Reminiscing, working, and forgetting you have a teenage daughter at home alone.
Arthur followed behind John. John was rambling about something or another that he really wasn't paying attention to. They were working a case involving an Assault and possible kidnapping of a teenage girl. He wasn't sure how Dutch was going to turn a solved case in since their agency was technically illegal in the eyes of the law, but Dutch always found some loophole.
Arthur hadn't been the same since 1970, the year he had come home and found his then fiancé, Nebbie, after she had blown her brains across the attic wall, and their then, 2 year old daughter crying in her painfully joyful room his fiance had painted for her. Dutch understood his grief, or he at least pretended to. Maybe, if Arthur hadn't been 29 and instead had been 19, Dutch would've just given him his 2 weeks to really grieve without any exasperated fake kindness.
He was snapped out of his disassociative trance by John smacking him in the arm. "Arthur. I've been talking to you for 15 goddamn minutes." Arthur nodded and scratched at his beard. "Yeah, yeah. I must've tuned you out. Nothing you say has been interesting lately." John looked offended, or he pretended to, and let out a Sarcastic laugh, getting in his dingy AMC eagle that smelled like pot, and somehow, cat vomit. He made a face to John as he sat himself down in the passenger seat. He didn't actually care that much, but he enjoyed making John self-conscious for at least a few seconds. "God, I can't believe I let you drive Heathen around in this shitbucket." He laughed to himself as John started the car, ignoring Arthur the best he could, and pulled out of the driveway of their "agency".
After a 15-minute drive out of Waukee, they reached Clive. After another 15 minutes, they made it to the house of the victim. A 'Sandra Whitlock', a 13 year old. She had been the only one home at the time of a break-in, the rest of her family at some school event. Her family had moved from this house to a different one in Waukee after receiving one too many threats. "So, cowboy," John started as Arthur stared at the house, surrounded by bright yellow crime scene tape and a few police officers. Morgan pulled his attention from the house and begrudgingly to his brother as he continued to speak. "Should I talk to them this time, or should you?" He smiled at Arthur, who gave him a blank look. "Flip a coin. Heads, you do it. Tails, you do it." John scoffed, but somehow not in an offended way, and got out of the car. Arthur following shortly after.
"Excuse me, you two can't be here." A cop started, walking up to them. Arthur and John fished around their jackets for their badges, but only John spoke. "Actually, sir. We're detectives. Matthews Detective agency, to be exact. This is my partner, Arthur Callahan." Arthur had pulled out his badge at this point and showed it to the officer. Who hummed and then looked at John's badge. "'Agent.. Martin.'" The officer read off the hopefully, not obviously fake badge. "Alright. Go on through."
John nodded and walked toward the house, Arthur started to feel nervous as he followed. John managed to open the door, and the house was dark, but even then it was decorated nicely, a lot of the furniture looking pristine, and floor being equally as pristine looking, minus the occasional blood stain. Arthur walked further inside, turning into the kitchen while John made his way upstairs. Arthur looked around, immediately noticing the glass on the ground from the window that showed the front yard, and one of the larger knives had been taken from the knife block. He assumed it had been taken by the intruder. Because how and why would Sandra have heard the glass shatter, and run down the stairs, manage to get a knife and avoid the intruder? He walked into the dining room, which was remarkably untouched. It suddenly felt like he had walked into a showroom of some kind, like the dining room had been staged and untouched. As opposed to the kitchen, which had the usual clutter and evidence of a family.
He heard John calling for him from upstairs. The lazy ass of a man not making much of an effort to go looking for him. He made his way to the stairs and.. "ARTHUR!" He groaned, stomping his way up the stairs. "Yes, Marston. I heard you the first six fucking times. What is it?" John ignored his remark again. Marston walked back into the room that was probably Sandra's. Arthur was quick to follow him. He made his way past the door's threshold and stared at John, who was pointing at the closet. "John, what am I meant to be lookin' at?" Arthur looked at the closet for all of five seconds before looking around the room from where he stood. It looked like your average teen's room, a few clothes thrown about, posters of bands lining the walls. John sighed an exasperated kind of sigh, the kind you'd hear from an unemployed dog. "The closet door's kind of broken. There's no way Sandra could've done that herself." John was cut off by Arthur. "You shouldn't underestimate teenage girls, Marston. Heathen's strong, who's to say Sandra isn't?" John considered this statement for a few seconds before trying to get his point across. "Yeah, sure. But the closet door left a small hole in the wall," John closed the closet door and pointed to a hole made in the wall by the top corner of the door. "Teenagers don't open things with that much force, do they? Slamming things closed, I understand. But slamming things open feels like a different story." John finished, reopening the closet door. Arthur thought about it, understanding that John could be right, but that he could also be wrong. He just shrugged, John looked extra offended at that but said nothing.
A couple of hours later, Arthur was driving home from the agency by himself. John and him had spent too much time at the scene. It had been 5:30 pm when they got there, and it was just about to turn 9:50. He hadn't meant to stay so long, but probably a good 10 minutes at least, was spent arguing with John over theories he thought were ridiculous. He was exhausted, if not a bit paranoid. Sometimes, he wondered if he could manage quitting and taking a different job since it wasn't like Dutch paid them much. It was Hosea or Grimshaw that paid them what they should have been paid from the start. Arthur remembered how Nebbie had asked him to quit and find a different job while she was caring for Heathen. He still remembers how she said, "I could always ask my parents for extra money if we need it." He wished that he could fall back on that promise of hers now, since there were a lot of days he'd rather sleep in until 2pm instead of going into work, but Nebula's parents cut Arthur off after the closed casket funeral. Since then, he's been the sole income. He tried to date after Nebbie's death, but nothing else stuck quite the same way. He pulled into the driveway of his house, a small, two story thing with an overgrown yard he hadn't bothered to fix or make presentable in any way. He pulled his keys out of the ignition and stepped out of the car. He scratched the back of his neck as he yawned. He fumbled with his keys for a second before he managed to get his house key and unlock the door.
He stepped inside the house and was met with warm and the sound of the TV on, as opposed to the silence he was used to. He ignored that and made his way to the kitchen, almost tripping on Lassie, the Australian Shepherd he adopted as a puppy after Nebbie's death, in the process. "Sorry, girl." He mumbled as he walked into the kitchen, which happened to be adjacent to the living room, with only a small table that was used to hold bills, paperwork and pretty much anything else separating the rooms. Arthur nearly jumped out of his skin as he heard a voice from the living room.
"You missed the 'where are your kids' bit on the news, dad." As much as he was startled, he immediately recognized the voice of his daughter. "Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm sorry, kid. Dutch had me and your uncle John working a long case tonight." Heathen nodded, glancing at him as he grabbed a glass from the cabinet, made his way into the living room, and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the liquor cabinet. "So, how was it, dad? Horribly traumatic?" Arthur chuckled, and decided not to mention the fact that he had forgotten he had a daughter in the first place, along with the fact that the case involved a girl that looked a lot like Heathen herself. "Well, it was confusing, to say the least. What are you doing up? It's 10 pm. On a school night." Arthur walked over to the couch and sat next to Heathen. She had her mother's blonde hair and face shape, and his eyes and nose, along with freckles. "I couldn't sleep." She had a small bowl of something and a spoon. Before Arthur could say much of anything, she spoke. "And before you say something about not trying, I did try. I tried three times." He hummed, nodding as he stared at the TV. "What are we watching?" Heathen shrugged. "It was Hill Street Blues, but right now, I guess it's an infomercial for a new type of pot."
It had been maybe 10 minutes of Arthur being home, and Heathen was out like a light. He set his half empty glass of whiskey on the side table and reached over to nudge her awake. "Darlin, you should go to bed." Heathen begrudgingly woke up and rubbed her face before taking the bowl of something she had been eating and set it on the arm of the couch, standing up and walking off up the stairs. "Night, hon." Arthur called after her, he got no response. He sat back and looked at the bowl of mystery. Leaning over again to grab it. When he did, he finally figured out it was peanut butter and melted chocolate. He sighed and pulled himself off the couch, once again making his way to the kitchen and putting the bowl on the counter. He Madd his way back to the living room and downed the last of his whiskey before turning off the TV. It left him in dark silence. A feeling he didn't really appreciate much. He slowly felt around his way to the bathroom, flipping the light switch on and before anything else, stared at his reflection. Every time he did that, he thought about shaving or cutting his hair, but decided against it. Partly because of Heathen disdain for sudden change, and the fact she'd say he "wasn't her dad, because her dad didn't look like a lawyer". Whatever that meant. He scowled at himself and made the choice to just turn the light off and go to sleep. It was too far into the week for him to give much of a shit about himself anyway.