Chapter 4 - The Name Everyone Remembered
Silence settled over the front desk.
Chief Daniel Mercer stared at Arthur Hale as though he had stepped out of a forgotten chapter of history. The folder in the chief's hand slowly lowered, and every officer in the lobby noticed something they had never seen before.
Their chief looked genuinely shaken.
"Mr. Hale..." Mercer said quietly. "I didn't know you were coming."
Arthur offered a polite nod.
"I did not expect to need an appointment simply to report a crime."
The words were calm, but they carried enough weight to make several officers shift uneasily.
Officer Miller forced a nervous laugh.
"Chief, this gentleman has been making accusations. I was just trying to—"
"You were just trying to what?" Mercer interrupted without taking his eyes off Arthur.
No answer came.
Mercer walked to the counter and noticed the empty space where a complaint form should have been.
"Where is his report?"
Miller hesitated.
"We... haven't finished processing it."
Arthur looked toward the trash can.
"You may find it there."
Every pair of eyes followed his gaze.
Chief Mercer slowly bent down, reached into the trash, and removed the crumpled complaint. He carefully unfolded each crease until the pages lay flat again. Although wrinkled, every line of Arthur's precise handwriting remained readable.
The chief read the first page.
Then the second.
By the third page, the color had drained from his face.
Every incident had been documented.
Dates.
Times.
Vehicle descriptions.
License plates.
Names.
Even recordings and witness references were listed with remarkable precision.
"This wasn't written in anger," Mercer murmured.
Arthur answered quietly.
"It was written after twenty-three sleepless nights."
The lobby remained completely silent.
Mercer looked toward Officer Miller.
"Did you read this before throwing it away?"
Miller swallowed.
"I thought it was another neighborhood dispute."
"You thought?"
Mercer's voice became noticeably colder.
"Did you verify the information?"
"No, sir."
"Did you dispatch an officer?"
"No, sir."
"Did you even enter the complaint into the system?"
Again, there was no answer.
Chief Mercer slowly closed the report.
"What happened here is no longer about a noise complaint."
Arthur met the chief's eyes.
"No. It stopped being about noise a long time ago."
Before Mercer could continue, a young dispatcher hurried across the room carrying a tablet.
"Chief," she said nervously, "we've just received another emergency call from the same apartment building."
Mercer took the tablet.
A frightened woman's voice echoed from its speaker.
"They're fighting again... someone has a gun... please hurry before somebody dies..."
Every officer in the lobby froze.
Arthur closed his eyes for a brief moment.
He recognized the voice immediately.
May you like
It belonged to the woman who lived directly across from Apartment 4B.
The violence he had been reporting for weeks had just become impossible to ignore.
