Edward Silva Jr. scratched his bald spot and absent-mindedly ran his hand through his greying curls. The figures were closer to the picture he was heading for, but deeper cuts were required. His head throbbed.
Sitting back, he looked out into the darkened office, where most of the employees’ cubicles lived. He glanced at the picture of his father on his desk; Edward Senior’s eyes looked right through him, driving him to these late nights. Father had sacrificed his best years to Silva Accounting, and Edward Jr. owed it to him to keep the company strong.
He looked back at his monitor; the numbers blurring. Nothing for it, he thought, I’ve got to take a break. Edward got up and walked into the dusky hall, heading automatically for the break room.
His office lights, on motion sensor, dimmed automatically after a couple minutes. Emerging from the brightly lit break room, the heavy shadows in the hall seemed to move to Edward’s exhausted eyes.
Wait, one WAS moving; out in the cubical farm…
Stan tossed, sweaty in his tangled sheets. His alcohol-fueled dreams haunted him: A floating island beckoned, and when he climbed the ladder, he was at his desk at Silva Accounting, but someone occupied his chair. Turning to him with a smirk, Ted’s eyes spun and glowed bright green.
“Hey Stanster, what’s up? You come back? You know there’s nowhere for you here, right? I got it all and I’m taking it with me.”
Stan exploded in anger; “That’s not RIGHT! You can’t do that to me, this is MY desk!”
Ted smirked and turned his back on Stan, spinning in the desk chair.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Stan reached out to grab him. His hand connected with Ted’s shoulder, then nothing; Ted dissolved under Stan’s touch.
Stan gazed in confusion at the pile of dust on the chair as it spun to a standstill. Somehow it all made sense. He picked up his little dust broom that he kept at his desk. He was still sweeping Ted into the wastebasket when Mr. Silva walked up.
“Stan! What are you doing at Ted’s desk? There’s no place for you here, unless you want to be a janitor,” he taunted, pointing to the broom.
Before Stan could answer, there was a “clunk” in the wastebasket. Looking down, he saw a green glitter, and fished out a bright green marble. As he retrieved the second one from the chair, Edward Silva grabbed Stan’s arm.
“Do you hear me? Go home Stan!”, he shouted.
Stan took the marbles and put them in his eyes. Suddenly, he could see so clearly. Looking at Silva, he laughed. Stan could see right through him; the man’s heart was seizing up, so Stan reached out and helped it along with a touch. Laughing even louder, he ripped the sparkling twenty-year pin out of Silva’s lapel as Edward crumpled at his feet. His laughter grew louder and soon was coming from everywhere but his own throat.
Screaming, Stan sat up, blinking in the morning sun, and tore the sheet from around his neck. Sweat plastered his dark curls to the right side of his face, and his tongue was glued to his teeth.
“Ugh. Water. Must. Have. Water.”
He stood, wobbled, and staggered to the bathroom. Ducking his head under the tap, he flushed alcohol and creepy dreams down the drain. He scrubbed his face and headed into the kitchen to make coffee. As he turned away from the mirror, a glint of green caught his eye, and he spun back. His not-green-not-brown eyes looked back at him, not nearly as bloodshot as he expected, and … they also seemed slightly greener-not-brown.
“Wow, I didn’t know beer could affect color perception,” he commented to his reflection and resumed his morning routine. He may be unemployed, but he had standards, and his morning routine was automatic; coffee, news, exercise, shower, shave, work. Well, the “work” part would have to adjust. Maybe “looking for work” would fill that slot.
Sgt. Maureen Brooker gazed around the little farm of cubicles. “Shithole to work in, don’t you think Cal?” she said to her partner, Sgt. Mike Calvin.
Cal shook his head. “Every time I think my job sucks, I remember I could be trapped in one of these prisons. My mom wanted me to be an accountant.”
“You spend your life chained to a desk, crunching numbers all day, and end like these two – heart attacks?” Brooker nodded to the body slumped in a desk chair.
Cal shrugged. “Sal can’t be sure till she does the autopsies. Whole thing’s above my paygrade, that’s why we’re waiting for Schwartz. Too weird.”
Maureen sighed. “Well, with one being the main boss, we gotta look deeper.
Ah! I suppose all our questions are about to be answered. Morning Schwartz!”, this last to the detective who just arrived on the scene.
Detective Ally Schwartz nodded to them. “Brooker, Calvin, how ya doin?”
“Living the dream, Detective.” said Cal, “Better than these two…”
“Initial diagnosis is heart failure, for both, Sal tells me. Weird. Where is she?”
Cal pointed with his chin, “break room. You know, if you ask me…”
“I didn’t”, said Schwartz, pausing in her turn to the break room.
“Yeah, but anyways, the creepiest thing to me about this whole thing?”
“Pray do tell, Sargent.”
“The desk.”
Ally turned back to face Cal. “The desk?”, she looked around the cube farm, “which one?”
Cal replied, “You’re the detective, I’m just a beat cop. You tell me.”
Ally walked over to the bodies, surveying the work area. On the far wall, under a bank of dirty windows, were seven desks. No doubt those were for the favored or more senior employees; desks with a “view”.
From there, rows of six desks, split in the middle, allowed for a walkway. She counted six rows marching back from the windows, ending at the one where she stood.
A divider separated each row, enough to give computer screens a bit of privacy. Looking at the closest desk, she saw a nameplate: Sheila Masterson. From the photos pinned to the divider, it looked like Sheila had bleached blonde hair, and two teen daughters, one of which played soccer, the other a cheerleader. Sheila, soccer mom, bet she drives a white SUV, thought Ally. Single – divorced? No partner in the pictures…
Across the aisle lay Edward Silva Jr., senior partner, and slumped in the ergonomic chair was one Ted Daily, according to the IDs on the bodies. Ally’s eyes went to the nameplate on the wall.
“Who’s Stan Greene?”, she asked Brooker and Cal.
Maureen nodded, made a note, “Neither of these two. We’ll find out.”
Detective Schwartz continued her inspection. “Weird… the desk is empty. Is it the only one?”, she asked, looking around the cubicles.
“No, there are five others empty. Apparently, Silva and Son’s were in the middle of a rough patch. Been some layoffs.”, Cal answered. That much info they had gotten from the janitor that called in the report.
Ally resumed her inspection. She stepped in, looking closer. “Well, that’s just plain weird. It’s not quite empty. What is with this broom, and these,” pulling on rubber gloves, she held up a bright green orb, inspecting it in the sunlight. “What are these? Two green marbles? They sparkle.”
Cal nodded. “Those marbles? They are creeping me out – I swear they are watching us.”
Ally snorted as she dropped the marbles in an evidence bag. She looked around a bit more. Looking at Silva, she bent down, “Hmm – a rip in his lapel, that seems out of character, he’s a pretty sharp dresser. Did they struggle?“
“No other sign of it,” Sal replied.
“Hey, now, what’s this?”, Ally inspected the wastebasket she had picked up. “Let’s get this analyzed, there’s some powder-like substance in here. Could be nothing, but it’s not pencil shavings…”
… To Be Continued