Chapter 2
My Father once said that everything has a line that you
shouldn’t ever cross. That everything you do, no matter how benevolent and good
your intentions are, has a point where it turns evil. For him, the equation
wasn’t just about motives and means. For him, frequency and intensity were a
part of it. Just like aspirations. While
it is good for someone to aspire something greater than what they have, there
is a point when aspirations turn to greed. A point when “direct” turns to “dictate”.
And Love turns to… Love turns to Evil-Love. Yes, no matter how odd it may sound,
love is not always good. There is a line where love out of its purest form
turns evil. The kind of love that is full of restrain, pain and despair. The
kind of love that drills a hole through your chest. It is the kind of love that
takes away everything that you are and feasts on your hollowness. The kind of love that takes lives…
I have never seen so many reporters in my entire career. The
Chief warned me about this, but I only expected a couple of them. Not this
crowd of every reporter from almost every News channel, tabloids and
broadsheets that I know. Apparently, these folks have some connection who gives
them hot tips to be at the right place at the right time. Which is very unfortunate for me, because
this is not the right time. Not when I’m as clueless about this case as they
will be a couple of minutes from now.
“Sir! Is it true that the police has no idea on who the
killer is?”
Great! What a perfect way to start. Talk about hitting first
where it hurts the most.
“Well we are still rounding up clues and evidences that may
lead us to whoever did this.”
Give them vague answers. That usually shuts them up. I kept
saying to myself.
“Is this another hate crime against the 3rd sex
inspector?”
The woman who was questioning me squeezed herself in front
and stretched out her recorder so close to me I had to take a step back to
avoid getting it slammed to my face.
“Motives as of now are unclear. We can’t conclude anything
unless my men are done sweeping the scene.”
“Is that so? So will this turn out like another Ronna case
or one of those unsolved?”
The Ronna case she is talking about happened early this year.
Evidence and eyewitnesses pointed towards a US Marine who was in the country as
part of a Foreign Defense agreement. They were seen together in a bar, and then
inside a cab headed for the nearest motel. 12 hours later, Ronna’s head was
found 5 feet from her body with a letter stuffed inside its mouth. The letter,
if you’d ask me sent a pretty strong message. It said: “Eat your pride”. The
soldier was taken in and evidences were being prepared for his trial when he
was suddenly taken by the US government to face court-martial in US soil. All as
part of the defense agreement of course. Clearly something that the general
public and Ronna’s family didn’t take easily.
You see for most people, Justice means revenge. An eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth. And even though they won’t mention it, putting the culprit
behind bars will never be enough for them. That is why they never stop asking
for Justice. For as long as life was not paid for taking a life, they will
always scream for justice. Justice that they think has been denied from them.
“Ma’am, I guarantee you and everyone here that the PNP and
NBI is doing its best to solve this and hand justice where it is due. Now if
you’ll excuse me…”
I should never have wandered out. I knew that there is
nothing but distraction out there.
I walked back into the building and approached Phil who was
standing in front of a couple of bags.
“Seems like this guy was planning to go somewhere. Stuffs
packed, looks like he was gonna leave for a long time.”
“What else have we got Phil?”
“Well, aside from the Finger prints and these bags, our men
found these on the table.”
Phil handed over 3 envelopes to me. They were all sealed and
had names on them.
“He wrote this?”
“That would be the case, seems like he made one for his Mom,
the Landlord and one for himself.”
I gave Phil a puzzled look. Why would someone make a letter
for himself?
“For himself?”
“Yes Marcus. I don’t know what’s up with him. But you can
clearly see the last one had Romeo on it.”
“Well maybe not for himself, but for someone with the same
name. I don’t think it’s gonna make much
of a sense to write yourself a letter unless you’re planning to bury it in a
time capsule. And the way I look at it, this guy is too old for the time
capsule stuff.”
“Well whatever. Figuring that out is your job anyways. But
we haven’t opened them yet. Gotta get permission from their respective recipients
first before we do so.”
“What do you think Phil?”
I gave him a stern look, the type of look you would give
someone if you want to know how they truly feel about stuff.
“I don’t know man. All this... All of this is a big enigma
wrapped in a riddle… In a haystack.
Nothing here makes sense. There is nothing to tell us that there has been
someone else inside a room. No money
missing, gadgets all there. No broken stuff to tell if there was a struggle.
There is nothing here except the body, a couple of packed bags, and 3 goddamn
letters. This isn’t even a crime scene man. So if you’re asking me what I think
this is… I’d say straight up that this is a freaking suicide. Old fella here
must have gotten tired of life and took it himself.”
I was holding on to that idea since I first saw the scene.
Phil was right, all of this point towards suicide, all of it. Except the way he
died.
“No Phil. This isn’t suicide. Look, there’s all sorts of
things here that you can use for suicide. Bleach, acid, this guy even has rat
poison here. Why would he choose to die a slow and painful death when he could
have gotten away with just cutting his wrist open? Or Hang himself from the
ceiling? For God’s sake, he could have even leaped to his death outside and
it’s all done. No pain… just gone. Instantly… without a struggle.”
I paused for a second a turned my head in every direction of
the house.
“This may sound cliche, but this is not what it looks like.
People who take their lives do it in the least painful way they can think
of. They are people who are so tired of
all the pain that they’d rather die. They are people who wants to escape pain
Phil. They don’t want pain, not pain like this.”
“I know what you’re saying Marcus. But aren’t you just
typecasting it? People are different. They don’t always act rational.
Sometimes, they are not all just black and white. Sometimes there’s a deviant.
Someone who isn’t so normal. Someone like our guy here, who goes out of his way
to prove his point of being different. Surely you’ve seen your fair share of
‘different’ eh?”
“I told you Phil. He is not different. People can’t be so remotely different from one another.
Everything has a motive, and that motive dictates the action. Actions that
sometimes may seem out of this world, until we realize its intent and puzzle
the pieces together. And then we realize that it wasn’t so different after all.
See when I kill a person the first thing that comes to your mind is that I
can’t possibly have done it. With me being in the police force and all the
ethical and moral beliefs you know me for. But then you find out why I did it…
and then it wouldn’t be so unthinkable after all. It all lies on what the
driving force behind this is. I am not ruling out the possibility of suicide.
But all this… This isn’t driven by the will to take your life.”
Phil has been my partner for about 5 years, he is as good as
anyone can be at his job. But sometimes,
being good is not enough. Sometimes you have to be more than what is expected
of you. To be more than the average, to
be better than yourself. And Phil just
isn’t, he is someone who is comfortable with being among the crowd, someone who
took solace inside the bunny’s fur. Phil is good, but he isn’t the one you want
to be working with when solving cases like this.
I asked Phil to go to the Crime labs in HQ to check on the
finger prints. If my calculations are
right, there should be prints from at least 4 people in there. Romeo’s, Mrs.
Rosales, the Landlord’s, and the killer’s.
That of course, is subject to the killer’s identity.
I walked out of the apartment and sat by the stairs. I
slowly pulled out another stick from my pocket and lit it up. As I puffed the
first smoke, I carefully laid down the things that I know so far:
Time of Death: 12 midnight to 1:00 AM
Cause of Death: Stab wound to the chest which may have
caused lacerations to the heart resulting in rapid blood loss
Place of Death:
Victim’s apartment, 3rd floor, end unit, only one possible
witness (Ms. Chan)
Possible Motives:
unknown
Suspects: John/Jane
Doe, Mr. Santos (Landlord) and…
I stopped for a bit.
Took a deep breath of nicotine, and puffed it out with all my doubts.
Suspects: … Mrs. Rosales.
No comments:
Post a Comment