From the Desk of Carl Jensen Jr.

            by Sam Jensen

 

I never thought I’d end up in this place. Here I am, the famous Carl Jensen Jr., father of the most brilliant mind in forensics ever to grace the state of California – no, the world! – and now I find myself here. I don’t get how it could’ve happened. All I remember was waking up to my partner breaking down my bedroom door with a warrant and a pair of handcuffs. Next thing I knew I was being driven away from the bay, over the hills, and far, far away.

The weirdest thing was that I had just cracked a huge case about a week earlier. A marvelous piece of deduction, if I may say so myself. You’ve heard of the Stranski murder case, right? That’s the one where a guy was found at the bottom of the bay, a cement block tied to his waist. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if he wasn’t an officer. Jeff Stranski was a co-worker of mine, and a good friend, too. I figured the killer must have been this young cop named Matt hired only about a year ago because old Stranski had slept with his wife; damn, she was fine. Anyway, it was pretty easy to prove the guy did it; all it took was a little good cop/bad cop and the poor fellow broke down. He split up with his wife, the new job was too intense, and now the murder was too much for him. I never got a chance to get with his old wife after he was locked up; she had packed her stuff and moved to Atlanta. I really let one go that time, you know what I mean? She was so fine!

So, just as things started to slow down over at the office, the little bastard broke out of jail. The Media went crazy. “Convicted Murderer Escapes Federal Prison” was the SF Chronical headline the next day, I think. Naturally they gave me the job since I caught him so fast the first time, but old Joe must have seen me coming and he threw me off the trail. First and last time anyone’s ever outsmarted me, swear to God. Had me search Tilden Park up and down before I realized the fucker had played me. By then, the hot lead had cooled off, and I didn’t know what to do. Must’ve drunk a six-pack at least because the next day I woke up in a puddle of vomit and didn’t remember anything.

Then I stopped getting jobs. Seemed that since I goofed up once the other officers didn’t have any respect for me anymore. That’s also when the Terminator started cutting state protection funds, and the department had to fire me. I barely had enough money left in my savings to buy beer, so I opened a little private detective business. Called it “The Desk Of Carl Jensen Jr., Private Eye”. You might’ve passed it driving by San Pablo. Anyway, crime must’ve been on the downhill because the business was a total bust until the day Erica Malley walked in. Ms. Malley was a young high school teacher at one of those huge public schools. She taught chemestry to freshmen. I had to tip my hat off for that; it takes guts to take on that kind of job, you know.

Anyway, she came into my office on a Sunday afternoon in late spring, during a heat wave. April, I think it was. She was dressed warmly for summer weather, but I could still tell she was a grade A babe. Apparently her fiancé, Joe Shipp, a physics teacher, had gone missing, and she didn’t know why. She told me he had just talked to this shady fellow who was also in the physics department. Joe had a beef with this guy, seeing as he never showed up for any of the faculty meetings and taught his kids with Discovery Channel movies from the 1960’s as he chatted on his cell phone. He refused to give homework or tests. Apparently it wasn’t unheard of for him to simply leave the class for half an hour for no apparent reason, as if he was cutting the class he was teaching. Naturally, goody-two-shoes Joe wanted an end to this, and he confronted the old bugger. That was Friday, two days before Erica’s visit, and Joe had not been seen since.

At this point in telling her story, Erica began to cry, and I put my hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll be fine. Sounds like we have to pay this physics teacher a visit.”

Erica nodded, not bothering to wipe her watery red eyes.

“But I can’t go in the room with you. If the guy knows he’s being investigated he won’t say a ding dong thing. So I need you to do the talking for me.”

“But isn’t that dangerous?”

I put my other hand on her other shoulder. In my day, I’ve worked with rape victims, mothers of kidnapped children, men who watched their wives throats slit in front of their very eyes, their own two eyes! All Miss Erica needed was a little of my little comforting prowess to feel less down in the dumps. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right outside with my revolver….which I won’t need, of course,” I added as the poor dame’s eyes began to well up again. Damn. I must’ve gotten a bit rusty in regards to dealing with victims or witnesses after being laid off.

I gave her a small pin in the shape of a peace sign. “This is a tiny microphone. I’ll hear every little thing that goes on in that room, so don’t worry. And if you really think you need me, just tap on the pin and I’ll come in.” She didn’t look much more convinced, so I added, “You can do this. Be strong.”

“What do I say?” she managed.

“That’s better,” I said, putting on my best smile for her. “We’re going to try and replicate his interaction with Joe as close as we can, so go in and say the science department at Berkeley High is concerned about his teaching.”

Erica nodded, and I finally got to see that pretty smile of hers.

 

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The next day I met Erica at 3:30 outside of C201. It was in the humanities building, but the physics department needed an extra room and the humanities department had one extra. Go figure.

Erica put on the microphone and went in, graceful as a cat, and  opened the classroom door. The stench of a science classroom filled with fermenting seniors and the food they had been eating since 8:30 in the morning washed over me, and I would have lost it and vomited right there, I would have if I hadn’t heard Erica’s voice crackle through my headset.

“Mr. Herbert?” She was still very nervous.

The next voice seemed to come from very far away, and I had to guess he was just saying “yes” or “hello” or something. It sounded like it was coming through a tunnel and all I could hear was the echo, you know what I mean? So I tried to peer through that little window on the door, but the fucking teacher had put a satellite picture of the San Francisco Bay in the way, damn it. I pressed my finger against the earphone and covered my other ear, trying to protect it from the random noises in the hallway.

“I’m Miss Malley. I teach chemistry.”

“Yes?” came the still-distant voice.

“I h-have something I need to d-discuss with you.” I winced every time she stammered. Thought for sure she was about to blow our cover any moment and give away why she was really there.

I still couldn’t hear perfectly, but Mr. Herbert said something like “What do you need, Miss Malley?” I tried pressing harder on my earphone and I put my other ear against the door.

“There have, well, there have been some complaints-“

“Complaints?” interrupted Mr. Herbert. I could definitely hear him now. “I have been teaching in this classroom for almost an entire school year now and not once have I heard a complaint, unless, of course, you count the times a student earned a bad grade or I wouldn’t allow another student to make up a lab, but no, I have never heard any complaints from the science department.” He talked in a monotone with fluctuating volume, the kind that lulls you into a sleepy mood when you listen to it, and by the time it stops droning on, you have no idea what he said, even though he took forever to say it.

“Y-yes,” continued Erica. “Some of the parents are concerned that you don’t g-give any homework or t-tests…” Her voice trailed off.

“No parents have complained to me yet.” The teacher’s voice was getting louder and slightly clearer; he must’ve been walking slowly toward Erica. The droning voice, the fluctuating volume, somehow I felt I’d heard it before. “This must simply be a misconception, no, a better word would be misunderstanding, or miscalculation, of the department.”

“N-no, there are other complaints, as well…”

“Miss Malley,” Mr. Herbert continued calmly, sounding as if he had just called on her in class, “as far as I know, I am doing a perfect job. It would be best if you sent someone who better represents my position, like someone in the physics department, or at least someone who teaches a senior class, like anatomy, but you really should have someone in the physics department or the parents themselves address their complaints to me directly.”

Now the voice definitely sounded familiar, but it was too hard to hear through the headset to figure out where I heard it last. You know that feeling, where something seems so familiar but you just can’t figure it out? That’s what I felt.

I was trying to think of how I knew the teacher’s voice when Erica lost it. “You see,” she burst out in a panic, “My fiancé, Joe came in here to talk to you last Friday and I haven’t seen him since! Do you know where he is? Where is he?”

Fuck. Why’d she have to squeal like that? I put my hand on the door handle, ready to open the door in an instant. I’m like a cougar or a cheetah, I tell you. All I needed was for her to tap the microphone.

This time the voice was even clearer. “Joe? Oh, Mr. Shipp. We discussed the physics curriculum in depth, and we concluded that I was doing a perfect job, so there’s no need for this little conference at the moment. Unless…” The voice drew closer with each word, revealing its speaker’s identity piece by piece through its gradual clarity. I just couldn’t place it!

My hand tightened around the door handle.

“Unless you hired a detective to find out where he is.”

“No, Mr. Herbert, that’s not it…”

“So you filed a missing person notice.”

The voice became closer; he must have been a desk away from Erica at this point.

Why was the voice so familiar? Maybe someone I worked with before I was fired…?

My hand began to sweat and the metal door handle grew hot.

“And the detective wanted you to talk to me and replicate the situation with Joe. Because you think I killed him.”

“No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” Erica screamed.

The grip on the door handle was turning my sweaty hand purple.

That voice … could it possibly be …?

“That’s a nice pin, Miss. Malley.”

Now he was right next to her!

“Did Carl Jensen Jr. give it to you?”

I broke through the door with my gun out and loaded. There was old Matt. He still stood around 6’ 2” and still looked like the scrawniest six footer I’d ever seen. He took out his revolver, but I dove under a desk before the bullet got to where I’d been. Matt’d always been a lousy shot. But before I could fire he grabbed Erica in a headlock and used her to block my line of fire, the bastard. Erica screamed as he reloaded his gun and put it to her head.

“Where’s Joe?” I shouted.

Matt smiled. “Take a wild guess, Carl. Bottom of the bay, just like good for nothing Jeff Stranski. Thought you’d have guessed that one, old buddy.”

Erica began to sob.

“I’m gonna have to turn you in, Matt!”

“Careful, Carl. Do something stupid and this young lady might end up in the bay as well. I suggest you just leave and make sure you don’t end up with her.”

“This is your last warning. Release her and turn yourself in, or-”

“Or what?”

With that I fired my pistol into the taunting bastard’s arm, and he dropped his gun before he could shoot poor Erica. He fell to the floor, clutching his shoulder. I pointed my gun at his head as Erica ran to turned on the fire alarm.

“It’s over, Matt. You’ll never get out again.”

Matt was gasping for breath, but the idiot managed to say, “…didn’t…think…you’d…shoot…”

“Man, I’ve been through this kind of thing so many things; it’s no problem, so long as I don’t hit her.” I heard the fire alarm begin to ring, and I asked, “Why’d you have to kill Joe? What’d he do?”

Matt closed his eyes. “Stole…my…Erica…”

 

Epilogue

After the cops questioned me and Erica, I drove her home. Gave her a Jack Daniels from the car, to offer my condolences and all. She was pretty quiet, and muttered something about not liking to drink. Well, suit yourself. More for me. We were both pretty quiet during the ride to her apartment. Every once in a while she’d mumble a direction: left here, right here, exit here, and so on. It was actually pretty boring.

I walked her up the steps to her door and we said goodbye. She put the key in, and I followed her into her dimly lit apartment, closing the door behind me. She turned around and I grabbed her, kissed her on the lips, then whispered to her terrified stare,  “You have beautiful eyes.”