooed backs all in wifebeaters. One of them had a pistol jammed against the small of his back and tucked into his pants. It glistened slightly at me and I suddenly knew I was in way over my head and started to creep back out the way I came in when suddenly there was a gunshot. Then blackness.
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When I came to I was in a hospital. There was a plain clothes officer just outside my door. When he heard me moaning in pain, he came in. He identified himself as Detective Williams and wanted to know what I was doing in the middle of a drug deal between two rival lower east side gangs. I had been shot in the back, he said. The police were in stakeout mode and trying to score a bust. They had a man on the inside. When I arrived, they were just about to rush the building and had just made their way in after me when one of the gang members heard a noise, spotted a cop and shot. He didn't see me in the way, and I went down. Then he asked me again how i got to be in that situation. Sheepishly I told him about the disappearance of my neighbor and my attempts to find her. He gave me his best raised eyebrow and incredulous look and then went into full police mode. I was under police custody until they could corroborate my story and not to try and leave. As though I could.
Well, to wind down an already bloated narrative, they rang the girl across the way and she was home. Apparently she had gone on some kind of camping trip and JOEY74Alpine was the email address of the guy who was renting the car. At first the police wanted to file charges, but my neighbor (it turns out Clara is her name, by the way) refused to press charges since she left her door open anyway and I was only trying to help. The cops dropped it and told me to leave the police work to the real detectives. As I started to feel the throbbing ache near the small of my back I decided this was probably a good idea.
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