First case
Charles had been with the Matthews Detective Agency for nearly 3 months now, and he hadn't bothered to talk to anyone. No one really seemed worth it, and he was only there to work. He had considered it a bit odd how Dutch hadn't done any sort of background check on him, simply hiring him on the spot with little substance to their sad excuse of an "interview" but looking at how he behaved up close and more in detail, it made more sense. Dutch wasn't all there necessarily. But that wasn't his business; no matter how often he'd calmly talk to Arthur about how the communists were poisoning the water supply, or... whatever he rambled about. The office drama was more interesting in his opinion, though. The secretary getting fed up with everyone asking her ridiculous questions, one of the payroll girls coming in drunk and running into a desk, one of the other detectives ignoring his son as much as he could, and a couple other useless things that he had overheard. It's easy to eavesdrop when you don't talk to anyone else in your building that's written down on paperwork as a cemetery. But right now, he was sat in the passenger seat of Arthur's 1980 Mercury Bobcat, which smelled like cigarettes, dirt, and faintly like a teenage girl's perfume. Their drive had been mostly silent, except for the Marty Robbins cassette playing. Finally, Charles decided to ask a question.
"So, Arthur. How much do you know about the case?"
"Well, we know it was a break-in, and we know she was kidnapped, probably out of her room. John thinks she was pulled from the closet in her bedroom upstairs, the person that broke in threw something through the kitchen window, and that's about it." Charles nodded; he frowned slightly. He assumed Arthur would know a little more than he actually did, but it made sense he didn't. The police had started breathing down their necks, apparently, they did this every time the agency had someone on a serious case like this one, which, was something Charles couldn't really understand, or take all that seriously, all things considered. "Are we going to check the surrounding area for more clues?" Arthur nodded at Charles' question before he quickly spoke. "You are, I'll be inside. You'll start with the backyard and around the back of the house. Make sense?" Arthur briefly glanced at Charles, who nodded, staring ahead out the windshield.
The rest of the drive and their arrival had been uneventful. They showed their badges, Arthur did the talking part, then Arthur went inside, and Charles walked around the house. He didn't find much of anything that struck him as terribly important until he found something. It was hard to make out at first. He turned and went inside the house and found Arthur, upstairs, in Sandra's bedroom.
"Arthur. I found something."
Charles and Arthur stared at the grass. There was hair. Black hair, just plainly in the grass. "...Is that the Caldwell girl's hair?" Arthur asked plainly, crouching down to look closer at it. "It looks to be, yeah." Charles crossed his arms, Arthur looking up at him. "Morgan Caldwell is from Colorado. There is a state in between her and us. What the fuck is this doing here??" Charles just shrugged. "Maybe the person grew bored of the teenagers in Colorado. What other connections are there between those cases and ours?"
"Well, they're all teenagers, most of them were alone in some way. I believe Morgan was also home alone at the time of the break-in, not that it matters, much." Charles nodded. He hadn't actually worked many cases. He was in charge of archiving cases. Generally, he'd wonder why Dutch suddenly decided to put him on a case like this, but Dutch did that quite frequently. Once he apparently put Tilly Jackson, one of the payroll girls, on a case, despite the fact she had no experience with anything crime related, so he didn't try to think too hard about it. He looked at Arthur again, who looked nervous, like he had realized something. Charles wanted to put a hand on his shoulder, for a reason he couldn't quite explain. But he didn't.
The ride back from the Whitlock house was silent. There wasn't any music or conversation, just plain old, uncomfortable silence. Charles stated at Arthur as he drove, he looked distant, like his mind was elsewhere, but he chose to ignore it.
What a great first case.