INSOMNIAC: ALAN SMITH #2 (Alan Smith series)

by ARKOPAUL DAS

  FIVE

  The morgue was in the back side , another medium sized building more or less looks like the main precinct building. It didn’t take much time to reach there.

  They entered the main hallway and saw doctors and other medical staffs roaming around.

  They knew the room where their body was getting operated on and they entered it.

  They found Dr. Taylor picking up something from a plastic bag and two other staffs and a junior doctor taking care of the post mortem. They waited in the door as Dr. Taylor quickly saw them and said ‘Here you are’

  He then kept away the equipments and cleared his hands before coming to them .He said ‘I was waiting for you all.’

  ‘So you got something for us ?’ asked Alicia coming straight to business.

  ‘Sure, but the full autopsy is yet to be complete’ He said ‘But I have seen the main things ,the things I need to see’

  ‘Then why are they still carrying on the autopsy?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Just to put some more words in the post mortem report. That’s what we do. Anyway, come along.’

  He led them into the room, as they came near the body Dr. Taylor asked others to put a cloth on the body as it was completely naked and the stomach was half open with a portion of pancreas dangling out.

  As the body was covered with a white cloth up to the waist portion he ushered the other staffs to leave and said ‘Be back in an hour’

  The junior doctor nodded and left, taking both the staffs with him.

  ‘Yeah’ Dr. Taylor started as the room became empty. ‘As for this strangle case what I can see is that the carotid arteries are completely damaged’

  ‘And that signifies anything?’ asked Ryan curiously.

  ‘Look here’ Dr. Taylor came towards the head of the body and held the neck . ‘These marks are quite deep as you see, and a person dies when this hyoid bone of the neck is totally broken. This is a ligature strangulation case, so in this case the bone is partially broken while the arteries are more or less damaged. So we can easily conclude that the victim fought for a while –’

  Alicia interrupted ‘So you say that it wasn’t an instant death?’

  ‘Obviously not’ he looked at her and made a face as if like saying “why do you even need to ask this?’’ but continued to say ‘He was alive for two or maximum three minutes after which he became unconscious and eventually - dead’

  ‘Did you find anything more?’ Kevin didn’t have any interest in all this useless explanations.

  ‘Yes’ said Dr. Taylor looking more energetic ‘He was killed by a thin cord or a nylon thread. You may even consider a garrotte’

  ‘Killer had a cord. Okay that confirms that our killer was all ready to kill him’

  ‘It seems so. And you see our victim was nervous before his death, he didn’t know that someone would kill him , but he was nervous about something else, and that too from the past few days , maybe’ he said this carefully.

  ‘So another point. He didn’t know that he would be murdered, still he was nervous’ repeated Alicia.

  ‘Wait, wait’ Ryan interjected ‘How can we even say that he didn’t know he would be murdered. How can we be sure about that ? He may as well know that he might get killed by someone, and that’s why he was nervous’

  ‘If he knew that he is in danger then surely he would have called the police and informed them.’ Said Alicia ‘At least that’s what people generally do’

  ‘Right’ said Dr. Taylor.

  Ryan left it to that.

  Dr. Taylor gave another suggestion ‘Or maybe that he was threatened and he was in a panic state’

  ‘Who would threat him ?’ asked Kevin.

  ‘That’s for you to find out’

  ‘But still he should have informed the police’

  Dr. Taylor asked Ryan ‘Can you tell if this guy is a pro ?’

  ‘Yes I can. And I would say that, no ,this guy was not a pro, but still he knew how to strangle a man. The vascular obstruction here’ he pointed at the throat of the body where there was long cut ‘is usually the main mechanism. Complete blood flow is associated with irreversible neurological damage and death’

  ‘Seems like a professional killer to me’

  ‘I will not say he was a professional killer neither will I deny it. But as it seems a professional killer would know the amount pressure to be applied in this critical area, but this killer just tried his luck which let the victim live for a few more minutes. A professional killer will take just a second to kill him and complete the whole process.’

  ‘I see’

  ‘And apart from that everything is okay’ said Dr. Taylor ‘Well he consumed foods....well normal foods...no problem with that’

  ‘What kind for foods?’

  ‘Caffeine , junk foods some high calorie foods....other than that he is clean. We found nothing more till now.’

  ‘Then maybe he went to some restaurant that night’

  ‘Must be so’ said Kevin.

  ‘Or maybe he had these leftovers from the previous day in his fridge , and ate it home’ Ryan always wanted to go in every detail.

  ‘That’s possible too’ agreed Alicia.

  ‘I will check the body and the intestine areas for one more time , and will inform you if I find anything new, ok?’

  ‘Yup’ said Alicia.

  They were turning to leave when Dr. Taylor called them again and said ‘Oh, and another thing’

  They turned back as Dr. Taylor gave them a plastic bag and said ‘Here it is. Some things we found from his clothes’

  SIX

  ‘A wallet, a pocket diary , handkerchief...’ Ryan started sorting things out of the bag carefully with gloved hands, after they returned to the precinct.

  ‘And a pen , mobile , that’s it..’ Ryan finished finding them and laid them on Alicia’s table so that everyone could get a better view of the things.

  The wallet looked old but it had not been used roughly ,the pocket diary was small, the handkerchief was brand new. The phone was a old blackberry model.

  Ryan first took the wallet, turned it in his hand standing near the window, and checked all the four outer sides. Then he opened the fold and checked the inner sides.

  ‘It has been used , I see’

  ‘Found anything in it ?’ asked Alicia.

  ‘Nah. Just a few cents here with 5 dollars on the other chamber. Other than that it’s empty.’

  ‘How can it be empty ?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘So there are no credit cards , Photo Id , cash ,or whatever people keep in a wallet?’ said Kevin.

  ‘Nope, I know that’s really weird. It’s nearly empty’

  ‘Then where are the things?’

  ‘Maybe someone removed it. Or perhaps the wallet was just like this all along. These are the only two available options’

  Alicia took the wallet which was made of leather but it was now torn at the ends and the upper layer was peeling off ‘Yeah nothing is here’ she said the same thing.

  ‘But it looks like it has been used’

  ‘Yeah it certainly is used.’ Said Alicia ‘ But not much. It still have that shine on it.’

  ‘Then why is nothing here?’

  ‘I tell you someone removed the things and kept the empty wallet back in his pocket.’ Said Kevin.

  ‘If it is so then we have to presume that there was something important here which was dangerous for the person who took everything out of it’

  ‘Got to be so.’ Said Kevin ‘ Okay let’s check the other items’

  ‘Well here’s his mobile’ Ryan took it and said ‘It’s also old.....and cheap and’ he pushed and held the red button for a few minutes , but it didn’t respond. He tried some other ways too .He pushed all the other buttons and shook the mobile, then he declared ‘And it doesn’t work’

  ‘Uh, great’

  Ryan soon wanted to check everything. He pulled out the back panel of the mobile and said ‘And
it doesn’t contain a battery’

  ‘Okay , empty wallet and now a empty phone’

  ‘Then how did he use the mobile?’ inquired Alicia.

  ‘No idea.’ Ryan said as he was good with the gadgets. ‘One cannot use a mobile without a battery .The only explanation I can give is that someone took the battery out of the phone .Okay, another thing, let’s see if this shit got a memory card’

  He examined both the sides ,the switches ,the holes that were used for the headphones but he said ‘No, no place to insert a memory card .The internal memory is all we got’

  ‘So this is an invalid phone’

  ‘No you can’t just say it’s invalid, if you can get a battery compatible with this model in it, then this baby will work. If there is no other defect’

  ‘Then we have to do that’

  ‘Right’

  ‘Hey look here’ Kevin had the diary in his hands.

  ‘What ?’ Alicia turned to him.

  ‘It’s empty’

  ‘What is empty?’

  ‘The diary, there’s nothing written here’

  Kevin handed them the diary and said ‘I thought he might have written something in his diary, maybe any numbers or so. But there’s nothing written here’

  Ryan and Alicia looked at it with bewildered faces. Alicia just said ‘What is going on here?’

  ‘Unusual , there ought to be something written in it’

  ‘Man, it’s totally clean’

  ‘How can it be even possible that a person carries a pocket diary without even writing anything in it?’

  ‘You sure you checked all the pages?’ asked Ryan to Kevin ‘sometimes people write in the middle or the back pages’

  ‘You got it in your hand, check it for yourself’

  Ryan opened it and then flipped through all the pages with the help of his thumb and the index finger.

  ‘Nothing’ he also said.

  ‘There’

  ‘The diary seems to be new, maybe he bought a new one recently’

  ‘Check the dates Ryan, we will know if it’s new or old’ Kevin said.

  ‘Right’ Ryan looked at the cover for some time and said ‘It’s of 2012’

  ‘2012? Alicia repeated ‘Then it’s not too new’

  ‘Yeah , it’s old and still unused .Not a single mark of ink in any of the pages. It’s all blank’

  ‘2012, that’s three years back. And he is carrying a diary for three years without writing anything in it.’

  ‘What if this diary is replaced?’

  ‘Why would anyone care to replace someone else’s diary?’

  ‘If they can replace his wallet then sure enough they can replace the diary’

  ‘We know that he was working on something -’

  ‘We still have to be sure about it, Ryan’ said Alicia.

  ‘Whatever. But everything we found in his clothes are either damaged or completely new’

  ‘And...?’

  ‘The mobile doesn’t carry a battery , the wallet is between new and worn out yet only consists just a few cents, the pen is a normal Reynolds , the diary is new from inside and the handkerchief,’ Ryan held the handkerchief in his hand ‘Is brand new, even the folds have never been opened’

  They were still quiet when Ryan said ‘Do you think this can be a coincidence that all the items are defective if you study them carefully?’

  ‘Ryan is right’ Kevin said. Alicia studied the items for another time.

  ‘I think that the killer knew that our victim was working on something and he needed to stop it’

  ‘And he also didn’t want anyone else to know about it. Whatever our victim was working on , it is dangerous for the killer. Maybe he was working on something that could expose the real nature of our killer, it might be so , isn’t it? That’s the reason he had to kill him and had to replace everything our victim had with him, in case this diary or the wallet contained some information that later comes in our hand and we find it easy to track him down. He wanted to keep the information secret .And I’m sure he will kill anyone who wants to dig down Mr. Carter’s work.’

  ‘If he wants to kill anyone who knows something about Mr. Carter’s work and can help us , then by now we should have got the news about some more murders’

  ‘Perhaps he doesn’t want to kill his victims at random, he will choose them and then kill them slowly and painfully’

  ‘What I see is,’ now Kevin said ‘ that our case is completely circumstantial .I don’t understand why we are just sitting here and guessing our killer’s next step , have you ever wondered what should be our next step ? I mean we should see where the clues lead us and try to track him down. Sitting and forming theories are not gonna help’

  ‘But I will stick with my theory’ said Ryan looking confident than everyone else.’

  ‘But his wallet ain’t fake man’

  ‘I am not so sure about that’

  SEVEN

  The day didn’t prove to be of much help. It gradually became dark outside as they felt lazy and called the day off. The sun was long gone so was the heat. It was much cooler in the evening, more comfortable.

  The whole day was humid and the temperatures were at its peak, but it was different now in the evening, the sky was clear with just a touch of a faint violet light that was still over the horizon.

  Alicia left early and Kevin and Ryan also came out after some minutes as Ryan drove his car reaching their apartment in no time .

  As they unlocked the door and entered , they felt quite hungry and the first thing they did was get something out of the fridge and eat it .Ryan found some scrambled eggs and fruit juice to eat.

  ‘It’s cold’ complained Kevin.

  ‘Naturally. It’s just out of the fridge , it ought to be cold’ said Ryan as he ate a mouthful of eggs without even looking at him.

  After they finished eating , Ryan sat with his laptop and Kevin jumped over the other bed and took out a John Sandford book from the shelf.

  The room was dingy with two narrow bed and a fridge , a table that could be used as dinner table, study table, laptop table , more of a multipurpose table, a night lamp and small closet all cramped up in a middle sized room.

  ‘Hey I forgot to ask you' said Kevin .

  ‘What?’

  ‘About your wedding’

  ‘My wedding?’

  ‘No your sister’s’

  ‘Yes...’

  ‘Anyway did you get the gift for her?’

  ‘I don’t know’

  ‘Then give her some money’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So that she can buy whatever she wants herself’

  ‘Like how much?’

  ‘5o grand?’

  ‘I am poor Kevin, I’m just a low class cop’

  ‘No you’re awesome’

  ‘Okay, now shut up and let me work’

  ‘What work?’

  ‘I was wondering if I could get any more information about the New York Times’ said Ryan, and he switched on the laptop.

  ‘They must have got a personal website’ said Kevin keeping the book aside.

  ‘That’s what I am shooting at.’

  Ryan connected to internet with wifi and opened the homepage of Google. Then he typed some words in the search area. Some results came instantly in the first page. People usually get what they’re looking for in the first page , and if they doesn’t get it, they just assume that they will not get it on the other pages as well.

  ‘Here’ said Kevin and pointed at something.

  ‘Let’s see’

  Ryan quickly clicked on the blue coloured given link and the other tab quickly opened .He then browsed through several pages and said ‘Nothing much is here in the website’

  ‘When did I say there will be?’ said Kevin .

  He taped the touch pad again and scrolled down the page. ‘Here is just...the options are... world , US ,science , health, technology ,arts...how will this things help us?’

&nbs
p; ‘It will not, see if anything else is there or not’

  ‘It’s just a personal website. It should contain all kinds of news , but why will it contain other information just because we are looking for it?’

  ‘They should have at least provided a summary of all the reporters, journalists, photographers, editors, or everyone else who works there’

  ‘Don’t you see it’s a public website’

  ‘But you said it’s a personal website’

  ‘I am saying public because anyone can get access to this site. So they will not provide any confidential information. That is quite natural’

  ‘Then we have to get some codes and numbers in order to track them?’

  ‘Yeah, but you can also check out their opinions’

  ‘What opinions?’

  ‘Here in the blog’ Kevin started using the track pad pushing away Ryan’s finger. He tapped the pad two more times to get the desired page which consisted of some reviews and names.

  ‘They are all OP-ED Columnist . It’s highly probable that his name will not feature in this list’ said Ryan and went to bed. ‘I got to get some rest now.’

  *****

  Alicia stood in front of the white board calculating the number of suspects they got till now.

  It was early morning , and the precinct was not yet crowded .Most of the uniforms and detectives usually comes much later. But Alicia was always quite punctual about her work, or at least when she got a case in her hands. She turned back and looked around, one or two cops were jerking among themselves, she also looked at Henderson’s room. It was empty. She at last resumed her gaze at the board.

  She watched the smiling face of Jade Carter in the picture and she thought ‘Mr. Carter ,what were you up to?’ She read and reread the bio data , a short paragraph that she wrote last day.

  She added a final sentence below the photo about who was the stranger who strangled him ? And where was he going in the middle of the night . Then she put a question mark at the end.

  ‘What’s up?’

  Henderson came and interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘Uh, nothing. Just trying to see through the case, in case we have missed something’

  ‘Oh, yeah. How far are we?’