The Last Option

Captain Todd West sat at his desk in the police station, intently watching a printout of a screen capture of security video showing the Hicks' killer shooting them and his accomplices. He was all the time with his back to the camera that captured everything, so it never recorded his face. He kept looking for a few more seconds and something caught his attention. He browsed the original video on his computer and played it again. He carefully watched the entire video again and realized that Bernard had grappled with the killer before he was shot by one of his accomplices, even as he fell to the ground wounded he didn't take his eyes off him.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, confirming what he suspected. "You've lied to us all this time! Of course you remember the killer! You've been watching him the whole time!"

He hadn't paid much attention to that detail and berated himself for having overlooked it, a little annoyed. At that moment Detective Scanlon entered his office with a folder in his hand.

"You're not paying attention to details, Joseph!" he also complained to the detective about him almost with a shout. "You must be attentive and see the things I don't see!"

Scanlon looked at him strangely and at the same time surprised by the scolding; Although he was used to the strange personality of his boss, this time it took him by surprise that he told him that.

"What?" he only managed to ask, confused.

"You should be more careful!" West repeated. "What do you bring me?" he asked him, changing the subject.

Scanlon made a face of indifference and handed over the folder.

"I wanted to find out a little more about our friend Sullivan and inquired into his past," Scanlon began to explain while West went through the folder. "Our friend and his wife come from a small town called Marshall in northern Arkansas; he was in the navy but decided to quit it when he was beginning to make a career, coming to New York, I imagine to look for new opportunities."

"We already knew he was a Navy Seal, Joseph, you're not telling me anything new."

"Okay, sir, but I also inquired into the life of his wife and guess who the father of the girl is."

West flipped through a few more pages, read a few notes highlighted by Scanlon, and then turned to his detective, thinking a little maliciously at the find.

"Yes, sir," Scanlon confirmed. "They never proved anything to that subject for his participation in the Little Rock mafia, being free of the suspicions that were held about him, but supposedly he was in charge of "cleaning" a dangerous cartel that had settled in the city and whose drug killed a significant number of young people. Our friend's father-in-law is a very dangerous guy, and guess what, he's back in town for his daughter's funeral. Immigration said he arrived four days ago from London, and was apparently in Africa before that."

"Do you think he had something to do with the death of the Hickses? That guy is in his seventies and his physical characteristics don't match our killer's, if that's what you're thinking. The killer is much younger."

"Of course he's not the killer, but it also struck me that he and our friend flew to Little Rock on Monday and stayed there for three days."

"Do you think he's back to his old ways?"

"It would be very difficult due to his age, but I imagine he left many contacts that could help him-"

"To find a professional assassin, perhaps?" West asked, pointing a finger at him and closing one eye, which Scanlon found somewhat comical, avoiding a giggle.

"We're talking about Little Rock, sir, which is four and a half hours from New York by plane. Do you think the connections of that guy's former bosses go that far?"

"It is possible, Joseph. Our friend remembers our murderer and thanks to us he knows his name. It's not surprising he seeks revenge for the death of his benefactor and friend, or wants to play the hero and do our job, making us look ridiculous."

"And what will we do then?"

Keep an eye on him but this time much more closely. He's not going to tell us the killer's name, but he can lead us to him when he finds him, if he's looking for him."

"It bothers me to be blind in an investigation, sir. Having no clues about this killer is frustrating me, a lot." "Me too, Joseph. Me too."

West turned his attention back to the video as Scanlon took the folder back and left the office. He replayed it, looking at it carefully, from beginning to end.

He spent at least another half hour like that, seeing it again, and when he was about to give up, he noticed something that caught his attention. He rewound the video a bit and played it again on the part where the killer hit Bernard and knocked him to the ground for the first time; he froze that part of the video, at the precise moment of the blow. The murderer was wearing a black cloth jacket that day, which prevented seeing any mark or tattoo on the skin of his arms, but it didn't entirely prevent West from noticing something near the clenched fist with which he had hit Bernard in the face. As he stretched out his arm, the sleeve of his jacket revealed a small stain near the wrist; West brought the image closer and looked carefully, it looked like a tattoo, which of course didn't look complete, but at least it was something. He was glad that he had watched the video several times and paid attention.

He took a new capture of the image and printed it out, then stared at it intently, trying to search his mental memory bank for tattoo images that might match that little part. It looked like the tip of a triangle. He searched the computer for the file of the physical details taken from all those prosecuted for homicide such as tattoos, birthmarks, scars, moles, burns, everything. Many of them had no markings, while some only had tattoos. He dedicated himself to that only, tattoos, since apparently the murderer had one.

In the database he was looking at there weren't any that seemed to have the tip of a triangle. He went to the FBI Most Wanted and found nothing either. What if it wasn't the tip of a triangle? He looked at the photo again and thought it might be an arrowhead, though he wasn't entirely convinced. Nothing should be ruled out, he told himself. He tried anyway and this time found eight matching arrow tattoos, but none were anywhere near the offender's wrist. Disappointed, he looked at the print again, trying to decipher which figure it might belong to. He thought to call for help and called out to Scanlon by his first name, as he always called him. He heard the call from his desk and got up quickly to see what was happening.

"What's going on, captain?" he asked a little tired by the haste with which he arrived.

"Four eyes see better than two, and two heads think better than one. What do you see here? Which figure could it belong to?"

Scanlon stared at the photo for a moment, narrowing his eyes, while West watched him expectantly.

"So?" the captain asked after at least a minute of waiting and starting to get impatient.

"Wait a minute, Captain. It's definitely not the head of an arrow, although it looks a lot like it."

"And a triangle?"

"Not even a scalene, which has all the different angles. I remember a tattoo that a girl I was dating once got, and she was really crazy, that had something like this." "And what tattoo is it?"

"She called herself a playful little devil, and got a tattoo of a little devil on her leg, near her ankle. This image looks a lot like the tip of that little devil's tail."

West immediately searched the database for suspects with devil or she-devil tattoos near their wrists, and voila! A match came up in the FBI's most wanted files.

"Do you see why I always tell you that you are the best of all in this shit?" West told him, proud and at the same time happy with his detective.

"Do you think he's the murderer?" Scanlon asked, trying to hide his emotion at his boss's compliment.

West printed out the photo of the offender's wrists and compared it to the one on the screenshot.

"I don't think so, my dear friend," he told him with a smile. "I'm sure!"