Seven Deadly Colors Of The Rainbow [#Wattys 2016]

Secrets

"Do you think Derrick had his wife killed?" I finally asked Patrick.

We were heading to the crime scene once more to recover an extra set of tapes. I was driving this time around, smooth jazz streamed from the radio.

"No," Patrick was finishing his lunch. A tuna sandwich smothered in mayonnaise. "I doubt it. I mean look at the guy, he owns an ice cream store."

"Yea, so?"

"Guys like those don't have the guts to even pull it off. Besides I checked his annual income after expenses and he isn't making that much." Patrick said.

"Yea well we can't rule him out base off what we think. So far apart from the mystery man he's the only other suspect."

I didn't know what connection Derrick and the first victim had or even of they had a connection. Maybe I was wrong about the first death and it was an accident or Rachel had killed herself on purpose.
But Derrick had a motive; with a cheating wife and you didn't want her to have a slice of the cake, murder seemed like a reasonable choice.

We reached Calamari Beach and asked the owner of the bar to show us the tapes from inside the lounge. He was a tall man with thinning hair. His face, weather beaten, made me think he was a farmer or a sailor before he opened this bar.

"Why are the cops digging into this?" The man spoke drawling his words.

Definitely a sailor.

"Oh you know standard stuff," I replied showing less commitment in the answer than a playboy getting married.

"She wasn't murdered was she now?" The former sailor asked.

Murder wasn't good for business unless you ran a funeral home. The bar and restaurant was still under investigation so I assumed the man was losing business to nearby competition.

"Murder is too strong of a word. She died in a questioning circumstance." I answered him again.

The tape was being played. The black and white recording of the lounge on that day player before us. Patrick fast forwarded until Jessica rose from her seat.

Sure enough less than a minute after a man also got up and went in the direction of the restroom.

In the entire time he was at the lounge his face was completely hidden from the cameras.

"Is that our guy?" Patrick asked me.

I downloaded the entire day's recording onto a thumb drive and dropped it in a bag.

"Maybe."

********************************************

The overcast sky threatened the afternoon with torrents of rain as we made our way back to the precinct. I made my way down to Dave's lab to see what he could dig up from the tapes.

Half an hour with no clear shot of the man's face we gave up.

"This is pointless!" Dave as well as everyone else was getting fed up with me and this case.

"It maybe pointless but it's our job."

"You're a fool," Dave insulted me. "If you are so sure he's a serial killer how you know he hasn't killed before?"

And that's when it hit me. I imagined a lightbulb appearing over my head.

To push this case forward we actually need to go back.