chapter six

CHAPTER SIX

We had watched the footage for over 3 hours, winding it forward while trying not to miss any important detail, we were watching the footage when the store attendance shouted, 'wait! I remember that guy, he came in at 10pm that day when I was about to close up, I remember him buying the barbed wire and he paid in cash, I remember him because he had a really nice scent on him but he looked creepy with his baseball hat covering is face and he also wore sunglasses, and I was like why would someone wear sunglasses at night' the store attendant explained.

I looked at the footage closely and truly his face was hidden with his hat and glasses, I could not make up what his face actually looked like, 'Why don't we check out the security camera outside, maybe it would catch a plate number or something?' Gabriel suggested. 'That's a really good idea I agreed'. The manager switched the footage to the security camera outside and we could see the guy walking out, and entering into a truck, luckily enough the truck was packed within the camera range so we could get the license plates. 'Great, now we can run it and figure out who owns the truck' I said.

We got back to the office just in time for lunch, I gave the license plates numbers to an officer to run the plates while I went to lunch, on my way to out of the station, Gabriel walked right in front of me, stopped and asked 'you are going to get lunch right, there's this spot I discovered yesterday and I would like to take you there to lunch'.

' I mean, you just got to town a few days back, you got lost this morning but somehow you know of a good lunch spot that you want to take me too' I queried

'I can be very resourceful when I want to be' he said grinning 'and don't worry I have my google maps right here so we won't get lost…just trust me' he continued.

'Trust a member of the male gender? Nahhh', I said.

'you don't have to trust me then, just come with me' he said walking away and looking back to make sure I was following, we got to his car, he went around to the passenger's side and opened the door for me, 'a proper gentleman' I mocked. "Well not to toot my own horn but I actually am'.

We got to the spot he was talking about it was a food truck, that sold burgers, fries , milkshakes and fruit juices, 'this is just a normal food truck' I said disappointed, I was expecting something fancy I guess. 'Don't judge until you give it a try, it would be worth it probably' he said.

I ordered a chicken sandwich and banana milkshake, as I got my order and tasted the sandwich,  I expected my taste buds to scream in excitement of the new meal I just dug into, but it tasted like an everyday sandwich, nothing special, I said in between mouthfuls 'this is just normal'

Gabriel laughed while chewing passionately 'I know' he said, 'to be completely honest I heard of couple of guys in the station talking about this place and decided to try it out with you, those guys have bad taste, they hyped this place up I thought it was a five star restaurant, I'm sorry, I didn't want to eat alone and I know you probably would not want to eat with me if I didn't trick, at the end of the day everyone likes a little adventure'.

'Really?, I mean you see why I said I don't trust men… you literally told me to trust like you have eaten from this place multiple times' I said but upset but amused.

'Oh no, it was supposed to go smoothly according to my plan' he said still laughing.

'And what was your plan exactly' I asked intrigued.

'Well, that I would take you here and you love the food and we eat here every day', he answered. I don't know if it was the tone he used, the way he said it or the way he looked at me after saying it but I got chills. Spending time with Gabriel was more fun than I had expected, we were becoming fast friends, just friends, that's all we can be, I reminded myself. We spent the lunch break laughing and enjoying each other company, when we got back to the station and walked in together, I could feel eyes watching us, I could just imagine what their thoughts would be, even I could hardly believe that I was interacting so easily with a co-worker, I am pretty sure Smithy most of all would be surprised, as we passed by it seemed like his eyes would pop out of his head the way he looked with so much disdain. We separated and went to our desks, the license plates should have a match by now I said to myself, i got up and walked and walked to the intern's desk where I would get the results, 'anything?' I asked.

'Yeah, the truck was reported stolen by its owner the day before the murder happened', he said.

'What?' this new information was definitely not what I had expected, I was hoping on getting a name and an address of the car owner and probably the killer, but now as it seems the car owner is different from the killer and the only way to get closer to solving this case would be to find out who stole the car. Damn, I had really hoped to get this case solved as soon as possible, so the victim's family can get the answers they needed and move on. The weekend starts tomorrow which means I won't be able to do anything for the next two days. 'Just get me the address and number of the person who reported the car stolen' I said to the intern, I was solving this case period and nothing would stop me.