My Dad, the Private Eye: The Falling Star

CHAPTER 16

Dad's next step was to the police. With his newfound bottle of Xanax from Blight's trailer, he was sure he'd cracked the case wide open. Unfortunately, he didn't let me come along to the police station. I could see where he was coming from, but I didn't exactly like it.

At the 55 Division of the Toronto Police Service, Dad was met by Detective Perotta, the guy who'd questioned him at the studio. He wasn't thrilled to see Dad again since he hadn't been that helpful to Perotta before, but Dad felt confident that his new evidence would put a smile on the detective's face.

"This is from Ralph Blight's trailer?" Det. Perotta asked from behind his desk, looking at Blight's prescription bottle in a ziplock bag.

"It's actually pronounced 'Rafe'," Dad said, but when Perotta just stared back at him in silence, Dad added, "or 'Ralph'. Whatever."

"And you got this how?" the detective asked.

Dad squirmed a bit in his seat. "Is that... relevant?"

"It is if you intend to use it as evidence," Perotta said as kindly as he could. "But then," he added, "you should know that, being a private investigator."

Dad just sat there feeling stupid. He was clearly ignorant about a lot of private eye things. So he did what he could to smooth things over. He sat back, folded his arms and, with a smug smile, said, "Let's just say, the less you know about how I got this evidence, the better."

Perotta wasn't very happy with that answer. He sat back and folded his arms as well. "How come I've never seen you around?"

Dad squirmed a bit in his seat. "I, uh, go undercover a lot."

Another wrong answer as far as the detective was concerned. "Let me see your P.I.'s license."

Increasingly desperate, Dad said, "It's... in the mail." Then he sat forward and pleaded, "Listen, this is big! Rafe Blight drugged Patty Delaroy with Xanax so she'd fall through the hotel set window that he tampered with. And all so he could cast his new girlfriend, Sareena Vacarra!"

Perotta got up, shaking his head, and walked around to sit on the corner, looking down at Dad. "Mr. uh..."

"...Winnette. Drew Winnette, 'Your On the Fly Private Eye'."

Trying to resist rolling his eyes, Perotta said, "Right. Mr. Winnette, you've got a lot to learn about the collection of evidence." He held up the bottle in the bag. "For one thing, there's no point in using a bag if you've already corrupted the evidence with your fingerprints. But the main thing is, this is all circumstantial. Just 'cause Mr. Blight takes Xanax doesn't mean it was the Xanax that doped up Ms. Delaroy."

"But what about the security tape?" Dad insisted. "What was Blight doing there at the studio at two in the morning?"

"I don't know... editing?" the detective shrugged.

Dad's enthusiasm faded fast. "Yeah, he could've been doing that."

Perotta walked back to sit in his chair. "As far as this office is concerned, this case is closed. What happened was a very unfortunate accident. In fact, the only crimes committed here seem to be criminal trespass and the theft of a bottle of Xanax, a security video and a lock of a dead person's hair. Now, I suggest you get out of here before I decide to file charges for those crimes."

White as a sheet, Dad got up to go. Then he remembered the pill bottle. "I'll just take this," he said as he timidly picked up the bottle in the bag from Perotta's desk and scooted out the door fast.

After the bottle of Xanax turned out to be a dud, Dad was desperate to find more incriminating evidence against Blight. So, back in his dingy motel room, Dad lay despondently on his bed, scanning through more security video on his laptop. This time, his focus was the footage from inside the sound stage with the hotel set central in the shot.

I was trying to watch the video myself, curled up on the rollaway bed he had brought in for my visit, but the monotony was putting me to sleep. "Dad, give it up," I pleaded.

"Something's gotta be here," he said to me but also as sort of a desperate plea. "I've got Blight coming into the sound stage at night, but there's nothing of him fooling with the hotel set. Nothing!"

"Are you sure you've looked through all the video from that camera?" I asked, not quite sure I was helping.

"I don't know. I think so," Dad said. "It's all such a blur, there's so much of it." Dad turned away from his computer and looked at me with sad eyes. "I'm sorry, Krista. I took a chance, and I blew it. For both of us." He let his head fall onto his pillow as he watched the dull security video continue to play. "I'm not 'Your On the Fly Private Eye'. I'm just 'Your On the Fly Unemployed Guy'."

Now, I was just fifteen years old (still am), but I knew that Dad was taking it way too hard. "Don't say that!" I insisted. "This is just a setback. You knew this wouldn't be easy."

"Actually, I didn't," Dad admitted.

"Well, so now you know. And you're learning on the job. You're the 'On the Fly Private Eye'! Like your commercial says, you're better than experienced private detectives because you see things with fresh eyes."

"Thanks for the pep talk, honey. But I was just fooling myself with that ad. After all, why would anybody want to hire a private eye who doesn't know what he's doing? I mean, would you hire a plumber who'd never even fixed a leak before?"

He had a point. And I had nothing to say in response.

"Besides, the last thing I have are fresh eyes right now." Dad rubbed his eyes and tried in vain to focus on the grainy security video. Deciding to give up, he started to turn away.

But then... "What?" His bleary gaze suddenly turned sharp. He quickly stopped the video and rolled it back. Playing it again, he looked closely at the time stamp on the video. Counting by seconds, it counted up properly: 01:35:46, 01:35:47, 01:35:48... but then it jumped to 01:58:24, 01:58:25, 01:58:26, and continued from there.

"What's going on?" I asked, not able to see exactly what he was looking at.

"Hold on," Dad said as he sat up fast. He scanned back and forth over the spot that appeared to be a time jump. The video image didn't change at all since there was nothing moving in the shot, but the time stamp indicated that 23 minutes of video were missing!

"I got it!" Dad proclaimed.

"Got what?" I asked, getting a little excited myself.

"Blight was at the studio to do some editing alright. Editing of the security video! There's 23 minutes missing! Just enough time to pull a whole bunch of nails from the upper wall of the movie set."

"O.M.G., that's amazing!" I said, truly impressed.

"I'm back, baby! And I'm here to stay! WOO-HOO!" Dad cheered.

I was so happy to see Dad happy again. I really had faith in him. I know I was a little skeptical before, but he'd really proven himself with everything he'd done to solve this case. Sure, there were a few screw-ups, but he got through them. He really was learning on the job. And, with every lesson learned, he was developing faith in himself.

"So... what're you going to do next?" I wondered.

The gears started to turn in Dad's head. "I've got a plan. Kinda."