Luke
Playing cards after dinner is one of my favorite things to do. Usually, the only female firefighter in our unit, Rosario plays gin with me. Tonight is a weeknight so after our usual Thursday night spaghetti dinner, Rosario and I will sit down and play cards.
This turned out not to be the case because Isaac is bubbling over with information that he wants to share with me.
“Come on, this is gin night with Rosario. Can’t it wait?”
“No, you’ve got to hear what I have to say.”
Isaac grabs me and takes me into the conference room on the other side of the firehouse living quarters. He closes the door behind him and sits down. I sit down across from him.
“Tell me you’ve never seen this scarf before?”
Isaac pulls out a red scarf and gives it to me.
“Isaac everybody basically has a scarf like this.”
Isaac shakes his head.
“Think harder, when did you last see this scarf?”
I close my eyes to think. I rub my face with the scarf and then it hits me when I “felt” this scarf last. I open my eyes and look at Isaac.
“Emma has a scarf just like this. I remember feeling it when I gave her a hug.”
“I knew I was right. This is Emma’s scarf.”
“Now wait a minute Isaac, this is a really popular scarf design. Last time I was at the store, I saw a table full of these scarves. In fact, they were reduced to $1.99, so you know lots of people bought this scarf.”
“That’s probably true. But the fact is, we saw Emma wear this scarf.”
“Well, what are you going to do about Emma?”
“I’m going to call her and ask her what she’s been doing. I want to see if she has a good alibi for where she’s been.”
I worry for Emma. Isaac is like a dog with a bone. He isn’t going to let this go until he finds an answer that makes sense to him.
“I’ll leave you to it.”
I stand up, ready to leave when Isaac stops me.
“Oh no, I’m going to need a witness. And that witness is you.”
“Gee, thanks.”
There is a phone in front of us on the conference table. Isaac takes out his smart phone and looks up Emma’s phone number. He finds it and punches it into the conference phone.
Isaac pulls the phone towards us and then presses the button that puts the phone on speaker. Emma’s phone rings four times before she picks it up.
“Hello?” Emma whispers into the phone.
At that moment, I want to hang up the phone. It’s clear that Emma was sleeping. I don’t want to know if this is Emma’s scarf or not.
“Emma, this is Isaac.”
We hear Emma drop the phone. It’s a few seconds before she returns to the call.
“I’m sorry I dropped the phone. Are you speaking to me alone or is Luke there?”