“I didn’t do it man. You gotta believe me!”, Jake pleaded. His voice was shaking from the immense pressure he was under. He leaned forwards in his chair and his face was met with the soft glow from the lamp on the table, which in addition to the bulb above, provided the only source of light in the small room. The bulb flickered off yet again, and Jake found the departure of its light once again chilling. In his mind, the darkness foreshadowed his chances of survival, and so he clung onto the light whenever it presented itself-for dear life. The light indicated whatever slim chance he had and so he breathed easier when it shone down from above-and showered him with an energy only he could harness, and flinched whenever it went off. He didn’t like that it stayed off longer than it came on, but Jake was a fighter above all- and he’d be damned if he went down without so much as a struggle. As if sensing his resolve, energy replenished him once more from above, and he felt his confidence rise, if only for a second.

“Look man, I’m innocent!”, Jake spoke again, bringing his cuffed hands down hard on the table, an action that caused the other two opponents of the room to exchange looks between themselves, before turning to face the man before them. Jake wasn’t much to look at. In fact, none of the Bunker boys were. The pale white skin on his face was covered with sweat, sweat that caused his long hair to stick to his forehead. At 6’3, Jake was easily the tallest man in most rooms he entered. What he had in verticality however, he lacked in cognition. Like his father and two brothers before him, Jake wasn’t a great thinker and so he stuck to his strengths - his towering physique and the fact that he could reach up high above most folk. Those hadn’t brought him much luck in life, hadn’t saved him from crashing out of high school and had only earned him a job as a factory worker - beside his father and two older brothers. The family reunion on his first day had been jolly for those involved. They broke out beers at lunch time and Jake was christened a man by his father, all too proud that his last son was joining the family business…sort of. The other workers had looked on, amused. Only the Bunker boys would celebrate such a thing they thought to themselves. They all joined in however, seduced by the extra cans of beer available to celebrate the occasion. Soon it was a full party, that went on until it was disbanded by the supervisor who served the Bunkers a stern warning to boot. The supervisor then grabbed two cans from the open chest and unspeaking, turned and stormed back away. Beer is beer after all.

Five years later, Jake found himself in not so cheery spirits. Handcuffed and pleading to the two people in front of him, the now twenty-year-old was desperate to be heard. His face was lean, a result of the hard labour he underwent at the factory each day. The boyish charms his adolescent face had borne at his coming-of-age party were gone, replaced with tired empty eyes - eyes which had been robbed of their spark a long time ago. The rest of his face was plain, except for a large scar that run across the bridge of his nose to his left cheek, disappearing into the thick beard he very rarely shaved off his face. His rugged looks were a hit or miss among the ladies. So was everything else about Jake. The bulb above him blinked and went off once more, and his resolve dropped a notch. Sighing, he dumped his head on the table and clutched at his long blonde hair with his cuffed hands, tugging as if to uproot his entire scalp.

“Cut it out Jake. That’s unsettling”, Detective Catherine Brooks spoke for the first time. Her firm tone bounced off the walls and caused him to stop. Jake’s head slowly came off the table at the sound of her words and he looked her in the face, before slumping back in his seat, a chair too small for a man that tall. Leaning back, hands in his lap, he addressed the detective.

“What do you want from me Ma’am?”. His eyes switched between the detective and her partner beside her, who hadn’t said anything since Jake entered the room. Arms folded across his chest; Detective Simon Arnold had kept the same frowned expression on his face the entire period. His piercing gaze tore through Jake with a heat that made him as uncomfortable as it made him scared. Turning away from him, Jake looked to the charming face of the lead detective for warmth and opened his mouth to make another appeal. Seconds earlier, the light above had come on, filling him with more power. He had to seize it while he could.

“I al-…”

“We want the truth young man. Stop wasting our time.”, Arnold spoke out for the first time, startling Jake. He unfolded his arms to reveal a file in his left arm. Standing up, Arnold paced the small room, passing behind Jake right as the bulb flickered off, causing him to shudder. When he came full circle, the detective placed the file on the table. Gently, he extracted two large photos from within and lined them in a neat row, facing Jake, who sat up to catch a better look. The detective leaned heavily on the table and in that instant, the bulb flickered back on. Jake wished it hadn’t this time, for it did not come with the gift of essence he had come to expect. This time the bulb shone a clear light on the pictures in front of him. Jake instinctively covered his mouth with both hands as his heart raced and he plummeted into panic head-on. When he raised his face, his eyes met with those of Detective Arnold, who frowned back at him, as though looking to dig into his very soul and find the secrets he knew were there. Behind him, Detective Brooks crossed her legs slowly as she lit a cigarette. She pocketed her lighter with one hand, and with the other, took a drag on her cigarette. She spoke up after a puff, finally breaking the silence.

“Tell us Jake, why did you kill Misty?”.

At the sound of her words, the bulb flickered out.

The detective’s words had the desired effect. She watched as Jake shrunk back into his seat, his imminent defeat visible to all in the small space. The old fan above was spinning slowly, squeaking as though in protest of its prolonged lifespan. It remained the only sound in the room after the detective’s words. Smiling softly to herself in the shadowy room, Catherine turned a circular device over in her pocket. Jake did not know it, but the entire stage had been set, as it had countless times before him. Every detail in the small room was purposefully placed, right down to the modern light bulb socket that hung above them and its sole occupant-the dim led bulb that flickered on and off every few seconds. She looked over at Arnold, and found him still scrutinizing Jake. They had run this same routine for quite some time, to great effect. Turning her eyes back to Jake, she pushed down on the circular device in her pocket. A split second later, the light bulb flickered on, and she took her hand of the remote control she had been playing with the entire duration of the interrogation. The remote-controlled light socket was her favourite toy in the entire set-up. How it worked was simple; one screwed the accompanying switch base into the lamp holder, where the bulb normally went, before inserting the bulb into the base. The remote control could now come into play, and control the light bulb with a simple press of a button. It was a simple device that barely cost her what she normally spent on lunch. She had gotten the idea from an old novel. The detective in the book utilized a similar technique to unsettle the subjects of his interrogation, albeit with an old-fashioned light switch outside of the room and another officer stationed beside it, watching for a signal previously agreed on. She lived in a different era, and played by the tools of her time. Why are the old days called the simpler times when the present time comes with technology and devices that make every chore…simpler? She often wondered, never concluding. One thing was certain, she loved her little tool and its elegant simplicity.

Observing from the soft glow of the bulb, she spotted the beads of sweat that had appeared on Jake’s forehead, and followed their trail down the rest of his face to his neck. The upper part of his shirt was damp from the perspiration, she noticed, and he made no attempt to wipe any of the sweat off - an observation that excited her. What that meant was he was feeling the effects of their carefully laid routine, and it was working. Time to reign him in.

“It’s a little hot in here, wouldn’t you say Jay?”, she switched to a friendly, more casual tone.

“Y-yes, it is ma’am”, he responded in a broken voice.

She took another puff on her cigarette and blew out before she continued. “You mind? If I call you Jay?”

“Sure ma’am”, the unstable voice replied.

Arnold recognized the change in tone and what it signaled. He tapped the table with both palms then walked away to stand in one corner. This too, was another part of their charade.

“You wouldn’t mind a little air conditioning, would you?” Catherine asked

This time Jake shook his head from head to right instead of speaking.

Taking that as a yes, Catherine motioned to her partner and he nodded sharply. Jake could see no air condition switch on the walls, which could only mean Detective Arnold was on his way to an exterior power source. In three short strides, he was at the door, reaching for the handle, and then he was gone, leaving the room and the other two occupants to themselves. Catherine pulled her chair closer to the table and planted both elbows firmly on the table. They landed on the photos that had been displayed there moments earlier. Jake gulped as he observed the round face of his questioner, and her attractive features. Never had he assumed he would be seated less than a foot away from the most famous detective in the town, the one whose face had been all over every news station just some years ago. The case that had made her famous was still fresh in the minds of everyone, however, only strengthened in their minds by time. The townsfolk swore they would never forget, and they had kept their word so far. Jake regarded her symmetric face and unusually good looks with the same question in his mind that only a few had dared ask. Why detective? Why had a very attractive woman like her chosen this line of work? Was it to avenge a past deed, like a comic book hero or was she pushed by her parents? He would never know the answer, of course, nor would he ever bother asking. He didn’t feel that brave. Not now. He observed as the dark-haired detective shook her head gently, and with her free hand, flicked her long hair over her shoulders.

“Excuse me for one second.”, she said as she set down her cigarette and proceeded to tie her hair into a neat bun. Jake watched her go through the motions. Her soft features had tightened a little as she focused on her task. Her smooth face was only disrupted by a small nose, which made way for her full lips a short length afterwards. Her eyes were a direct opposition to the rest of her face. The two balls burned from within their sockets, at anything she focused them on. They were normally red, a symptom of an underlying problem, but she seldom used her reading glasses. Ice and fire. Her visage melted you down into a softened state, before her eyes burned you up again, sometimes simultaneously. Jake couldn’t help but stare. For a second, he forgot where he was, forgot why he was there and instead was transfixed, mesmerized by the sight of the detective as she accomplished the most mundane of tasks.

A low rumbling overhead signaled the arrival of cold air into the room and the two occupants breathed a sigh of relief. The vents above split open, and cold air rolled out of them. Catherine was done and her hair was tied neatly behind her now. She smiled at Jake as she retrieved her cigarette, and was pleased to see he was a little relaxed. Her deliberate show had worked. Good.

“Now then, Jake. Please tell me what happened.”.

A calmer Jake pulled his chair closer, and leaned forward as she blew out her smoke to the side, away from him. Placing his head into his palms, he exhaled loudly, then he began to speak.

“It’s no secret I fancied her now, is it?”

“No, it isn’t.”, the detective replied.

Many in the town were aware of Jake’s regular visits to see Misty at her workplace. He sometimes bore flowers, a sign to all, telling the nature of his intentions for the beautiful woman that had caught his eye. Often, he would seek permission to go out with her during her working hours. While her workplace had strict rules, his requests were sometimes granted. Misty’s employers were amused by the nature of Jake’s emotions, as were her co-workers, some of who giggled at his sincere naivete. Not all of them were amused, however-some felt an immense pity for him, believing he had embarked on a lost cause. Nevertheless, he waded through it all to be beside Misty. Naturally, the rumor mill had gone to work soon after Jake began returning to see Misty, and from it a new nickname emerged, one he was most familiar with - Whore Lover.

It was whispered around anytime he stepped into Fair Havens, the strip club where Misty worked. Misty was one of the club’s best girls and top earners, and she garnered enough attention to make her co-workers, who also happened to be her competition, extremely jealous. Her young age, coupled with her good looks and charm afforded her a neat line of private customers, Jake inclusive. They met and he was infatuated with her almost instantly. Since that moment, he vowed he would rescue her and ride off into the sunset together, with empty cans on strings trailing their car and the sign ‘Just Married’ painted unto the trunk.

Shifting his head so he could see it again, Jake gazed hard at the photo on the table in front of him. He regarded the neat face that was captured in it with a deep despair that enveloped his soul. The face was peaceful, at rest. One could be fooled into thinking they were taken while she had been sleeping. But Jake knew what it really was. She was sleeping. Only this time, she would never wake. She looked peaceful at least. After a long life of struggle, Misty was getting some deserved rest. At long last. He raised his head from Misty’s pale face to look the detective in the eye. She could see the tears glistening in his eyes – soon to be set free.

“I love her you know”, he almost whimpered.

“I’m sorry for your loss Jay.”

“If you were, you wouldn’t be looking at me like I killed her. She was the most important thing to me. You wouldn’t understand.”

The detective put out her cigarette on the ashtray and folded her arms again. “Then help me understand Jay. Tell me how it happened.”

The squeaky fan spun slowly overhead still, oblivious to the cold air circulating the room that had rendered it redundant. The shadows cast by the blades when the fan passed beneath the light seemed to grow longer by the second. Jake sniffed loudly once, then held his cuffed arms out to the detective. Understanding, she got up and unlocked the restraints. She pocketed them and sat down again. She didn’t have to wait long. Jake, feeling grateful for her generosity, launched into his tale.

“A little while ago, Misty and I decided to get away from the town and start new lives elsewhere. A place where we could live like decent folk, free of our past and all this.”, he gestured his long arms around him.

Catherine understood. The town wasn’t much for anyone with big dreams. She transferred here some years ago because it offered a peace and quiet her old station in the big city lacked. Some wanted to get away from the city, driven away by the very things that made a city animated, and others were drawn to it like moth to a flame. Such is the complexity of the human condition. No ten people ever have equal agendas, unless you were at a political rally or a religious gathering. Catherine chuckled inwardly. Even there, people tended not to be honest with their intentions. She snapped back to reality and found little time had passed during her mental detour. Eager for Jake to feel more at ease, offered him a cigarette which he accepted. She lit it and he took a puff.

“I suppose you have one of them files somewhere with my entire history in it don’t you?” he nodded toward the folder the other detective had extracted Misty’s photos from. Catherine nodded.

“Well then, tell me what you know about me.”

Catherine hesitated for a second, before obliging. She recited his file from memory.

“Jake Bunker. 20. High school dropout. Series of arrests for unruly behaviour, getting into fights, no major criminal record. Currently employed at the steel factory, as has been the case for some years.”

Jake smiled a crooked smile. “Is that it, Detective?”

“The short version.”, she calmly responded, arms folded across her chest once more.

“See what that don’t tell you is I’m good with money. I guess you know how much I make don’t you?”

Catherine nodded. Jake puffed out and continued.

“I had it all figured out. A couple more months of this, and with some of her money, and we would be ready. She didn’t know it yet, but I already found a place down south and we was gonna move there after we got married.”

“You were engaged?”

“Well. Not exactly.”

Catherine squinted slightly at this information. “What do you mean not exactly Jake? Help me understand.”

The lanky man sitting across the table from her sighed heavily, blowing out smoke from his nostrils at the same time. He painted a picture of anguish as he inhaled once more from the cigarette she had provided. Catherine looked on as Jake bowed his head again, then began mumbling to himself words only he could hear.

“You have to speak up Jake. I can’t hear you.”

His face came up and that’s when she saw the tears for the first time. They rolled down his cheeks in two neat lines, slowly creeping from the reservoir that was his eyes. He had finally let go, finally stopped trying to hold back the storm and the waters were free to roam. Catherine reached into her pocket and withdrew a handkerchief she then offered to him. Jake accepted and dabbed away at his eyes hurriedly, as if eager to erase all traces of the human emotion they displayed. When he finally spoke, it was with a much lower voice than the detective had come to expect.

“I was going to ask her to marry me. I thought she would say yes. I had a feeling. We shared a deep connection.” His voice broke off at this juncture and he dabbed at his eyes some more. Catherine waited, she felt it coming, felt him caving. He didn’t need much pushing now. He was a stone falling down the side of a cliff, picking up speed every second as it plummeted towards a certain fate. When he hit the ground, he would crack from the impact and spill the details from within that she waited to hear. All she had to do was wait. Patience was a virtue but also, as often realized in her profession, a trained skill.

“Most of the folk about these parts talk a lot, and I pay them no attention usually”, Jake began again.

“But when I heard Ole Carl down at the factory mention Misty, I paid a little more attention. Ole Carl is a drunk, we all know that, but my Pa figures he’s the best hand the steel factory has ever seen.”

Jake handed the handkerchief back to the Detective, who waved it off, prompting him to nod and hold unto it.

“Ole Carl is a drunk says my Pa, but he ain’t no liar. That’s why when the man spoke of the affair the Mayor’s fancy college son Philip was having with Misty, I paid him a lot of mind. One afternoon at lunch break, I heard him tell Rusty the supervisor.”

Jake imitated the detective and folded his arms at this juncture.

“Him and Rusty didn’t hear me, they couldn’t have. I was beside the window in the warehouse when they appeared on the outside. They walked a few feet away from me before stopping to converse. Rusty asked about Carl’s second job as the gardener for Mayor Ronald by way of conversation. Carl only works at the Mayor’s estate on weekends, where he tends to the grounds work. It is a large estate, but Carl insists on doing it with little help. Everyone knows the story. Carl is vocal about how he only needs two helpers from the Mayor’s staff to assist with his work. He often says ‘All the best art in the world were not collaborations.’ Mayor Roland is so fond of Ole Carl’s work that afterwards, Carl claims, if the mayor has the time, they normally sit in the garden and share a drink or two. Everybody down at the factory has heard Carl tell this at one time or another. They were childhood friends and school mates, so they have a lot of history between them.”

“When was this?”, the detective intersected

“About a month ago.”

“Alright, go on.”

Jake obliged.

“Carl told Rusty how the mayor was worried about his son, Philip. He said Philip constantly sneaks out at night when he’s home from school. It didn’t take long for the mayor’s people to find out who he was meeting and report back to him. It was Misty. Carl said the Mayor told him how Philip snuck around with her much too often for his comfort. Mayor Roland was worried the affair would be discovered and dreaded that Philip would become another whore lover. Politically, that could damage his reputation.”

“How long did they talk?” Catherine interrupted again. Jake squinted his recently dried eyes for a second and thought about the question.

“Almost ten minutes”, he responded, nodding to himself. “Ole Carl and Rusty always got along. I reckon that’s why he trusted him with that information.”

“How did that make you feel what you heard?”, Catherine asked. He answered almost immediately.

“I was furious ma’am. I knew Philip from my days in school. We didn’t get along much as you can probably imagine. He had the fancy grades and all the care from the teachers, leaving the scraps for us not so smart folk to pick up.”

“Sounds like you weren’t fond of him Jay”.

Jake frowned slightly. “You’re right ma’am. I wasn’t. He was an arrogant prick. So, you would see why I would be unhappy at the news I just heard.”

The detective nodded. “I see. And what did you do afterwards?”

“End of day I went to see Misty and we talked. I was angry but she always knew how to calm me down. She told me she only saw him because he was so persistent, and that she couldn’t be seen refusing customers by her employers, so she went along with him when he was around.”

“How long ago was this exactly? Can you remember?”

“About three weeks ago ma’am.”

Catherine nodded at the information. Three weeks after Jake found out his assumed girlfriend was seeing another man, she was dead in her apartment and he, in police custody for questioning. The volatility of time. One moment Jake was planning his future with her, the next, she was gone. She wondered where she would be in three weeks, if she would still be on the case, or if she would be distracted by some other file and this case, marked solved and closed like many before it. Would she even be alive? Catherine didn’t know. Best not give the fates any idea as they forged her path forward. She would leave it to them, as always.

Two hours earlier she had received the call that had set the events in motion. Shortly after that, a series of events and circumstantial evidence had led to Jake’s arrest, and now he was being questioned to reveal what he knew about his dead girlfriend. Catherine wasn’t sure how the next few weeks would find her, and she hated that she didn’t fully grasp the case yet, but where there is a will, there is a detective story. Who said that? She wondered for a second before giving up. She would never remember, at least not now anyway.

Sitting up, she pulled her chair closer to the desk and placed both arms on the table.

“And Philip? Did you confront him?”

Jake shook his head. “I won’t lie, Ma’am I wanted to. I thought hard about it too, but she pleaded with me not to. She didn’t want any more trouble with her boss.”

“Any more? Did she have previous issues with him?”, the detective asked. By him she was referring to Kasim, the infamous owner of the club and all its assets, the girls inclusive.

“There was something with Valerie, one of the girls at the club just a few days before I found out about Philip. Misty says Valerie isn’t too fond of her. I’ve seen her scowl at me many a time but I gave it no mind. She’s a little on the older side and Misty says she’s always had it in for her. Things boiled over one time and they had to be separated. I was there myself when the scuffle broke out backstage. Afterwards, she told me Kasim warned them if it happened again, they would both be fired. Misty didn’t want that.”

Catherine nodded. “Okay. Go on.”

“I didn’t do it Ma’am”, Jake launched into a defensive plea again, catching Catherine without warning. “I dunno why you think I would kill Misty after how much I loved her.”

The veteran detective only smiled softly. “Love has pushed many to kill the ones they swore to protect Jay. This wouldn’t be the first.”

“But I was home the entire time it happened. My brothers can tell you I was with them.”, came the passionate response. As if sensing he had found a way out of his predicament, Jake was feeling more confident. Catherine was amused. She understood where the confidence came from-the cuffs she had taken off and the cigarette he was smoking. Once adjusted with the familiarities of their usual routine, any man would feel more himself-feel more self-assured. Time to take him down another peg.

“If anything, you should be questioning Philip. I say he did it, the jerk.”, he punched his thigh in anger. Jake was getting more confident by the second, louder too. Catherine quietly regarded the changes in the man before her. Unspeaking, she turned Misty’s file around and retrieved another image from beneath the one on top.

“We’ll get to Philip, sure. But I’m afraid there’s a reason we begun with you.”

Deliberately matching her words with her actions, she slowly held the new image on top, then looked Jake in the eye.

“Eyewitness reports place you at the scene of the crime around the time it happened, before you went home to your brothers.”

“She was alive when I left her, I swear on my momma!”, Jake burst out.

“I want to believe you Jay, I do.”, Catherine said reassuringly. “But you’ll have to explain this.”

Flipping the new image around, she slid it across the table towards Jake, who leaned forward to catch a proper look. His eyes slid across the picture from the top, making out the tip of a knife in the process. His gaze moved down the length of the blade – about 6 inches- covered in thick, dark blood leaving uneven spots incongruously clean and unaffected. The blade was only a few centimeters wide and was at an angle that suggested it could be bent down into the base to be concealed. A switchblade. When his eyes reached the wooden handle, Jake’s heart begun to race. Inhaling sharply, he focused on the polished wood. What he saw sent him into a spiral of panic. His head came up abruptly to meet the detective’s face, a stoic, cold exterior, drained of all the friendliness that had soothed him moments before. Her fiery eyes were ablaze, burning two neat holes into his own eyes. Jake turned back to the image with his eyes shut in disbelief, praying it was some kind of a mistake and that his eyes were playing tricks on him. When he opened them, he looked again at handle, and made out the letters engraved into it once again. His name. Jake Bunker.

“Around five thirty pm in the evening, witnesses saw you exit Misty’s building. An hour later, when she failed to appear for her shift at the club and didn’t answer her phone, a friend from work made it to her apartment to check on her. She found her dead. If you are innocent, Jake, then why is your knife the murder weapon?”