Stuck in the Middle

“So this is the most uninteresting crime scene I have ever seen,” Frank says.

“Well it’s not active right now is it?” Gerard replies. He looks at the restaurant, which isn’t very busy right now as it’s only lunch time and places like this usually fill up at dinner. All though it’s the kind of restaurant that wouldn’t be busy at six o’clock on a Friday because people who eat there like to eat fashionably late. A crouton at this place is a weeks’ worth of Gerard’s salary.

“So they just, like, keep going even after a guy died here?” Frank asks.

“Well what do you expect?”

“A little decency maybe for the dead guy,” Frank says.

“It’s a business,” Gerard shrugs, “they’ve got to keep going. Besides, the last robbery was almost a month ago. The grace period where you stay closed is only so long.”

“May I help you two?” a waiter asks, walking up to them.

“Uh, yeah,” Gerard says, reaching into his pocket and showing the man his badge, “I’m Special Agent Way and I’m here to ask you a few questions about the robbery that took place a month ago.”

“Um, we’ve already told the other guys what happened already,” the guy says.

“Yeah, well I’m not the other guy, I’m a fed, and I would just like you to repeat what happened that night. I’m sure you’ve heard about the third robbery on the news, I’m following up on that.”

“Yeah, uh, I wasn’t working that night, but I’ll get Danny, he was waiting the guys table,” the guy says, walking back, looking uncomfortable.

“So what do we do then?” Frank asks.

“You are so stupid,” Gerard says, shaking his head, “We just ask him what he remembers. He’s going to say something like ‘I’ve already told you guys’ and then we’re going to say ‘but we’d like you to repeat it one last time for us’ and then he’s going to say um a lot and we’ll have to contain the need to roll our eyes.”

“You’re cynical.”

“I’ve heard enough statements, it gets old, but I want to hear it firsthand. I’ve always found it important to be where the crime happened.”

“Waiting for the ghost to talk to you and tell you what happened?” Frank snorts.

“No, I just think it’s an important atmosphere to be familiar with.”

“Whatever,” Frank says, when a guy dressed in the same boring white shirt as the other guy heads towards them. He’s about twenty, looks a little frazzled, but that’s a look Gerard’s used to as well.

“I uh, I told the other cops already,” the guy says and Gerard looks at Frank with an ‘I told you so’ glimmer in his eyes.

“Yes, I understand that, but the people you talked to are no longer on the case. I want to hear you clarify what you recall from the event,” Gerard says.

“Can you show us where the guy died?” Frank asks, and Gerard really does have to resist rolling his eyes but it’s Frank who’s annoying him.

“Yeah, I guess,” the guy says, and he beckons the two of them to follow where he’s going. They walk through the main part of the restaurant which is as boringly fancy as every other restaurant in the world. It’s extremely glamorous but not very exciting.

They walk over to the window near the back of the restaurant and the guy points to a table. Gerard looks at the carpet rather than table, studying it for traces that someone died there.

“So you replaced the carpet?” Gerard asks when he doesn’t see any blood.

“Had to,” the waiter replies. The other man had said his name was Danny. Gerard recalls reading that man’s name giving his statement in one of the files.

“I see,” Gerard says, “so, can you tell me if the man was with anyone when he died?”

“He, uh, he wasn’t with anyone,” Danny the waiter says.

“So a guy was just sitting alone in this big fancy restaurant on a Saturday night?” Frank asks skeptically, “That’s kind of extremely sad.”

“This is a table for two,” Gerard says, counting the two chairs. “Is this the same table the man sat at? I mean to say, were there two place settings when he was here?”

The waiter looks off for a second, trying to remember that night, “I think so. It’s a different table, I can tell you that, but I think it was set up the same way.”

“Okay,” Gerard nods, “and I’m guessing that this man made a reservation or am I incorrect?”

“I don’t remember. I could check the database for you?” the waiter says.

“Yes, do that,” Gerard nods, “give me a name if you have one? Now, can I ask, who was it that seated this man? I’m presuming there was a host who put the man in your section?”

“Yeah,” Danny says, “that’ll be my manager.”

“And is your manager here today?”

“Yeah, he’s in his office,” the waiter replies, “should I get him too?”

“Please do,” Gerard says, as he looks around the table for a moment. Frank is staring at him curiously.

“I think the reservation name was in the file,” Frank says.

“Yeah, but I want to make sure we’re getting our information directly from the source.”

They wait for a few minutes, looking at the table and relaying what the file had said about where the body was. They’ve got a few peeping toms from some people sitting across the restaurant, but they don’t look threatening, just curious.

“The name we have for the reservation is Marty Balsam,” the waiter says, returning not long after he’d left.

“What was that?”

“Marty Balsam, sir,” Danny the waiter says.

“Really?” Gerard asks, looking really confused.

“Yes.”

Frank looks at Gerard, “What is it?”

“It’s just... I think I’ve heard that name before,” Gerard says, shaking his head. “I just can’t place where.”

“Probably the case file,” Frank says.

Gerard shakes his head, but doesn’t respond. He’s pretty sure that’s not where he remembers it from, but right now there’s a mental block in the way of helping him figure out what he’s thinking.

“This is my manager, here,” the waiter says when a man walks over to Gerard. He looks bored, and unhelpful, and Gerard suspects that he won’t be of much help because of that, but he’d still like to hear him out.

“What do you want now?” the manager asks grumpily.

“I want to know if you remember what the deceased man who was killed here said to you?” Gerard asks, “Specifically, did he say if he was meeting someone, and if so, did he ask you whether the person he was meeting had arrived yet?”

The manager sighs and says, “I think he was meeting someone, or at least, I believe that’s what he’d said. I don’t remember if he’d asked me about whether the other party had shown up or not though.”

Gerard nods and starts to head for the door, “Thank you both, I think we’ve got what we came here for.”

“We do?” Frank asks, running after Gerard.

“Yes Frank, we do,” Gerard replies, rolling his eyes.

“Uh, okay?” Frank says, and Gerard can tell he’s still brimming to ask more questions when they step out of the restaurant and into the crisp air, blowing wind into their faces. Gerard heads towards his car, with Frank jogging to catch up behind him.

“Are you going to explain what your suspicion is?”

“How do you know I have a suspicion?” Gerard asks.

“Because the look on your face is giving it away,” Frank says. He finally catches up to Gerard after he’s opened the car door and sat down. Frank groans, and takes his spot in the passenger’s seat. Gerard grabs some of the files that they’d brought with them from the office, and he starts to look through them.

“What’re you looking for?” Frank asks.

“Well the manager essentially confirmed it for me,” Gerard says.

“What? That old windbag actually helped you?”

“Yep,” Gerard says, flipping through a stack of papers.

“What did he tell you then?”

“Well the victims were all lured there,” Gerard says, “that’s obvious now.”

“It is?” Frank asks.

“Yes,” Gerard says, looking at Frank with a judgmental glare like he’s being an idiot. Gerard thinks of him as such though.

“Well spill why then!”

“Fine,” Gerard says groaning, taking a break from searching through files for a moment to look at Frank.

“So we know that our three victims were alone in big fancy restaurants, and we can pretty much assume that they were lured there because of the fact that they were waiting for someone else to show up. I believe the reservation had been made in advance by our robbers, because they wanted to get the victims to those exact locations.”

“So they planted the dead people there with the full intention that they would kill them at those places?” Frank asks.

“Correct.”

“And what does the name they used on the reservation have to do with anything?” Frank asks.

“Well,” Gerard says, “With any luck, it’ll mean everything.”

“You’ve lost me.”

Gerard just looks back down at his files. He doesn’t say anything for an incredibly long couple of minutes. He just looks down, surveying each page like he’s an x-ray. Frank watches, waiting for Gerard to say something.

“Here!” Gerard says. He’s pointing to a name in the middle of a report.

“Okay, what’d you find?”

“The name for the second reservation. This is the reservation where our real estate agent died. The real estate agent was named James Knightly. The reservation is for a J. Fiedler.”

“Okay?” Frank asks.

“Well,” Gerard says, grabbing a different file from the stack resting on his legs, “if you look through this file you should find that our third victim was at the restaurant under the reservation of L.J. Cobb, or something similar.”

Frank draws his eyebrows together, and looks through the file that Gerard had been holding out. He finds the right page quicker than Gerard had, and he reads the name Lee Cobb from the words before him. The woman who died last night was indeed using the reservation under that name.

“So what, you memorized the names of the reservations?” Frank says, “Is that supposed to impress me?”

Gerard, who’d had a big smile like he’d just figured out some big puzzle that no one else could figure out, drops the expression to look at Frank like he’s a complete buffoon.

“Really?” Gerard asks, “I mean I get that you don’t know one or two, but none of those names is ringing a bell to you?”

“No... should they?” Frank asks.

Gerard just groans, and grabs his phone from his pocket. Frank looks at him because he’s fairly sure now is a weird time to start playing Angry Birds. Frank is totally out of the loop though, and it’s making Gerard think he’s better than him.

A minute later, Gerard is shoving the phone screen under Frank’s nose and pointing. Frank looks down and the last thing he expects to see is an IMDb page, but that doesn’t change what meets his eyes when he finally focuses them on the too-bright screen.

“Okay?”

“Frank,” Gerard says groaning out his name like he’s such an idiot, but it’s a very familiar tone to him.

“What?” Frank asks.

“Look at the credits on the page!” Gerard says, “It’s so obvious. I think they’re sending us a message! They probably think we’re too stupid to figure it out, but little do they know that I am way too into old movies.”

Frank looks down at the page and scrolls down a little more until he sees three names that stick out to him. Martin Balsam, John Fielder, and Lee J. Cobb.

“Whoa, these are the names that the reservations were under!” Frank says.

“Yeah, now you’re getting it,” Gerard says, shaking his head.

Frank scrolls back up, and then looks at Gerard curiously, “so, uh, they’re using the names of the actors who played the characters in this film?”

Gerard nods, “yep, and I think the message is in what film they chose. 12 Angry Men.”

“I’ve never seen it,” Frank says.

“Well, I’ll tell you what knowledge we can take from this,” Gerard replies, grabbing his phone back from Frank, “We can reasonably estimate that there will definitely be more murders. I would say that there’s going to be at least nine more.”

“Nine?”

“Yep,” Gerard confirms, “one for every angry man.”

“Okay,” Frank says, not liking how giant a number that nine is considering they’re talking about people’s lives. “So what else do we know then?”

“Well I think we figured out our motive. Or at least, we know how all of our victims are connected.”

“And how do we know that?”

“Well, Frank, do you know why the men were angry?”

“No,” Frank shakes his head, sure he’d just told Gerard he’s never seen this movie.

“They were on a jury.”

Notes

So, uh, I got a new coauthor and then she deleted her email account and AO3 account and now I have no way of contacting her. Don't know why, hoping it wasn't because of me, but oh well. So it looks like, from here on in, I'm on my own. Just me now, I believe. I think I'm just going to be without a coauthor, so... *sings On My Own from Les Miserables*