Arlington, like any other small city, is peaceful and low in crime. In my opinion, anyway. I was born and raised in a large city called New York City. I never did like that place, but nature is not a comfort for me neither. I was studying criminal justice at Newford University in Ashtown, Michigan when I fell in love with the atmosphere and peace in Arlington, Ashtown’s neighbor and closest city. I stayed here since.
The other thing that I love about Arlington is that I get to be freely here; there aren’t much crime. For a lazy policeman like myself, that is more than a dream. Every morning I get greeted by my neighbors, co-workers, and just about every one in Arlington. Breakfast is always there early because our boss love a healthy starts every day. For lunch, someone is bound to ask you or you are bound to ask someone to go and grab it together. It always happen without much thoughts and it always bring a smile to my face. However, dinner is a completely different story.
Dinner’s for family or love ones to dine and get their today-stories shared. Dinner’s not for someone who live alone, like me. Dinner’s not for someone who have such bad luck in love, like me. Dinner’s not for someone who have no actual family, like me. So I don’t eat dinner, to save all the pain, ever.
My job, as I mentioned, is pretty laid back because… Arlington. I’m not the typical outdoor officer, I’m what they called the indoor helper. I do most of the paperwork, chitchatting, sitting around, and providing backups; but in a place with such low crime rates, there’s hardly any backup needed. The most work I had done was transporting data of the identification of a truck that a local fisherman owned but was stolen to the theft branch. But, as my boss like to say, Arlington never stops surprising us.
On my second year there as an officer, bright and early that morning, I received my most hardworking job ever! And one that I probably would never forget.
I came in as usual, greeting and flirting with as many of the few female workers we have in there as possible before making it to my office. In my office I found a young man, around his early twenties, half a decade younger than me, sitting in that chair in front of my desk that I came to believe was only for decoration since it was always empty, except for when I sit in it because it’s much more softer than mine. When he heard me walked in, he turns to me, tears clenching his eyes that's red, probably from all the crying or no sleep.
“Officer Carmen, I forgot to inform you that you have a guest,” my co-worker and neighbor in office, one of the few female workers, Faith called from her desk. “His case is filed in family, your branch.”
I remembered thinking, as I looked at him oddly, who on earth have a family problem this early in the day?
I made my way to my desk then reached a hand to him, “Officer Carmen.”
He wiped off snot and tears and shook my hand without saying anything.
“You can start whenever you want, tell me as much as possible with as many details as you remembered,” I said, thinking it was a report in abuse or beating of family, something that is rare in Arlington. Everyone is too kind and peaceful to be hitting their own kids here. But looking at this almost grown man, I would believe him if he said that his mom beat him up for not getting a job and wife, building his life. I sighed. That sounded more like me.
“It’s,” he started, “it’s not like that.”
I gave him an encouraging but patient look. My desk’s clean, he’s my only case today, there’s no rush.
“My sister,” he sniffed like a little kid, to which annoyed me, “she’s - “ tears swelled in his eyes again.
I swallowed my anger at his childish self and opened up the case file on my computer to insert the detailed report. “Take your time.” I typed in “sister” then looked back at him. Always give your client 100% of your attention, even if he’s a grown man crying like a child.
He wiped his eyes again and continued. “My sister, she’s gone.”
Suddenly my attention is sharpen. A kidnapping?!
“She left a piece of paper,” he added. “She said she ran away and not to look for her.”
Oh, it’s just a runaway, still rare in Arlington though. Who would ever want to runaway from such a beautiful town?
“Can I see the paper?” I reached a hand for it, encouraging him to give it to me. He wiped his nose using his sleeve then handed me the long rectangular and crumbled paper. I brought it to my face and surprisingly, it said exactly as he said it says it. “I decided to runaway. Please do not look for me. N.”
“I’ve been looking for her everywhere,” he said after I drifted my eyes to meet his. “I went to our old neighborhood, to our hometown, to every place I think she would go to. She was nowhere to be found. Not even at her favorite spring field. She’s… gone.”
“When was this?” I asked as I quickly typed down the notes.
“Three days ago,” he answered.
“And you didn’t report it after 24 hours?” I looked at him.
He looked shock, but only for a second. He looked down, like he was trying to hide something, “She done it before.”
“Done it before? Can you explain more, please,” I readied my fingers over the keys.
“Five years ago, she wrote a letter like this too, but she only went to her school and I found her there. And then last year, she wrote one again, but she came back after a day.” I typed that in as well. “But this time… I waited for a day, and when she didn’t return, I got worried. That’s when I started the search, but I haven’t found her anywhere. That’s when I started panicking. I just got back from Ashtown and came straight here.”
I finished at the same time and looked at him, “How old is your sister?”
“Fifteen,” he said. “She just turned fifteen.”
I looked at him. “Fifteen?”
“Yeah. She’s very young. Please help me look for her. She’s my only family,” he actually begged. “What if something bad happened to her? What if - “
“You said run away,” I reminded him. “Not kidnapped. I’m sure she’s just out somewhere away.” I would be too if I have a brother as overprotective as he is.
“No, you don’t understand,” he said. “She’s mentally unstable right now.”
“Go on,” I waved my hand in front of me, urging him on.
He seem to hesitate but then said, “You see, Officer Carmen, our mother died giving birth to her. It took our father ten years to get over it and married another woman. We’ve been family since and quite a happy one too. But… “ suddenly he lower his head in sadness, “Last year, our father passed away. She’s been in depression because of it. I can’t leave her alone.”
“If your sister’s fifteen, and your father married when she’s ten, which is five years ago, you’re telling me that your sister ran away after he married another woman, but was a happy family?” I gave him a judging look. “Either you're a very dense brother or one lost in your delusions.”
He looked shock.
“And then she wrote one last year,” I said. “When your father died.” He doesn’t answered me but lowered his head. “And now she wrote another one, because you didn’t seem to care for her? What were you doing to ignore your own sister’s feelings?” My voice came out more harsh than I intended. I never had an actual sister, maybe that’s why.
“You’re wrong,” he looked at me in the eyes now. “I didn’t ignore her feelings. She locked me out of her life after our father passed away.”
“Of course she would,” I don’t even know why I’m defending a girl I didn’t know. “Your mother died giving birth to her, she probably felt like it was her fault. And then her father died, she was probably blaming herself, that’s why she went into depression.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know about that.” Then he went into silence as tears started to swell up on his eyes again.
I was pathetic. Here’s a grown man sitting in my office who just told me that he became an orphan and his sister’s gone, yet I’m blaming him for it. He’s probably hurt as well. I sighed. And I’m the policeman who’s living the dream that pays well too with almost no worries. “I’m sorry.”
He blinked and a tear escaped and popped on his sleeve.
“I didn’t mean to blame you like that for her behavior,” I said. He wiped the rest of the tears from his eyes.
“It’s alright,” he said. His nose is as red as his eyes. I wonder if he slept at all since she left.
“Runaway,” I said. “We don’t have a lot of people here in Arlington, but I can certainly send out a team to help you look for her. Can you name some locations that she might go to? Runaways tend to stay within the perimeter of what they know. Rarely do they go out of their comfort zone.”
He reached behind him and brought out a map, “I starred some of the locations.”
I took it and inserted them in. “Oh, what’s her name?”
He didn’t answer me.
I looked away from my screen to him and asked again. “What’s her name? You never told me her name.”
Quietly he said, “Namaste. Namaste Irvin.”
My eyebrows shot up and I felt a smile tingling on the side of my lips. “Namaste?”
“Irvin,” he looked away.
“Ok…” I said. “And yours?”
He was in silence before saying, “You think it’s odd.”
“Of course it’s odd,” I said truthfully. “Very unique name. Let me guess yours, Konichiwa?”
He chuckled a little, which gave me relief. I did feel bad for blaming him.
“It’s actually Arigato,” he said with a smile.
I slowly nod then said, “Very unique naming your parent’s done.”
He actually laughed. “Namaste said the same thing as well.”