The Inside of the Envelope

The contents of the envelope were spread around Lee on his desk like some sort of morbid feast. The fog seeping in from the window made it hard to read the words on the papers. But he had read them enough times by now to know what they said and he still didn't want to believe them.

He had taken the envelope from Halle, determined to turn it into the police the night before. But something had stopped him. Mr. Maitland walked past Lee outside the station. Normally Lee was invisible to most people- especially important people like Mr. Maitland. However, Mr. Maitland paused upon glimpsing the envelope in Lee's hand and turned to speak to him. His smile had not quite reached his eyes when he said "Cold evening to be idling outside- do you have a place to stay?" Lee nodded and said that he was just about to go into the station. Mr. Maitland had stayed planted in place until Lee entered through the police station doors, his blue eyes tracking Lee the entire way.

Already hesitant to turn in the evidence, this encounter and a churning in Lee's stomach made him leave the station as soon as Mr. Maitland moved on, envelope still clutched in his hand. Now he was at his school, a day later, trying to figure out what he should do, while his students read silently out of textbooks.

Before Lee were pages of Jose's financial records. It appeared that he was in debt, in debt to Mr. Evans and had been for some years. The papers showed that Mr. Evan's had loaned Jose tens of thousands of dollars over the past five years, and none of it was ever paid back. In addition to these rows of numbers was one note from Mr. Evans, threatening to take Jose to court if he didn't begin to pay him back. But it was the final item in the envelope that made Lee's skin crawl- a picture of Mr. Evans tied to a chair, a gun pointed at his head, with the message "keep quiet or you're next" written on the back. Lee couldn't help but smile despite the situation, at how cliche it all was.

Lee had to admit that the situation did not look good for Jose.  Lee didn't think Jose was capable of such an act, but Lee didn't really know much about him and all the evidence was right here, laid out neatly. Maybe a little too neatly. In the hazy state provided by the fog a memory surfaced of something his senior lit teacher said six years ago, in a classroom that was a reflection of where he now sat: there is always a twist- rarely do you find simple solutions to simple problems.

 It was so convenient that all the evidence to incriminate Jose was packaged into an envelope and served to Halle on a silver platter. Halle did not seem to know what the evidence meant, much less what to do with it. No, the papers could not have come directly from her and she seemed too naive to have any part in Mr. Evan's murder. Halle, whose occupation as an accountant gave her accesses to financial records and her unofficial occupation as a Russian hacker made her susceptible to blackmail, would be the perfect conduit. What if someone wanted to use her to frame Jose? Make her deliver the damning evidence to the police to keep their hands clean and have the evidence come from a more reliable source: a young woman who came across some worrying numbers in her job and was sent a picture of Mr. Evans- to show her what would happen if she didn't keep her mouth shut. Maybe the blue van had delivered the envelope to Halle, which was why she seemed so upset when she saw it.

Jose was the perfect target: low income, no family, no social position in this small town, and hispanic. Lee knew Jose had been prone to violence in the past- nothing more than small bar fights but that might be enough to support claims against him.

The more Lee thought, the more he was convinced that Jose was not the killer and that the evidence in front of him was not really evidence at all.