“Decker?” Cruz’s voice shook him out of his thoughts. “Did you get any of that? Hell, I knew you were losing your hearing, but— “
“I heard you, Jerry,” he lied, counting on the Governor to reiterate. “I’m on it.”
“Good, good,” he said. “And for the record, I’m working on increasing that funding.”
“Funding?”
“You didn’t hear me, did you, Felton?” Cruz laughed. “Look, there are a ton of files in your fine city that are still technically open. Without proof that we can close cases, I can’t secure the federal funds. Got it? Get someone to go through the files. Look them over. Make sure we did our due diligence. And if we did, close the darn things.”
Felton knew there were quite a few of those cold cases stored beneath his police department, but if you dwelled on the past too much in this line of work, you’d never get a good night’s sleep—not that he’d had ever had one, but he’d heard about such things.
“Isn’t that new system up and running? Everything going digital and all, right?” The Governor asked.
“It is,” Decker said. He’d been hoping to retire before they made the department go through the massive digital overhaul to the system. Old dog, new tricks sort of thing.
“Well, get a detective on the files. Just skim it. Check the P’s and Q’s,” Cruz said. “Then we’ll do a quick report of closed cases, over and done. And you and I can sail off into the sunset, my friend.”
Decker hung up and took a deep breath. He didn’t have the bandwidth or the manpower for this revolution in record keeping. As he sat contemplating how to handle this, he saw Rick waddling down the hall, shoving a powdered doughnut into his mouth.
“Hey, Rick,” he shouted at his glass door. The portly detective stopped short and pushed into the office, breathing harder than he should have been.
“What’s the new girl doing these days?” He asked as Rick finished the doughnut and licked his fingers.
“She’s been working on that social media bulls— “
Decker held up a hand to stop him. “I need to see her. I have an assignment for her.”
Rick’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “An assignment? Geez, chief, the girl can barely tie her shoes without somebody holding her hand.”
“Not to worry,” the chief said. “She can’t do any harm on this one.”
3
Murder Files
Amber Cross walked into the office, Fat Rick ushering her along like a child. She could smell him already and it wasn’t even noon. He stood there, lurking in the doorway as she sat down across the desk from Chief Decker.
“That’ll be all, detective,” he said. “Close the door on your way out.”
The man opened his mouth to say something, but the chief pointed a firm finger out the door. Rick closed it a little harder than he should’ve and stomped down the hall.
“Hello, Miss Cross,” Decker said, his tone shifting from dismissive to fatherly in two seconds flat. “How’s our little project workin’ out these days?”
The chief really believed in the K.E.Y.S. program, even if it was more of a babysitting assignment for Amber. He had come through his career knowing in his heart that policing crime was easier if the department was engaged in the community. Amber thought she would be hard pressed to find a Savannah local who didn’t know and respect the man, even in the roughest parts of town.
“It’s going well, sir. I just put up three new articles today ahead of the heat wave coming this weekend,” she said. “Standard stuff really. Don’t leave your kids in the car. Don’t leave your pets in the car. Limit your time outside during the hours of two and five.”
“Uh huh,” Decker nodded, his eyes glazing over. “Well, if you’ve got some time, I’ve got somethin’ I need you on right away.”
“Of course, sir.”
He slid a single key on a ring toward her. She picked it up and flipped it over in her fingers. Squinting her eyes, she asked, “What’s this, sir?”
“It’s the key to the basement.”
“Basement?”
She had worked in the Savannah Police Department for a year and had never heard anything about a basement. She decided to put that fact away and pretend she knew exactly what the chief was talking about.
“That’s right,” he said, clucking his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Ain’t nothin’ down there but the file room. Boxes and boxes of the stuff that nobody has looked at in years.”
“Okay. And?”
“We just got a new computer system that’s gonna do away with all that,” Decker said. “No paper anymore. All digitized and stored in a cloud somewhere offsite.”
Amber was still confused as to why the chief was giving her the key to this mysterious file room. But she thought it was in her best interest to play along.
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Most of what’s down there is the closed file case record,” he said, pointing his finger at the floor. “Stuff we gotta keep for future reference, just in case there’s an appeal, or new evidence, or a cross-department request.”
“I see,” Amber said, seeing where this was going. “And you want me to go clean up down there.”
Chief Decker smiled. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”
A long silence passed between them. Amber had the distinct impression that the chief was considering what to say next, an odd thing for the chief to do. She had never known him to be at a loss for words.
“Pull the files. Scan
