“WHAT WE CAME here for, anyways?” asked Jack as he and Alex got into the elevator.

Alex stared at him with indifference, as he used to do when he was in a bad mood.

“There’s a witness I want to interview.”

“Mr. Barnes?” Jack retorted. “He’s now the President of the company, isn’t he?”

“He is,” Alex muttered. “I need to find something. Rogers is breaking my balls. Every twenty minutes he sends me a WhatsApp asking how the case is going, so it’s better to move.”

“It’s always better to move,” repeated Jack, emulating his boss’ voice. That was a phrase Alex always said. Alex just threw a contemptuous glance at him and he just smiled. He knew his boss could take a joke, even in the worst of times.

Mr. Barnes received them politely, offering them some drinks.

“What you have?” asked Alex.

Mr. Barnes tried to hide his surprise. He clearly offered the drinks just to be polite, he didn’t expect them to accept.

“Well, I have a great, eighteen-year-old whiskey, if you like.”

“All right. Pour that thing on two glasses. I think it won’t hurt us. I really need to talk about that day, Mr. Barnes.”

“I understand,” said the old but energetic man as he served the three glasses of whiskey.

Alex took a sip and sighed.

“I need you to tell me something, Mr. Barnes. Jeffrey was your colleague, your boss. This guy right here,” he said pointing to Jack. “Knows my every move. I can’t fuck a bitch without him knowing who’s her and what she does. You see where I’m going, right?”

Mr. Barnes shook his head, a gesture that Alex recognized as characteristic of the man's politeness. Determined to break through the formalities, Alex aimed to bring him out of his comfort zone and engage in conversation as if they were three buddies sharing beers after a football game.

“Please be more specific,” demanded Barnes.

Alex shot Jack a glance that crackled with fury. It was the same look he gave right before he switched off the cameras and unleashed his wrath on suspects in the interrogation room. Jack silently thanked his lucky stars they weren't in that room right now. He could see the longing in Alex's eyes; he yearned to be back in that room.

“Our investigation has led us to believe there were some people who wanted to hurt Jeffrey. A presential witness who met him in the very crime scene minutes before he was killed, declared that Jeffrey said to him the phrase, ‘They want to kill me.’ So for now, the key piece in the investigation is finding who ‘they’ are. Do you understand?”

“I do, Detective Alex. But I don’t see how can I know who those people were, if they existed at all, for Alex wasn’t known for having many enemies. He was a pretty popular man, with many friends and acquittances and a truly remarkable social life.”

“That I know, Mr. Barnes. But what I don’t know, and what I want to find out is… What secret affairs did Jeffrey have? He must be hiding something, because he had enemies, as he stated minutes before being killed. However, everyone around seems to ignore such a fact. And how’s that possible? Jack, tell me the breast size of my last hookup.”

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“34-B,” Jack replied, with a gesture of his hands that illustrated big breasts. He finished with a kiss to his fingers.

"You see? He knows everything about me. I was having an affair with this chick, and Jack covered for me with my girlfriend. He even had to bring some lingerie to the hotel because... you know I’m very… aggressive…during intimacy.” Alex winked.

There was an awkward pause. Jack couldn’t help a chuckle though.

Alex downed his whiskey in one gulp and lit a cigarette without bothering to ask for permission. Barnes grew increasingly uncomfortable with each passing moment.

"You won't offer me another?" Alex said, gesturing his glass toward Barnes.

Barnes was taken aback. He didn't understand the tactics being employed. As a well-mannered man, he wasn't accustomed to this kind of behavior.

"Of course, my pleasure," Barnes responded, promptly standing up to refill his guests' glasses, including his own, as he felt he needed it this time.

Alex took another sip of his whiskey, took a long drag of his cigarette, and as he exhaled the smoke, he began to speak.

"Mr. Barnes, the police report indicates that Jeffrey was here at White Bear headquarters just before he was murdered downtown. Can you recall if he seemed nervous or did anything out of the ordinary? I need you to remember now because, you know, I have a court order, and I really don't want to make things so… What's the word, Jack?"

“Tedious?” Jack replied instantly.

“Right. I don’t want to make this more tedious for you. You are a busy man. I’m a busy man. Imagine wasting precious hours of our lives in an interrogation room. We’re not going to recover those hours, and we’re not getting any younger.”

“He’s old,” said Jack to Barnes. “He now gets drunk with two glasses of whiskey.”

Alex nodded and shrugged, staring at Barnes defiantly.

After a lengthy pause, Barnes relented. He sighed heavily, finally grasping the implicit threat behind Alex's behavior. He was keenly aware of the potential ramifications and preferred to avoid drawing public attention to himself. Barnes was inherently reserved by nature.

“All right, gentleman. I do remember something,” he finally said. And right after, he emptied his glass of whiskey. He frowned and swallowed hard after drinking it. The way he did it, make signaled to Alex that he hadn’t drunk an entire glass of anything in years. “What a boring life,” Alex thought.

“My good old friend Jeffrey, months before being tragically murdered, he developed this addiction to his laptop. He was always in it, at all times. I think it was a year before his death that it all started. He searched for the right angles in which to put himself so no one could see what he was doing on the computer. I spotted, it was an obvious thing, you know. And he always used earphones, too. As to the nature of his activities on that laptop, I’m afraid I don’t know anything. Like I said: he never allowed anyone to come close or to watch. He was always in front of you, never on your side, so no one ever took a look at his laptop. And the very day he was killed, he was here before me, and he didn’t discuss anything about work. He just spent the whole day in that gadget until he left in a hurry and then we found out he had been murdered. That’s all I have to say.”

Alex and Jack looked at each other.

***

“So the laptop again,” Jack said to Alex as they got into the elevator.

“Yes. But that bitch of Linda burned that shit.”

“Yeah. Probably burning it was the best for her. If Jeffrey had some dirty shit in it, it doesn’t exist anymore.”

"Exactly, and the worst part is that we can't do anything about it," Alex retorted. "Burning a laptop isn't a crime. She was simply following her husband's orders. Her still-living husband."

“Oh, man. We’re screwed,” Jack complained.

Alex slipped into a contemplative mood, replaying their entrance into Barnes' office and their entire conversation in his mind. He prided himself on his discretion; he wasn't one to seek trouble. Unlike the other witnesses, he maintained his composure and displayed a willingness to assist, albeit reluctantly. The phrase "eighteen years old whiskey" echoed in Alex's thoughts. Was the old man subtly implying something? Could that be why he remained silent during the initial Metropolitan Police investigation? Perhaps he sought to avoid scandal and protect the company, now under his presidency.

Alex let his instinct run in his mind freely. He thought that if Barnes was trying to tell him something about Jeffrey and eight-teen years old, that meant that Jeffrey liked younger girls, which is nothing extraordinary. But his weird behavior involved his laptop, so maybe it was an eight-teen-year-old online girlfriend he had? Regardless, a man who likes young ladies won’t limit himself to the internet, Alex reasoned, and being the owner of a female sports club… it was Disneyland for a pervert.

“Jack,” Alex said as they entered Jack’s car, his tone serious. “Do you like softball?”

“No. I hate it.”

“Yeah, me too. We’re watching a game tonight.”