Chapter 4: *** 04
Brick was a nice man with a lot of hate.
Every morning, he woke repeating his name and hating his parents' humour. At the hospital, the woman was tired and hurting after a natural birth. Her husband, held her hand, wearing a doting smile, looking into her eyes, giving her comfort. The couple was so in love, they forgot the baby. Until the nurse brought the little boy over. The parents held their child, stared long and hard, and burst out laughing. The little guy looked like a brick, they said. And for just that reason, they named their son Brick.
To the couple, and the rest of the family and friends, it would always be a hilarious episode to share at parties and over drinks. To Brick, it was the start of the nightmare that was his life.
Brick was pretty. So pretty, girls loved him. They treated Brick as one of them more than one of the boys. Because his parents were so welcoming, the many girls who were all his best friends were always coming over. Their favourite game was dress up, and they loved dressing Brick up as a girl. There was no envy when their efforts made Brick the prettiest of them all, just sheer joy. As they grew older, the best friends grew in number, but nothing else changed. Brick would always be one of them, the prettiest among all. So, yeah, Brick hated his prettiness. Every morning, the mirror reminded him of the endless torment that didn't end even today, even after he was over twenty five years old, even after many of the best friends were married and some of them even had children. Brick was their great joy.
Brick hated his job, which he actually liked a lot. He was a member of the city police, an out of uniform member, as it was called. He was the IT guy. He filled up the numbers with the forensics team, managed the station's network and systems, and also had to volunteer helping officers and detectives over to the present. He hated that his complaints about being overworked and underpaid were laughed away by the captain. He hated that the women he worked with discovered the joy of his best friends, and were much too eager to experience it too.
Today, he hated that his application for leave was rejected because there weren't enough heads and it wasn't an acceptable emergency. He was grumbling continually as he went over to detective Tom. To Brick, Tom was a mystery. He couldn't make up his mind on whether Tom just didn't get computers or if Tom was unable to distinguish between people and computers.
"I can't believe you need me to come over and show you the footage of the security cameras," Brick complained vocally. "It's just a few mouse clicks and a few keypresses."
Tom smiled noncommittally. Brick was unnerved by the smile, as was always the case.
"Damn, whatever," Brick grumbled. "Just this once."
As always, Brick helped. He played the footage from the security cameras volunteered by Mrs Ohwerlund. Brick pulled a chair next to Tom and sat in it. Over the next hour, they looked through all of the cameras, through all of the morning recorded. They found nothing.
"What about the phone?" Tom asked at the end.
"Nothing," Brick answered. "It's just a girl's phone. Nothing special or out of the ordinary. She took photographs of roads and traffic and trees and parks, but barely any of herself. Not a fan of selfies. She didn't post much online on her social media accounts. Just liked and shared posts of people she followed. Nothing unusual in her email either. Just a regular teenager, with few friends. Just my opinion, I wouldn't call her a loner. More like someone comfortable with solitude. There's nothing suspicious in her phone."
"Alright," Petty said. "Thank you."
Brick nodded at detective Petty. Smiled at detective Tom. And left. He never could understand why he didn't like Petty very much. He seemed to be the only one who didn't. He shrugged as he pushed the thought out of his head. He liked Tom enough for the two of them.
He had other cases to return to, other detectives and officers waiting on him.
"Damn," he cursed under his breath. "I need a raise."
Weekly Power Status
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