(Still Backtracking - 2 of 4)
Aderic Androllius
with NPC, Guardsman Hadrion
Jan 7th – File/Record room of the Guard HQ
Week 2 of Project “File Reorganizing”
Ric stepped into the file room with this week’s assistant; Hadrion. This was so that different guards could get accustomed to having Ric there. At the end of the previous week, he and Tuichon had managed to vanquish the ‘yet to be processed’ stack. But he still had some sorting left to do. At his request, over the weekend, a new batch of crates had been acquired and stacked outside of the record room, ready to be used.
Hadrion eyed the room critically. “Well, you sure made a mess in here.” He remarked. “Now, I guess, we have to put everything back? What’s the point of it all? Just to waste a lot of time? If we put all the files into those crates, there'll never be enough room for everything.” He scoffed.
Ric refrained from looking over at the man. This week was not going to be easy, working with someone who held a grudge against his brother. Hadrion, the son of the night desk Sergeant Hâdhon, had made it no secret that he disliked Ric. “We are organizing it according to how the captain wishes it.” He explained patiently.
“Right… so, what, I have to do all the work while you sit here and make notes, is that it?” Hadrion guessed.
Ric frowned slightly to himself. “Actually, it is more like the other way around, Hadrion.” He explained. He pointed out the pad of paper that Tuichon had been keeping notes on, last week. “I’ll be looking through each of the files. Your job is only to watch and be a witness that I haven’t done anything that I should not,” he felt a bit nervous about that. What if Hadrion made things up, just to get Ric in trouble? But he tried not to dwell on that possibility. “And make note of each file as I put them away. You can see how Tuichon was doing it,” he explained. “Start a fresh page whenever we begin a new year,” He added. “That way, whenever a new year begins, we can easily tear out the page of oldest files, and begin a fresh one for the new year.”
Hadrion rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath.
Ric didn’t catch it, nor did he ask him to repeat it. He pretended not to have heard anything, and instead turned to his boxes to take his mind off of it. He wasn’t yet ready to tackle the unsolved cases, so he focused only on the solved ones, for now. He could have managed it far more quickly, of course, if he had only been organizing the files. But he was also looking through everything carefully, checking for accuracy wherever he could, and making sure that nothing appeared amiss or altered. Also, he was taking everything out of its folder and putting each case into its own box, so that there was more room to store all the information that they needed. Because, despite the lengthy forms that some guards had been using, Ric had noticed that there was a vast lack of knowledge about many of the cases. He also had no idea just how much Mar may have tampered with the guard’s files, so he had to check
everything. Thoroughly. And he found a few inconsistencies in the process.
“What’s that?” Hadrion questioned as he watched Ric bring one such file over to the desk for closer scrutiny.
It was the first case that he had found today which appeared to be his own work. “That’s one that I need to look at more closely.” Ric explained quietly.
The other guard frowned and looked over his shoulder at the box’s contents, and the label on the file. “Missing person?” He asked. “What’s special about that? It was solved, and the girl was brought back to her family.” He pointed out.
“Yes, it does say it’s solved.” Ric agreed hesitantly. “The problem with it is, that report is in
my handwriting. But I don’t remember taking that case.”
Hadrion stared at him, then shook his head and leaned back in his seat. “So, is it solved or not?”
Ric could almost feel his eyes staring. He must think Ric was crazy. He clearly thought this whole thing was stupid. Well, Ric disagreed. “"That is the question, isn't it?" He pointed out. "I don’t know.” He answered quietly. He took his time reading through the report. Hoping maybe it might jog his memory, and he’d recall that he
did actually work this case. But he hadn’t. By the time he had finished, he was certain. “Hadrion, will you start another list?” Ric requested, handing him another pad of paper. “This isn’t for the file room,” He added. “This is.. things that need following up.” He did not yet mark this box as solved, because while it did claim to be filed, he could not be sure about that until he had spoken with the victim and verified that the case was closed.
“Alright.. what do I put on it?” Hadrion grabbed a new piece of paper and sighed.
Ric read off the name of the victim listed, then he took it back to the shelf and put it away. He stood thoughtfully for a moment, looking at the name and date. He wished he had his journal to compare the date, but he didn’t. “I believe there’s going to be a lot of other names added to that list,” He warned Hadrion. “Will you also add the date, and ‘missing’ as a side note?”
“Anything
else?” The young guard wondered, pausing to look at Ric.
Ric paused and glanced at him. He was well aware of how his father would have responded to the guy’s display of attitude, but Ric wasn’t the sort to speak any harsh words, much less raise his voice and yell at someone. He turned back to the rows of boxes he had already put away, and thought for a few seconds, trying to think of how to handle this. He cleared his throat quietly. “I.. realize that you don’t like being assigned to work with me,” He acknowledged quietly. “But I do wonder, if you did not have this assignment, what would you be doing today?” He inquired.
Hadrion sat back with a little frown. “Patrols, I guess.”
“And you would prefer patrolling around in the cold all day, rather than sitting inside, asked to write things down now and then? Is it too boring for your liking?”
Hadrion huffed. “Guess not.” He muttered.
Ric looked down at the floor, holding back a sigh. “We don’t have to like one another, but may we at least try to get along while we are working together?” He requested.
Hadrion shrugged noncommittally and said nothing. He wrote down the information Ric had asked him to write.
Ric held back a sigh, feeling an underlying sense of hostility aimed at him, but he wasn’t really sure what it was about. No doubt, something Mar had done to him at some point. He picked up the next file and sat down to look through it, grabbing a blank crate for it.
Even while they were working, a new file had come in. An attempted mugging, along with an assault on a lady. Apparently, a young ranger had intervened, but the mugger got away. Ric looked over the contents of the file, and wondered about the lack of follow-up information. At least the ranger would be easy to find. Ric was relieved to see that it was not Unalmis, but a fellow he had never heard of. Trastion Leithor. The victim’s name, however, looked… familiar. Ric frowned at that, thinking he had seen that one not too long ago, in another file. He thought for a moment, then went looking at one that he’d processed maybe half an hour prior. A murder which had occurred in the Guesthouse Inn, back in November. A musician had been killed in an apparent robbery. The girlfriend, yes.. that was where he’d seen that name before. Meluiel. She had come in to identify him. Ric could not find any residence listed for her, on either file. He frowned slightly at this.
He couldn’t help wondering at the likelihood of her boyfriend being murdered in a robbery, and now a few months later, she is involved in an attempted mugging. What bad luck.. or was it too coincidental? Could it be that there was someone targeting that particular woman for some reason? Could she be in danger? Was this mugging more than a mugging, or was Ric simply reading too much into it? Perhaps she had been the target in the other incident, and the boyfriend had the bad luck of being there instead of her? Maybe he should bring the matter up to the captain? He shook his head slightly and thought for a moment, then asked Hadrion to make a note of the two files in the side list that he had begun. Then he put them both into the unsolved stack. Because, with the mugger still at large, he didn’t really consider the matter solved.
By the time they wrapped up for the day, the list of things to come back to was, indeed, a bit lengthy. Far lengthier than it ever should be. Ric had yet to touch any of the files older than five years, but he wondered if there might be something in there relating to Reilly. But, he would get to that pile after he’d finished with the unsolved cases. Eventually.
Jan 10th
By the middle of the week, Ric was finally ready for the next phase of the project. Now that he had the solved cases roughly sorted by year, he began the process of arranging them meticulously by date, beginning with the oldest year. He put them in order from oldest to newest before beginning to put their boxes onto the shelves. Then, he did the same with the fourth year back, then the third, second, and finally the current year. It took him all day just to do all of that. He stepped back to look over the shelves with a nod of satisfaction, pleased to see that he had managed to fit all of the oldest files along the bottom row, then the row above that was the next year, then the third row for the third year, and so forth. His assistant had noted down everything as he went, so that there was a complete record of each file that was there, in order from oldest to newest. At Ric’s suggestion, Hadrion had used a fresh page for each year’s record, so that when the files that were five years old, became six years old, that page could be easily removed from the list, and a fresh page could begin for the newest year’s records. This record, Ric intended on giving to the Captain so that he could designate where it should be kept. Preferably, in a locked drawer so that anyone attempting to alter files would not be aware of the list, so that it would not be altered.
Ric sat back, rubbing his eyes. He had just put away the last ‘solved’ file that would be stored in this room, and finally he could move onto the unsolved cases. In a way, he was dreading those the most. There were so many unsolved cases, it troubled him. Fortunately, they were outnumbered by the solved ones, but still… there were too many for his liking. It made him want to see how many he could cross off. Of course, that would have to wait until he was officially allowed to return to public as a guard, and could start looking into these things himself.
“So, the rest of these go into archives?” Hadrion checked, eyeing the enormous stacks of files older than five years. “We don’t have to go through those, do we?”
Ric debated about that, then shook his head slightly. “I think it’s safe to say that solved cases beyond five years have probably not been tampered with,” he decided softly. That went beyond when Mar would have had reason to tamper with anything, right? Hopefully. “The archivists can sort through those, I believe. We need to focus more on the unsolved ones.” And, after they were logged into the archives, anyone could access those, so it was something that he could come back to at his leisure, later on, if he felt it necessary. He hoped he had made the right call on that. Others would be assigned the task of bringing the older files to the archives, since Ric couldn't be seen in public, so by the end of the week, the only files that would remain would be the unsolved ones.
He sighed and stretched his arms, then went to grab the first file. To his surprise, this was a report of something which had happened only this morning. The reporting guards, Galudor, stated that a portion of scaffolding had broken away from the wall during the night, but no one had been hurt. He did not mention anyone else being present, but he reported that it had been before dawn, and there were no construction crews working during the winter anyway. No one had been struck by falling pieces, so everything seemed to be alright. But Ric also wondered, why did it fall now, out of the blue? It hadn't been excessively windy last night, that he knew of. And it couldn't have collected a layer of ice, which might have made it heavier.
Then, thinking about the timing, he thought he remembered hearing some sort of commotion while he had been leaving his house earlier, but that had been in the opposite direction he was heading, so he hadn’t gone to check it out. Since the report showed the necessary signatures to show that it had been reviewed by all the necessary people, Ric filed the report where it should go, then picked up the next file to review. He still wondered about that scaffold issue, but he also had plenty of other things to wonder about. More pressing matters.
He had personally made a list of all the things that he knew about, which
should be there. So, he would check them off as he found them, if he found them. And by the time he’d finished he would know if they were all accounted for or not. He hoped that nothing new would have gone missing since he was last here. He still could not figure out how those files had gone missing, nor what could have happened to them. He had not been told about those having been found alongside his journal, however, so it would be a surprise when he came across the ones he remembered having reported missing. Very strange.
“So, what’s your plan with the unsolved?” Hadrion asked, having not yet bothered to learn about that plan. His question drew Ric's attention away. For the first three days of this week, they had worked solely on the solved cases, but now those were in order. Rows of neatly stored crates lined the shelves, each labeled clearly in neat, bold writing with the name, date, and ‘solved’ status on the front. With only storing five year’s worth of the files, there was significantly more room on each row of shelves, so there was plenty of room for the crates. There was also plenty of empty spaces for more solved cases to join them. Since the older solved cases would be going into the archives, so they would no longer be taking up space in here. And there were a
lot of them. Ric had even found some old cases that dated back to when his father was captain, before Baelthor. It amazed him, and made him wonder when was the last time the files had been gone through.
As for Hadrion’s question, “Unsolved, up to a year, will be organized by district,” Ric explained, then frowned thoughtfully. The guards were aware by now that their new captain had appointed leaders over each district of the city. “So, we’ll have to pay attention to which area each crime took place.”
“
You have to, you mean.” Hadrion corrected him. “I’m just here observing, taking notes.”
Ric paused with a feeling of disappointment as he was reminded that Hadrion did not intend to do anything more than he had to do. “Right. Then.. I suppose,
I need to have six stacks to sort the cases, as I go.” He realized, careful to say ‘I’ and not ‘we’. “And, I will also need six shelves to store them,” He added thoughtfully, walking down row of empty shelves, trying to decide if there was enough room. To his relief, he counted exactly six empty rows, which meant that he could assign one row to each division. Perfect.
Working with Hadrion was tiring. Ric wanted to ask for Tuichon back. Tuichon, at least, did not seem to have a problem with Ric, and he didn’t mind assisting with the work a little. But he wasn’t really surprised, given who Hadrion’s father was. Whatever. Ric was glad for something to do, to take his mind off of everything else, at least. His list of ‘things to follow up on’ grew as he went through more and more unsolved cases. It bothered him, how many cases were unsolved. After a point, he even asked Hadrion to keep a count of them, so that when they were finished, he could inform the captain of the number of unsolved cases.
Once he had decided on which shelf to designate for each district, Ric made a simple sign, with large letters, to attach on the end of each shelf, with the name of each district on it. That way, it would be easy to find the desired section when someone came to look up a file. As he put the contents of each file into its own crate, for the unsolved cases, Ric left the bottom part blank. That way, if and when that case did get solved, they could write ‘solved’ on it, rather than having to get a fresh crate, or paint over ‘un’ or something like that. He stood back and looked at them. Rows and rows of boxes, each representing a crime which had never been resolved. Victims of murders, whose families had never received closure, or perhaps victims of other crimes who still lived, knowing that a criminal was still out there. He didn’t like that.
While he looked through all of these unsolved cases, Ric came across another that he had filled out. Months ago. This one was definitely one of his own, and not Mar’s doing. He felt a pang of sadness as he remembered his first case with the rank of lieutenant. It had been reassigned to someone else after the first day, but Ric had begun working on it. He wondered, now, whether Mar had had anything to do with his reassignment. He frowned as he studied the signature on the reassignment order, stating that Guardsman Braum was to work that case, rather than Ric. He hadn’t even seen that guy since that day. He’d never seen him before then, either, come to think of it. He couldn’t find where much had ever happened with that case, either, which troubled him. He was frowning, his thoughts racing as he marked the date and their best guess of a name, on the crate. That was one he would want to come back to for sure. He asked Hadrion to add it to the list. The little girl left behind deserved to know why her papa had been murdered, after all.
Maybe half an hour later into his sorting, Ric found another folder containing an unsolved case which had troubled him a great deal. There was a report here from the guard named Hathaldir, about finding a trail of blood leading to the sewer entrance on the fifth level. There was another report included, from Ric, stating what actions he had taken and what they had found, which boiled down to nothing. Nothing had ever come of this case, either. Ric closed his eyes, letting his memory drift back that stormy night back in April.
“You alright?” Hadrion asked. “You’re not napping, are you?”
Ric shook his head, then opened his eyes. “This one needs to go on the list, too.” He declared softly. He paused, then, remembering that he had written up another report on that case, which he had withheld because he was afraid it would go missing. He needed to retrieve it, somehow, and add it into this box.
Hadrion dipped his pen in ink. “Alright, what name?” He practically sighed, but he did manage to make it sound less like attitude and more like he was only bored.
Ric hesitated, frowning. “Unknown. It was a.. possible murder. In April, last year. That’s.. about all I know. I intend to look into it more.” He explained with a sigh. Yes, he intended to look into this one a
lot more. He just wasn't sure when that would be able to happen.
Hadrion nodded and wrote all that down.
Ric sighed, deciding that it was probably something he’d better discuss with the captain more in depth. But he would like to gather a little more information, first. Having had his memory jogged about that particular incident, Ric paid a little more attention to any files listing a missing person, hoping he might manage to match one of those up with the timing of that murder. He came across a few missings, but none really matched the timing well enough. Still, he searched diligently for anything that might connect to the other case. By the time he had worked his way through the entire year’s worth of unsolved cases, Ric wasn’t yet sure whether anything could be connected to the case last April.
Fortunately, a year’s worth of unsolved cases didn’t take nearly as long to sort through as five year’s worth of solved ones. So he managed to finish all of those by the end of the second week. So, he would move on to the unsolved ones that were more than a year old, when he came back next week. In the meanwhile, over the weekend, he took his list home and began doing whatever he could, at home, to check for connections between the cases he had marked as needing follow up. This was definitely overdue in being investigated.
