Detective D. Case (8 page)

          Lotuses, water lilies, red in the sunshine . . .
did scholars have the same trouble D. was going through? He supposed that maybe
the poem couldn’t be solved – it wasn’t supposed to be solved. Maybe it wasn’t
about the case he had dived into but rather a little gem for him to keep in
private matters. Nobody else would see it, D. made sure of that, even if it were
meant for him or not, but its meaning was lost in itself, which he found
unusual. Obscuring its meaning was like hiding the key in a pile of other keys,
and that sparked D.’s thinking a little. He rolled up the little note into a
thin cylinder reminiscent of a cigarette and gave a long look at West Lake. It
couldn’t only just be the lake that the poem was referencing to, right?

          And then he saw it. A lily, in the middle of the
lake and out of his reach, floated like some magician had plopped it there
without a moment’s thought. D. got closer, edging towards the water. The lily
flower had a blue, almost purple, color to it and a dew-like substance covering
it like a gloss. His ankles had sunken into the underwater already, but D.’s
eyes never left the water lily. Maybe in the day it would appear painfully red
in the sunlight, whenever there will be any, but if it did, it would become
identical to the Chinese poem rolled up inside his pocket. A red water lily in
the daylight would match the words through which were painted the glorious
picture D. was sure nobody had read before, at least not in this city. His
shirt was halfway in water when he snatched the water lily, laughing in glee.
He waded to the park, not waiting to dry his clothes. This just might lead
somewhere.

          D.’s face hit the water before he reached the end
of West Lake. Under the surface, he heard gunshots from above. He needed
affirmation as to who shot and where. Eyes closed, D. felt six or so hands
weighing him down. The water pushed his lungs tight, burning with rage, and he
was desperately in need of keeping his breath going. He struggled with the
hands, but they clung to him like bad perfume. Except here it wasn’t, oh well,
guess we’ll have to get this day over with.

          The hands were multiplying (how so, if there were
six or so to begin with?) and D.’s lungs were shortening their patience. They
let go, and so did his breath, and the hands were everywhere. For a minute he
could see the shadow of West Lake, but he might have dreaming.

*****

“He blacked out yet?” demanded a scruffy-looking young man.

          “Not yet.” They were pulling an old man wearing a
shabby coat out of the lake. “I think so now, but I can’t be sure. You might
wanna check it yourself.” The voice belonged to a man younger than the
scruffy-looking one.

          “It’s always the same with you, isn’t it?” The
scruffy man kicked the younger and sent him to the ground with his arms.
Leaving him there, he went over to the old man in the shabby coat. He didn’t
look familiar.

          “Have you found out what he was doing here?” he
demanded again. He liked demanding things.

          None of them knew. He shot in the sky until
everyone got to the ground.

          “Pathetic excuses, you all are,” he muttered. He
kicked the old man, wondering if he’d wake. Ten seconds in with a second kick
and nothing happened. He guessed him dead for the time being.

          “Anyone know his name?”

          “He doesn’t have one,” one of the men piped up.

          The scruffy-looking man stormed up to the man who
spoke. “Don’t any of you know how to do anything?”

          “Uh, it’s an initial,” said the same man.

          “What was that?”
          “It’s from the old man, I think. His name isn’t really a name, but an
initial. It’s just a D.”

          The dumbfounded look the man was giving irritated
the scruffy-looking one. “How the hell am I supposed to know what that stands
for? Go find out now!”

 They
carried the old man with the letter D into their sports-car and began driving
off. People of the reading world surely would like to know the meaning behind
these actions, but it’s unfortunate that even in the scruffy-looking man’s mind,
he still kept his thoughts private.

As
far as Lincoln saw, there were many cameras. They were blackened so the color was
as thick as tar and disguised well so they looked like air fresheners. But the people
who ran the place must’ve thought their prisoners as kidnapped victims because the
bigoted idiots didn’t know the difference between their left and right shoes. Gladly
he hadn’t been one of them, but he knew – or predicted, that seemed the ideal word
– the thoughts and viewpoints of others when seeing the security enforcements they
had put up.

          Hold
on, he thought, temporarily removing the slacked off personality that everyone who
knew him attributed to him. Now, with this on his hands, he became a silent mute
who did not even speak when spoken to. Breaking that mutism wasn’t a grudge of childhood
but something much worse. Returning to his thoughts: just who were “they” anyway?
Lincoln flashed backwards to when he last saw the outside world, when everything
appeared normal. He remembered investigating the apartment for the fifth anniversary
of the case for what felt like forever. He wasn’t sure, though, if it was five years
since the case started. He mulled it over a little, taking mind of the chair in
which he was sitting. Lincoln found it peculiar that nobody thought of strapping
him in to prevent his escape, but it could be a ploy, too, so he stayed put. Light,
from where he was, was dimmed too low to see anything more than two feet away. The
lights were placed on the ceiling in two far corners, making no sense to Lincoln.
He tried to move, but he decided that they’d do worse to him if he got out.

          “Officer
Lincoln,” said a baritone voice.

          “W-what
happened?”

          The
dimmed lights hid the man’s face, but Lincoln didn’t need that to know that his
face wasn’t pleasant. “You were taken,” said Baritone Man. “Luckily we found you
so you wouldn’t have died in the fire.”

          “Died,
died where?” All of this was new to him.

          Baritone
Man sounded annoyed. “In the fire, don’t you understand? When the building collapsed,
you were there with the rest of the officers. Apparently you were searching for
something, but we’re not quite sure what it was.”

          “So
there’s more than one of you?”

          “You
only ask questions when needed,” said Baritone Man. “For now you will be quiet and
provide information when asked like a lawful student deep in their academics.” Baritone
Man’s chair screeched when he pulled it closer to Lincoln; however, the shadow blacking
his face stayed the same. “Allow me to introduce myself, since I have forgotten
to mention it before. I believe I’ve been, shall I say, rude in my introduction.”

          Lincoln
wanted to speak – even opened his mouth – but quickly shut it. He wasn’t sure if
it was going to be a question or not, but the hidden man probably wouldn’t like
it if he spoke anyway, question or not.

          Shaking
hands the man said, “Hello. My name is Baritone.”

          So
maybe Lincoln was right all along.

          “Nice
to see you, uh, Baritone,” said Lincoln. He hoped the man didn’t notice the awkward
way he spoke his name. “I’m –”

          “No
need for your name. You must have forgotten the part when I first said, ‘Officer
Lincoln,’ and scared you a great deal.”

          If
only he could roll his eyes now. “Of course you were.”

          “I
did, truthfully,” said Baritone. “I wish to continue, however.”

          The
chair got closer, its screeching sounding like screaming victims.

          “Have
you heard of the Davidson family? They’re wealthy and skillful in various projects
with many talents.”

          Lincoln
shook his head. “Did Forbes ever mention them?”

          “They
are a private family, preferring to keep profiles low and do business where everyone
can see them and yet, at the same time, not caring as to what they’re doing. The
public is far too interested in more public people with scandals involving the rich
and the famous and people they love to hate to go peeping around looking for private
wealthy families. I doubt that they ever cared to go incognito.” He paused. “Wait,
not even incognito. The Davidson family never disguised themselves and preferred
to announce their presence where everybody could see them. Hiding in plain sight,
I guess.”

          “And
what has this got to do with me, Baritone?” Lincoln asked. “I apologize for interrupting
but I don’t have time to stay here and listen to you rambling about private families
whom no one cares about.”

          “I
think you should care a great deal,” said Baritone. “For one of their members is
missing.”

          “Why
are they wealthy, anyway? Exactly what did they do to make themselves private and
hidden from seemingly ‘public’ view? Or is it made up from the same family to make
people like you believe in this nonsense yourself to keep me busy?”

          “I
like the questioning and doubts you’re presenting to me, despite the fact that I
made myself specific about you not asking questions while I’m speaking.”

          “I
don’t understand.”

          “Neither
will you.” And with that Baritone chuckled; it sounding darker than the man intended
it to be. “Do you have a wife or children?”

          “No,
I don’t. I divorced a long time ago.”

          Baritone
thought about this response. “And how did you feel?”

          “I
remember being very depressed. But why do you care about what I felt in the past?”

          “I’m
saying this because the Davidsons were very depressed, too, when they lost the only
boy in the family. He wasn’t very young, but he wasn’t too old, either. When he
disappeared I remember the Davidsons thinking he had died and made a small funeral
for him. Unlike other wealthy families where press and media come scouring over
to the scene like superheroes who never save, just gossip, nobody gave a second
look. They went on doing what they did every day, and nothing different. However,
the police had been searching for the boy ever since, you know.”

          The
police . . . this was sounding familiar.

          Before
he asked, Baritone went on. “Six or five years, around that, since the police took
the case into their hands. You’d think they – the Davidsons I mean – would’ve hired
a private investigator to look at the disappearance, but they handed it off to the
police. And with that in mind, you’d even think again that something like a missing
person case like this would’ve been solved in less than six months. But nooo, five
goddam years later, until right about this second as I speak, and they’re still
searching. I suspect that those police people are looking for an excuse to get stories
published with big headlines crying out, ‘WILL THE SEARCH FOR DAVIDSON MEMBER CONTINUE?’
If they were, then they did a good job, because now the Davidson family has finally
become a publicly famous one-- ironically, exactly what the parents of said family
promised they wouldn’t do since the beginning.”

          The
Davidsons were sounding more and more like the McDermotts, but with a different
name – or were they the same? Lincoln wasn’t sure, and it spun him dizzy. When he
glanced at Baritone, the man didn’t seem too angry by Lincoln interrupting with
something to say, so he went on ahead.

          “We
. . . we had a case like that, too. It also has been going on for some time.”

          “But
with the name changed from the Davidsons to the McDermotts?”

          Lincoln
went wide-eyed, his hands shaking. “How did you know that? You’ve never worked at
the police –”

          “How
do you know that I never did? But with the two cases sounding identically alike,
and them both starting at similar times, it’s hard to say which one’s a fake and
which is real. Or who knows, both of them might be fake! Honest-to-God I have no
idea. Hell, even the evidence provided for both cases speaks the truth! Think that
sounds normal for a seemingly normal case like this?”

          “Uh,
not really?” he guessed. Lincoln was at a loss.

          “You
know what? I think you’re a smart kid, Lincoln, as honest as the man who bore the
same name as yours. But you need to tell me what it is that’s different with the
Davidsons and the McDermotts. Look at it like it’s a mystery within a mystery, which
it kind of does if you ask me. Then we can know which one’s bluffing, and maybe
even find out who did it, too. It could be a police/government thing, but nobody
will know until you – and yes I’m talkin’ about you – find it out for all of us. 
Are we clear?”

          Lincoln
nodded. “And if they’re both false?”

          Baritone
clucked his teeth instead of laughing, which was what Lincoln expected from the
man. “Well, if that appears to be so, then I’ll beat the shit out of the man responsible
for it. We’ll do it together.”

          The
cameras still watched Officer Lincoln in his deprived state, even after Baritone
left.

*****

His
audience (the one not involved in the beating and kidnapping previously) would have
gasped if they found out an old man in an overlarge cloak lay cramped in such tight
spaces where not even he knew where he had been taken. It took him three seconds
of feeling around to realize they had locked him inside a car trunk. There were
even four holes poked through the top, so D. knew they didn’t want him dead, not
yet. With a glee, an almost childish giggle, D. hoped they would keep thinking to
keep their old prisoner alive for the rest of the case.

          Muffled
voices were on the other side. They sounded like a teenage gang ready on the prowl,
predators, and their prey innocent little rabbits with a capital “W”. D. also heard
thumping metal bars and male grunts, like they were trying to gang-rape metallic
objects. Nobody opened the trunk door so D. kept his breath held. For an old man,
he sure acted like a little boy.

          The voices
got closer so D. could hear them better. It wasn’t enough to make out sentences,
but gratefully close enough so a few words struck D.’s ears like sparks flying out
of a sword’s blade when sharpened.

          “Called
D.,” said one of the members. “An interesting name, I’d say.”

          Another
one, more to the left side outside the trunk, laughed. The sneers of his voice notified
the other and D. that he intended to mock with hard piercings. “You call this interesting?
I, for one, think this name sounds absolutely trite.”

          “You think
so?”

          “I know
it. Just another pretentious investigator thinking he’s mysterious and haunting
because he has an initial instead of a name. What a big deal.”

          The same
man who spoke typed something.

          “What are
you doing?” asked the other.

          More sounds
of typing. “I’m trying to see if this oldie here has any, what do we say, criminal
records in his past . . .”

          D. slapped
a hand over his mouth in order to stop from gasping. If he didn’t, and suppose they
heard him, he would see that the trunk door opened up and he was tumbling onto the
pavement. He had no idea where he was, or where the car was parked, so he hypothesized
they could be anywhere in the city, even underground. The low yet sharp gasp, when
done, ruined everything. Of course they must’ve known D. was in the trunk – and
he suspected that they spoke near the trunk for this purpose – but thought he was
asleep or still unconscious from the near drowning. Let them still think him too
weak to come out of his short coma and overestimate the circumstances. But D. hoped
the nastier of the two would spin some fictive yarn and false stories accusing D.
of things he had never done, things he had never thought of. He pressed an ear when
he heard the nastier of the two finish his typing and possibly scanning the pages.

          He heard
him grunt. “Nope, nothing,” he said.

          D. sighed
in relief.

          None of
the two spoke. “What was that?”

          The old
detective gulped, moving to the back of the trunk. Searching his belt, his pistol
was missing. Not a surprise to him that they’d taken all weapons; what’d be surprising
is if they didn’t, which in turn would be quite an amateur if not a stupid choice.
D. silenced himself, zipping up the open gaps. Just pray that they’ll go away like
the child wishes the ghosts and monsters to go away from underneath his bed, or
away from the darkest parts of his closet . . .

          “I dunno.
I thought I heard something.”

          The two
of them shuffled to the trunk. D. balled his hands, ready for what would come from
the outside. Gangs like these never acted with reason.

          “You must
have killed your ears or something. You are hearing nonsense. I don’t hear a damn
thing!”

          The other
stammered. “But-but I did!”

          “Quit your
yapping and bullshit! I’m tired of working with you!”