Part Four

He presses the unlock button on the car key and hops in. Then, he places his cell phone in the place holder on the dashboard and dials his friend, Harry’s phone number.

“Hey Harry, are you at the precinct?”

“No, not yet. I am at Tim Horton’s. Why—is something up?”

“Yea. I need your help enhancing an old photo.”

“Okay. Meet me at my desk. I will be there shortly.”

“See you soon, buddy.”

Stuart hangs up the phone and turns on the radio to the country music station. Something inside him is making him feel anxious, and sweat starts to appear on his forehead even though the temperature outside is in the mid-thirties. The clouds look a little gray like snow is in the forecast for the evening. Traveling down Fairfield Avenue, the sun peeks out from the shadows, and Stuart has to put his visor down to see the road better. He stares at the photo once more before getting out of his car — beep beep as he locks the car.

Stuarts walks up the stairs to the second floor, where his friend, Harry works. He analyzes photos, security footage, deep internet searches on victims, and criminals.

“Hey, I thought I would beat you here.”

“Traffic wasn’t bad, and I was leaving the coffee shop when you called.”

“What do you need me to do?” says Harry with a smirk on his face.

“I need to make this photo more translucid so that we can scan the man’s face for facial recognition.”

“Are you working on a cold case?”

“No, I had another dream about my grandmother. She was dancing with this man wearing the pinstriped gray suit, and then she gave him a key. I found the key in an antique jewelry box, but have no idea where it goes to.”

“Okay, we can figure this out, bro.”

Harry takes a photo of the vintage photo of Stuart’s grandmother with his cell phone and then connects his phone to the computer using a USB cable. Once the picture uploads to the computer, Harry can enhance the image by using Photoshop. Stuart watches Harry use the eyedropper tool to brighten the background. He stares in amazement as he watches the photo come back to life like Stuart is inside the dream, watching a reenactment. A dazzling reflection from the gold tiles on the ceiling hits the wine glasses on the bar. The room smells like tobacco and flowers from the men smoking and the women wearing perfume. There she is, my grandmother, looking like a teenager in a fancy dress having the time of her life, but what is she doing with the brass barrel key?

“Stuart, are you okay?” Harry asks.

“Oh, sorry. I must have been daydreaming. You know what is so strange?”

“What’s strange?”

“These dreams feel so real like I’m time traveling. This whole experience is so out of the ordinary.”

“Maybe when you opened the antique box where you found the key, you unlock something like the tesseract.”

“What are you talking about?” Stuart asks with a confused look on his face.

“Sorry, bro. Holly and I were watching A Wrinkle in Time last weekend.”

“Oh, okay,” Stuart laughs. What if Harry is on to something? Can time-traveling exist, or am I going crazy?

Harry places his hand on Stuart’s shoulder and says, “Come back later. This is going to take me a while.”

“Okay, I will go to my office and check in on the West Side case and come back in a couple of hours.”

Stuart slowly goes downstairs and goes into the locker room to hang up his coat and use the restroom. He splashes cold water on his face before leaving the bathroom. Stuart smiles when he sees a cup of coffee sitting on his desk.

“Thanks for the coffee, Chief,” Stuarts shouts in the room next door.

“Detective Linux, I have completed my examination of the victim,” the medical examiner hands him the folder.

“Thank you. Did you find anything out of the ordinary?”

“No, not really. The victim had defensive wounds on the wrist, and she died instantly with a gunshot to the head. I would say a robbery gone wrong.”

“Thanks for the report, Steve.”

Steve shakes Stuart’s hand and says, “No, problem, Detective.”

Stuart walks over to the Chief’s office and explains what the medical examiner found, and they both sign the case folder. Then, Stuart places the folder onto a metal cart for it to be filed away. I feel so bad an innocent lady got killed. Now, someone else in the world has lost their grandmother, just like me.

Stuart’s pants pocket begins vibrating before he could sit in his office chair. It can’t be him already. I have only been gone for an hour and a half. He looks down at the screen and sees a text message from Harry. Stuarts picks up his keys and locks his office’s door and runs upstairs, but stops at the water cooler to fill up his water bottle. Being anxious has caused him to be extremely thirsty and fidgety today.

“Hey, I enlarged the gentleman’s face and made a photo of him alone.”

“How did you do that?” Stuart asks with his arms crossed.

“I used an element in Photoshop called Face-Aware-Liquidy to adjust the man’s facial features and brighten the picture as well.”

“That’s amazing. I’m buying you beer and wings tonight!”

“Sounds good to me, dude.”

Harry opens the police department’s database to conduct facial recognition. Stuart enters his badge ID number, and then they watch the circle spin on the computer. Stuart paces back and forth for a little bit, but they found a match. The gentleman is named Arthur Watson. Harry got up from his chair so that Stuart could take a closer look at the computer. He clicked on the name and documents pulled up, but it was unreadable. There was information blacked out, and on the very last page, it says, “Federal Bureau Investigation.”

Stuart slams the keyboard on the desk in frustration and places his head in the palms of his hands.

“I’m sorry, but we could go get the file.”

“How do we get confidential, sealed documents from the FBI?”

“Danny was working on a murder case a couple of months ago, and he needed sealed documents to match the killer DNA to the weapon. He got permission to go down to the FBI headquarters to get the files.”

“I don’t know, Harry—if they will let me go down there if I am not working on a case.”

“Go into the boss’s office and ask for the weekend off. Tell him you need to be with your mom to finish up arrangements for your grandmother’s house.”

“Good idea, Harry. You’re brilliant!” Stuart hugs his buddy.

Stuart went downstairs and knocks on his boss’s office door.

“Hello Sir, do you have a moment to talk?”

“Sure thing, Linux. Take a seat.”

Stuart sits down in the gray plush chair and bounces his left leg up and down.

“What’s going on?”

“I hate to ask, but I was wondering if I could take a few days off. My mom is going to need help finishing up the arrangements for my grandmother.”

“Oh, I see. When do you need the time off?” says the Chief with his right fist place under his chin.

“I was hoping for this weekend.”

“Well, you know the policy for time-off Linux,” says Chief in a stern voice.

“I’m sorry for the short notice.”

“Okay, Linux, you can have time off. See you Monday morning.”

Stuart shakes his hand and says, “Thank you so much.” A huge smile appears on his face as he closes the door behind him. Stuart texts his buddy when he gets back to his desk and tells him he got approved for the time-off.

Harry replies, “It looks like we are off to New York City this weekend.”