Last Shot

"Chocolate or Vanilla?"

"Chocolate, please." I replied.

Debbie from HR handed me the paper plate with a square piece of chocolate cake. There was some scattered applause. I heard the click of a camera from the corner of the room.

Folding tables and sheet cake was as fancy as it got at Tahoy County Police Station.

A line was forming up behind me so I stepped off to the side.
I was about to take my first bite when I felt a hand clap me on the shoulder.

"30 years, my friend!" It was Stan. "What do you plan on doing with all your time?"

I had been asked a version of this question dozens of times since announcing my retirement from the force.

"Thinking of taking some time for myself... traveling up north to do some camping.... and I want to make the trek out to California to visit my daughter."

"That will be nice. I remember you saying you've not been out to visit as often as you'd like" Stan paused, "Flying or driving?"

"Driving"

Stan whistled, shaking his head. "If it were me, I'd be flying, but it's your retirement!"

Throughout the evening, I regurgitated the same conversation a dozen times with dozen different people. It was robotic, but it seemed to satisfy them. They would follow up with questions about my daughter, which I appreciated. Anything to take the focus away from me.

A few years back, Chief Bowman offered me the deputy chief job, but I turned her down. I preferred flying under the radar. I started with parking tickets and traffic violations, but I worked the last fifteen years in homicide. Homicide was a small team, and investigators often worked solo. It suited me.

I kept my personal and work life separate. I had friends on the force, but they were work friends. I preferred it that way. During my 30 years career, I never had a co-worker over at the house. I liked to keep personal things to myself and that included retirement plans.

It was almost 8:00pm when the party was finally over. I felt a sense of relief driving into my quiet culdesac. It felt like a cozy nest, insulated from the horrors of the world. I stopped one house short and hopped out of the car leaving it running. I felt rising excitment as I approached the door and gave it a knock.

After a few seconds, Edith appeared in the window. Thick coke bottle glasses and her white hair tied back in a long pony tail. It took her a few seconds, but then the door opened.

"Sorry to bother you so late Edith, I was hoping the party would've ended sooner."

Edith dismissively waved her hand. "Don't worry. You do so much for me; I'm just happy you asked me to help for once."

"The last thing I need is a stolen package."
Edith turned, grabbing the package off the table in the entryway. "You've never asked me to pick up a package before. It must be something pretty special..."

Edith gave him a glance out of the corner of her eye as if to cue an explanation.

"You happen to be holding my retirement plan"

Edith eyed the box suspiciously. "In such a small box?"

I laughed and took the box from her.
"Here, let's open it together"

I placed the box on the porch and pulled the folding knife from his pocket. Three clean slices and the box opened up.

Edith bent down a little, adjusting her glasses to get a better look.

"A camera?"

"Not just a camera, it's the same one I had when I was a kid"

The ridges and textures all felt familiar as I ran my hands over the camera.

"I still remember receiving it for my birthday in 1976. My Aunt Susan had traveled to Japan with her covenant. Most of the sisters had brought back small trinkets for their loved ones. But Susan brought back a Canon AE-1 camera."
It was exactly as I remembered it -- two tone, silver and grey, solid metal construction, and with the attached winder it could shoot two frames per second. At ten years old, it had been the best gift I had ever received. Thinking about it now -- it was a mystery how Susan afforded it.

Growing up, my family didn't have much money. I worked odd jobs to buy film. Cutting lawns, delivering papers, hauling gravel; I grabbed any opportunity to work. It was necessary because the camera went with me everywhere and I could burn through a few rolls over a weekend. On camping trips with my friends, bike rides after school, and Detroit Tiger's baseball games.

It pained me to know that none of the photos survived. Three marriages, a half dozen moves, and somehow the shoe box of my negatives, prints, and my Canon had been lost. I could hardly remember any single photo he had taken back then, but I remembered the feeling of searching for the right shot and the satisfying clack of the shutter.

A gun was not so different; the satisfying noises they make and the durable metal construction. Maybe a gun was just a camera with more responsibility.

"Do you plan on being a famous photographer?" Edith asked with a hint of snark

"Not a famous one, but a photographer, yes"

Frank popped in a fresh battery he had picked up at the pharmacy on the way home. He pulled the film advance lever and the sound of the mechanical gears was like golden honey drizzled on fresh toast.

"Huh." Frank said, looking down at the camera.

"What is it? Is it not the one you ordered?"

"No, it's not that. The exposure meter just advanced. That should only happen if there's film inside."

"Well maybe some dummy forgot to take it out before they sold it to you."

Frank paused. "Kinda weird, yeah? These could be photos from the 70s. I wonder who they belong to."

It looked like there were about a dozen photos left on the roll.

"Since there's film, do you mind if I take your picture? You can be my first photo."

"I suppose..." Edith sighed, "but you better make me look good."

Frank stood up and took a few steps back. He was amazed at how familiar the camera felt. Without thinking, his fingers naturally adjusted the aperture and shutter speed while getting Edith in focus.

"I can't guarantee the quality of the photo. If this film has been in there since the 70s, it's probably degraded."

"Just hurry up and take the picture"

The shutter clacked.

When Frank entered his home he quickly threw down all his bags with a sigh of relief. He never knew how much stuff he had at the office.

I guess 30 years will do that to you

As was his normal routine, he walked over the the gun safe at the corner of the entryway. He unclipped his leather shoulder holster for what he hoped was the last time. He put his pistol on the top shelf of the safe and closed it. The thick thud of the door felt final. It was over.

Franks thoughts quickly went back to the camera. There were a few shot left on that old roll of film. He took a few shots over the course of the evening. A picture of his feet, the arm chair in the corner of the living room. He moved the standing lamp trying to get sharp shadows of his tall fern. The lighting was not how he imagined, but he snapped the picture anyway. Frank wanted to use up the film so he could start fresh the next day. He had already planned to walk into town and take do some urban photography.

For the rest of the evening, Frank poured himself a generous glass of whisky, turned on the Detroit Tiger's game, who happened to be up 3-1, and turned the camera over in his hands. The two tone black and chrome camera was in great condition. It looked better than the one he had as a kid. He remembered the fake leather material being worn down, almost smooth with a slight gloss from the oil of his hands. This, on the other hand, was pristine. The leather was still grippy like it had just come out of the box.

With the game in droning in the background, Frank eventually fell asleep in his recliner. The camera still rested on his lap, but he did not dream of photography. Frank dreamed of a dim room. There were clothes and trash strewn across the floor. Empty beer bottles filled every square inch of the bedside table. Sitting on the bed's edge was a woman with tears streaking down her face. Her back bobbed up and down with her sobs. A man in uniform had his arm wrapped around her should, not saying anything, just sitting in the sadness with her. The man in uniform finally spoke.

"It's been 6 months. We usually only give missing person's cases 3 month. I really pushed to get it extended."

The woman didn't say anything. She continued to stare at the floor and didn't acknowledge his words. They were words of death.

"The cases will remain open" the man in uniform said trying to infuse optimism into his voice. "This doesn't mean we're giving up. It just means the case is no longer an active investigation. We still keep our ears and eyes open for tips and leads."

Frank woke up with a cold sweat. The game was in the bottom of the 9th and the Tigers were down by two.

Dream from his career were nothing new to Frank, but he had not remembered this scene in 30 years.

It had been during his first year in homicide. An eighteen year old girl had gone missing.

"Adrian Fraiser," Frank mumbled to himself.

Frank shook his head and rose to his feet. He was surprised he remembered the name.

Frank walked over to the sink and splashed some cold water on his face, washing the sweat away. He grabbed a fresh towel and patted himself dry and tried to remember the details of the case.

It was the summer after Adrian had graduated from high school. She had a long term boyfriend, who was moving down south for construction work. Adrian was a good student and had gotten into college with a good scholarship. She pleaded with her mom to let her go down south with her boyfriend for the summer, but Adrian's mom thought it would be better for her to prepare for school. She was worried that if Adrian went, she would not have returned for her studies.

I wasn't too worried when Adrian's mom filed the missing persons report. It seemed likely the she had gone willingly with her boyfriend down south, but when we located the boyfriend, he hadn't heard from Adrian for days.

We questioned the boyfriend, thinking there may be foul play involved, but his story checked out, and I believed him. We returned to Tahoy and started the investigation from the ground up. We talked to everyone who had seen or spoken to Adrian in the weeks leading up to her disappearance, but all leads went cold. It was as if she had vanished like a balloon floating out of sight on a sunny day.

Frank remembered that the occasional tip would come in the in the months after the investigation, but they never amounted to anything, and eventually the tips stopped coming. To Frank's knowledge, the case still remained open.

That is the one thing about police work. It is never over, or finished, or even a good stopping point. There are dozens of cases on your plate and they are all important. They are all someone’s child, their baby. Detective work is like looking at a beach covered in stones, which all have to be turned over and examined. All the while, more stones are washing up with the tide. It is never ending, and a good place to lose yourself. A good place to run from a divorce.

Frank went outside to check the mailbox. He took the last remaining photos of the orange marigolds outside the front door. He had no idea if the film was in color or black and white, but he did not care. For Frank, taking a photo was about pausing and appreciating a singular moment. So much of his life had been trying to decipher the past or predict the future. To freeze time and fill a vault of memories. The results were less important.

Frank felt the tension on his advance lever, signaling the roll was complete. He popped up the re-wind on the left side of the camera and began to guide the film back into the roll. He spun slower than usual, not sure how fragile or brittle the old film could be.

Afterward, he looked online of where he could get it developed. The photo store in Tahoy had long since closed, and he didn't want to use the services at a big chain store. He found a small store within the state that accepted mail orders. He popped the film into an envelope and sent it off. The website said that processing usually took a couple weeks.

The photos came back in the mail. He quickly opened up the envelope containing the prints. Frank did not have any expectation of what they could. If anything, he expected the film to be so old that the photos were indistinguishable. Do his surprise, the photos were legible. The images were a little grainy and the colors were muted. Almost like a the photos had been taking through a thin layer of fog.

Frank flipped through the first few photos. The looked to be vacation photos taken at the beach. Which beach? Frank could not tell. It looked like the ocean though, not some small inland lake.
Frank poured himself a cup of coffee, and sat down at the kitchen table. He saw three daughters who looked to be about 2 years apart. He would guess the oldest was maybe 11 or 12. There were photos of them building a sandcastle, throwing a Frisbee and swimming in the water. A woman would occasionally appear in the photos. One was a rather glamour shot of her looking off toward the water with dark sunglasses and large sun hat. She was beautiful in a way that only people from the past can be. Elegant and stuck in time. Another photo was her helping out with the finishing touches on the sand castle. A third was her getting splashed by the youngest daughter. They both were laughing. The mother and daughter had identical smiles - big and mischievous.

Frank assumed the father was the one taking the photos. Frank quickly scanned through the remainder of the pile, and noticed that the father never appeared. Frank felt a pang of sadness. He had been given a window into this man's life, but the man will forever remain unknown. He was mostly certainly passed on at this point. Frank wondered what his life was like. Did he dream of work? Or did he dream of this vacation? He couldn't know for sure, but he felt certain the man behind the camera was happier than he. He had lived a good life. Frank sat alone in his house, thinking what could have been.