CHAPTER FINALE: CASE CLOSED
“S-E-R-E-N-I-T-Y, Serenity! Hah! Another triple and double-letter word! Guess I’m gonna win this time!”
“Not fair! I haven’t got enough vowels!”
The CSI members were playing Scrabble with Justin watching at the side as the point keeper. The case was finally over and Lionel was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Cliff, Gary, Cliff and the other members of the basketball team. He will be sent to a juvenile home and will remain there until he was old enough to be sent into prison to serve the rest of his life sentence. It was a bad mistake for Judith, Jonathan and Elaine to challenge the Human Library Rachel because as Justin calculated, she was leading and fast. She had the upper hand in the game and the other players were getting pretty frustrated.
“Yes! I got a word…M-O-N-S-T-E-R, Monster!” Elaine exclaimed and gestured Justin to count the marks. “So, Jude, tell me again, how exactly did you break into Lionel’s house to get that picture?”
“I didn’t exactly break into his house. I simply used the old card-in-the-slot trick and went in,” Judith said as she stared feverishly at her piece to see what word she could make. “It was a piece of cake, no biggie. Ah, I got a word…T-I-G-E-R and add an A in here which makes R-A-G-E! Yeah, baby! I’m going for the gold!”
“And Rach,” Elaine turned towards Rachel who was taking a sip from her ‘I’m No. #1’ mug. “I didn’t know that you actually were together with Jude in suspecting Lionel being the culprit!”
“Just doing my job as a Human Library,” Rachel replied. “Whatever you have discovered in the end is not entirely my business.”
“Searching someone’s house without a warrant and withholding evidence is against protocol, Jude,” Jonathan warned as he made a word Y-U-L-E-T-I-D-E on the Scrabble board. “You’re lucky I don’t demerit you or something. You too, Rach, for withholding evidence and knowledge about the case.”
“Come on, chill out, Mark David!” Judith waved his warning away, resulting to a venomous look from her head of the crime lab. “You wanna get a clue to solve the mystery, you gotta go down to the edge, man! Lighten up a little, won’t you? Besides, I did have a warrant, but it so happens that no one was at home, so there.”
“Hey, guys!” Rebecca, who wasn’t in the recreational room playing the Scrabble game, came barging into the room looking very excited indeed. “Hey, you guys remember our old friend from high school Wilkins Lim?”
“Do I?!” Elaine exclaimed, turning sharply at her. “He was the bomb in high school, and he was our ol’ Jude’s puppy love here! What about him?”
“He just inherited his grandpa’s fortune and first thing he did was fulfill his life-long dream: opening a casino! It’s called ‘Viva Kuala Lumpur’ and it has just opened tonight! We’re all invited to go!”
“Yayy! I can play Cho-Dai-Dee (a Hong Kong kind of gambling game)!!” Elaine cheered and got up with a thrice, rushing out of the recreational room with Rebecca. Justin followed suite; he didn’t mind a little gambling or two.
“Hey, not fair! I was about to win this game!” Rachel protested at first, then stared at the Scrabble board for a while before calling, “Hey, guys! Wait for me!”
That leaves Judith and Jonathan all alone in the recreational room. Judith chuckled and put away the Scrabble board and its letters. Jonathan asked curiously, “Aren’t you going to go too? I thought you’re an outlaw and wouldn’t miss gambling for the world.”
“Let’s just say I’m an outlaw who has limits,” Judith replied.
“So, uh…how did you guess that Lionel was gay?”
“Anyone who had fallen in love more than 5 times in a row would easily notice if someone else is in love, whether he’s gay or straight. And I say it through experience, if you know what I mean.”
“Then…uh…how did you know that he would, you know, want to commit suicide after he completed his revenge over all the basketball members?”
“Coz that’s what I did when I lost my 3rd boyfriend to a car accident.” Judith replied nonchalantly. “I guess I’m actually seeing a little bit of myself in him.”
“You…You what??” Jonathan was shocked. “You actually…You actually committed suicide?! I thought you said that…”
“I know—that it’s not worth it and that committing suicide is one of the stupidest things to do. Well, I didn’t know it until I actually did it. I was there in the ambulance when he said his last words and died. I was so devastated that I couldn’t think straight. I took my mother’s headache pills and stuffed them all into my gut,” Judith replied as she slipped the Scrabble box into the shelf. “And my mother had to rush me to the hospital to get my stomach pumped. Thank goodness that didn’t happen during my last worse off relationship, huh?”
“You’re not still sore about us in college, are you?” Jonathan asked, his face showing a slightly worried look.
“Of course not. Why would I?” Judith replied, her voice obviously sounding a little hurt.
“Because a person who was in love once could tell whether someone is hurt about past relationships, that’s why.”
“Look,” Judith turned abruptly towards Jonathan. “That was back in college, OK? I was the one who had that silly crush on you and I was the one to call off the relationship, remember? My mother didn’t like you, and you sure didn’t find favour in my dad’s eyes, and after calling off the relationship, I realized that there’s nothing worth for me to hold on to the old feelings anymore, alright? Sure, maybe all my feelings and sacrifices to be with you and all the sweet nothings we talk about in the phone and all that has been flushed down the toilet, but life must go on, right? It’s no biggie.”
“Hey, I know I kinda made a bad impression on your folks back then,” Jonathan tried to speak for himself, “but that time I was nervous. Guys always feel nervous when they’re asked by their girlfriends to meet the parents. I am still a little sore about it too, and I’m sorry that our relationship was a little bit blur since then…”
“Blur? It wasn’t blur, it was practically non-existing! We meet in college everyday, talk about nothing but your stupid anime and all, and then we just go home! My mom was right—you’re too young for me and you’re not in the right mind to ask me out on a date or something! Normal people would! Not you though! You just sit around marveling at your Genzomaden Saiyuki and your Gundam Wing and your Evangelion and all that! Hey, I like anime too, but that doesn’t mean I should be hanging on it 24/7! That is not normal, OK? Sometimes I myself wonder how I was able to tolerate you! Love is blind!”
“Sunimase, OK? Sunimase! I’m really, really sorry about all this. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I still remember the day you confessed your feelings to me during the Leadership Conference at Sunway Lagoon back then…I am flattered, really, I am. I just can’t help myself. I needed time to adjust to this new kind of relationship you’ve offered me and…I guess I screwed up, huh?”
“Big time,” Judith replied, folding her arms and turning her back at him.
“Well…would it be OK if we go and grab some supper then at Hard Rock Café? Just the two of us?” Jonathan asked hopefully.
“Nah, it’s not worth it. Our relationship is not worth the trouble anymore.”
“Come on, don’t be sentimental here. Please? As friends?”
Judith turned around and saw Jonathan holding out his hand with a hopeful look on his face. Judith finally sighed and said, “Oh, alright. But just as a friend. No more than that, you got me?”
“Absolutely,” Jonathan grinned.
So, after turning off the lights of the recreational room, the couple—now friends—walked out of the crime lab and out of the building to enjoy their supper.
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Saturday, April 29, 2017
CSI: Asia-Chp16
CHAPTER 16: SECRETS UNVEILED
The CSI members gathered around Lionel in the questioning room, looking quite satisfied and triumphant about something. Lionel looked at them as if he had no business being in this room. Before the CSI members could say anything, Lionel had a head-start.
“Hey, what are you guys putting me in here for? We’re getting ready for the IH competition, the most important competition in all basketball history and I should be at school practicing my throws, not sitting here being questioned like a criminal!”
“Oh, don’t worry, it won’t take very long, Lionel,” Jonathan replied. “We’re all here to tell you a little story.”
“What?” Lionel looked at the head of the crime lab in disbelief. “I’ve been brought all the way here just to listen to some sort of silly 5-year-old story? What do you take me for, a kid? I have no time for this, I gotta go…”
“Patience, boy, patience,” Judith said as she and Elaine came forward to sit him back down. “Patience is virtue, you know. Didn’t your Moral teacher teach you that?”
“OK, we’ll start this story from the very beginning,” Jonathan said as he played with his gun. “It all started with a boy, who was a jock, and his 4 friends. They were like peas in a pod. They ate together, they played basketball together, they hang out together, they watch horror movies together and they even slept together when they’re having their boy slumber parties. They are practically inseparable. There are no friends closer than they were.”
“But one of the friendships ended because of a harmless prank,” Elaine continued. “It was the day when these 5 friends gathered together at the jock’s house to celebrate the end of the PMR examination. They had so much fun and had too much to drink that they decided to play a trick on the bookworm of the gang. They knew that the bookworm had a certain fear for the dark and would never sleep without the nightlights on, so they decided to put the bookworm inside the storeroom for an hour or so just to give him a small fright.”
“Somehow they forgot about that bookworm because they were having too much fun drinking and celebrating,” Rebecca said her share of the story. “The poor bookworm stayed in that dusty, dark and cold storeroom for the whole night. It was only about morning and when the gang was slightly sober that they remembered the bookworm. They rushed to his aid and found that the bookworm was so petrified and was so phobic of the dark that he suffered a minor shock. He was so afraid that they would do the same thing again to him that he decided not to hang out with them so much anymore.”
“Normal people would’ve just forgotten about the prank and continue to hang with their friends as usual,” Jonathan said, “but this bookworm didn’t. It was then that the jock found out that the bookworm had been bullied a lot by other people in his basketball team just because he was a reserve and serves no significant importance to the team, except as a punching bag. The jock’s other best friends also played along with the basketball team members. The bookworm thought that the jock and his gang were the only true friends he had, but after the prank, he realized that even friends would betray him, so he stopped being too much of a close friend anymore.”
“What the bookworm didn’t know,” Judith said as she moved closer towards Lionel, “is that there was someone who wouldn’t stand him being away from the team and wouldn’t stand letting him being bullied and pushed over. That someone decided to help him get back at all the people who had wronged him and make them pay for what they have done to the bookworm. That someone is you, Lionel. You are the knight of vengeance behind his back.”
“What…? I’m the murderer…?” Lionel laughed nervously. “You gotta be kidding me…right? You know I wouldn’t kill my best friends! They’ve been with me since the beginning of high school! I wouldn’t…”
“Oh, yes, you would,” Jonathan said as he fiddled with the safety click of the gun. “You would do anything to make Jeremy feel safe and secure and happy, even if it means killing the person who hurt him deeply.”
“You’re not making any sense! You’ve seen it for yourself! I’ve got alibis! My siblings were killed when I was downstairs with my friends in the party! I received the call from the murderer! And Cliff was murdered at Alor Setar, and I was at home for the mourning period! You were at my house interrogating me! You should’ve known better than to accuse me!”
“Yes, you didn’t kill your siblings and Cliff,” Elaine said, lighting her cigarette. “But you were the mastermind behind all this. You have provided the murder weapon and the instructions for them to do your dirty work before you eliminated them yourself. The first murder was done by Cliff, under your orders. You threatened to expose his horny affairs with the girls he picked up and you threatened to tell his parents about him making one of his girls pregnant and forcing her to abort it. I’ve been walking around your house for a while that day when we questioned you. I was smoking, remember? And I looked over your house. I saw that at the knife rack, there was one knife missing. First, I thought maybe the murderer sneaked into your home from the back door at your kitchen, but the rayon thread was a dead giveaway. And also, close body contact in a cramped party place would make people at least feel if anyone was going in or out of the house.”
“Rayon clothes are way out of season and besides being a jock, your friend Nicholas told us that you were a fashion freak, never missing a single chance to try out the latest fashion trend,” Rebecca gave her deduction on the case. “Part of the rayon thread was covered with tiny particles left from moth balls, and moth balls only come from putting things in the storeroom for too long, which means that you have been into rayon clothes for a while and once the trend was over, you stashed it into the storeroom.”
“You gave Cliff the rayon shirt to distract us from the investigation and also gave the knife to Cliff the day before the party, and you went to the nearest hardware store—namely the Jothan Lo’s Fixit & Co—dress as a woman to buy a new and sharpened axe and gave that to Cliff too,” Justin said. “You ordered him to enter the house through the window of your siblings’ room because of his ability to climb and ordered him to commit the murders and make the phone call. And at the state of the guests’ confusion, Cliff came to the party late pretending to be unaware of the murder, just like you told him to be. And before the murder, you ordered Cliff to sandpaper the brand of the axe so that we won’t find out where it came from.”
“This is insane. Why would I want to kill my own brothers and sister?” Lionel asked. Jonathan could see that he was pretending to be innocent and calm about all these accusations.
“Because after the prank, you tried to find out why he stopped being your friend so much, and it turned out that besides your basketball team members, your siblings have been also giving him a hard time,” Jonathan said. “You found out about Jeremy’s job as a part-time night tuition teacher and your siblings being part of his class, and they treated him more like a sucker than a teacher because they knew about the prank you and your friends did to him and his phobia of the dark. You couldn’t let that go unpunished, could you?”
“Then you tell me, how did I kill Cliff? You knew I wasn’t with them at the concert where he was murdered! I was at home mourning!” Lionel was still indignant about letting the cat out of the bag.
“That, my friend,” Rachel said, “was done by another of your friend Gary. You ordered Gary to get rid of Cliff to silence him and also punish him for pulling the prank on Jeremy. You threatened to tell on Gary about him being in a teenage correctional institute that he had kept secret from his high-classed girlfriend and ordered him to finish Cliff off. You gave him the murder weapon and the gloves so that he won’t get his prints on and gave him the rope and that special backpack so that he could hide the blood-stained clothes and a piece of his gut inside to be later passed to you. You also gave him instructions on how to kill him and how to hang him on the tree and all. But he made just a few simple mistakes.”
“He lost the murder weapon you gave him,” Judith said. “He got it confiscated by the teacher because he was showing it off to his ERT friends and his girlfriend and the teacher thought that knife was too dangerous and not suitable for cooking. He was afraid that if he didn’t finish the job, he’ll be in big trouble of exposure of his darkest secrets. So he had to go to get something new, something that is worth to be a weapon. He got Jeremy’s army knife when he went to his house to borrow his homework. After doing the murder as you ordered and after hiding the evidence and everything, he made another mistake. When he and the gang came over to check out where Cliff is, Gary accidentally exposed his crime by saying that he was ‘hanging at the tree dead’. That was a dead giveaway (A/N: If you don’t remember that go to Chap 5 and Chap 11 and take a look) because if he didn’t commit the crime he wouldn’t have known Cliff hung on the tree.”
“You found out about him using Jeremy’s army knife and that got you more powered to kill him, so you used a more wicked urban legend to ruin his life—by using the kidney removal legend,” Justin said, “just to make him suffer a more horrible fate than death. You and your gang have been in his house for a slumber party before and you’re the only one who knew very well the ins and outs of his house because you’ve been planning this for a while. And this time you ordered Nicholas to do it because you knew he was the only person that studies in Science Stream and his father was a surgeon and that you knew he also had a dark secret to keep—he once went to the hospital when he was a kid to look for his father to give him his lunch and was curious about the breathing support machine in one of the ICU wards. He played with it and accidentally turned off the machine in the process. Needless to say, the patient almost got killed.”
“You threatened to tell that to his father and forced him to commit the murder,” Elaine said. “As usual, you prepared the murder weapon and the instructions, told him about the secret door in the wine cellar and he did the dirty work. Finally the rest of the murders, you did it with your own two hands. Seeing that your attempt to murder your friends using them as guinea pigs to carry on your plans worked, you finally decided to try it yourself. You used all kinds of urban legends you watched in the horror movies on those guys who wronged Jeremy and made them pay.”
“First you killed Nicholas using the urban legend about not turning light on because you knew that he shared the room with his younger brother and he hated it when the brother comes in and turned the lights on without checking if he was asleep or not,” Rebecca deduced. “Then you killed the twins Derek and Desmond with the urban legend about the headlights, Kevin with the hallway death urban legend, Terry with the dog urban legend, etc, etc…You were really good. You’ve done exactly what a horror movie would do and you could’ve left us baffled forever and get away with it.”
“But you have made one simple mistake with Gerald though,” Jonathan pointed out, “because you were so angry with this guy that you ate a part of him right at the spot.”
“I…ate Gerald?” Lionel widened his eyes. “What do you mean I ate a part of Gerald? You make me sound like a cannibal or something.”
“Hannibal Lector,” Justin said. “Does that ring a bell? Besides copying the movie patterns of Urban Legends and H2O, you were also copying a small portion of the movie Hannibal. In the movie Hannibal Lector killed his victims and ate them. You took a portion of the body from every victim you killed or ordered to kill and ate them out of anger and out of vengeance. You ate them because you hated them so much that you just want them to dissolve and be gone or probably even consume their soul in you just like that.”
“But Gerald had done something to Jeremy you were so angry of him doing,” Rachel continued. “He did something to Jeremy you swore you’ll never do again—he locked him in the sports room and left him there for the whole night. When the janitor came to clean the sports room, he was shocked to see Jeremy curled at one corner mumbling to himself and barely being able to get a grip on reality. He had to stay at home for one month straight and receive personal therapy. You were so mad at Gerald that you killed him using the other babysitter urban legend and waited until he bled to death before sitting beside his body and ate one of his hacked arms raw.”
“We found your DNA from the drool that dripped on the left hacked arm of Gerald,” Justin said as he took out a transparent plastic paper showing DNA codes and a picture of Gerald’s body on the floor with the hacked left arm circled. You can hide your evidence and your murder weapon and everything, but you cannot hide your DNA. You can’t even deny it. Looks like you’re pretty much a sloppy eater when it comes to rage, huh?”
“You were so angry and so pissed off at Gerald for locking Jeremy in that dark sports room that it went up to your head in those steam and heat to think straight anymore,” Judith concluded. “You wanted to consume his soul there and then and make him pay for what he had done to Jeremy,” Judith leaned closer towards Lionel and stared at him straight in the eyes and said in a low voice, “You have a crush on him, don’t you? That’s your dark secret—you’re in love with Jeremy.”
“What…? Are you mad? I’m not gay! What the heck are you thinking?” Lionel’s face twisted in some sort of a half-shocked-half-denial look and was going pale. The rest of the CSI members were shocked too; they had no idea she could think of something such as absurd as that.
“Don’t lie to me,” Judith said as she fished out a picture and tossed it in front of Lionel. Everyone lowered their bodies to take a look because they had never thought there would be new evidence. Only Rachel wasn’t surprised to see it because she had been shown that picture before. They, except Rachel, were shocked to see that it was a picture of Lionel and Jeremy together pretty much naked with only a bed sheet over their lower part of the body and that Lionel was actually kissing Jeremy on the cheek. It looked as if they were posing in a private photo studio or something. Lionel looked really pale indeed.
“Admit it, Lionel,” Judith said, putting her hands on her hips. “You were having a crush on Jeremy and you were so in love with him that you would do anything for him, even if it means destroying the people that hurt him. When you and your family went to Subang Jaya that evening, I’ve snuck into your home and I’ve found this in your mini-briefcase in your closet. It came with a receipt which led me to your cousin’s photo studio downtown. He told me that you and Jeremy were just fooling around and took this picture for fun, but you have your own agenda. You wanted to take that picture because you always wanted to be this close with Jeremy without him suspecting anything. Lucky for you he didn’t.”
Lionel looked down at the picture and took it slowly, putting it close to his chest, his face looking defeated and down. No one tried to stop him. Judith laid her hand on his shoulder and said kindly, “I know you have strong feelings for Jeremy, and I understand deeply how it feels to love someone so deeply and when that someone you love gets hurt you might feel helpless for not trying to help him. I understand how it feels when you are willing to do anything to make him happy and secure, but killing is not the way. The more you hate and kill the people that hurt your Jeremy, the more serious the hate would become because there would always be someone else to hurt him again. You can protect him whatever way you can, but this is not the way.”
As she spoke, she slipped her hand into Lionel’s jacket and took out a small bottle of sleeping pills. That was something else the other CSI members didn’t expect to see, not even Rachel. Lionel again was taken aback by Judith’s knowledge of the pills in his jacket pocket. Judith shook her head and sighed, saying, “I knew you would do this. After making sure that everyone was eliminated and that no one will ever harm Jeremy again, you’re thinking of committing suicide to punish yourself for pulling the first prank, aren’t you? It’s not worth it, Lionel, it’s not worth it.”
Finally, Lionel buried his head in his arms and slumped over onto the table, sobbing, “They hurt Jeremy. They hurt him so badly. So bad that he didn’t want…to be with us…or with me anymore…I couldn’t stand him being away…I love him…I love him…so…much…”
The CSI members gathered around Lionel in the questioning room, looking quite satisfied and triumphant about something. Lionel looked at them as if he had no business being in this room. Before the CSI members could say anything, Lionel had a head-start.
“Hey, what are you guys putting me in here for? We’re getting ready for the IH competition, the most important competition in all basketball history and I should be at school practicing my throws, not sitting here being questioned like a criminal!”
“Oh, don’t worry, it won’t take very long, Lionel,” Jonathan replied. “We’re all here to tell you a little story.”
“What?” Lionel looked at the head of the crime lab in disbelief. “I’ve been brought all the way here just to listen to some sort of silly 5-year-old story? What do you take me for, a kid? I have no time for this, I gotta go…”
“Patience, boy, patience,” Judith said as she and Elaine came forward to sit him back down. “Patience is virtue, you know. Didn’t your Moral teacher teach you that?”
“OK, we’ll start this story from the very beginning,” Jonathan said as he played with his gun. “It all started with a boy, who was a jock, and his 4 friends. They were like peas in a pod. They ate together, they played basketball together, they hang out together, they watch horror movies together and they even slept together when they’re having their boy slumber parties. They are practically inseparable. There are no friends closer than they were.”
“But one of the friendships ended because of a harmless prank,” Elaine continued. “It was the day when these 5 friends gathered together at the jock’s house to celebrate the end of the PMR examination. They had so much fun and had too much to drink that they decided to play a trick on the bookworm of the gang. They knew that the bookworm had a certain fear for the dark and would never sleep without the nightlights on, so they decided to put the bookworm inside the storeroom for an hour or so just to give him a small fright.”
“Somehow they forgot about that bookworm because they were having too much fun drinking and celebrating,” Rebecca said her share of the story. “The poor bookworm stayed in that dusty, dark and cold storeroom for the whole night. It was only about morning and when the gang was slightly sober that they remembered the bookworm. They rushed to his aid and found that the bookworm was so petrified and was so phobic of the dark that he suffered a minor shock. He was so afraid that they would do the same thing again to him that he decided not to hang out with them so much anymore.”
“Normal people would’ve just forgotten about the prank and continue to hang with their friends as usual,” Jonathan said, “but this bookworm didn’t. It was then that the jock found out that the bookworm had been bullied a lot by other people in his basketball team just because he was a reserve and serves no significant importance to the team, except as a punching bag. The jock’s other best friends also played along with the basketball team members. The bookworm thought that the jock and his gang were the only true friends he had, but after the prank, he realized that even friends would betray him, so he stopped being too much of a close friend anymore.”
“What the bookworm didn’t know,” Judith said as she moved closer towards Lionel, “is that there was someone who wouldn’t stand him being away from the team and wouldn’t stand letting him being bullied and pushed over. That someone decided to help him get back at all the people who had wronged him and make them pay for what they have done to the bookworm. That someone is you, Lionel. You are the knight of vengeance behind his back.”
“What…? I’m the murderer…?” Lionel laughed nervously. “You gotta be kidding me…right? You know I wouldn’t kill my best friends! They’ve been with me since the beginning of high school! I wouldn’t…”
“Oh, yes, you would,” Jonathan said as he fiddled with the safety click of the gun. “You would do anything to make Jeremy feel safe and secure and happy, even if it means killing the person who hurt him deeply.”
“You’re not making any sense! You’ve seen it for yourself! I’ve got alibis! My siblings were killed when I was downstairs with my friends in the party! I received the call from the murderer! And Cliff was murdered at Alor Setar, and I was at home for the mourning period! You were at my house interrogating me! You should’ve known better than to accuse me!”
“Yes, you didn’t kill your siblings and Cliff,” Elaine said, lighting her cigarette. “But you were the mastermind behind all this. You have provided the murder weapon and the instructions for them to do your dirty work before you eliminated them yourself. The first murder was done by Cliff, under your orders. You threatened to expose his horny affairs with the girls he picked up and you threatened to tell his parents about him making one of his girls pregnant and forcing her to abort it. I’ve been walking around your house for a while that day when we questioned you. I was smoking, remember? And I looked over your house. I saw that at the knife rack, there was one knife missing. First, I thought maybe the murderer sneaked into your home from the back door at your kitchen, but the rayon thread was a dead giveaway. And also, close body contact in a cramped party place would make people at least feel if anyone was going in or out of the house.”
“Rayon clothes are way out of season and besides being a jock, your friend Nicholas told us that you were a fashion freak, never missing a single chance to try out the latest fashion trend,” Rebecca gave her deduction on the case. “Part of the rayon thread was covered with tiny particles left from moth balls, and moth balls only come from putting things in the storeroom for too long, which means that you have been into rayon clothes for a while and once the trend was over, you stashed it into the storeroom.”
“You gave Cliff the rayon shirt to distract us from the investigation and also gave the knife to Cliff the day before the party, and you went to the nearest hardware store—namely the Jothan Lo’s Fixit & Co—dress as a woman to buy a new and sharpened axe and gave that to Cliff too,” Justin said. “You ordered him to enter the house through the window of your siblings’ room because of his ability to climb and ordered him to commit the murders and make the phone call. And at the state of the guests’ confusion, Cliff came to the party late pretending to be unaware of the murder, just like you told him to be. And before the murder, you ordered Cliff to sandpaper the brand of the axe so that we won’t find out where it came from.”
“This is insane. Why would I want to kill my own brothers and sister?” Lionel asked. Jonathan could see that he was pretending to be innocent and calm about all these accusations.
“Because after the prank, you tried to find out why he stopped being your friend so much, and it turned out that besides your basketball team members, your siblings have been also giving him a hard time,” Jonathan said. “You found out about Jeremy’s job as a part-time night tuition teacher and your siblings being part of his class, and they treated him more like a sucker than a teacher because they knew about the prank you and your friends did to him and his phobia of the dark. You couldn’t let that go unpunished, could you?”
“Then you tell me, how did I kill Cliff? You knew I wasn’t with them at the concert where he was murdered! I was at home mourning!” Lionel was still indignant about letting the cat out of the bag.
“That, my friend,” Rachel said, “was done by another of your friend Gary. You ordered Gary to get rid of Cliff to silence him and also punish him for pulling the prank on Jeremy. You threatened to tell on Gary about him being in a teenage correctional institute that he had kept secret from his high-classed girlfriend and ordered him to finish Cliff off. You gave him the murder weapon and the gloves so that he won’t get his prints on and gave him the rope and that special backpack so that he could hide the blood-stained clothes and a piece of his gut inside to be later passed to you. You also gave him instructions on how to kill him and how to hang him on the tree and all. But he made just a few simple mistakes.”
“He lost the murder weapon you gave him,” Judith said. “He got it confiscated by the teacher because he was showing it off to his ERT friends and his girlfriend and the teacher thought that knife was too dangerous and not suitable for cooking. He was afraid that if he didn’t finish the job, he’ll be in big trouble of exposure of his darkest secrets. So he had to go to get something new, something that is worth to be a weapon. He got Jeremy’s army knife when he went to his house to borrow his homework. After doing the murder as you ordered and after hiding the evidence and everything, he made another mistake. When he and the gang came over to check out where Cliff is, Gary accidentally exposed his crime by saying that he was ‘hanging at the tree dead’. That was a dead giveaway (A/N: If you don’t remember that go to Chap 5 and Chap 11 and take a look) because if he didn’t commit the crime he wouldn’t have known Cliff hung on the tree.”
“You found out about him using Jeremy’s army knife and that got you more powered to kill him, so you used a more wicked urban legend to ruin his life—by using the kidney removal legend,” Justin said, “just to make him suffer a more horrible fate than death. You and your gang have been in his house for a slumber party before and you’re the only one who knew very well the ins and outs of his house because you’ve been planning this for a while. And this time you ordered Nicholas to do it because you knew he was the only person that studies in Science Stream and his father was a surgeon and that you knew he also had a dark secret to keep—he once went to the hospital when he was a kid to look for his father to give him his lunch and was curious about the breathing support machine in one of the ICU wards. He played with it and accidentally turned off the machine in the process. Needless to say, the patient almost got killed.”
“You threatened to tell that to his father and forced him to commit the murder,” Elaine said. “As usual, you prepared the murder weapon and the instructions, told him about the secret door in the wine cellar and he did the dirty work. Finally the rest of the murders, you did it with your own two hands. Seeing that your attempt to murder your friends using them as guinea pigs to carry on your plans worked, you finally decided to try it yourself. You used all kinds of urban legends you watched in the horror movies on those guys who wronged Jeremy and made them pay.”
“First you killed Nicholas using the urban legend about not turning light on because you knew that he shared the room with his younger brother and he hated it when the brother comes in and turned the lights on without checking if he was asleep or not,” Rebecca deduced. “Then you killed the twins Derek and Desmond with the urban legend about the headlights, Kevin with the hallway death urban legend, Terry with the dog urban legend, etc, etc…You were really good. You’ve done exactly what a horror movie would do and you could’ve left us baffled forever and get away with it.”
“But you have made one simple mistake with Gerald though,” Jonathan pointed out, “because you were so angry with this guy that you ate a part of him right at the spot.”
“I…ate Gerald?” Lionel widened his eyes. “What do you mean I ate a part of Gerald? You make me sound like a cannibal or something.”
“Hannibal Lector,” Justin said. “Does that ring a bell? Besides copying the movie patterns of Urban Legends and H2O, you were also copying a small portion of the movie Hannibal. In the movie Hannibal Lector killed his victims and ate them. You took a portion of the body from every victim you killed or ordered to kill and ate them out of anger and out of vengeance. You ate them because you hated them so much that you just want them to dissolve and be gone or probably even consume their soul in you just like that.”
“But Gerald had done something to Jeremy you were so angry of him doing,” Rachel continued. “He did something to Jeremy you swore you’ll never do again—he locked him in the sports room and left him there for the whole night. When the janitor came to clean the sports room, he was shocked to see Jeremy curled at one corner mumbling to himself and barely being able to get a grip on reality. He had to stay at home for one month straight and receive personal therapy. You were so mad at Gerald that you killed him using the other babysitter urban legend and waited until he bled to death before sitting beside his body and ate one of his hacked arms raw.”
“We found your DNA from the drool that dripped on the left hacked arm of Gerald,” Justin said as he took out a transparent plastic paper showing DNA codes and a picture of Gerald’s body on the floor with the hacked left arm circled. You can hide your evidence and your murder weapon and everything, but you cannot hide your DNA. You can’t even deny it. Looks like you’re pretty much a sloppy eater when it comes to rage, huh?”
“You were so angry and so pissed off at Gerald for locking Jeremy in that dark sports room that it went up to your head in those steam and heat to think straight anymore,” Judith concluded. “You wanted to consume his soul there and then and make him pay for what he had done to Jeremy,” Judith leaned closer towards Lionel and stared at him straight in the eyes and said in a low voice, “You have a crush on him, don’t you? That’s your dark secret—you’re in love with Jeremy.”
“What…? Are you mad? I’m not gay! What the heck are you thinking?” Lionel’s face twisted in some sort of a half-shocked-half-denial look and was going pale. The rest of the CSI members were shocked too; they had no idea she could think of something such as absurd as that.
“Don’t lie to me,” Judith said as she fished out a picture and tossed it in front of Lionel. Everyone lowered their bodies to take a look because they had never thought there would be new evidence. Only Rachel wasn’t surprised to see it because she had been shown that picture before. They, except Rachel, were shocked to see that it was a picture of Lionel and Jeremy together pretty much naked with only a bed sheet over their lower part of the body and that Lionel was actually kissing Jeremy on the cheek. It looked as if they were posing in a private photo studio or something. Lionel looked really pale indeed.
“Admit it, Lionel,” Judith said, putting her hands on her hips. “You were having a crush on Jeremy and you were so in love with him that you would do anything for him, even if it means destroying the people that hurt him. When you and your family went to Subang Jaya that evening, I’ve snuck into your home and I’ve found this in your mini-briefcase in your closet. It came with a receipt which led me to your cousin’s photo studio downtown. He told me that you and Jeremy were just fooling around and took this picture for fun, but you have your own agenda. You wanted to take that picture because you always wanted to be this close with Jeremy without him suspecting anything. Lucky for you he didn’t.”
Lionel looked down at the picture and took it slowly, putting it close to his chest, his face looking defeated and down. No one tried to stop him. Judith laid her hand on his shoulder and said kindly, “I know you have strong feelings for Jeremy, and I understand deeply how it feels to love someone so deeply and when that someone you love gets hurt you might feel helpless for not trying to help him. I understand how it feels when you are willing to do anything to make him happy and secure, but killing is not the way. The more you hate and kill the people that hurt your Jeremy, the more serious the hate would become because there would always be someone else to hurt him again. You can protect him whatever way you can, but this is not the way.”
As she spoke, she slipped her hand into Lionel’s jacket and took out a small bottle of sleeping pills. That was something else the other CSI members didn’t expect to see, not even Rachel. Lionel again was taken aback by Judith’s knowledge of the pills in his jacket pocket. Judith shook her head and sighed, saying, “I knew you would do this. After making sure that everyone was eliminated and that no one will ever harm Jeremy again, you’re thinking of committing suicide to punish yourself for pulling the first prank, aren’t you? It’s not worth it, Lionel, it’s not worth it.”
Finally, Lionel buried his head in his arms and slumped over onto the table, sobbing, “They hurt Jeremy. They hurt him so badly. So bad that he didn’t want…to be with us…or with me anymore…I couldn’t stand him being away…I love him…I love him…so…much…”
CSI: Asia-Chp15
CHAPTER 15: THE ANSWER TO ALL QUESTIONS
Everyone was up and ready to get on with the case. They have recently received another murder case—as told by Jonathan ‘coz he’s the only one staying back in the crime lab (like Grissom)—about another victim from the basketball team had been killed at his own home. Turned out that Gerald, the victim, was babysitting his neighbour’s kids when suddenly he was under attack by their ol’ friend The Urban Legend Copycat Killer. Both his arms were chopped of and they have found one dumped somewhere near the doghouse. They couldn’t find the other. His body was on the staircase and they assumed that he was trying to escape from the killer. Obviously, he was too late.
Needless to say, this was also one of the urban legends.
Now that the suspect’s gender had taken a swift turn, Lionel and Jeremy were soon out of the list of suspicion. Everyone was now looking for a girl with dyed burgundy hair and has a taste for blood.
Well, not exactly everyone. Judith still had doubts about the suspect. She still believed that the suspect was a guy and that this case was getting slightly personal. I mean getting back at someone who had bullied you sure wasn’t a big crime—she had a few shares of getting back at people—but to kill someone for it, that was too much. She had Elaine as backup to her theory but it’s just not enough to convince Jonathan otherwise. She had to get to the real culprit before the whole basketball team gets mauled or something even worse happen.
While the CSI team was trying to figure out who the culprit was, Jonathan was busy hooking up some more papers on protective custody. This time, he wasn’t taking any chances. He was going to make sure that every one of those possible victims made it out of this hellish nightmare alive. He was planning to go to SM Victoria Institution and gather the rest of the basketball team to announce their protective custody plan. At first, Rebecca volunteered to go—she definitely had a knack of wanting to announce to the people that she was going to save the world or something—but instead, Jonathan chose Judith to go with him. Elaine could guess what it was all about, but she’d rather not say anything. She could tell by Jonathan’s tone and by the looks of things that he and Judith needed to be alone, so when she noticed the rest wanting to go on this ‘rescue mission’, she dragged them away and said loudly on purpose that she needed their help on cracking more evidence.
In the car, Judith and Jonathan discussed briefly on Jonathan’s favourite anime like Gundam Wing, Evangelion and Gatekeepers. Not that she had much idea about the anime, but she entertained him just the same. Their topic slowly drifted towards the case.
“So, any leads yet to who might be the culprit?” Judith asked.
“Not much,” Jonathan admitted. “What I’ve learnt from Jeremy’s personal background was that he never had many girlfriends. He had one or two during Form 1 or 2, but they weren’t serious, and it was the girls who broke it off. And he’s not exactly the most popular guy among girls either. He pretty much keeps himself to himself. I can’t figure out who could have liked him so much to be willing to kill for him.”
“What about friends outside of school?”
“He’s, like what his friends said, a living, breathing human geek. Besides basketball or any other extra curricular activities, he doesn’t go out much. Like I said, not very popular. You? Who do you think killed those people?”
“I still think it’s a guy,” Judith replied firmly, “and it has to be one of the members in the basketball team.”
“Like who? I mean almost everyone there bullies Jeremy and none of them really gives a darn about him,” Jonathan said as he took a left turn. “Even his group of best friends bullied him with that prank. Who else can you expect?”
“Maybe. Just maybe…” Judith tapped her chin thoughtfully, her mind obviously working. Jonathan let out an exasperated sigh.
“Just let it go, Jude. The suspect is already obvious. You don’t have to cramp your brain trying to figure out what’s not possible.”
“Now you are acting like a walking contradiction!” Judith exclaimed, glaring at Jonathan accusingly. “You always teach me to think outside the box, suspect the unsuspected and always look for the non-obvious ones, and yet you are not practicing what you preach!”
“Well, sorry for not teaching you that when things are already screaming guilty at your face, you shouldn’t think otherwise,” Jonathan said, annoyed, and stopped when there was a red light.
“Just hush and let me think for a moment, alright?” Judith said and went back to her thoughts.
Jonathan sighed and let her be for a while. Judith continued to have that serious look on her face trying to figure out the whole thing and trying to come up with a logical theory for all this. Jonathan couldn’t help feeling that she looked almost like Detective Conan or Hajime Kindaichi when she did that. After a few more minutes, they’ve finally reached SM Victoria Institution. Judith was still lost in her thoughts to notice and Jonathan had to shake her back to reality.
“Hey, baka-onna. We’re here!”
“Huh?” Judith was knocked out of her senses almost immediately. “Sorry, wasn’t paying attention. Let’s go.”
“Do you remember to bring the documents with you?” Jonathan asked.
“Yeah, I have,” Judith waved a brown envelope at him.
As Jonathan locked the car, without looking at Judith, he asked, “Jude, is there anything you want to tell me about?”
“What do you mean?” Judith asked, slightly surprised, as if she knew what Jonathan meant.
“You know what I mean. It’s not right to bottle it up and keep as a secret, you know. I can see that something has happened last night and that’s why you’re wracking your brains so much. And you wouldn’t tell me what. I thought we had a deal about not keeping secrets to each other.”
“My personal life is none of your concern anymore,” Judith replied in a serious tone, “and you shouldn’t be prying into other people’s business unless it’s professionally important. Besides I never made such a deal. You made it up.”
Jonathan wanted to rebut her again but finally decided against it, sighing, “Fine, whatever. Sooner or later you’re gonna come clean with me.”
They walked all the way to the Headmaster’s office to tell him about their intention. The Headmaster soon sent for the office boy to tell the people in charge of the P.A. system to make an announcement that all the basketball players gather at the basketball court immediately. The teens did as they were told and within minutes, they were all present and were sitting on the spectators’ seat listening carefully to Jonathan’s plans and instructions about their protective custody issue. Just then, Jonathan noticed that there were a few people missing.
“Where are Jeremy and Lionel?” Jonathan asked.
“Lionel has gone off to Subang Jaya with his family to bury the brother and sister,” one of the team members voiced out. “Jeremy is calling in sick today and won’t be in school for a month.”
“A month?” Judith was taken aback. “What was he going to do at home for a month?”
“Personal therapy, that’s what I heard,” another member replied. “He got into some sort of accident and had to see a shrink for a month. Poor guy, scared out of his wits that day.”
“What happened?”
“Well, from what I heard, Gerald—God bless his soul—locked him in the sports room for the whole night. That darn sports room hasn’t had its light bulb fixed in years now and he was left there in the dark all alone. The janitor found him and he was curled up there talking nonsense like a madman. Lionel was the one who drove him home and now the shrink is pretty much trying to help him to get back to reality and cope with his fear. I think that whoever is afraid of the dark sure is a wimp!”
“That’s exactly the kind of attitude towards your teammate that got all of you in this murder frenzy jam in the first place,” Jonathan said grudgingly. Judith stared secretly at the boy who made his statement just now, her mind beginning to click in comprehension. She excused herself to the bathroom and once she was inside, she took out her handphone and called Rebecca.
“Hello?” Rebecca answered the phone.
“It’s me,” Judith said. “Have you got anything on our evidence yet?”
“Nope, not a single one. I’m stumped. I really am. I gotta admit: this is the smartest criminal we have ever encountered in years of CSI business. I fear that we’ll never get our man. I’m looking through their school yearbook right now to see if anything relevant might come up from here.”
“I have a feeling that he’s not smart enough. Listen, Jeremy and Lionel are not at school today and I think I’ve got most of it figured out. I want you to go to Jeremy’s house and ask him some questions.”
“About what?” Rebecca sounded surprised.
“Anything,” Judith replied. “Just about anything that has to connect him to the case and his friends. There’s something we’re missing out here. One more missing piece of the puzzle that will clear the whole case. Oh, and I want you to issue out a search warrant.”
“For what? What else do you want to search about?”
“The house of the other person who didn’t come to school today.”
Rachel was sitting at her office reading through the SM Victoria Institution school yearbook. Rebecca plopped it at her desk all of a sudden and asked her to help her find any clues that could be in the yearbook that might lead to the case, and that was before she sped off to somewhere—Elaine tagging along behind her—without even giving Rachel the chance to ask. When Rachel got to the page where pictures on special events were taken, one picture caught her eye. Before she could recall what was familiar about the picture, Judith stepped in, looking quite pleased with herself.
“You look like you’ve come up with something good,” Rachel commented.
“As a matter of fact I have,” Judith replied, taking out an envelope. “Just raided someone’s house and guess what I’ve found.”
Rachel opened the envelope and saw a receipt that read ‘QuickFilm Photoshop’. She took a look at the picture that was in the envelope and her eyes widened with interest. She shifted her gaze towards the picture she saw on the yearbook and, as the Human Library she was, it all began to make sense. Judith noticed the picture on the yearbook Rachel was gazing at and grinned.
“So, Rach, wanna make a conformation or have you reached the verdict?”
“I’ll make some calls,” Rachel smirked knowingly and punched the numbers written on the receipt.
“Woah! Seriously that bad, huh?”
Rebecca and Elaine were at Jeremy’s house and Rebecca was talking to his mother. She brought along the protective custody papers for the parents to sign and promised that their home would be under surveillance 24/7.
“Um, Mrs. Lee, can I just go up and have a chat with Jeremy?” Rebecca asked. “I just wanna, you know, ease his nerves a little and tell him about this protective custody thing.”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Lee,” Elaine assured her. “She’s quite good at cheering people up.”
“I don’t see why there would be any harm to it,” Mrs. Lee replied. “He’s pretty much out of the hallucinations now, but still not out of the shock. Go ahead. It’s the first room on the left.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Lee,” Rebecca thanked her and, together with Elaine, went to where Jeremy’s room was. The door was slightly opened but she knocked it anyway, just in case she’d startle him or something. She heard his voice muttering “Come in” and they let themselves in.
“Hey, Jeremy. How’re you doing?” Rebecca asked Jeremy who was sitting on his bed in his pajamas hugging his legs. “You remember us? I’m Detective Rebecca and…”
“Yeah, I’ve seen you two. You’re two of that nasty black CSI agent’s co-workers who said I killed Cliff,” Jeremy looked at them grudgingly.
“W-ell, you can put it that way,” Rebecca replied awkwardly.
“Are you here to arrest me for the other killings too?”
“Oh no, no, no,” Rebecca said as she sat on the bed beside him. “You’re out of the suspect list. I’m here to tell you that we’re gonna give you protection from the Urban Legend Copycat Killer, if you’ve heard of him.”
“Who doesn’t?” Jeremy replied, looking disturbed. “A lot of people have been talking about it. They say that it had a connection with me, ‘coz the victims used to bully me, and they think that I killed them, or hired someone else to do it.”
“Is that why Gerald locked you in the sports room?” Elaine asked.
Jeremy nodded, “He said he was going to keep me in there so that I won’t have any bright ideas about getting to them. Lionel brought me home when the janitor found me. I have to admit, although he had bullied me that year, he’s the only best friend I trust.”
“Really? You don’t have any grudges on the people who bullied you, do you?” Elaine was skeptical as she surveyed Jeremy’s room a little. Typical geek’s room, just as his friends described it.
“Nope. I believe people get what they deserve, so I usually keep quiet about it when they bug me so that when something bad happens to them, I can have the last laugh. Although seeing them dead wasn’t what I had in mind, really.”
“But do you have any idea who might wanna kill for you? A girlfriend, maybe?” Rebecca asked.
“I’m not the Romeo type, believe me,” Jeremy chuckled. “Girls don’t find me that attractive.”
“Why exactly are you afraid of the dark anyway, if you don’t mind me asking?” Elaine inquired.
“Well, it started off when I was a kid, back before I live here,” Jeremy explained. “My cousin and I decided to sneak into my rich neighbour’s home and take a dunk in his swimming pool in the middle of the night. I got adventurous and decided to swim at the deeper end of the pool. Needless to say, I almost drowned. It was dark when we were swimming and as I sank, the whole place was so dark I couldn’t see a single thing. The water surrounded and the darkness was more suffocating than the water. I was rescued just in time. Funny though, it led me to be afraid of the dark instead of water. Every time I’m in the dark, I could feel the suffocation and the feeling of merciless water around me…I still couldn’t get over it…”
“I understand. No wonder you’re so shook up in that sports room,” Rebecca said pitifully.
“Well, looks like someone took this bully and the other bullying seriously. Too serious, in fact,” Elaine said. She noticed the school yearbook on Jeremy’s table and when she picked it up, she noticed that it was the same year as the yearbook they found in Cliff’s home. She waved it at Jeremy and said, “I see you have the school yearbook.”
“I read it from time to time,” Jeremy replied, holding out his hand for it. Elaine passed it to him. “Brings back memories once in a while.”
“I’ve read it too,” Rebecca said. “I got one from Cliff’s home. Your school sure is interesting, unlike my high school.”
“It has its specialties,” Jeremy said as he flipped through the pages. He stopped at a page and smiled, “Ah, this one’s my favourite.”
Rebecca and Elaine leaned over to look. On it was a picture of Jeremy wearing a tuxedo and Gary wearing a bad boy gangster outfit, smiling widely and posing at the camera. Between them was a girl with burgundy hair and a one-piece blue dress. She had lovely make-up and looked very, very beautiful. Elaine and Rebecca looked at each other; she looked exactly like the woman Jothan Lo the 3rd had described!
“Jeremy, who is this girl in the picture with you guys?” Elaine asked, pointing at the burgundy-haired girl.
Jeremy let out a laugh before replying, “Got you too, didn’t it? Everyone kept asking the same question after that Drama Contest about who he is and everyone ended up being shocked. We won the Grand Prize for that drama, you know.”
“He?” Elaine raised an eyebrow.
“Drama Contest?” Rebecca was startled.
“Yeah! His make-up fooled you, didn’t he? As you can see, we’re an all boys’ school and we couldn’t simply just team up with the girls at Form 6, and practically no one wants to play the role of the leading actress, so he volunteered. He got me too, really, and I was playing the leading actor.”
“Who exactly is he?” Elaine and Rebecca asked simultaneously.
“It’s Lionel. Lionel Han,” Jeremy replied, still amused. “He’s a genius, isn’t he? Anything wrong, detectives?”
Justin was checking out the body of Gerald on his surgery table. It looked pretty gross seeing a body with no arms except one that looked pretty mangled, which was placed in another tray on the table. He had expected to find just wounds and no clues to the case and was ready to call in the cleaners to clean and ‘repair’ the arm on the body when Jonathan came in.
“Hey, Chief, what brings you here?” Justin asked.
“Well, I was hoping maybe there could be some evidence to pinpoint our suspect,” Jonathan replied.
“You guys got the murderer already?” Justin was surprised.
“Just a suspect. Unless we find evidence to back it up, we cannot arrest him,” Jonathan said as he scanned through the body, just in case Justin had missed out something.
“So it’s back to a he now. Jude was right after all. It is a he.”
“Is that what you guys been discussing during your date last night?” Jonathan asked. “Or is there something else you guys have been discussing?”
“Pretty much just the case,” Justin said as he took off his plastic gloves. “And it’s not a date. It’s just a simple night out with a friend. That’s all it was.”
“So you guys are not going anywhere near Danger Zone yet, am I right?”
“What are you trying to imply here, Jon?”
“Only that you have missed a spot,” Jonathan replied nonchalantly. “Take a look at this.”
Justin moved over to where Jonathan was pointing. There, on the skin of the left hacked arm where the socket was, was a small wrinkly dent with something wet on it. Jonathan used the evidence cotton bud to take a swab of it while Justin checked out the rest. The lab guy in charge of cleaning the body came in and Jonathan asked him to pass this cotton bud to Rachel so that she could take it to the DNA lab to analyze it.
“Looks like this wet stuff has been digesting a wee bit of the skin and part of the exposed flesh,” Justin commented. The only fluid that can ever digest food before we swallow it is the saliva. It has enough pH to do so. But this has to mean that…eww! Our murderer also has a taste for blood!”
“How long has Gerald been dead?” Jonathan asked.
“His neighbour kid found him at about 7 a.m. this morning, so I guess he’s about more than 12 hours dead.”
“How long does it take for human saliva to digest food?”
“According to human body temperature, it’ll take at least 10 to 20 minutes for human saliva to break down food into pieces. But since it was room temperature, it could take even longer. But then again, he’s 12 hours dead, wouldn’t take too long for it to be broken down, although just a really tiny portion of it.”
“Mmhmm,” Jonathan muttered thoughtfully. “So the murderer killed about 12 hours ago, waited for him to die and started chomping on one of his arms and got a little messy. I have a gut-sickening feeling where the rest of the missing portions of the other victims went to. Does this sound like part of a movie to you, Justin?”
“Yeah, it sure does sound a little,” Justin replied, recalling a movie that almost symbolizes this ritual.
“I’ll go check on Rach. You can do whatever you want with the body now,” Jonathan said as he left the autopsy room. Before he stepped out of the room, he stopped and, with his back facing Justin, he asked, “Do you believe that certain feelings can be repaired, even if they’ve already broken beyond recognition?”
“I suppose so,” Justin replied. “If there is hope, there will always be room for repair.”
“…Thanks, Justin,” Jonathan said as he finally walked out of the room. Justin sighed as he moved the body towards the cleaning sink with the help of the lab guy who came back after passing the DNA sample to Rachel.
“Jude, you are one lucky gal.”
Meanwhile, Jonathan went into the DNA lab where Rachel did her final testing on the swab Jonathan got from Gerald’s shoulder. He stood there quietly, not wanting to bother the Human Library at her work. When she was done, she got the DNA codes printed out on transparent paper. By then, she realized that she was being watched and turned around and got right down to business.
“You remember the DNA swabs we took on those friends of Jeremy’s?” Rachel asked. Jonathan nodded and she continued, “Well, most of them are dead, so who’s the one left to match?”
“The odd one out,” Jonathan grinned in triumph at the DNA codes shown in front of him.
Lionel was getting ready to mount his bike and was going to ride to his school. Checking by the attire, you could guess that he was on his way to practice some basketball moves. But before he could move out into the driveway, he was stopped short by our famous CSI members who were standing in front of a very worried-looking Han family.
“What’s going on?” Lionel asked, curious.
“Lionel Han,” Jonathan began to read his rights as he moved over to handcuff a startled Lionel. “You are under arrest for multiple murders. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can be used against you in the court of law…”
Everyone was up and ready to get on with the case. They have recently received another murder case—as told by Jonathan ‘coz he’s the only one staying back in the crime lab (like Grissom)—about another victim from the basketball team had been killed at his own home. Turned out that Gerald, the victim, was babysitting his neighbour’s kids when suddenly he was under attack by their ol’ friend The Urban Legend Copycat Killer. Both his arms were chopped of and they have found one dumped somewhere near the doghouse. They couldn’t find the other. His body was on the staircase and they assumed that he was trying to escape from the killer. Obviously, he was too late.
Needless to say, this was also one of the urban legends.
Now that the suspect’s gender had taken a swift turn, Lionel and Jeremy were soon out of the list of suspicion. Everyone was now looking for a girl with dyed burgundy hair and has a taste for blood.
Well, not exactly everyone. Judith still had doubts about the suspect. She still believed that the suspect was a guy and that this case was getting slightly personal. I mean getting back at someone who had bullied you sure wasn’t a big crime—she had a few shares of getting back at people—but to kill someone for it, that was too much. She had Elaine as backup to her theory but it’s just not enough to convince Jonathan otherwise. She had to get to the real culprit before the whole basketball team gets mauled or something even worse happen.
While the CSI team was trying to figure out who the culprit was, Jonathan was busy hooking up some more papers on protective custody. This time, he wasn’t taking any chances. He was going to make sure that every one of those possible victims made it out of this hellish nightmare alive. He was planning to go to SM Victoria Institution and gather the rest of the basketball team to announce their protective custody plan. At first, Rebecca volunteered to go—she definitely had a knack of wanting to announce to the people that she was going to save the world or something—but instead, Jonathan chose Judith to go with him. Elaine could guess what it was all about, but she’d rather not say anything. She could tell by Jonathan’s tone and by the looks of things that he and Judith needed to be alone, so when she noticed the rest wanting to go on this ‘rescue mission’, she dragged them away and said loudly on purpose that she needed their help on cracking more evidence.
In the car, Judith and Jonathan discussed briefly on Jonathan’s favourite anime like Gundam Wing, Evangelion and Gatekeepers. Not that she had much idea about the anime, but she entertained him just the same. Their topic slowly drifted towards the case.
“So, any leads yet to who might be the culprit?” Judith asked.
“Not much,” Jonathan admitted. “What I’ve learnt from Jeremy’s personal background was that he never had many girlfriends. He had one or two during Form 1 or 2, but they weren’t serious, and it was the girls who broke it off. And he’s not exactly the most popular guy among girls either. He pretty much keeps himself to himself. I can’t figure out who could have liked him so much to be willing to kill for him.”
“What about friends outside of school?”
“He’s, like what his friends said, a living, breathing human geek. Besides basketball or any other extra curricular activities, he doesn’t go out much. Like I said, not very popular. You? Who do you think killed those people?”
“I still think it’s a guy,” Judith replied firmly, “and it has to be one of the members in the basketball team.”
“Like who? I mean almost everyone there bullies Jeremy and none of them really gives a darn about him,” Jonathan said as he took a left turn. “Even his group of best friends bullied him with that prank. Who else can you expect?”
“Maybe. Just maybe…” Judith tapped her chin thoughtfully, her mind obviously working. Jonathan let out an exasperated sigh.
“Just let it go, Jude. The suspect is already obvious. You don’t have to cramp your brain trying to figure out what’s not possible.”
“Now you are acting like a walking contradiction!” Judith exclaimed, glaring at Jonathan accusingly. “You always teach me to think outside the box, suspect the unsuspected and always look for the non-obvious ones, and yet you are not practicing what you preach!”
“Well, sorry for not teaching you that when things are already screaming guilty at your face, you shouldn’t think otherwise,” Jonathan said, annoyed, and stopped when there was a red light.
“Just hush and let me think for a moment, alright?” Judith said and went back to her thoughts.
Jonathan sighed and let her be for a while. Judith continued to have that serious look on her face trying to figure out the whole thing and trying to come up with a logical theory for all this. Jonathan couldn’t help feeling that she looked almost like Detective Conan or Hajime Kindaichi when she did that. After a few more minutes, they’ve finally reached SM Victoria Institution. Judith was still lost in her thoughts to notice and Jonathan had to shake her back to reality.
“Hey, baka-onna. We’re here!”
“Huh?” Judith was knocked out of her senses almost immediately. “Sorry, wasn’t paying attention. Let’s go.”
“Do you remember to bring the documents with you?” Jonathan asked.
“Yeah, I have,” Judith waved a brown envelope at him.
As Jonathan locked the car, without looking at Judith, he asked, “Jude, is there anything you want to tell me about?”
“What do you mean?” Judith asked, slightly surprised, as if she knew what Jonathan meant.
“You know what I mean. It’s not right to bottle it up and keep as a secret, you know. I can see that something has happened last night and that’s why you’re wracking your brains so much. And you wouldn’t tell me what. I thought we had a deal about not keeping secrets to each other.”
“My personal life is none of your concern anymore,” Judith replied in a serious tone, “and you shouldn’t be prying into other people’s business unless it’s professionally important. Besides I never made such a deal. You made it up.”
Jonathan wanted to rebut her again but finally decided against it, sighing, “Fine, whatever. Sooner or later you’re gonna come clean with me.”
They walked all the way to the Headmaster’s office to tell him about their intention. The Headmaster soon sent for the office boy to tell the people in charge of the P.A. system to make an announcement that all the basketball players gather at the basketball court immediately. The teens did as they were told and within minutes, they were all present and were sitting on the spectators’ seat listening carefully to Jonathan’s plans and instructions about their protective custody issue. Just then, Jonathan noticed that there were a few people missing.
“Where are Jeremy and Lionel?” Jonathan asked.
“Lionel has gone off to Subang Jaya with his family to bury the brother and sister,” one of the team members voiced out. “Jeremy is calling in sick today and won’t be in school for a month.”
“A month?” Judith was taken aback. “What was he going to do at home for a month?”
“Personal therapy, that’s what I heard,” another member replied. “He got into some sort of accident and had to see a shrink for a month. Poor guy, scared out of his wits that day.”
“What happened?”
“Well, from what I heard, Gerald—God bless his soul—locked him in the sports room for the whole night. That darn sports room hasn’t had its light bulb fixed in years now and he was left there in the dark all alone. The janitor found him and he was curled up there talking nonsense like a madman. Lionel was the one who drove him home and now the shrink is pretty much trying to help him to get back to reality and cope with his fear. I think that whoever is afraid of the dark sure is a wimp!”
“That’s exactly the kind of attitude towards your teammate that got all of you in this murder frenzy jam in the first place,” Jonathan said grudgingly. Judith stared secretly at the boy who made his statement just now, her mind beginning to click in comprehension. She excused herself to the bathroom and once she was inside, she took out her handphone and called Rebecca.
“Hello?” Rebecca answered the phone.
“It’s me,” Judith said. “Have you got anything on our evidence yet?”
“Nope, not a single one. I’m stumped. I really am. I gotta admit: this is the smartest criminal we have ever encountered in years of CSI business. I fear that we’ll never get our man. I’m looking through their school yearbook right now to see if anything relevant might come up from here.”
“I have a feeling that he’s not smart enough. Listen, Jeremy and Lionel are not at school today and I think I’ve got most of it figured out. I want you to go to Jeremy’s house and ask him some questions.”
“About what?” Rebecca sounded surprised.
“Anything,” Judith replied. “Just about anything that has to connect him to the case and his friends. There’s something we’re missing out here. One more missing piece of the puzzle that will clear the whole case. Oh, and I want you to issue out a search warrant.”
“For what? What else do you want to search about?”
“The house of the other person who didn’t come to school today.”
Rachel was sitting at her office reading through the SM Victoria Institution school yearbook. Rebecca plopped it at her desk all of a sudden and asked her to help her find any clues that could be in the yearbook that might lead to the case, and that was before she sped off to somewhere—Elaine tagging along behind her—without even giving Rachel the chance to ask. When Rachel got to the page where pictures on special events were taken, one picture caught her eye. Before she could recall what was familiar about the picture, Judith stepped in, looking quite pleased with herself.
“You look like you’ve come up with something good,” Rachel commented.
“As a matter of fact I have,” Judith replied, taking out an envelope. “Just raided someone’s house and guess what I’ve found.”
Rachel opened the envelope and saw a receipt that read ‘QuickFilm Photoshop’. She took a look at the picture that was in the envelope and her eyes widened with interest. She shifted her gaze towards the picture she saw on the yearbook and, as the Human Library she was, it all began to make sense. Judith noticed the picture on the yearbook Rachel was gazing at and grinned.
“So, Rach, wanna make a conformation or have you reached the verdict?”
“I’ll make some calls,” Rachel smirked knowingly and punched the numbers written on the receipt.
“Woah! Seriously that bad, huh?”
Rebecca and Elaine were at Jeremy’s house and Rebecca was talking to his mother. She brought along the protective custody papers for the parents to sign and promised that their home would be under surveillance 24/7.
“Um, Mrs. Lee, can I just go up and have a chat with Jeremy?” Rebecca asked. “I just wanna, you know, ease his nerves a little and tell him about this protective custody thing.”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Lee,” Elaine assured her. “She’s quite good at cheering people up.”
“I don’t see why there would be any harm to it,” Mrs. Lee replied. “He’s pretty much out of the hallucinations now, but still not out of the shock. Go ahead. It’s the first room on the left.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Lee,” Rebecca thanked her and, together with Elaine, went to where Jeremy’s room was. The door was slightly opened but she knocked it anyway, just in case she’d startle him or something. She heard his voice muttering “Come in” and they let themselves in.
“Hey, Jeremy. How’re you doing?” Rebecca asked Jeremy who was sitting on his bed in his pajamas hugging his legs. “You remember us? I’m Detective Rebecca and…”
“Yeah, I’ve seen you two. You’re two of that nasty black CSI agent’s co-workers who said I killed Cliff,” Jeremy looked at them grudgingly.
“W-ell, you can put it that way,” Rebecca replied awkwardly.
“Are you here to arrest me for the other killings too?”
“Oh no, no, no,” Rebecca said as she sat on the bed beside him. “You’re out of the suspect list. I’m here to tell you that we’re gonna give you protection from the Urban Legend Copycat Killer, if you’ve heard of him.”
“Who doesn’t?” Jeremy replied, looking disturbed. “A lot of people have been talking about it. They say that it had a connection with me, ‘coz the victims used to bully me, and they think that I killed them, or hired someone else to do it.”
“Is that why Gerald locked you in the sports room?” Elaine asked.
Jeremy nodded, “He said he was going to keep me in there so that I won’t have any bright ideas about getting to them. Lionel brought me home when the janitor found me. I have to admit, although he had bullied me that year, he’s the only best friend I trust.”
“Really? You don’t have any grudges on the people who bullied you, do you?” Elaine was skeptical as she surveyed Jeremy’s room a little. Typical geek’s room, just as his friends described it.
“Nope. I believe people get what they deserve, so I usually keep quiet about it when they bug me so that when something bad happens to them, I can have the last laugh. Although seeing them dead wasn’t what I had in mind, really.”
“But do you have any idea who might wanna kill for you? A girlfriend, maybe?” Rebecca asked.
“I’m not the Romeo type, believe me,” Jeremy chuckled. “Girls don’t find me that attractive.”
“Why exactly are you afraid of the dark anyway, if you don’t mind me asking?” Elaine inquired.
“Well, it started off when I was a kid, back before I live here,” Jeremy explained. “My cousin and I decided to sneak into my rich neighbour’s home and take a dunk in his swimming pool in the middle of the night. I got adventurous and decided to swim at the deeper end of the pool. Needless to say, I almost drowned. It was dark when we were swimming and as I sank, the whole place was so dark I couldn’t see a single thing. The water surrounded and the darkness was more suffocating than the water. I was rescued just in time. Funny though, it led me to be afraid of the dark instead of water. Every time I’m in the dark, I could feel the suffocation and the feeling of merciless water around me…I still couldn’t get over it…”
“I understand. No wonder you’re so shook up in that sports room,” Rebecca said pitifully.
“Well, looks like someone took this bully and the other bullying seriously. Too serious, in fact,” Elaine said. She noticed the school yearbook on Jeremy’s table and when she picked it up, she noticed that it was the same year as the yearbook they found in Cliff’s home. She waved it at Jeremy and said, “I see you have the school yearbook.”
“I read it from time to time,” Jeremy replied, holding out his hand for it. Elaine passed it to him. “Brings back memories once in a while.”
“I’ve read it too,” Rebecca said. “I got one from Cliff’s home. Your school sure is interesting, unlike my high school.”
“It has its specialties,” Jeremy said as he flipped through the pages. He stopped at a page and smiled, “Ah, this one’s my favourite.”
Rebecca and Elaine leaned over to look. On it was a picture of Jeremy wearing a tuxedo and Gary wearing a bad boy gangster outfit, smiling widely and posing at the camera. Between them was a girl with burgundy hair and a one-piece blue dress. She had lovely make-up and looked very, very beautiful. Elaine and Rebecca looked at each other; she looked exactly like the woman Jothan Lo the 3rd had described!
“Jeremy, who is this girl in the picture with you guys?” Elaine asked, pointing at the burgundy-haired girl.
Jeremy let out a laugh before replying, “Got you too, didn’t it? Everyone kept asking the same question after that Drama Contest about who he is and everyone ended up being shocked. We won the Grand Prize for that drama, you know.”
“He?” Elaine raised an eyebrow.
“Drama Contest?” Rebecca was startled.
“Yeah! His make-up fooled you, didn’t he? As you can see, we’re an all boys’ school and we couldn’t simply just team up with the girls at Form 6, and practically no one wants to play the role of the leading actress, so he volunteered. He got me too, really, and I was playing the leading actor.”
“Who exactly is he?” Elaine and Rebecca asked simultaneously.
“It’s Lionel. Lionel Han,” Jeremy replied, still amused. “He’s a genius, isn’t he? Anything wrong, detectives?”
Justin was checking out the body of Gerald on his surgery table. It looked pretty gross seeing a body with no arms except one that looked pretty mangled, which was placed in another tray on the table. He had expected to find just wounds and no clues to the case and was ready to call in the cleaners to clean and ‘repair’ the arm on the body when Jonathan came in.
“Hey, Chief, what brings you here?” Justin asked.
“Well, I was hoping maybe there could be some evidence to pinpoint our suspect,” Jonathan replied.
“You guys got the murderer already?” Justin was surprised.
“Just a suspect. Unless we find evidence to back it up, we cannot arrest him,” Jonathan said as he scanned through the body, just in case Justin had missed out something.
“So it’s back to a he now. Jude was right after all. It is a he.”
“Is that what you guys been discussing during your date last night?” Jonathan asked. “Or is there something else you guys have been discussing?”
“Pretty much just the case,” Justin said as he took off his plastic gloves. “And it’s not a date. It’s just a simple night out with a friend. That’s all it was.”
“So you guys are not going anywhere near Danger Zone yet, am I right?”
“What are you trying to imply here, Jon?”
“Only that you have missed a spot,” Jonathan replied nonchalantly. “Take a look at this.”
Justin moved over to where Jonathan was pointing. There, on the skin of the left hacked arm where the socket was, was a small wrinkly dent with something wet on it. Jonathan used the evidence cotton bud to take a swab of it while Justin checked out the rest. The lab guy in charge of cleaning the body came in and Jonathan asked him to pass this cotton bud to Rachel so that she could take it to the DNA lab to analyze it.
“Looks like this wet stuff has been digesting a wee bit of the skin and part of the exposed flesh,” Justin commented. The only fluid that can ever digest food before we swallow it is the saliva. It has enough pH to do so. But this has to mean that…eww! Our murderer also has a taste for blood!”
“How long has Gerald been dead?” Jonathan asked.
“His neighbour kid found him at about 7 a.m. this morning, so I guess he’s about more than 12 hours dead.”
“How long does it take for human saliva to digest food?”
“According to human body temperature, it’ll take at least 10 to 20 minutes for human saliva to break down food into pieces. But since it was room temperature, it could take even longer. But then again, he’s 12 hours dead, wouldn’t take too long for it to be broken down, although just a really tiny portion of it.”
“Mmhmm,” Jonathan muttered thoughtfully. “So the murderer killed about 12 hours ago, waited for him to die and started chomping on one of his arms and got a little messy. I have a gut-sickening feeling where the rest of the missing portions of the other victims went to. Does this sound like part of a movie to you, Justin?”
“Yeah, it sure does sound a little,” Justin replied, recalling a movie that almost symbolizes this ritual.
“I’ll go check on Rach. You can do whatever you want with the body now,” Jonathan said as he left the autopsy room. Before he stepped out of the room, he stopped and, with his back facing Justin, he asked, “Do you believe that certain feelings can be repaired, even if they’ve already broken beyond recognition?”
“I suppose so,” Justin replied. “If there is hope, there will always be room for repair.”
“…Thanks, Justin,” Jonathan said as he finally walked out of the room. Justin sighed as he moved the body towards the cleaning sink with the help of the lab guy who came back after passing the DNA sample to Rachel.
“Jude, you are one lucky gal.”
Meanwhile, Jonathan went into the DNA lab where Rachel did her final testing on the swab Jonathan got from Gerald’s shoulder. He stood there quietly, not wanting to bother the Human Library at her work. When she was done, she got the DNA codes printed out on transparent paper. By then, she realized that she was being watched and turned around and got right down to business.
“You remember the DNA swabs we took on those friends of Jeremy’s?” Rachel asked. Jonathan nodded and she continued, “Well, most of them are dead, so who’s the one left to match?”
“The odd one out,” Jonathan grinned in triumph at the DNA codes shown in front of him.
Lionel was getting ready to mount his bike and was going to ride to his school. Checking by the attire, you could guess that he was on his way to practice some basketball moves. But before he could move out into the driveway, he was stopped short by our famous CSI members who were standing in front of a very worried-looking Han family.
“What’s going on?” Lionel asked, curious.
“Lionel Han,” Jonathan began to read his rights as he moved over to handcuff a startled Lionel. “You are under arrest for multiple murders. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can be used against you in the court of law…”
CSI: Asia-Chp14
CHAPTER 14: OUTSIDE THE CRIME LAB, INTO THE MEMORIES
The whole housing estate of Taman Sentosa was pretty much silent with a life of its own. Everyone was minding their own businesses, whether it is watching TV, doing their homework, chatting with friends either on the internet or the telephone or just plain snoozing on the bed.
But then of course not everyone was asleep and peacefully doing their own businesses. Elaine's home was pretty much hectic and all as she could be seen going back and forth from her wardrobe to her bags. Her parents were standing at her bedroom door trying to reason with her.
"Elaine, stop it!" her father demanded. "You've got everything you wanted. You wanted to indulge yourself in music and we let you take that chance. You want to have that filthy, dangerous job at the CSI team and we let you go there. You have a room of your own, a piano of your own, a computer of your and all the things you need. Why are you being so ungrateful?!"
"Ungrateful? How can I be grateful when you are forcing me to marry this guy I barely even like anymore!" Elaine exclaimed, throwing her jeans into her bag. "He was just a high school crush and nothing more! I have tastes, you know! You can't let me stay with one guy for the rest of my life when I don't have any feelings for him anymore!"
"Don't you say that about Peter," her mother scolded. "He is a rich, decent man with a very good education background and a wealthy family that supports him. He is religious and goes to church diligently, unlike you who always skip church nowadays ever since you took that horrible job."
"Mom, he still lives with his parents, for crying out loud! At this age, he would've asked his father to buy him a house somewhere nice and grand and have a life of his own! He even carried on with the same old dull food and beverage business his father and his forefathers before him have been running! And he does nothing but talk about business and money. Does this sound like a decent man to you?"
“At least he’s a loyal kind of man.”
“Yeah, right. And boring.”
"Oh, and I suppose your outlaw boyfriend is decent," her father challenged as he took out Elaine's belongings from her bag, only to be put back in again by an exasperated-looking Elaine.
"Of course. Why do you think I like him?"
"Elaine, this guy rides a motorbike all day long with nowhere to go. This kind of guy creates road kill on the streets, don't you know that?"
"At least he's normal, unlike some people I know."
"And, for the record, he is only a basketball player. How much do you think a basketball player can earn throughout his life? Do you think he can take care of you then if he stopped playing basketball?"
"We both can manage. I have a job too. I can support him for the time being if he can't play."
"I refuse to see my daughter feeding a man!" her mother exclaimed. "This is simply not the women's way! Men are always the bread-winner of the family and I will not..."
"There you go again, Mom!" Elaine yelled. "It's always tradition this, tradition that! You never seem to care whether I have evolved or not! All you want me to do is just sit in the house slaving all day with housework and waiting on a husband that probably doesn't even know that I exist! Is that what you want me to be, a sitting duck playing house all day? I don't think I wanna end up like you, Mom!"
"Don't you give that tone to your mother, young lady!" her father pointed an accusing finger at her. "You know perfectly well that whatever your mother say is right."
"Yeah, right! Like I'm gonna believe that!" Elaine snorted as she threw in a box filled with packets of Virginia Light cigarettes into her bag. Her parents stared at the cigarettes in horror. Her father took one packet and held it in front of Elaine's nonchalant face.
"What is this? What the hell is this?!"
"A Virginia Light cigarette pack," Elaine snatched the packet away from her father. "What do you think it is, Tic-Tacs?"
"How could you...How could you be smoking this...this filthy..."
"There are loads you don't know about me, Dad," Elaine replied as she zipped up her bags. She took out one cigarette and lit it in front of her horrified parents. She didn't bother to hide it anymore. She was a grown girl now and none of her parents' old-fashioned words ever mattered to her anymore. As she took a whiff, she heard the horn of the motorbike honking. She looked out of the window and saw her beau with his Suzuki motorbike in waiting. Elaine smiled and waved at him before taking her bags.
"Well, my ride is here. Gotta go now. See ya."
"Wait just a minute here, young lady," her father blocked her way. "You are not leaving this house and you are not going to go anywhere with that uncivilized man."
"Now where have I seen this scene before, hmm..." Elaine put out an exaggerated pose, pretending to think back. "Oh, yes, I remember. This is just the way it looked when I was just a little kid in primary school. You locked me up in the house whenever both of you want to go out and told the servant to keep an eye on me. I never get to go out, I never get to hang out with my friends or even my neighbours and I certainly never get any freedom. Gee, Dad, what a great childhood you gave me!"
"I told you, Elaine, and I'm telling you one last time," her father said in gritted teeth. "You listen very carefully: you are not going..."
"No, you listen!" Elaine pointed an accusing finger at her father, the burning cigarette nearly hitting him between the eyes. "All my life you have been keeping me in this house without any further contact with the outside world! You never let me go out and you certainly never gave me happiness! You practically used me to gain recognition from your other relatives and friends! You didn't even give me time to mourn for my friend when she was shot that day at the concert! You just swept me right back into the stage the next day and ordered me to continue performing even though my heart was breaking into a million pieces! You insist on sending me anywhere I want to go and you never even try to let me experience things by myself! I'm like a caged bird here! It took me ages to convince you to let me take that CSI job and I finally decided to do it myself, whether you liked it or not. If it weren't for my best friend Judith, I would've gone insane by now!"
"I always knew that Judith is a troublemaker..." her mother muttered but was cut short by Elaine's snap.
"Don't you dare say anything about my friend, Mom! She showed me what was like in the real world, not some old-fashion fairytale you wish I would be. You didn't give me everything I need. You gave me everything that you thought I need. I don't need all this junk you put into my head; I need to live a normal life just like everybody else! Even a decent friend like Rachel said that this is not a human life, and it sure is a far cry from either Judith or my boyfriend's life. I'm sick and tired of all this crap, you hear me, I am sick and tired of this shit! Now, if you'll excuse me, I got a life to live. A real life."
So saying, she bumped her way past her parents and marched down the stairs towards the front door, where her boyfriend Rex Kong was waiting. Any modern-minded person could see that he was a real hunk and a really cool guy, with black, shiny ebony hair almost like Aaron Kwok's haircut and magnificent blue eyes. Actually, come to think of it, he was a Rukawa Kaede look-a-like. His height and built proved him to be a true, professional basketball player. He took some of Elaine's bags and gave her an I'll-wait-for-you look before taking them to his bike. As Elaine started searching for her shoes, she heard her father stomping his foot angrily, trying to catch her attention. Elaine turned around and gave him a cold look.
"If you ever set one foot out of that front door, you will be disowned," her father threatened. "You hear me? You'll never be our daughter again for the rest of your life!"
Elaine didn't reply. She threw her half-finished cigarette onto the marble floor and took out her shoe. She wore them and, before leaving, turned to them and said, "If you don't start changing your seriously old-fashioned ways, I don't I will ever come back to this house."
Those were her last words before she bounded off towards Rex's bike and rode with him out towards the direction of Kuala Lumpur in the dead of the night.
Rebecca had just got home after a rather tiring night of recording down her file work on her find on the Proton Iswara. Out of habit, she touched her neck to make sure that the ribbon her boyfriend Cyril gave her was there. After making sure, she let out a satisfied sigh and handed upstairs.
There hadn't been a day gone by without the red ribbon around her neck. It was like a permanent leash on her. There was one incident when she was studying for her A-Levels, where she was working on an experiment during Physics class. She forgot to wind the loose end of the ribbon around her neck and it got caught on one of the harp edges of the experiment woodwork. As she had tied it loosely, she didn't realize that it had strung off her neck until halfway through her English class, which was about an hour later after Physics. Needless to say, she went barging out of the class and searched high and low for her ribbon, regardless of the fact that the English class was still on. When she thought it was lost for good and was losing all hope, her junior who so happen to find the ribbon during his Physics class returned it back to her. Getting detention for running out of class was no big deal for her—at least she got her ribbon back.
And it's not surprising when the knot on the ribbon became tighter and the habit of winding the loose end around her neck became like a religious thing to do for her.
The first thing she did once she was upstairs was removing all her clothes and filling up the bath tub with warm water. She took off the ribbon around her neck and tied it on the towel hanger, exactly where she could see it. She then poured in the bubble bath solution and waited until the tub was all bubbly before dunking herself slowly into the lukewarm water, relaxing her body to absorb every little warmth of the bath.
Her gaze shifted back to the ribbon tied on the towel hanger. She remembered exactly when she got that ribbon. It was 3 years ago on 16th July. They were at the KL Airport and Cyril was about to leave to Vancouver. That time Rebecca didn't look too happy to see him go. She maybe optimistic about a lot of things, but she sure wasn't looking at the bright side of this.
"Why are you down, Becky?" she remembered Cyril asking. "You should be happy for me. I'm getting a good job like you always wanted."
"Yeah, but...I didn't want us to be away from each other."
"Hey, it's OK. No biggie. I'll write to you and call you from time to time."
"Promise?" Rebecca was still doubtful.
"I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die."
Rebecca smiled as Cyril crossed his heart to prove his point. She didn't know why, but as soon as she smiled, tears started pouring out of her eyes. She couldn't seem to control the aching feeling in her heart with the fact that she wouldn't be seeing Cyril for a long time. She hugged the teddy bear she was going to give him as a farewell gift close to her chest.
"You OK, Becky?" Cyril asked, concerned.
"I hate to send you off with a smile. I really hate it..." Rebecca sobbed, not wanting to look at him with her sodden eyes.
Cyril scratched his chin. He hated to go and leave his girlfriend so heartbroken. He heard the boarding call and had an idea. He took the teddy bear Rebecca was holding and removed the ribbon that was tied around its neck. He wound it around Rebecca's neck, taking her by surprise. She was confused at first at this gesture but Cyril laid his finger on her lips, stopping her from questioning.
"This is my vow, Becky. I, Cyril Tan, swear by oath that when I have earned my keep, I will return to take Rebecca Liew as my wife and bring her with me to Vancouver. With this ribbon, I seal my vow."
With that, he tied the ribbon into a long, dangling bow and gave her a long, passionate kiss. He said his goodbyes and his promises to call and write and made a dash for it into the departure gate before the plane flew off without it. This time, surprisingly, his leaving didn't make her feel as bad as she just did.
Rebecca smiled at that memory. She was sure that Cyril meant what he said, but occasionally she had doubts. Sure, he may have a good job that might earn him good bucks in Vancouver. Hell, you don't get a job offer out of the country and receive high salary for it like that everyday, you know. It was a quite a cool job in Iron Giant Construction & Co.—a construction company with an abundant demand for construction—and as her boyfriend Cyril had a degree in Engineering, he was pretty much qualified for it. She remembered him calling him excitedly and telling her that his application to work in Iron Giant was approved and that he would be moving the following week. She was so happy for him that time.
There is no way a girl wouldn't have any doubts about her boyfriend, unless she's a darn right fool or just too trusting for words, and right now, tiny little doubts began swimming in her head. What if he didn't make it there? What if the business didn't go so well as they expected to be? What if one of the projects turned out to be a screw up and he had to be laid off, leaving him to work in some simple 7-Eleven retail shop, or worse, roaming around the streets? Or maybe what if the business was really doing well? What would he do? Would he forget about him and spend all his wealth on another girl? She had to admit that there are many young lovely girls in Vancouver and anyone could take her place in his heart. What if...
"Sis! Phone call for you!" Rebecca's youngest sister's call shook her out of her musings. She and her youngest sister share the same room and she was pretty much a night owl like Rebecca. She was always there to greet her when she comes home before actually going to bed.
"Bring the phone here, sis!" Rebecca called from her spot. Her sister came trotting in with the cordless phone in her hand, a naughty grin on her face. She could tell from her face that Cyril was calling.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Becky. How's your day?" Cyril's voice automatically brought a smile to her face.
"Pretty much a drag. We have a large case that we seriously couldn't solve," Rebecca massaged her temples. "This murderer sure is one heck of a genius."
"Really? That really does sound like a drag. What're you doing?"
"Taking a nice, long bath. Getting rid of the all the aches and sores."
"I bet the sight is pretty tantalizing," Cyril said naughtily.
"Shut up!" Rebecca scolded playfully. "You and your 'evil' fantasies!"
"Just trying to have a little fun with my little Becky here," Cyril chuckled. "Anywho, Happy 3rd Anniversary!"
"3rd Anniversary? What anniversary?" Rebecca was surprised.
"You know, our anniversary," Cyril replied in an as-a-matter-of-fact way.
"Cyril, our anniversary is on the 31st of August, Independence Day, and it's supposed to be the 8th, not the 3rd," Rebecca corrected him. Her heart began to worry. How could he even get the dates mixed up? They have been lovers since high school when she was Form 3 and he Form 5. How could he forget that? Were her worries coming true: that he had someone else and got both their anniversaries mixed up?
"You forgetful little ding-dong," Cyril let out a sigh of defeat. "Today's 16th of July, remember? The day I gave you that ribbon and sealed my vow? It's been 3 years now, don't you remember? So, Happy 3rd Memorial Anniversary of my vow! Just in case you forget again, let me repeat my vow again..."
As Cyril repeated the exact vow he said at the airport 3 years ago, Rebecca's heart ached with bliss. She was touched. She herself couldn't even keep track of the usual dates because of her job, but he actually remembered such a tiny thing as this ribbon anniversary. She couldn't help shedding a tear; the feeling was so overwhelming.
All her doubts she felt before disappeared immediately as she continued to chit-chat with her love of her life.
"A blind date? No, thanks."
Rachel was sitting at her favourite room—the study—and was reading her favourite classic literature by William Shakespeare 'Much Ado About Nothing' when she received a midnight call from Rebecca. Evidently, Rebecca had already done chit-chatting lovie-dovies with her sweetheart.
"Come on, Rach. It'll be cool," Rebecca persuaded. "He's a very nice guy I know in during tuition classes and he's also one of the lab guys in our crime lab. I bet you'll like him. He's, like, totally having the hicks for you."
"All the lab guys in the crime lab have hicks on me. Which one are you talking about?" Rachel asked, bored.
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a blind date now, would it?"
"If you tell me, I'll still act blind."
"You are hopeless," Rebecca groaned, the sound of her slapping her forehead could be heard.
"Well, I can't help it if I have no interest with any of those guys in the lab," Rachel said nonchalantly. "They're..."
"Not intellectually equipped as you are," Rebecca finished her sentence. "I know that. You always say that and then you don't give a dit about them. When are you gonna realize that no one can live alone?"
"I'm not alone. I have my books and my family and you guys. There's nothing wrong about not having a boyfriend."
"Yeah, but..."
"And it's not against the law either, and it's my own free will."
Rebecca wanted to rebut her but seeing that arguing with her would be like asking a chicken to fly south, she sighed in defeat, "Alright, alright. You made your point. It's your funeral."
"Whatever," Rachel shrugged.
"I guess I'll let you go back to your books then."
"Yeah. Ciao."
Rachel waited until Rebecca hung up before she did. She stared at the phone for a while and sighed. She just couldn't understand why everyone is pestering her to have a boyfriend, as if it was a crime if she didn't. She really couldn't bring herself to like or even accept people who are not smarter than or at least as smart as her. Her co-workers often called her a perfectionist attitude a big curse on her, but she couldn't help it. If someone is not perfectly compatible for her or maybe even past her expectations in a good way, he would definitely be a total reject.
It's not that she had never liked a guy before. She's still human, and of course she had crushes just like everyone else. It was during her practical year when she was studying for her teacher training course. She was a woman of high hopes then, planning to start off at a small scale and slowly moving up to the tops and become the professor she always wanted. Those were her golden days.
When she reached her practical year and was allocated to an exclusive boarding school to teach, her confidence was up to the nines. With her intelligence and her wits (and her occasional sarcasm), she was immediately well-known as the female version of Severus Snape and a one-of-a-kind student teacher.
One of the students in her class was an exceptional boy. You can say that he was pretty much a male version of Hermione Granger and he didn't fail to catch her attention. They often had disagreements on a subject and often could be seen debating their theories at each other, much to the students' amusement. Never a day went by without them having to squabble about something. Until the middle of her practical year, the boy confronted her one day after school and confessed to her that he had a crush on her ever since she started being their student teacher, with a bouquet of roses to match. For that split second, Rachel experienced an overwhelming crush for him that had been suppressed inside her for so long. And from that moment on, they became couples. Of course, they only dated outside of school and knew when was the time to be serious on studies, but her class pretty much knew about their relationship. Luckily, nothing went out.
Later on, Rachel began to realize that this young boyfriend of hers was a bit more than just having a crush on her. He gave her elaborate gifts at sudden, unexpected times and he often called her just to check her out, as in where she was and what she was doing. He was also an easily jealous person. There was once when they were going out for a movie and Rachel was waiting outside the line while the boyfriend went to buy the tickets. Moments later, she came across her cousin whom she hadn't seen for a very, very long time. Overwhelmed, she jumped and hugged him with glee. The boyfriend just so happen to have bought the ticket and was coming out of the line when he saw her in her cousin's embrace. Jealousy took over and he pounced on her cousin, making him fall onto the floor. He cursed and swore as he kicked him over and over again. He even gave Rachel a black eye when she tried to stop him and he pushed her away. After that incident, Rachel tried to avoid him but his sweet words and soft apologies melted her heart.
As their relationship continued, she found out that when he was confronted by her uncle whose son's been beaten by him, he had punched himself and made bruises all over himself just to make Rachel think that her uncle had hurt him. When she tried to break off the relationship, he called her day and night asking to take him back until he resorted to sneak into her room and slit his wrists in front of her. Took her hours to convince him that she wouldn't leave him again and took her weeks to get rid of the blood stains on her carpet. The last straw was him stalking her everyday without rest and also murdering a foreigner who was only being pleasant to her when he was asking directions to the KL Twin Tower. He actually murdered him right in front of her eyes and with all the blood splattered all over her body.
It took her about a week to get out of unconsciousness (she fainted right at the spot and had to be hospitalized) and an extra 5 months to recover from the shock. The young boyfriend, although very smart, had quite a serious temper disorder, which led him to his violent and self-mutilating habits. He was institutionalized and was there ever since. Since that incident, she stopped her teacher training altogether and suddenly, despite her parents' disagreements and persuasion not to, stepped into medic school and applied for forensics major. The rest was history.
Rachel sighed again as she tried to sweep the horrific memory away from her head. Being in the crime lab today made her feel safe. Staring at all the violent pictures and scanning through the violent cases everyday made her realize that just teaching people and educating them what's right and wrong wasn't enough to stop crimes from happening. When it comes to stepping into the real world, it's every man for himself and humans often end up succumbing to their wild animal nature. Besides, being a CSI member showed her that there are always new things to learn and more challenging things to accomplish, which has always been her first intellectual love. Nothing could get better than this.
As she slumped on her couch slowly slipping into slumber she was left with one thought in her mind.
'I love this job.'
The whole housing estate of Taman Sentosa was pretty much silent with a life of its own. Everyone was minding their own businesses, whether it is watching TV, doing their homework, chatting with friends either on the internet or the telephone or just plain snoozing on the bed.
But then of course not everyone was asleep and peacefully doing their own businesses. Elaine's home was pretty much hectic and all as she could be seen going back and forth from her wardrobe to her bags. Her parents were standing at her bedroom door trying to reason with her.
"Elaine, stop it!" her father demanded. "You've got everything you wanted. You wanted to indulge yourself in music and we let you take that chance. You want to have that filthy, dangerous job at the CSI team and we let you go there. You have a room of your own, a piano of your own, a computer of your and all the things you need. Why are you being so ungrateful?!"
"Ungrateful? How can I be grateful when you are forcing me to marry this guy I barely even like anymore!" Elaine exclaimed, throwing her jeans into her bag. "He was just a high school crush and nothing more! I have tastes, you know! You can't let me stay with one guy for the rest of my life when I don't have any feelings for him anymore!"
"Don't you say that about Peter," her mother scolded. "He is a rich, decent man with a very good education background and a wealthy family that supports him. He is religious and goes to church diligently, unlike you who always skip church nowadays ever since you took that horrible job."
"Mom, he still lives with his parents, for crying out loud! At this age, he would've asked his father to buy him a house somewhere nice and grand and have a life of his own! He even carried on with the same old dull food and beverage business his father and his forefathers before him have been running! And he does nothing but talk about business and money. Does this sound like a decent man to you?"
“At least he’s a loyal kind of man.”
“Yeah, right. And boring.”
"Oh, and I suppose your outlaw boyfriend is decent," her father challenged as he took out Elaine's belongings from her bag, only to be put back in again by an exasperated-looking Elaine.
"Of course. Why do you think I like him?"
"Elaine, this guy rides a motorbike all day long with nowhere to go. This kind of guy creates road kill on the streets, don't you know that?"
"At least he's normal, unlike some people I know."
"And, for the record, he is only a basketball player. How much do you think a basketball player can earn throughout his life? Do you think he can take care of you then if he stopped playing basketball?"
"We both can manage. I have a job too. I can support him for the time being if he can't play."
"I refuse to see my daughter feeding a man!" her mother exclaimed. "This is simply not the women's way! Men are always the bread-winner of the family and I will not..."
"There you go again, Mom!" Elaine yelled. "It's always tradition this, tradition that! You never seem to care whether I have evolved or not! All you want me to do is just sit in the house slaving all day with housework and waiting on a husband that probably doesn't even know that I exist! Is that what you want me to be, a sitting duck playing house all day? I don't think I wanna end up like you, Mom!"
"Don't you give that tone to your mother, young lady!" her father pointed an accusing finger at her. "You know perfectly well that whatever your mother say is right."
"Yeah, right! Like I'm gonna believe that!" Elaine snorted as she threw in a box filled with packets of Virginia Light cigarettes into her bag. Her parents stared at the cigarettes in horror. Her father took one packet and held it in front of Elaine's nonchalant face.
"What is this? What the hell is this?!"
"A Virginia Light cigarette pack," Elaine snatched the packet away from her father. "What do you think it is, Tic-Tacs?"
"How could you...How could you be smoking this...this filthy..."
"There are loads you don't know about me, Dad," Elaine replied as she zipped up her bags. She took out one cigarette and lit it in front of her horrified parents. She didn't bother to hide it anymore. She was a grown girl now and none of her parents' old-fashioned words ever mattered to her anymore. As she took a whiff, she heard the horn of the motorbike honking. She looked out of the window and saw her beau with his Suzuki motorbike in waiting. Elaine smiled and waved at him before taking her bags.
"Well, my ride is here. Gotta go now. See ya."
"Wait just a minute here, young lady," her father blocked her way. "You are not leaving this house and you are not going to go anywhere with that uncivilized man."
"Now where have I seen this scene before, hmm..." Elaine put out an exaggerated pose, pretending to think back. "Oh, yes, I remember. This is just the way it looked when I was just a little kid in primary school. You locked me up in the house whenever both of you want to go out and told the servant to keep an eye on me. I never get to go out, I never get to hang out with my friends or even my neighbours and I certainly never get any freedom. Gee, Dad, what a great childhood you gave me!"
"I told you, Elaine, and I'm telling you one last time," her father said in gritted teeth. "You listen very carefully: you are not going..."
"No, you listen!" Elaine pointed an accusing finger at her father, the burning cigarette nearly hitting him between the eyes. "All my life you have been keeping me in this house without any further contact with the outside world! You never let me go out and you certainly never gave me happiness! You practically used me to gain recognition from your other relatives and friends! You didn't even give me time to mourn for my friend when she was shot that day at the concert! You just swept me right back into the stage the next day and ordered me to continue performing even though my heart was breaking into a million pieces! You insist on sending me anywhere I want to go and you never even try to let me experience things by myself! I'm like a caged bird here! It took me ages to convince you to let me take that CSI job and I finally decided to do it myself, whether you liked it or not. If it weren't for my best friend Judith, I would've gone insane by now!"
"I always knew that Judith is a troublemaker..." her mother muttered but was cut short by Elaine's snap.
"Don't you dare say anything about my friend, Mom! She showed me what was like in the real world, not some old-fashion fairytale you wish I would be. You didn't give me everything I need. You gave me everything that you thought I need. I don't need all this junk you put into my head; I need to live a normal life just like everybody else! Even a decent friend like Rachel said that this is not a human life, and it sure is a far cry from either Judith or my boyfriend's life. I'm sick and tired of all this crap, you hear me, I am sick and tired of this shit! Now, if you'll excuse me, I got a life to live. A real life."
So saying, she bumped her way past her parents and marched down the stairs towards the front door, where her boyfriend Rex Kong was waiting. Any modern-minded person could see that he was a real hunk and a really cool guy, with black, shiny ebony hair almost like Aaron Kwok's haircut and magnificent blue eyes. Actually, come to think of it, he was a Rukawa Kaede look-a-like. His height and built proved him to be a true, professional basketball player. He took some of Elaine's bags and gave her an I'll-wait-for-you look before taking them to his bike. As Elaine started searching for her shoes, she heard her father stomping his foot angrily, trying to catch her attention. Elaine turned around and gave him a cold look.
"If you ever set one foot out of that front door, you will be disowned," her father threatened. "You hear me? You'll never be our daughter again for the rest of your life!"
Elaine didn't reply. She threw her half-finished cigarette onto the marble floor and took out her shoe. She wore them and, before leaving, turned to them and said, "If you don't start changing your seriously old-fashioned ways, I don't I will ever come back to this house."
Those were her last words before she bounded off towards Rex's bike and rode with him out towards the direction of Kuala Lumpur in the dead of the night.
Rebecca had just got home after a rather tiring night of recording down her file work on her find on the Proton Iswara. Out of habit, she touched her neck to make sure that the ribbon her boyfriend Cyril gave her was there. After making sure, she let out a satisfied sigh and handed upstairs.
There hadn't been a day gone by without the red ribbon around her neck. It was like a permanent leash on her. There was one incident when she was studying for her A-Levels, where she was working on an experiment during Physics class. She forgot to wind the loose end of the ribbon around her neck and it got caught on one of the harp edges of the experiment woodwork. As she had tied it loosely, she didn't realize that it had strung off her neck until halfway through her English class, which was about an hour later after Physics. Needless to say, she went barging out of the class and searched high and low for her ribbon, regardless of the fact that the English class was still on. When she thought it was lost for good and was losing all hope, her junior who so happen to find the ribbon during his Physics class returned it back to her. Getting detention for running out of class was no big deal for her—at least she got her ribbon back.
And it's not surprising when the knot on the ribbon became tighter and the habit of winding the loose end around her neck became like a religious thing to do for her.
The first thing she did once she was upstairs was removing all her clothes and filling up the bath tub with warm water. She took off the ribbon around her neck and tied it on the towel hanger, exactly where she could see it. She then poured in the bubble bath solution and waited until the tub was all bubbly before dunking herself slowly into the lukewarm water, relaxing her body to absorb every little warmth of the bath.
Her gaze shifted back to the ribbon tied on the towel hanger. She remembered exactly when she got that ribbon. It was 3 years ago on 16th July. They were at the KL Airport and Cyril was about to leave to Vancouver. That time Rebecca didn't look too happy to see him go. She maybe optimistic about a lot of things, but she sure wasn't looking at the bright side of this.
"Why are you down, Becky?" she remembered Cyril asking. "You should be happy for me. I'm getting a good job like you always wanted."
"Yeah, but...I didn't want us to be away from each other."
"Hey, it's OK. No biggie. I'll write to you and call you from time to time."
"Promise?" Rebecca was still doubtful.
"I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die."
Rebecca smiled as Cyril crossed his heart to prove his point. She didn't know why, but as soon as she smiled, tears started pouring out of her eyes. She couldn't seem to control the aching feeling in her heart with the fact that she wouldn't be seeing Cyril for a long time. She hugged the teddy bear she was going to give him as a farewell gift close to her chest.
"You OK, Becky?" Cyril asked, concerned.
"I hate to send you off with a smile. I really hate it..." Rebecca sobbed, not wanting to look at him with her sodden eyes.
Cyril scratched his chin. He hated to go and leave his girlfriend so heartbroken. He heard the boarding call and had an idea. He took the teddy bear Rebecca was holding and removed the ribbon that was tied around its neck. He wound it around Rebecca's neck, taking her by surprise. She was confused at first at this gesture but Cyril laid his finger on her lips, stopping her from questioning.
"This is my vow, Becky. I, Cyril Tan, swear by oath that when I have earned my keep, I will return to take Rebecca Liew as my wife and bring her with me to Vancouver. With this ribbon, I seal my vow."
With that, he tied the ribbon into a long, dangling bow and gave her a long, passionate kiss. He said his goodbyes and his promises to call and write and made a dash for it into the departure gate before the plane flew off without it. This time, surprisingly, his leaving didn't make her feel as bad as she just did.
Rebecca smiled at that memory. She was sure that Cyril meant what he said, but occasionally she had doubts. Sure, he may have a good job that might earn him good bucks in Vancouver. Hell, you don't get a job offer out of the country and receive high salary for it like that everyday, you know. It was a quite a cool job in Iron Giant Construction & Co.—a construction company with an abundant demand for construction—and as her boyfriend Cyril had a degree in Engineering, he was pretty much qualified for it. She remembered him calling him excitedly and telling her that his application to work in Iron Giant was approved and that he would be moving the following week. She was so happy for him that time.
There is no way a girl wouldn't have any doubts about her boyfriend, unless she's a darn right fool or just too trusting for words, and right now, tiny little doubts began swimming in her head. What if he didn't make it there? What if the business didn't go so well as they expected to be? What if one of the projects turned out to be a screw up and he had to be laid off, leaving him to work in some simple 7-Eleven retail shop, or worse, roaming around the streets? Or maybe what if the business was really doing well? What would he do? Would he forget about him and spend all his wealth on another girl? She had to admit that there are many young lovely girls in Vancouver and anyone could take her place in his heart. What if...
"Sis! Phone call for you!" Rebecca's youngest sister's call shook her out of her musings. She and her youngest sister share the same room and she was pretty much a night owl like Rebecca. She was always there to greet her when she comes home before actually going to bed.
"Bring the phone here, sis!" Rebecca called from her spot. Her sister came trotting in with the cordless phone in her hand, a naughty grin on her face. She could tell from her face that Cyril was calling.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Becky. How's your day?" Cyril's voice automatically brought a smile to her face.
"Pretty much a drag. We have a large case that we seriously couldn't solve," Rebecca massaged her temples. "This murderer sure is one heck of a genius."
"Really? That really does sound like a drag. What're you doing?"
"Taking a nice, long bath. Getting rid of the all the aches and sores."
"I bet the sight is pretty tantalizing," Cyril said naughtily.
"Shut up!" Rebecca scolded playfully. "You and your 'evil' fantasies!"
"Just trying to have a little fun with my little Becky here," Cyril chuckled. "Anywho, Happy 3rd Anniversary!"
"3rd Anniversary? What anniversary?" Rebecca was surprised.
"You know, our anniversary," Cyril replied in an as-a-matter-of-fact way.
"Cyril, our anniversary is on the 31st of August, Independence Day, and it's supposed to be the 8th, not the 3rd," Rebecca corrected him. Her heart began to worry. How could he even get the dates mixed up? They have been lovers since high school when she was Form 3 and he Form 5. How could he forget that? Were her worries coming true: that he had someone else and got both their anniversaries mixed up?
"You forgetful little ding-dong," Cyril let out a sigh of defeat. "Today's 16th of July, remember? The day I gave you that ribbon and sealed my vow? It's been 3 years now, don't you remember? So, Happy 3rd Memorial Anniversary of my vow! Just in case you forget again, let me repeat my vow again..."
As Cyril repeated the exact vow he said at the airport 3 years ago, Rebecca's heart ached with bliss. She was touched. She herself couldn't even keep track of the usual dates because of her job, but he actually remembered such a tiny thing as this ribbon anniversary. She couldn't help shedding a tear; the feeling was so overwhelming.
All her doubts she felt before disappeared immediately as she continued to chit-chat with her love of her life.
"A blind date? No, thanks."
Rachel was sitting at her favourite room—the study—and was reading her favourite classic literature by William Shakespeare 'Much Ado About Nothing' when she received a midnight call from Rebecca. Evidently, Rebecca had already done chit-chatting lovie-dovies with her sweetheart.
"Come on, Rach. It'll be cool," Rebecca persuaded. "He's a very nice guy I know in during tuition classes and he's also one of the lab guys in our crime lab. I bet you'll like him. He's, like, totally having the hicks for you."
"All the lab guys in the crime lab have hicks on me. Which one are you talking about?" Rachel asked, bored.
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a blind date now, would it?"
"If you tell me, I'll still act blind."
"You are hopeless," Rebecca groaned, the sound of her slapping her forehead could be heard.
"Well, I can't help it if I have no interest with any of those guys in the lab," Rachel said nonchalantly. "They're..."
"Not intellectually equipped as you are," Rebecca finished her sentence. "I know that. You always say that and then you don't give a dit about them. When are you gonna realize that no one can live alone?"
"I'm not alone. I have my books and my family and you guys. There's nothing wrong about not having a boyfriend."
"Yeah, but..."
"And it's not against the law either, and it's my own free will."
Rebecca wanted to rebut her but seeing that arguing with her would be like asking a chicken to fly south, she sighed in defeat, "Alright, alright. You made your point. It's your funeral."
"Whatever," Rachel shrugged.
"I guess I'll let you go back to your books then."
"Yeah. Ciao."
Rachel waited until Rebecca hung up before she did. She stared at the phone for a while and sighed. She just couldn't understand why everyone is pestering her to have a boyfriend, as if it was a crime if she didn't. She really couldn't bring herself to like or even accept people who are not smarter than or at least as smart as her. Her co-workers often called her a perfectionist attitude a big curse on her, but she couldn't help it. If someone is not perfectly compatible for her or maybe even past her expectations in a good way, he would definitely be a total reject.
It's not that she had never liked a guy before. She's still human, and of course she had crushes just like everyone else. It was during her practical year when she was studying for her teacher training course. She was a woman of high hopes then, planning to start off at a small scale and slowly moving up to the tops and become the professor she always wanted. Those were her golden days.
When she reached her practical year and was allocated to an exclusive boarding school to teach, her confidence was up to the nines. With her intelligence and her wits (and her occasional sarcasm), she was immediately well-known as the female version of Severus Snape and a one-of-a-kind student teacher.
One of the students in her class was an exceptional boy. You can say that he was pretty much a male version of Hermione Granger and he didn't fail to catch her attention. They often had disagreements on a subject and often could be seen debating their theories at each other, much to the students' amusement. Never a day went by without them having to squabble about something. Until the middle of her practical year, the boy confronted her one day after school and confessed to her that he had a crush on her ever since she started being their student teacher, with a bouquet of roses to match. For that split second, Rachel experienced an overwhelming crush for him that had been suppressed inside her for so long. And from that moment on, they became couples. Of course, they only dated outside of school and knew when was the time to be serious on studies, but her class pretty much knew about their relationship. Luckily, nothing went out.
Later on, Rachel began to realize that this young boyfriend of hers was a bit more than just having a crush on her. He gave her elaborate gifts at sudden, unexpected times and he often called her just to check her out, as in where she was and what she was doing. He was also an easily jealous person. There was once when they were going out for a movie and Rachel was waiting outside the line while the boyfriend went to buy the tickets. Moments later, she came across her cousin whom she hadn't seen for a very, very long time. Overwhelmed, she jumped and hugged him with glee. The boyfriend just so happen to have bought the ticket and was coming out of the line when he saw her in her cousin's embrace. Jealousy took over and he pounced on her cousin, making him fall onto the floor. He cursed and swore as he kicked him over and over again. He even gave Rachel a black eye when she tried to stop him and he pushed her away. After that incident, Rachel tried to avoid him but his sweet words and soft apologies melted her heart.
As their relationship continued, she found out that when he was confronted by her uncle whose son's been beaten by him, he had punched himself and made bruises all over himself just to make Rachel think that her uncle had hurt him. When she tried to break off the relationship, he called her day and night asking to take him back until he resorted to sneak into her room and slit his wrists in front of her. Took her hours to convince him that she wouldn't leave him again and took her weeks to get rid of the blood stains on her carpet. The last straw was him stalking her everyday without rest and also murdering a foreigner who was only being pleasant to her when he was asking directions to the KL Twin Tower. He actually murdered him right in front of her eyes and with all the blood splattered all over her body.
It took her about a week to get out of unconsciousness (she fainted right at the spot and had to be hospitalized) and an extra 5 months to recover from the shock. The young boyfriend, although very smart, had quite a serious temper disorder, which led him to his violent and self-mutilating habits. He was institutionalized and was there ever since. Since that incident, she stopped her teacher training altogether and suddenly, despite her parents' disagreements and persuasion not to, stepped into medic school and applied for forensics major. The rest was history.
Rachel sighed again as she tried to sweep the horrific memory away from her head. Being in the crime lab today made her feel safe. Staring at all the violent pictures and scanning through the violent cases everyday made her realize that just teaching people and educating them what's right and wrong wasn't enough to stop crimes from happening. When it comes to stepping into the real world, it's every man for himself and humans often end up succumbing to their wild animal nature. Besides, being a CSI member showed her that there are always new things to learn and more challenging things to accomplish, which has always been her first intellectual love. Nothing could get better than this.
As she slumped on her couch slowly slipping into slumber she was left with one thought in her mind.
'I love this job.'
CSI: Asia-Chp13
CHAPTER 13: THE TRIANGLE
The CSI gang was back at the crime lab checking out the evidence they got from the crime scene. Justin were pretty much done with all the bodies from the school and the Putra Jaya accident spot, since they have already analyzed most of the stuff directly at the crime scene, and was typing in the report. They have received an ID on the victims of the car accident (or murder) as twin brothers Derek and Desmond. While Jonathan tried to find out more about the twins, the girls—Rebecca, Judith, Elaine and Rachel—were inspecting the cars Elaine and Rebecca found at Putra Jaya. Judith and Rachel did the Proton Saga and Elaine and Rebecca did the Iswara.
"So what have you got over there, Jude?" Elaine asked from the boot of the Iswara.
"Nothing much here," Judith replied, dusting for fingerprints. "There are no fingerprints or hair or anything that's here for us to find. This murderer is seriously a pro. He's getting better everyday."
"She," Rachel corrected.
"Well, I still have that gut feeling that it could be a 'he'," Judith said indignantly.
"She's got a point, you know," Rebecca agreed. "I mean, it could be Cliff who murdered the Han siblings and Gary did confess in murdering Cliff. They're all males."
"Besides, you said it yourself, right, Jude? That this is some sort of a chain murder and all," Elaine backed her up. "Who else could've done this if it's not a guy?"
"She could be the mastermind behind all this," Rachel said. "Don't underestimate the fury and intellectual of women."
"Yeah, well, not all women are as smart and vengeful as you are though," Judith commented. She took a look at the license plate number of the Proton Saga and exclaimed, "Hey, I recognize this car!"
"You do?" Rebecca asked, curious.
"Yeah, I've seen this license plate number. This car belongs to my neighbour who lives just across the street! He had reported it stolen a couple of days ago!"
"That old car? He still keeps this thing?"
"Well, I heard he got this car from his dad for his 20th birthday. He practically worshipped this car. Loves it more than his wife," Judith grinned. "Looks like he'll be in for a serious heart attack when I tell him what happened to his car."
"Guess that rules your neighbour out as a suspect," Rebecca replied. "One thing bothers me though."
"Why? What is it?" Elaine asked.
"Proton Saga is the first of its kind and Proton Iswara is somewhat the Proton Saga's next of kin. It should be much tougher than its brother, so why is it that the damages on the bonnet of this Iswara so intense?"
"It's a modified car," Rachel voiced out.
"How would you know?" Rebecca asked, although it is pretty much a dumb question for the Human Library.
"Proton Iswara-s are built to be much stronger and tougher than the original version. That's the basic concept for all cars and their next of kin. So logically speaking they wouldn't be able to break or dent that easily like the old version. But when it comes to car races, they usually make their car bonnets lighter so that it can speed faster and all. Usually made out of carbon-fiber metal. I've analyzed a little bit about that mangled bonnet. It is the same material as I've mentioned just now."
"So that means that this pair of twins had a tendency to go for either joyrides or car-racing in the middle of the night. I knew that these races would lead to an end like this."
"Did you say before that this Proton Saga rammed that Iswara to the tree and that the place it occurred was at the remote junction of Putra Jaya?" Judith asked without looking up.
"Uh-huh," Elaine replied. "What? You know something?"
"If my suspicions are correct, it could be another urban legend."
"We thought of that too, since we've been hounded by the press about this," Rebecca noted. "But which urban legend is it?"
"The headlights urban legend." Rachel replied. "The book said that to be able to become a gang member in the olden days, you have to drive with your headlights off and kill the first person to signal the headlights at you."
"OK, now that is seriously sick," Rebecca grimaced. "This guy is way too hooked on that urban legend thing."
"Girl."
"Whatever!"
"Can't find any evidence over here," Elaine concluded her inspection.
"Same here," Judith voiced out.
"Things sure get weirder and weirder," Rachel muttered, believing even more that she made the right choice of profession.
"Another one bites the dust."
Jonathan sighed and rubbed his temples as he closed the file he was reading. He had never expected that today would be a hectic day. It was very rare for them to have a multiple case that actually linked together, not to mention being hounded by the press demanding an explanation behind all these murders in the past few weeks. It's never easy to answer pressing questions from relentless reporters and believe me, Jonathan and the rest of the crew sure had a hard time trying to avoid them.
He had just received further ID from all the victims both from SM Victoria Institution and the Putra Jaya accident scene and discovered that they all share one thing in common: they were some of the members of Lionel Han's basketball team. Him and all his co-workers' fear came true—the murderer was beginning to target the rest of the team. He was considering Rebecca's suggestion of giving the rest of the basketball team protective custody when he saw Judith and Elaine coming in.
"Anything about the car?" Jonathan asked.
"No prints as usual," Elaine replied as she lit a cigarette. Judith grinned naughtily and snatched the cigarette to take a whiff of it, earning a bonk on the shoulder from an annoyed Elaine. Jonathan groaned.
"I'm surrounded by idiots."
"Well, you won't think I'm much of an idiot when you hear that the Proton Iswara's bonnet is made out of carbon-fiber material," Judith said, folding her arms across her chest.
"That's only used when you want to make speed racing cars," Jonathan was surprised. "Why would it be on the Iswara?"
"Duh, obviously because our Mr. Derek and Desmond has a knack for car races," Elaine rolled her eyes.
"That means the killer must have an idea about their car to dare ram them up onto that tree," Jonathan rubbed his chin. "Good work, girls. Carry on."
"Sorry, Mark David," Judith replied as she packed her stuff. "As much as I want to carry on, I have to go out."
"I'm thinking of getting something to eat myself," Elaine agreed. "Besides, there's nothing for us to check anyway and we have no leads."
"Go out?" Jonathan asked, curious. Elaine grinned inwardly. She could tell from the tone of his voice and the look on his face that there was something he didn't like about Judith going out.
"Yeah, you know," Judith replied nonchalantly, adjusting her hair. "As in go out, grab a bite, watch a movie, shopping, you know."
"I know that, doy!" Jonathan groaned exasperatedly. "I meant by who are you going out with?"
"None of your business."
"Well, I'm your superior and I have to know where you're going if you're not carrying on with the work…"
"Jude, are you ready? Can we go now?" Justin's head popped from behind the door of the main crime office where the trio was. Elaine lit up in understanding and thought she saw Jonathan looking slightly darkly at him.
"Yeah, I'm all done," Judith replied, waving goodbye at her friends without looking at them. Elaine waited until the duo disappeared out of sight before turning to Jonathan.
"Hey, Jon. Wanna go get some grub?"
"Not hungry," Jonathan muttered before he returned to his files pretending to be very interested in them. Elaine shrugged as she put out the cigarette butt and left the room, trying hard not to burst out laughing until she's really far from earshot.
Jonathan continued to flip over the papers in the file, his eyes on the paper but his mind somewhere else in oblivion. Somehow he just couldn't concentrate on what he was supposed to read through. After a few moments of staring blankly at the paper (and realizing that there isn't any evidence to pinpoint a suspect anyway), he stuffed them all into his drawer and went out of the crime office.
Judith and Justin were seen walking out of the shopping plaza's mini cinema after watching the horror movie 'McCall's Boys' Justin mentioned before, discussing about it excitedly.
"That movie was so cool!" Judith exclaimed as she sucked the last drop of her Coke. "And to think that it was the youngest son who's been doing all the black magic and killing people! He's like, what, 9 years old? His acting is good!"
"Well, that's the interesting thing," Justin replied. "Kids nowadays. Never underestimate them, ever."
"Yeah. Think of the things a kid would do for revenge, especially what we're facing now. And I thought USA has the highest crime rate."
While Judith and Justin continued discussing hotly about the movie, at a distance away unknown to them, Jonathan was following them from behind. He refused to admit to himself that he was jealous about them—although the thought did come—but he still couldn't help wanting to find out what was going on between them. This thought bit him tirelessly in his head and he just had to satisfy his curiosity.
The rest of the evening was spent pretty normally at typical places: window-shopping, going to the arcades, grab a bite at a food stall, checking out books sold at bookstores and looking for new on-sale VCD-s and finally sitting at a café enjoying a cup of coffee.
"So I heard you girls have been checking out the cars. Any luck?" Justin asked, sipping his cappuccino.
"Nope. None as usual," Judith sighed as she put down her cup of latte. "We're beginning to think that we're trying to find a ghost killer, and an expert at that."
"No ghost killer can kill with such precise detail and would take so much trouble finding out which legend fits who."
"True."
"Uhh, Jude," Justin said sheepishly as he scratched his chin. "I don't wanna pry but…you and the Chief…well, are you guys still on?"
"Not really," Judith replied. She didn't seem to take offence about his question. "We're still friends, but we're not 'on' to each other."
"Oh, well…That means you guys have no strings attached now, right?"
"Uh-huh. No strings attached whatsoever."
Justin smiled inwardly, seemingly relieved. Jonathan, who was sitting a table behind them, could tell that he had something going on in his head.
"Do you, well, do you still have feelings for him though?" Jonathan heard Justin asked tentatively.
Judith eyed Justin for a while and circled her finger on the cup, then muttered, "Justin, what exactly are you trying to say to me? You didn't ask me out just to watch a movie, did you?"
Justin hesitated, a red flush ran through his fair cheeks. Scratching his head awkwardly, he replied, "Well…uh…I dunno…I mean, if you're not having any…intimate feelings for the Chief, I was thinking…maybe you and could go…uh, you know…"
"Steady?" Judith finished his sentence. Hesitantly, Justin nodded. Jonathan looked as if he was going to plant a bullet on someone's head. Judith smirked and shook her head.
"Nah, I can't say I'm ready to go another extra mile between us."
"Yeah, I guessed," Justin replied, slightly disappointed. "You still have feelings for him, right?"
"Well, I can't say I have much deep feelings for him, but…I can say one thing: he's someone who can be two things at one time. He can be unbearable for one time, then he can be insatiable next. He can be boring, then interesting the next. He can be intolerable first, then later you just can't get enough of him. That's what I like about him. He's one of a kind. I never regret that I used to be with him."
Justin smiled wryly as he patted her shoulder. Jonathan, who had heard every word, was stunned. Was that what she really felt? Was she really saying it from the depth of her heart? Did she really mean what she said? What exactly was she trying to imply really anyway? Before Jonathan could make sense of it all, he saw Judith stand up abruptly.
"Take me to the nearest playground!"
"Wha…?" Justin was quite taken aback.
"Take me to the nearest playground! I wanna play the swing!" Judith repeated.
"What for?"
"It's been a while. I just wanna go back to my childhood side for a moment. Come on, let's go!"
"Just the Jude we always know," Justin chuckled as he took her hand. "Come on, then. Playground it is."
"Don't you think you're old enough to be out of this kiddy habit already?"
Judith and Justin were in the playground and Judith was on the swing, practically enjoying the rush as she swung back and forth and demanding Justin to push her higher. Jonathan, who had decided that he had seen enough of this childishness, went back to the crime lab to do more research. Judith laughed out loud as she swung higher. Justin shook his head and sighed weakly—this CSI member certainly was someone very unpredictable.
While she was swinging, Judith's eyes caught sight of the monkey bars. She saw some teenagers who were, like her, reliving their younger years by climbing and dangling over the monkey bars and laughing at people who couldn't hang on the bars more than 5 seconds. When one of them hung upside-down by his legs at the bars, Judith's mind suddenly clicked. The more she stared at the boy, the more her mind began to work. Once her mind suddenly came to a conclusion, she turned her head abruptly at Justin.
"Justin, stop! Stop the swing!"
Justin was so caught off guard that he stopped pushing the swing, resulting it to almost hit his face when it swung back. Justin got back to his senses quite immediately and grabbed the swing handles to stop the swing. As soon as it stopped, Judith jumped off.
"We have to go back to the crime scene!" Judith suddenly voiced out in excitement.
"Why? Which crime scene?"
"The one in Alor Setar! The place where Cliff was found dead!"
"Now?" Justin looked at his watch. "Why now? It's almost 1.30 a.m.!"
"Yes, now. Right now, before I forget my theory."
"What theory?" Justin asked he followed behind Judith to his car.
"The theory of Cliff's murder. I think I have that figured out!"
"What else is there to think of? They have already dismissed Gary's confession to murder because they assumed that he was dying and couldn't think straight. You didn't even record what he was saying—and the fact that he couldn't talk anyway. They've already deemed him innocent. Why now?"
"Trust me on this. With this theory of mine, I bet they would be looking helter-skelter for the confession file on Gary he dismissed."
As soon as they're at their crime scene where Cliff was killed, Judith immediately jumped off the car without even waiting for Justin to hit the brakes, practically ignoring Justin's horrified yell to be careful. She ran full speed towards the tree and recreated the image of Cliff's body in her mind. Justin came running after her breathlessly.
"You are seriously suicidal, Jude! What is it that you see?"
Judith didn't reply. She continued to stare at the tree, visualizing the crime scene, her trailing from the branches to the place where Cliff took a leak. She grabbed Justin's sleeve without a word and pulled him towards the tree.
"Give me a boost," Judith ordered. Justin obliged, still puzzled about his co-workers mysterious attitude. Judith climbed up the tree and inched her way slowly towards the middle of the branch where Cliff was hung. She soon discovered that there were a few hay-like strings attached to the natural dents of the branch's skin, looking just like the material from the rope tied on Cliff's ankles. She held on tight to another branch above her and stretched over to see that there were tiny pieces of plastic stuck onto the branch opposite the one she was on. She took that and the hay-like strings and pocketed it in.
"What do you see, Jude?" Justin asked anxiously from below.
"Here's what happened," Judith gave her deduction. "On the night of the murder, Cliff sneaked off to have fun with the girl, but the steam was cut off when he had to take a leak. What he didn't know was that Gary was so used to his unorthodox habit that he knew Cliff was going to ditch them beforehand. Things were hectic there, so the other guys didn't know when Gary left to buy neon lights, so probably he went out about almost the same time Cliff snuck off with the girl and did the dirty work the mastermind had planned for him."
"How did he do that, pray tell?"
"He hid up here in the tree in waiting and he had the trap waiting for Cliff. He laid a noose on the ground that covered the place approximately where Cliff might stand to take a leak. While Cliff did his business, he quietly pulled the rope and let the noose tighten around Cliff's feet, descended quietly down the ground holding the loose end of the rope, came behind Cliff and slit his throat before pulling the rope with all his might until he was sure Cliff was hanging above the car. Which explains the dragging marks..."
"Wait a second!" Justin stepped her deduction. "If Gary had been going up and down the tree to slit Cliff, why aren't there any footprints at the place where he was slit? If there weren't any footprints where Cliff was dragged, he should have left some there!"
"Because," Judith said as she plucked a few very tiny pieces of cloth on the spot next to the hay-like strings, "he was wearing socks. Even if he had left any footprints there, it wouldn't be easy for us to trace it to him 'coz anyone could have the same size of feet he did. Besides toe prints don't exactly penetrate through socks."
"But he couldn't climb trees! He had dislocated his knees many times and had quite a fracture on his thigh bone, making him unable to climb without help."
"He didn't have to," Judith replied. "He had his hands. I found some plastic material on this branch here. He was wearing plastic gloves and he was swinging from branch to branch and was also hanging upside-down with his legs to disembowel Cliff."
"That explains the absence of prints on the car," Justin said as he rubbed his chin in comprehension. "But how could he...?"
"I've read his school records. Before he was in basketball, he was in gymnastics for a year or two. That's where he got all the dislocation and fractures. He was risking another injury on his knee to do this murder. If he had stayed hanging there longer, you would've found injuries on his body. Plus, with his expertise in going under cars, that explains the army knife between the exhaust pipe."
"Darn!" Justin slapped his head. "Why didn't I check that one out?"
"What happened, Justin?" Judith asked as she hung suddenly upside-down almost close to Justin's face, taking him by surprise. "I thought you're the best coroner in the crime lab."
"Well, I'm not exactly perfect..." Justin replied, looking away with a flushed face. Judith grinned mischievously, not realizing that the branch she was hanging from was beginning to break. When she realized what happened, it was too late. The branch snapped and she fell headlong towards the ground, landing on top of Justin, her lips dangerously close to his. Justin blushed even worse as he realized his eyes were staring straight into Judith's dark-brown ones. Judith smiled and gave Justin a peck on the lips—a sort of friendly kiss.
"My hero."
The CSI gang was back at the crime lab checking out the evidence they got from the crime scene. Justin were pretty much done with all the bodies from the school and the Putra Jaya accident spot, since they have already analyzed most of the stuff directly at the crime scene, and was typing in the report. They have received an ID on the victims of the car accident (or murder) as twin brothers Derek and Desmond. While Jonathan tried to find out more about the twins, the girls—Rebecca, Judith, Elaine and Rachel—were inspecting the cars Elaine and Rebecca found at Putra Jaya. Judith and Rachel did the Proton Saga and Elaine and Rebecca did the Iswara.
"So what have you got over there, Jude?" Elaine asked from the boot of the Iswara.
"Nothing much here," Judith replied, dusting for fingerprints. "There are no fingerprints or hair or anything that's here for us to find. This murderer is seriously a pro. He's getting better everyday."
"She," Rachel corrected.
"Well, I still have that gut feeling that it could be a 'he'," Judith said indignantly.
"She's got a point, you know," Rebecca agreed. "I mean, it could be Cliff who murdered the Han siblings and Gary did confess in murdering Cliff. They're all males."
"Besides, you said it yourself, right, Jude? That this is some sort of a chain murder and all," Elaine backed her up. "Who else could've done this if it's not a guy?"
"She could be the mastermind behind all this," Rachel said. "Don't underestimate the fury and intellectual of women."
"Yeah, well, not all women are as smart and vengeful as you are though," Judith commented. She took a look at the license plate number of the Proton Saga and exclaimed, "Hey, I recognize this car!"
"You do?" Rebecca asked, curious.
"Yeah, I've seen this license plate number. This car belongs to my neighbour who lives just across the street! He had reported it stolen a couple of days ago!"
"That old car? He still keeps this thing?"
"Well, I heard he got this car from his dad for his 20th birthday. He practically worshipped this car. Loves it more than his wife," Judith grinned. "Looks like he'll be in for a serious heart attack when I tell him what happened to his car."
"Guess that rules your neighbour out as a suspect," Rebecca replied. "One thing bothers me though."
"Why? What is it?" Elaine asked.
"Proton Saga is the first of its kind and Proton Iswara is somewhat the Proton Saga's next of kin. It should be much tougher than its brother, so why is it that the damages on the bonnet of this Iswara so intense?"
"It's a modified car," Rachel voiced out.
"How would you know?" Rebecca asked, although it is pretty much a dumb question for the Human Library.
"Proton Iswara-s are built to be much stronger and tougher than the original version. That's the basic concept for all cars and their next of kin. So logically speaking they wouldn't be able to break or dent that easily like the old version. But when it comes to car races, they usually make their car bonnets lighter so that it can speed faster and all. Usually made out of carbon-fiber metal. I've analyzed a little bit about that mangled bonnet. It is the same material as I've mentioned just now."
"So that means that this pair of twins had a tendency to go for either joyrides or car-racing in the middle of the night. I knew that these races would lead to an end like this."
"Did you say before that this Proton Saga rammed that Iswara to the tree and that the place it occurred was at the remote junction of Putra Jaya?" Judith asked without looking up.
"Uh-huh," Elaine replied. "What? You know something?"
"If my suspicions are correct, it could be another urban legend."
"We thought of that too, since we've been hounded by the press about this," Rebecca noted. "But which urban legend is it?"
"The headlights urban legend." Rachel replied. "The book said that to be able to become a gang member in the olden days, you have to drive with your headlights off and kill the first person to signal the headlights at you."
"OK, now that is seriously sick," Rebecca grimaced. "This guy is way too hooked on that urban legend thing."
"Girl."
"Whatever!"
"Can't find any evidence over here," Elaine concluded her inspection.
"Same here," Judith voiced out.
"Things sure get weirder and weirder," Rachel muttered, believing even more that she made the right choice of profession.
"Another one bites the dust."
Jonathan sighed and rubbed his temples as he closed the file he was reading. He had never expected that today would be a hectic day. It was very rare for them to have a multiple case that actually linked together, not to mention being hounded by the press demanding an explanation behind all these murders in the past few weeks. It's never easy to answer pressing questions from relentless reporters and believe me, Jonathan and the rest of the crew sure had a hard time trying to avoid them.
He had just received further ID from all the victims both from SM Victoria Institution and the Putra Jaya accident scene and discovered that they all share one thing in common: they were some of the members of Lionel Han's basketball team. Him and all his co-workers' fear came true—the murderer was beginning to target the rest of the team. He was considering Rebecca's suggestion of giving the rest of the basketball team protective custody when he saw Judith and Elaine coming in.
"Anything about the car?" Jonathan asked.
"No prints as usual," Elaine replied as she lit a cigarette. Judith grinned naughtily and snatched the cigarette to take a whiff of it, earning a bonk on the shoulder from an annoyed Elaine. Jonathan groaned.
"I'm surrounded by idiots."
"Well, you won't think I'm much of an idiot when you hear that the Proton Iswara's bonnet is made out of carbon-fiber material," Judith said, folding her arms across her chest.
"That's only used when you want to make speed racing cars," Jonathan was surprised. "Why would it be on the Iswara?"
"Duh, obviously because our Mr. Derek and Desmond has a knack for car races," Elaine rolled her eyes.
"That means the killer must have an idea about their car to dare ram them up onto that tree," Jonathan rubbed his chin. "Good work, girls. Carry on."
"Sorry, Mark David," Judith replied as she packed her stuff. "As much as I want to carry on, I have to go out."
"I'm thinking of getting something to eat myself," Elaine agreed. "Besides, there's nothing for us to check anyway and we have no leads."
"Go out?" Jonathan asked, curious. Elaine grinned inwardly. She could tell from the tone of his voice and the look on his face that there was something he didn't like about Judith going out.
"Yeah, you know," Judith replied nonchalantly, adjusting her hair. "As in go out, grab a bite, watch a movie, shopping, you know."
"I know that, doy!" Jonathan groaned exasperatedly. "I meant by who are you going out with?"
"None of your business."
"Well, I'm your superior and I have to know where you're going if you're not carrying on with the work…"
"Jude, are you ready? Can we go now?" Justin's head popped from behind the door of the main crime office where the trio was. Elaine lit up in understanding and thought she saw Jonathan looking slightly darkly at him.
"Yeah, I'm all done," Judith replied, waving goodbye at her friends without looking at them. Elaine waited until the duo disappeared out of sight before turning to Jonathan.
"Hey, Jon. Wanna go get some grub?"
"Not hungry," Jonathan muttered before he returned to his files pretending to be very interested in them. Elaine shrugged as she put out the cigarette butt and left the room, trying hard not to burst out laughing until she's really far from earshot.
Jonathan continued to flip over the papers in the file, his eyes on the paper but his mind somewhere else in oblivion. Somehow he just couldn't concentrate on what he was supposed to read through. After a few moments of staring blankly at the paper (and realizing that there isn't any evidence to pinpoint a suspect anyway), he stuffed them all into his drawer and went out of the crime office.
Judith and Justin were seen walking out of the shopping plaza's mini cinema after watching the horror movie 'McCall's Boys' Justin mentioned before, discussing about it excitedly.
"That movie was so cool!" Judith exclaimed as she sucked the last drop of her Coke. "And to think that it was the youngest son who's been doing all the black magic and killing people! He's like, what, 9 years old? His acting is good!"
"Well, that's the interesting thing," Justin replied. "Kids nowadays. Never underestimate them, ever."
"Yeah. Think of the things a kid would do for revenge, especially what we're facing now. And I thought USA has the highest crime rate."
While Judith and Justin continued discussing hotly about the movie, at a distance away unknown to them, Jonathan was following them from behind. He refused to admit to himself that he was jealous about them—although the thought did come—but he still couldn't help wanting to find out what was going on between them. This thought bit him tirelessly in his head and he just had to satisfy his curiosity.
The rest of the evening was spent pretty normally at typical places: window-shopping, going to the arcades, grab a bite at a food stall, checking out books sold at bookstores and looking for new on-sale VCD-s and finally sitting at a café enjoying a cup of coffee.
"So I heard you girls have been checking out the cars. Any luck?" Justin asked, sipping his cappuccino.
"Nope. None as usual," Judith sighed as she put down her cup of latte. "We're beginning to think that we're trying to find a ghost killer, and an expert at that."
"No ghost killer can kill with such precise detail and would take so much trouble finding out which legend fits who."
"True."
"Uhh, Jude," Justin said sheepishly as he scratched his chin. "I don't wanna pry but…you and the Chief…well, are you guys still on?"
"Not really," Judith replied. She didn't seem to take offence about his question. "We're still friends, but we're not 'on' to each other."
"Oh, well…That means you guys have no strings attached now, right?"
"Uh-huh. No strings attached whatsoever."
Justin smiled inwardly, seemingly relieved. Jonathan, who was sitting a table behind them, could tell that he had something going on in his head.
"Do you, well, do you still have feelings for him though?" Jonathan heard Justin asked tentatively.
Judith eyed Justin for a while and circled her finger on the cup, then muttered, "Justin, what exactly are you trying to say to me? You didn't ask me out just to watch a movie, did you?"
Justin hesitated, a red flush ran through his fair cheeks. Scratching his head awkwardly, he replied, "Well…uh…I dunno…I mean, if you're not having any…intimate feelings for the Chief, I was thinking…maybe you and could go…uh, you know…"
"Steady?" Judith finished his sentence. Hesitantly, Justin nodded. Jonathan looked as if he was going to plant a bullet on someone's head. Judith smirked and shook her head.
"Nah, I can't say I'm ready to go another extra mile between us."
"Yeah, I guessed," Justin replied, slightly disappointed. "You still have feelings for him, right?"
"Well, I can't say I have much deep feelings for him, but…I can say one thing: he's someone who can be two things at one time. He can be unbearable for one time, then he can be insatiable next. He can be boring, then interesting the next. He can be intolerable first, then later you just can't get enough of him. That's what I like about him. He's one of a kind. I never regret that I used to be with him."
Justin smiled wryly as he patted her shoulder. Jonathan, who had heard every word, was stunned. Was that what she really felt? Was she really saying it from the depth of her heart? Did she really mean what she said? What exactly was she trying to imply really anyway? Before Jonathan could make sense of it all, he saw Judith stand up abruptly.
"Take me to the nearest playground!"
"Wha…?" Justin was quite taken aback.
"Take me to the nearest playground! I wanna play the swing!" Judith repeated.
"What for?"
"It's been a while. I just wanna go back to my childhood side for a moment. Come on, let's go!"
"Just the Jude we always know," Justin chuckled as he took her hand. "Come on, then. Playground it is."
"Don't you think you're old enough to be out of this kiddy habit already?"
Judith and Justin were in the playground and Judith was on the swing, practically enjoying the rush as she swung back and forth and demanding Justin to push her higher. Jonathan, who had decided that he had seen enough of this childishness, went back to the crime lab to do more research. Judith laughed out loud as she swung higher. Justin shook his head and sighed weakly—this CSI member certainly was someone very unpredictable.
While she was swinging, Judith's eyes caught sight of the monkey bars. She saw some teenagers who were, like her, reliving their younger years by climbing and dangling over the monkey bars and laughing at people who couldn't hang on the bars more than 5 seconds. When one of them hung upside-down by his legs at the bars, Judith's mind suddenly clicked. The more she stared at the boy, the more her mind began to work. Once her mind suddenly came to a conclusion, she turned her head abruptly at Justin.
"Justin, stop! Stop the swing!"
Justin was so caught off guard that he stopped pushing the swing, resulting it to almost hit his face when it swung back. Justin got back to his senses quite immediately and grabbed the swing handles to stop the swing. As soon as it stopped, Judith jumped off.
"We have to go back to the crime scene!" Judith suddenly voiced out in excitement.
"Why? Which crime scene?"
"The one in Alor Setar! The place where Cliff was found dead!"
"Now?" Justin looked at his watch. "Why now? It's almost 1.30 a.m.!"
"Yes, now. Right now, before I forget my theory."
"What theory?" Justin asked he followed behind Judith to his car.
"The theory of Cliff's murder. I think I have that figured out!"
"What else is there to think of? They have already dismissed Gary's confession to murder because they assumed that he was dying and couldn't think straight. You didn't even record what he was saying—and the fact that he couldn't talk anyway. They've already deemed him innocent. Why now?"
"Trust me on this. With this theory of mine, I bet they would be looking helter-skelter for the confession file on Gary he dismissed."
As soon as they're at their crime scene where Cliff was killed, Judith immediately jumped off the car without even waiting for Justin to hit the brakes, practically ignoring Justin's horrified yell to be careful. She ran full speed towards the tree and recreated the image of Cliff's body in her mind. Justin came running after her breathlessly.
"You are seriously suicidal, Jude! What is it that you see?"
Judith didn't reply. She continued to stare at the tree, visualizing the crime scene, her trailing from the branches to the place where Cliff took a leak. She grabbed Justin's sleeve without a word and pulled him towards the tree.
"Give me a boost," Judith ordered. Justin obliged, still puzzled about his co-workers mysterious attitude. Judith climbed up the tree and inched her way slowly towards the middle of the branch where Cliff was hung. She soon discovered that there were a few hay-like strings attached to the natural dents of the branch's skin, looking just like the material from the rope tied on Cliff's ankles. She held on tight to another branch above her and stretched over to see that there were tiny pieces of plastic stuck onto the branch opposite the one she was on. She took that and the hay-like strings and pocketed it in.
"What do you see, Jude?" Justin asked anxiously from below.
"Here's what happened," Judith gave her deduction. "On the night of the murder, Cliff sneaked off to have fun with the girl, but the steam was cut off when he had to take a leak. What he didn't know was that Gary was so used to his unorthodox habit that he knew Cliff was going to ditch them beforehand. Things were hectic there, so the other guys didn't know when Gary left to buy neon lights, so probably he went out about almost the same time Cliff snuck off with the girl and did the dirty work the mastermind had planned for him."
"How did he do that, pray tell?"
"He hid up here in the tree in waiting and he had the trap waiting for Cliff. He laid a noose on the ground that covered the place approximately where Cliff might stand to take a leak. While Cliff did his business, he quietly pulled the rope and let the noose tighten around Cliff's feet, descended quietly down the ground holding the loose end of the rope, came behind Cliff and slit his throat before pulling the rope with all his might until he was sure Cliff was hanging above the car. Which explains the dragging marks..."
"Wait a second!" Justin stepped her deduction. "If Gary had been going up and down the tree to slit Cliff, why aren't there any footprints at the place where he was slit? If there weren't any footprints where Cliff was dragged, he should have left some there!"
"Because," Judith said as she plucked a few very tiny pieces of cloth on the spot next to the hay-like strings, "he was wearing socks. Even if he had left any footprints there, it wouldn't be easy for us to trace it to him 'coz anyone could have the same size of feet he did. Besides toe prints don't exactly penetrate through socks."
"But he couldn't climb trees! He had dislocated his knees many times and had quite a fracture on his thigh bone, making him unable to climb without help."
"He didn't have to," Judith replied. "He had his hands. I found some plastic material on this branch here. He was wearing plastic gloves and he was swinging from branch to branch and was also hanging upside-down with his legs to disembowel Cliff."
"That explains the absence of prints on the car," Justin said as he rubbed his chin in comprehension. "But how could he...?"
"I've read his school records. Before he was in basketball, he was in gymnastics for a year or two. That's where he got all the dislocation and fractures. He was risking another injury on his knee to do this murder. If he had stayed hanging there longer, you would've found injuries on his body. Plus, with his expertise in going under cars, that explains the army knife between the exhaust pipe."
"Darn!" Justin slapped his head. "Why didn't I check that one out?"
"What happened, Justin?" Judith asked as she hung suddenly upside-down almost close to Justin's face, taking him by surprise. "I thought you're the best coroner in the crime lab."
"Well, I'm not exactly perfect..." Justin replied, looking away with a flushed face. Judith grinned mischievously, not realizing that the branch she was hanging from was beginning to break. When she realized what happened, it was too late. The branch snapped and she fell headlong towards the ground, landing on top of Justin, her lips dangerously close to his. Justin blushed even worse as he realized his eyes were staring straight into Judith's dark-brown ones. Judith smiled and gave Justin a peck on the lips—a sort of friendly kiss.
"My hero."
CSI: Asia-Chp12
CHAPTER 12: THE MURDER CONTINUES
“A lady? How can that be?”
The CSI team who gathered together at the recreational room gave their reports of their findings to the head of the crime lab and Judith was the most surprised to hear this news from Rachel and Rebecca.
“Well, that’s what we heard from that Jothan Lo guy,” Rebecca shrugged. “He said no one buys axes these days and he remembers perfectly who and when a certain axe was bought.”
“He even kept a record of it and it was confirmed,” Rachel chided in. “The woman bought the axe about 2 days before the Han siblings’ murder.”
“Darn! That’s even further than whom I suspected,” Jonathan said, a little annoyed. “Are you saying that now we should be looking for a burgundy-haired woman who goes around killing people because of a prank done by drunken kids a few years ago?”
“It’s not impossible,” Elaine replied. “She could be Jeremy’s girlfriend or some obsessed person who has a crush on Jeremy to be going on a killing spree like this.”
"And we thought we've got our guy this time," Justin muttered, as equally disappointed as the rest. "Hey, guys. Do you realize our victims are often missing a portion of their body parts?"
"Meaning…?" Rachel looked at Justin questioningly.
"I've been doing a little bit more autopsies on those victims and I realized that they often have some portion of their body parts missing. Like for example, the Han siblings. They were either missing an arm or a leg. For Cliff, I saw that there's a clean cut somewhere at the end of the large intestines, which means that our killer Gary has taken away a portion of it. And then Gary on the other hand was missing his kidneys. And finally Nicholas was missing a digit…"
"A digit?" Elaine wrinkled her nose.
"You know, a finger. That's what they call it in a numerical way," Justin continued. "His left pinkie got cut off, if you haven't noticed. I can't say what, but I bet it's another trend from a movie that was copied out while the culprits were doing these murders."
"Well, I don't remember any movies that showed the killer collects human body parts as trophies," Judith scratched her chin. "Except the movie 'The Bone Collector', but then again, the killer collected bones."
"Well, whatever it is, we've got to put an end to this thing," Jonathan voiced out. "I've been receiving news that the people out there are getting restless and demand to know who has been doing all these murders. Even the press are hot on our heels now."
"Woah! Now that's what I call a serious publicity effect," Elaine wiped off an imaginary sweat from her brow. "Alright, now that men is out of the question, what are our leads to…"
"Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt your meeting," Elaine's words were interrupted by the secretary coming in with a cordless phone in his hand. In this CSI office, they have an unofficial policy that people should work in pairs (man and woman) to cultivate teamwork, and secretaries were of no exception.
"Don't people knock anymore? State your business," Jonathan said authoritatively.
"Mr. David, sir, there's a phone call for you, from a guy called Thomas Chung. He said it's really urgent," the secretary said as he handed the cordless phone to Jonathan.
"Isn't that one of your gun-mates?" Judith asked, surprised. "What's he gotta say?"
"I have no idea," Jonathan shrugged before answering the call. "Hello, Jon here. What's up? Yeah, uh-huh…What? Are you sure? Where? OK, I'll be right over."
"What is it, Mark David? Another case?" Judith asked as soon as Jonathan hung up the phone.
"Yup, we have a multiple crime scene tonight, and I guess we need some help from all of you," Jonathan replied as he got his gear together. "Some of you will have to go to Putra Jaya. There's an accident happening at one of the junction. The rest will have to follow me to our famous Mr. Lionel Han's high school. Which do you guys prefer?"
So, after much wondering and pondering, Judith, Rachel and Justin decided to go to Lionel Han's high school. The rest--Elaine and Rebecca--decided to take the Putra Jaya. After gathering everything they need for their crime scene investigation, they went on their separate ways.
"Woah! Now that is what I call an accident scene!"
Elaine and Rebecca have reached the junction at Putra Jaya where the accident was said to happen. Many reporters and civilians were crowding a few feet from the mangled car trying to get a glimpse of the victim inside. From far, our CSI agents could see that the mangled car was a Proton Iswara. Cameras were flashing and loud chatter among the people could be heard. There was a newscaster broadcasting the scene live and was talking to the cameraman. As soon as she caught sight of Elaine and Rebecca who were trying to squeeze their way through the crowd to do their job, she quickly rushed up to them.
"You must be CSI agents Elaine Majon and Rebecca Liew, right? Can you tell us what is going on here?" Her questioning was beginning to attract other reporters to come and ask questions.
"We don't know yet," Rebecca replied. "That's why we're called in here to check it out."
"Is there a possibility that this could be connected to the other cases known as the 'Urban Legend Copycat Killer'?" another reporter asked. Soon more questions poured out.
"Have you found out who the culprit is?"
"Which urban legend is it this time?"
"Have you have any suspects? Any leads to this case?"
"Is there anything you can do to find out the killer and stop these killings?"
"Sorry, guys, but we've got work to do," Elaine replied nonchalantly as she flicked her half-finished cigarette at one of the reporters that irritated her. "We have no comments on this issue."
With more reporters hounding behind their wake, Elaine and Rebecca flashed their badges at one of the police in charge and were let in.
"What's the story here, men?" Elaine asked.
"One serious accident, ma'am," the police in charge answered. "That Proton Iswara just rammed itself onto that huge tree over there and got itself really mushed up. The two victims in the car didn't survive. We're trying to get an ID out of them. We're suspecting maybe drunk driving."
"Thanks," Rebecca said. "We'll take it from here."
As they waited for the paramedics to take out the victims and carry them out of the car and into the ambulance, Elaine turned to Rebecca and asked, "What are the chances of people surviving this kind of car crash?"
"Second to nil," Rebecca replied, wrinkling her nose. "The tire tracks looked as if this car has traveled at about 80km/hr and that tree he just hit is like, what, almost as hard as steel? Judging by the tree's growth and the thickness of the trunk, there is no way he could survive this."
"Guess you're right. That bonnet of that car is like corn beef. Remind me never to buy a Proton Iswara ever."
"Anyway, did you hear what the reporter said earlier: 'Urban Legend Copycat Killer'? What was that about? How did they come up with such names?"
"Publicity gimmick," Elaine replied, putting on her plastic gloves. "Makes a news more interesting and get people coming back for more. It's a news thing. Come on, let's get to work."
Rebecca and Elaine soon got into their ever familiar CSI routine: checking for car faulty, sabotage and the like. As usual, Rebecca wound the loose end of the red ribbon around her neck. While Elaine was checking the inside of the car, Rebecca noticed something and gestured her to come.
"Hey, Elaine, take a look at this."
"What is it?" Elaine said as she moved towards the boot of the car where Rebecca was kneeling in front of.
"Check out these crunches. What does this tell you?"
Elaine looked closely and saw that there were forced in dent marks on the boot of the car and on one particular spot of the dent was a rusty-looking mark. Rebecca took out her camera and took a picture of it.
"Looks like rust," Elaine replied as she scraped a sample of it into an evidence bag. "It seems as if someone forced this Proton to hit the tree, and by the number of dents, he must've done it over and over again just to make sure his victim go corn beef together with the bonnet."
"Exactly. There is no way that someone in a car accident hitting headlong towards a tree would get dents in the back. And this much dents too for the fact." Rebecca deduced.
"Which means…"
"This is no drunk driving accident. This is murder."
"But how did this perpetrator do it without being noticed? Surely someone would see one car banging another car and forcing it to a tree." Elaine asked, surprised.
"This is quite a remote junction. Not much people pass this junction, especially at night. Pedestrians don't even dare go around here." Rebecca took a quick look around. "Anything can happen without being noticed and it'll take until morning before anyone knows what's going on. How's about retracing those steps?"
Elaine nodded and, with small evidence number tags in her hand, she stepped carefully along the road following the tire tracks. Rebecca, after done taking pictures of the car, followed behind Elaine taking pictures of the parts where she laid the evidence number tags. (A/N: Imagine that this scene, the crime was replayed, like in the CSI series) Elaine came across a few tracks that indicated a struggle and an abrupt halt, and she tagged them. After about a few miles down the road, she realized that she was running out of number tags.
"Darn, I'm fresh out. Got anything to replace number tags?"
"Well, I have a few chalks," Rebecca said, grinning with a few chalks in her hand. "I carry them around just in case there happens to be a body so that I can draw the shape around it. He he he…"
"That is sick," Elaine sweatdropped as she took one chalk from Rebecca. She continued numbering the road until she finally came across tire tracks that came from both the way they were walking and the opposite way. It was like some other car--the culprit's car, maybe--came from another direction and swerved around to chase the Proton Iswara. Rebecca got the cue and took a picture of the other tire tracks found.
"These tracks look like they come from an old version of the Proton. A Proton Saga maybe," Rebecca commented.
"I guess this is where the chase began," Elaine agreed. "Let's go back to the crime scene and check for the rest of our so-called Proton Saga's tire tracks. He has to go somewhere."
"Are you mad? He could have brought the whole darn car back home, and that could be miles! Are you suggesting we follow it until the end?"
"No one is dumb enough to bring a wrecked car back home, especially when he had used it to bang another car. Come on, let's go before the trail gets cold."
So saying, Elaine and Rebecca headed back towards the crime scene and this time, they took the other road. Sure enough, there were the 'Proton Saga' tire tracks on the road and like before, Elaine continued to number them and Rebecca continued to take pictures of them. They walked down the road for quite a long while until finally, at about 4 miles down the road, they saw something that looked like a car. They quickened their pace and sure enough, there was a very old Proton Saga with the bonnet pretty mangled up, but still intact enough to be driven for so long a mile. And as they have hoped, the rusty metallic Proton Saga logo of the bonnet matched the rust in the evidence bag.
"Looks like we've found our murder weapon," Elaine said as she started searching the car for clues.
"If you call this a murder weapon," Rebecca joined in the search, "that has got to be the biggest murder weapon I have ever seen."
The rest of the CSI team, namely Jonathan, Judith, Rachel and Justin, has finally reached SM Victoria Institution where Lionel studied. It was an all boys' school and it was evident that they were going to expect dozens upon dozens of boys, except for Form 6, which was the only grade with girls.
As soon as they got out of the car, like Elaine and Rebecca, they were swamped with reporters who got there before them. They were showered with questions about the Urban Legend Copycat murders and what will the authorities do about this. Jonathan, as head of the crime lab, waved their questions away and refused to give any comments. Justin and Rachel, who seldom go out to crime scenes, were quite intrigued at how hot and widespread this case was getting to. They flashed their badges and were let in.
"Hey, Thomas," Jonathan greeted Thomas who was giving instructions to his other gun-mates Aaron and Leslie. They turned around and gave him high-fives.
"Hey, Jon," Thomas grinned. "Glad you could make it."
"What are you guys doing here? I thought you SWAT team people wouldn't be involved with petty crimes like this."
"We do now," Aaron replied, sighing as he ran his fingers through his hair. "After the murder of 3 little children and 3 teenagers all using the ever familiar urban legends, the authorities are not taking any chances. They are considering this person very dangerous and could be a threat to the public. They are treating him as a cold-blooded serial killer and are recruiting people from the higher authorities to nail down this criminal."
"Her," Jonathan corrected. "We have reasons to believe it's a her."
"In other words, they brought you guys in," Judith said as she popped a Wrigley's Spearmint gum into her mouth.
"You must be the famous bakasaru Jonathan's been talking about," Leslie said.
"Guilty as charged."
"She's not such a bad package as I thought," Aaron rubbed his chin, eyeing her with interest. "You sure got good taste, Jon."
Jonathan gave them a warning She's-not-my-girlfriend look while Judith acted as if she didn't hear anything. Rachel decided to get right down to business, "What's the story here, guys?"
"Well, apparently we have a double crime here," Thomas replied, jerking his head towards the hostel. As he led the CSI agents towards the hostel, he continued explaining. "The victim's dorm mates found him dead at the hallway with his throat slit and another one was hung from the frame of the bathroom door in front of his disemboweled dog."
"Disemboweled dog?" Justin asked, getting familiar with this kind of case.
"Yup. They say that this guy has been rearing his dog secretly in his dorm and his other dorm mates were kind enough not to reveal it to the teachers. They have found a weird writing in blood on the wall though, saying…"
"'Humans can lick too', right?" Rachel asked.
"Uh, yeah, how did you…?"
"Another urban legend," Judith replied. "Owner of a dog heard a strange noise and reached for the dog which licked her hand, and found the next morning the dog dead and words written in the dog's blood 'Humans can lick too'. You can guess who's been doing the licking."
"Now that is sick," Leslie's face screwed up in disgust.
"What about the hallway victim?" Aaron asked.
"My guess would be the urban legend where two roommates were going back to their hostel and one of them still had some place else to go," Rachel, the Human Library, explained. "The latter hit the hay and woke up in the middle of the night hearing scratching sounds at the door. The next morning the latter found out that the former roommate was dead in the hallway and was scratching the door trying to call for help."
"Well, that's what we've got from the victims' dorm mates," Thomas replied and gestured the police guarding the crime scene to let them in. "You guys really did your homework."
"That's what we CSIs do," Jonathan replied before turning to his co-workers. "Alright, Rach, you and I go check on the hallway kid. Justin, you and Jude can go check the dog case. I think our bakasaru is more interested in gutted dogs than slit throats. And Jude, spit out that chewing gum."
Judith ignored him, chewing deliberately loud and amusing the SWAT team members. Jonathan sighed in defeat and they went on their separate ways. Thomas, Aaron and Leslie were beginning to think that they're going to see more amusing things between these two bickering colleagues.
As soon as Judith and Justin reached the dorm with the dead dog, they could see the dorm mates sitting at their double-decker beds, looking really ashen as some of the police were trying to question them about what they saw. Our CSI agents flashed their badges at the police before getting down to work.
"What's the ID of our dog lover?" Judith asked one of the policemen.
"His name was Terry Soong and his dog was named Jasper," the police replied. "His dorm mate who slept on the top bunk was the first one to discover his body. He claimed that Terry was an early waker, always waking up earlier before anyone else."
"What time did he usually wake up?" Justin asked.
"Mostly at about 3 or 4 in the morning. He heard Terry getting off the bed and he went back to sleep. He didn't hear anything else. When he woke up later and saw Terry's hanging body, he immediately blacked out and is still unconscious. The bathroom is over there, detectives."
The dorm had only one bathroom to share and it was left untouched for Judith and Justin to check. Which means that the gruesome dead bodies of the dog and the owner were still hanging at the exact spot when they were found (Gross!). Sure enough, there were bloody writings on the wall that bear the scary words HUMANS CAN LICK TOO. Judith took one look at the blue face of the owner and the noose around his neck and said, "At least he didn't suffer."
"How do you know?" Justin asked while he was taking blood samples from the dog and the writings on the wall.
"Try smell his face."
Justin did and his face lit up in understanding, "It's chloroform."
"Uh-huh. The culprit made him sleep first so that he won't make a sound, then she looped the noose around his neck and let him die in his sleep hanging there."
"She really followed everything here in detail," Justin said as he pointed at the gutted dog. "She followed exactly how the dog in the urban legend was disemboweled and wrote the exact words on the wall. She must've taken the effort to even lick Terry's hand just like in the legend. That's sick, man."
"I just don't understand how the culprit could ever do this without leaving any evidence around, not even a strand of hair," Judith said, a little frustrated as she powdered the place for any prints. "And I can't seem to shake off the feeling that it's a he who did this crime. I mean who in the world could possibly pull a rope that was hanging a 7 feet 4 guy if it's not a guy?"
"I dunno yet," Justin said as he took pictures of the whole place. "Unless she's been working out or something. You'll never know."
"I still think it's a guy," Judith insisted before Justin suddenly snapped the camera at her.
"Cheese!"
"Hey, what was that for?"
"For fun," Justin grinned. "Don't worry. I'll separate this section from the rest of the film."
"Weird," Judith muttered, making some last minute checks before gesturing one of the policemen to remove Terry from his hung-up position.
"Err…Jude, I was thinking…well…after investigating this batch of evidence, if you're not going to anything later tonight, would it be OK if you hang out with me?" Justin asked sheepishly.
"What for?" Judith asked, curious.
"Well, you know, just hang out and, uh, go watch a late night movie or something. There's this new horror movie called 'McCall's Boys' and I was wondering if you could…"
"Are you asking me out on a date, Justin?"
"Well, if you wanna put it that way…yeah, I am."
Judith stared at Justin for a while without a word, making Justin feel awkward. He wasn't good in reading people's faces like detectives do when they interrogate their suspects, and he sure couldn't read what was going on through Judith's mind. Come to think of it, no one can.
"I'll think about it," Judith said finally.
"Is that a yes?" Justin asked, hopeful.
"I said I'll think about it, OK?"
"Alright. Take your time."
Sometimes, he wished that she would actually give him a straight answer.
Meanwhile, Jonathan and Rachel were checking out on the dead student in the hallway. There were quite a number of other boys and a few girls from Form 6 crowding around the area to see how bad the situation was but was shooed away by the police on guard. Jonathan asked one of the policemen questioning the dorm mates to turn the face-down boy upright so that he could check out the damages.
"What did you say his name was?" Jonathan asked.
"Kevin Pang," the police replied. He looked more of a rookie than a pro. "We received a call from one of the kids here reporting about his case and then a few minutes later it was another call talking about that dog owner case."
"I see."
"He was right out there, trying to call for help and all we did was just locked the door and went back to sleep until he's dead!" one of the dorm mates cried in devastation. "It's all our fault he's dead! It's all our fault!"
"We didn't know it was him!" another dorm mate said. "We thought it was some kind of a cat. We get loads of cats around here and you don't know when they sneak in and jump on you. We…We just…We just thought…"
"There's nothing else you can do now," Rachel tried to pacify the dorm mates who were beating themselves up about this. "It's not entirely your fault. Just calm down. Did he say anything before he left the dorm last night? Anything suspicious?"
"Well, he said he was going to go out and meet somebody," the first dorm mate replied. "But he didn't tell us where."
"Did he say who he was going to meet?"
"No, not even that. We assumed he was going out on a secret midnight date with one of the girls, so we didn't wait up for him."
"Alright, thanks," Rachel said. She went towards Jonathan who taking blood samples and asked, "Well, any leads?"
"Nope. No fingerprints except the victim's, no other foreign footprints, nothing. He's getting better and better. And the slit wound are just Nicholas's, clean yet not too deep. Enough to make him choke in his own blood and suffer a long, painful death."
"Ouch!" Rachel wrinkled her nose. "Now that's gotta hurt!"
While Jonathan continued to check the body, Rachel looked around in search of clues. She noticed a long trail of blood from the victim's dorm down along the hallway. She remembered reading in urban legend that the roommate had dragged herself down the hallway all the way to her room. She decided to follow the trail while taking a few pictures in the process. She was so engrossed in following the trail of blood that she wasn't paying attention to where it was leading. When the trail finally stopped, she looked up and was quite surprised to see where she was. She phoned Jonathan and told him to get to where she was quick.
She was actually in a basketball court.
“A lady? How can that be?”
The CSI team who gathered together at the recreational room gave their reports of their findings to the head of the crime lab and Judith was the most surprised to hear this news from Rachel and Rebecca.
“Well, that’s what we heard from that Jothan Lo guy,” Rebecca shrugged. “He said no one buys axes these days and he remembers perfectly who and when a certain axe was bought.”
“He even kept a record of it and it was confirmed,” Rachel chided in. “The woman bought the axe about 2 days before the Han siblings’ murder.”
“Darn! That’s even further than whom I suspected,” Jonathan said, a little annoyed. “Are you saying that now we should be looking for a burgundy-haired woman who goes around killing people because of a prank done by drunken kids a few years ago?”
“It’s not impossible,” Elaine replied. “She could be Jeremy’s girlfriend or some obsessed person who has a crush on Jeremy to be going on a killing spree like this.”
"And we thought we've got our guy this time," Justin muttered, as equally disappointed as the rest. "Hey, guys. Do you realize our victims are often missing a portion of their body parts?"
"Meaning…?" Rachel looked at Justin questioningly.
"I've been doing a little bit more autopsies on those victims and I realized that they often have some portion of their body parts missing. Like for example, the Han siblings. They were either missing an arm or a leg. For Cliff, I saw that there's a clean cut somewhere at the end of the large intestines, which means that our killer Gary has taken away a portion of it. And then Gary on the other hand was missing his kidneys. And finally Nicholas was missing a digit…"
"A digit?" Elaine wrinkled her nose.
"You know, a finger. That's what they call it in a numerical way," Justin continued. "His left pinkie got cut off, if you haven't noticed. I can't say what, but I bet it's another trend from a movie that was copied out while the culprits were doing these murders."
"Well, I don't remember any movies that showed the killer collects human body parts as trophies," Judith scratched her chin. "Except the movie 'The Bone Collector', but then again, the killer collected bones."
"Well, whatever it is, we've got to put an end to this thing," Jonathan voiced out. "I've been receiving news that the people out there are getting restless and demand to know who has been doing all these murders. Even the press are hot on our heels now."
"Woah! Now that's what I call a serious publicity effect," Elaine wiped off an imaginary sweat from her brow. "Alright, now that men is out of the question, what are our leads to…"
"Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt your meeting," Elaine's words were interrupted by the secretary coming in with a cordless phone in his hand. In this CSI office, they have an unofficial policy that people should work in pairs (man and woman) to cultivate teamwork, and secretaries were of no exception.
"Don't people knock anymore? State your business," Jonathan said authoritatively.
"Mr. David, sir, there's a phone call for you, from a guy called Thomas Chung. He said it's really urgent," the secretary said as he handed the cordless phone to Jonathan.
"Isn't that one of your gun-mates?" Judith asked, surprised. "What's he gotta say?"
"I have no idea," Jonathan shrugged before answering the call. "Hello, Jon here. What's up? Yeah, uh-huh…What? Are you sure? Where? OK, I'll be right over."
"What is it, Mark David? Another case?" Judith asked as soon as Jonathan hung up the phone.
"Yup, we have a multiple crime scene tonight, and I guess we need some help from all of you," Jonathan replied as he got his gear together. "Some of you will have to go to Putra Jaya. There's an accident happening at one of the junction. The rest will have to follow me to our famous Mr. Lionel Han's high school. Which do you guys prefer?"
So, after much wondering and pondering, Judith, Rachel and Justin decided to go to Lionel Han's high school. The rest--Elaine and Rebecca--decided to take the Putra Jaya. After gathering everything they need for their crime scene investigation, they went on their separate ways.
"Woah! Now that is what I call an accident scene!"
Elaine and Rebecca have reached the junction at Putra Jaya where the accident was said to happen. Many reporters and civilians were crowding a few feet from the mangled car trying to get a glimpse of the victim inside. From far, our CSI agents could see that the mangled car was a Proton Iswara. Cameras were flashing and loud chatter among the people could be heard. There was a newscaster broadcasting the scene live and was talking to the cameraman. As soon as she caught sight of Elaine and Rebecca who were trying to squeeze their way through the crowd to do their job, she quickly rushed up to them.
"You must be CSI agents Elaine Majon and Rebecca Liew, right? Can you tell us what is going on here?" Her questioning was beginning to attract other reporters to come and ask questions.
"We don't know yet," Rebecca replied. "That's why we're called in here to check it out."
"Is there a possibility that this could be connected to the other cases known as the 'Urban Legend Copycat Killer'?" another reporter asked. Soon more questions poured out.
"Have you found out who the culprit is?"
"Which urban legend is it this time?"
"Have you have any suspects? Any leads to this case?"
"Is there anything you can do to find out the killer and stop these killings?"
"Sorry, guys, but we've got work to do," Elaine replied nonchalantly as she flicked her half-finished cigarette at one of the reporters that irritated her. "We have no comments on this issue."
With more reporters hounding behind their wake, Elaine and Rebecca flashed their badges at one of the police in charge and were let in.
"What's the story here, men?" Elaine asked.
"One serious accident, ma'am," the police in charge answered. "That Proton Iswara just rammed itself onto that huge tree over there and got itself really mushed up. The two victims in the car didn't survive. We're trying to get an ID out of them. We're suspecting maybe drunk driving."
"Thanks," Rebecca said. "We'll take it from here."
As they waited for the paramedics to take out the victims and carry them out of the car and into the ambulance, Elaine turned to Rebecca and asked, "What are the chances of people surviving this kind of car crash?"
"Second to nil," Rebecca replied, wrinkling her nose. "The tire tracks looked as if this car has traveled at about 80km/hr and that tree he just hit is like, what, almost as hard as steel? Judging by the tree's growth and the thickness of the trunk, there is no way he could survive this."
"Guess you're right. That bonnet of that car is like corn beef. Remind me never to buy a Proton Iswara ever."
"Anyway, did you hear what the reporter said earlier: 'Urban Legend Copycat Killer'? What was that about? How did they come up with such names?"
"Publicity gimmick," Elaine replied, putting on her plastic gloves. "Makes a news more interesting and get people coming back for more. It's a news thing. Come on, let's get to work."
Rebecca and Elaine soon got into their ever familiar CSI routine: checking for car faulty, sabotage and the like. As usual, Rebecca wound the loose end of the red ribbon around her neck. While Elaine was checking the inside of the car, Rebecca noticed something and gestured her to come.
"Hey, Elaine, take a look at this."
"What is it?" Elaine said as she moved towards the boot of the car where Rebecca was kneeling in front of.
"Check out these crunches. What does this tell you?"
Elaine looked closely and saw that there were forced in dent marks on the boot of the car and on one particular spot of the dent was a rusty-looking mark. Rebecca took out her camera and took a picture of it.
"Looks like rust," Elaine replied as she scraped a sample of it into an evidence bag. "It seems as if someone forced this Proton to hit the tree, and by the number of dents, he must've done it over and over again just to make sure his victim go corn beef together with the bonnet."
"Exactly. There is no way that someone in a car accident hitting headlong towards a tree would get dents in the back. And this much dents too for the fact." Rebecca deduced.
"Which means…"
"This is no drunk driving accident. This is murder."
"But how did this perpetrator do it without being noticed? Surely someone would see one car banging another car and forcing it to a tree." Elaine asked, surprised.
"This is quite a remote junction. Not much people pass this junction, especially at night. Pedestrians don't even dare go around here." Rebecca took a quick look around. "Anything can happen without being noticed and it'll take until morning before anyone knows what's going on. How's about retracing those steps?"
Elaine nodded and, with small evidence number tags in her hand, she stepped carefully along the road following the tire tracks. Rebecca, after done taking pictures of the car, followed behind Elaine taking pictures of the parts where she laid the evidence number tags. (A/N: Imagine that this scene, the crime was replayed, like in the CSI series) Elaine came across a few tracks that indicated a struggle and an abrupt halt, and she tagged them. After about a few miles down the road, she realized that she was running out of number tags.
"Darn, I'm fresh out. Got anything to replace number tags?"
"Well, I have a few chalks," Rebecca said, grinning with a few chalks in her hand. "I carry them around just in case there happens to be a body so that I can draw the shape around it. He he he…"
"That is sick," Elaine sweatdropped as she took one chalk from Rebecca. She continued numbering the road until she finally came across tire tracks that came from both the way they were walking and the opposite way. It was like some other car--the culprit's car, maybe--came from another direction and swerved around to chase the Proton Iswara. Rebecca got the cue and took a picture of the other tire tracks found.
"These tracks look like they come from an old version of the Proton. A Proton Saga maybe," Rebecca commented.
"I guess this is where the chase began," Elaine agreed. "Let's go back to the crime scene and check for the rest of our so-called Proton Saga's tire tracks. He has to go somewhere."
"Are you mad? He could have brought the whole darn car back home, and that could be miles! Are you suggesting we follow it until the end?"
"No one is dumb enough to bring a wrecked car back home, especially when he had used it to bang another car. Come on, let's go before the trail gets cold."
So saying, Elaine and Rebecca headed back towards the crime scene and this time, they took the other road. Sure enough, there were the 'Proton Saga' tire tracks on the road and like before, Elaine continued to number them and Rebecca continued to take pictures of them. They walked down the road for quite a long while until finally, at about 4 miles down the road, they saw something that looked like a car. They quickened their pace and sure enough, there was a very old Proton Saga with the bonnet pretty mangled up, but still intact enough to be driven for so long a mile. And as they have hoped, the rusty metallic Proton Saga logo of the bonnet matched the rust in the evidence bag.
"Looks like we've found our murder weapon," Elaine said as she started searching the car for clues.
"If you call this a murder weapon," Rebecca joined in the search, "that has got to be the biggest murder weapon I have ever seen."
The rest of the CSI team, namely Jonathan, Judith, Rachel and Justin, has finally reached SM Victoria Institution where Lionel studied. It was an all boys' school and it was evident that they were going to expect dozens upon dozens of boys, except for Form 6, which was the only grade with girls.
As soon as they got out of the car, like Elaine and Rebecca, they were swamped with reporters who got there before them. They were showered with questions about the Urban Legend Copycat murders and what will the authorities do about this. Jonathan, as head of the crime lab, waved their questions away and refused to give any comments. Justin and Rachel, who seldom go out to crime scenes, were quite intrigued at how hot and widespread this case was getting to. They flashed their badges and were let in.
"Hey, Thomas," Jonathan greeted Thomas who was giving instructions to his other gun-mates Aaron and Leslie. They turned around and gave him high-fives.
"Hey, Jon," Thomas grinned. "Glad you could make it."
"What are you guys doing here? I thought you SWAT team people wouldn't be involved with petty crimes like this."
"We do now," Aaron replied, sighing as he ran his fingers through his hair. "After the murder of 3 little children and 3 teenagers all using the ever familiar urban legends, the authorities are not taking any chances. They are considering this person very dangerous and could be a threat to the public. They are treating him as a cold-blooded serial killer and are recruiting people from the higher authorities to nail down this criminal."
"Her," Jonathan corrected. "We have reasons to believe it's a her."
"In other words, they brought you guys in," Judith said as she popped a Wrigley's Spearmint gum into her mouth.
"You must be the famous bakasaru Jonathan's been talking about," Leslie said.
"Guilty as charged."
"She's not such a bad package as I thought," Aaron rubbed his chin, eyeing her with interest. "You sure got good taste, Jon."
Jonathan gave them a warning She's-not-my-girlfriend look while Judith acted as if she didn't hear anything. Rachel decided to get right down to business, "What's the story here, guys?"
"Well, apparently we have a double crime here," Thomas replied, jerking his head towards the hostel. As he led the CSI agents towards the hostel, he continued explaining. "The victim's dorm mates found him dead at the hallway with his throat slit and another one was hung from the frame of the bathroom door in front of his disemboweled dog."
"Disemboweled dog?" Justin asked, getting familiar with this kind of case.
"Yup. They say that this guy has been rearing his dog secretly in his dorm and his other dorm mates were kind enough not to reveal it to the teachers. They have found a weird writing in blood on the wall though, saying…"
"'Humans can lick too', right?" Rachel asked.
"Uh, yeah, how did you…?"
"Another urban legend," Judith replied. "Owner of a dog heard a strange noise and reached for the dog which licked her hand, and found the next morning the dog dead and words written in the dog's blood 'Humans can lick too'. You can guess who's been doing the licking."
"Now that is sick," Leslie's face screwed up in disgust.
"What about the hallway victim?" Aaron asked.
"My guess would be the urban legend where two roommates were going back to their hostel and one of them still had some place else to go," Rachel, the Human Library, explained. "The latter hit the hay and woke up in the middle of the night hearing scratching sounds at the door. The next morning the latter found out that the former roommate was dead in the hallway and was scratching the door trying to call for help."
"Well, that's what we've got from the victims' dorm mates," Thomas replied and gestured the police guarding the crime scene to let them in. "You guys really did your homework."
"That's what we CSIs do," Jonathan replied before turning to his co-workers. "Alright, Rach, you and I go check on the hallway kid. Justin, you and Jude can go check the dog case. I think our bakasaru is more interested in gutted dogs than slit throats. And Jude, spit out that chewing gum."
Judith ignored him, chewing deliberately loud and amusing the SWAT team members. Jonathan sighed in defeat and they went on their separate ways. Thomas, Aaron and Leslie were beginning to think that they're going to see more amusing things between these two bickering colleagues.
As soon as Judith and Justin reached the dorm with the dead dog, they could see the dorm mates sitting at their double-decker beds, looking really ashen as some of the police were trying to question them about what they saw. Our CSI agents flashed their badges at the police before getting down to work.
"What's the ID of our dog lover?" Judith asked one of the policemen.
"His name was Terry Soong and his dog was named Jasper," the police replied. "His dorm mate who slept on the top bunk was the first one to discover his body. He claimed that Terry was an early waker, always waking up earlier before anyone else."
"What time did he usually wake up?" Justin asked.
"Mostly at about 3 or 4 in the morning. He heard Terry getting off the bed and he went back to sleep. He didn't hear anything else. When he woke up later and saw Terry's hanging body, he immediately blacked out and is still unconscious. The bathroom is over there, detectives."
The dorm had only one bathroom to share and it was left untouched for Judith and Justin to check. Which means that the gruesome dead bodies of the dog and the owner were still hanging at the exact spot when they were found (Gross!). Sure enough, there were bloody writings on the wall that bear the scary words HUMANS CAN LICK TOO. Judith took one look at the blue face of the owner and the noose around his neck and said, "At least he didn't suffer."
"How do you know?" Justin asked while he was taking blood samples from the dog and the writings on the wall.
"Try smell his face."
Justin did and his face lit up in understanding, "It's chloroform."
"Uh-huh. The culprit made him sleep first so that he won't make a sound, then she looped the noose around his neck and let him die in his sleep hanging there."
"She really followed everything here in detail," Justin said as he pointed at the gutted dog. "She followed exactly how the dog in the urban legend was disemboweled and wrote the exact words on the wall. She must've taken the effort to even lick Terry's hand just like in the legend. That's sick, man."
"I just don't understand how the culprit could ever do this without leaving any evidence around, not even a strand of hair," Judith said, a little frustrated as she powdered the place for any prints. "And I can't seem to shake off the feeling that it's a he who did this crime. I mean who in the world could possibly pull a rope that was hanging a 7 feet 4 guy if it's not a guy?"
"I dunno yet," Justin said as he took pictures of the whole place. "Unless she's been working out or something. You'll never know."
"I still think it's a guy," Judith insisted before Justin suddenly snapped the camera at her.
"Cheese!"
"Hey, what was that for?"
"For fun," Justin grinned. "Don't worry. I'll separate this section from the rest of the film."
"Weird," Judith muttered, making some last minute checks before gesturing one of the policemen to remove Terry from his hung-up position.
"Err…Jude, I was thinking…well…after investigating this batch of evidence, if you're not going to anything later tonight, would it be OK if you hang out with me?" Justin asked sheepishly.
"What for?" Judith asked, curious.
"Well, you know, just hang out and, uh, go watch a late night movie or something. There's this new horror movie called 'McCall's Boys' and I was wondering if you could…"
"Are you asking me out on a date, Justin?"
"Well, if you wanna put it that way…yeah, I am."
Judith stared at Justin for a while without a word, making Justin feel awkward. He wasn't good in reading people's faces like detectives do when they interrogate their suspects, and he sure couldn't read what was going on through Judith's mind. Come to think of it, no one can.
"I'll think about it," Judith said finally.
"Is that a yes?" Justin asked, hopeful.
"I said I'll think about it, OK?"
"Alright. Take your time."
Sometimes, he wished that she would actually give him a straight answer.
Meanwhile, Jonathan and Rachel were checking out on the dead student in the hallway. There were quite a number of other boys and a few girls from Form 6 crowding around the area to see how bad the situation was but was shooed away by the police on guard. Jonathan asked one of the policemen questioning the dorm mates to turn the face-down boy upright so that he could check out the damages.
"What did you say his name was?" Jonathan asked.
"Kevin Pang," the police replied. He looked more of a rookie than a pro. "We received a call from one of the kids here reporting about his case and then a few minutes later it was another call talking about that dog owner case."
"I see."
"He was right out there, trying to call for help and all we did was just locked the door and went back to sleep until he's dead!" one of the dorm mates cried in devastation. "It's all our fault he's dead! It's all our fault!"
"We didn't know it was him!" another dorm mate said. "We thought it was some kind of a cat. We get loads of cats around here and you don't know when they sneak in and jump on you. We…We just…We just thought…"
"There's nothing else you can do now," Rachel tried to pacify the dorm mates who were beating themselves up about this. "It's not entirely your fault. Just calm down. Did he say anything before he left the dorm last night? Anything suspicious?"
"Well, he said he was going to go out and meet somebody," the first dorm mate replied. "But he didn't tell us where."
"Did he say who he was going to meet?"
"No, not even that. We assumed he was going out on a secret midnight date with one of the girls, so we didn't wait up for him."
"Alright, thanks," Rachel said. She went towards Jonathan who taking blood samples and asked, "Well, any leads?"
"Nope. No fingerprints except the victim's, no other foreign footprints, nothing. He's getting better and better. And the slit wound are just Nicholas's, clean yet not too deep. Enough to make him choke in his own blood and suffer a long, painful death."
"Ouch!" Rachel wrinkled her nose. "Now that's gotta hurt!"
While Jonathan continued to check the body, Rachel looked around in search of clues. She noticed a long trail of blood from the victim's dorm down along the hallway. She remembered reading in urban legend that the roommate had dragged herself down the hallway all the way to her room. She decided to follow the trail while taking a few pictures in the process. She was so engrossed in following the trail of blood that she wasn't paying attention to where it was leading. When the trail finally stopped, she looked up and was quite surprised to see where she was. She phoned Jonathan and told him to get to where she was quick.
She was actually in a basketball court.
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