Chapter 1
She was on the other side of the café, with a coffee in her hand. She looked straight towards him, he could never forget her face, the black hair about shoulder length, puffy cheeks, eyes like someone had made a circle with a compass, wearing a flowered dress. He thought of getting up and meeting her but there was this ringing sound coming from the back of his head. Then a mist of clouds took over and the whole scene including the café and her. And then he opened his eyes.
His phone was behind his head, he turned around and checked the time, he knew who it was. The letters on the screen had been the same for the last few years, “Margaret”. he answered, his voice still a bit croaky.
“Yup, still nine in the morning, I have two hours left of my sleep,” he said.
“You need to come here and you need to come here fast”. said the female voice on the other side, she sounded serious.
“That serious, huh?” he said.
The line disconnected. He woke up from the bed and looked around. He had lived in this apartment for around two years and still, it looked like he shifted yesterday. There was only one bed facing the west side and to the right was a table next to it was along L shaped shelf which contained all the kitchen items going from utensils to the sink. An LED screen TV hanging facing the bed and the door for the bathroom on its right. There was a small fridge which only contained cans of beer to the left side of the bed and next to it was a small wooden cabinet that contained all his clothes.
I need to get something to fill up the space. He took out the black shirt, a black T-shirt and blue jeans, the badge, Lucas Laine “Detective Investigator”, phone, and car keys. He locked the room and looked outside; the power volt of sun rays was a lot less than yesterday. At least that’s what it looked like. He had lived on the third floor with a joint family.
“Breakfast!” he turned back and opened the door. He looked for some chips or anything edible if there was, but there weren’t any left. So he just sighed and left the room, locked the door, got down the stairs through the front gate and inside his car and pressed the button, and wheeled away.
He had no idea where he had to go. So, he took the phone in one hand and the other on the wheel and called Margaret, she didn’t pick up, He pressed the green button again and this time she picked up after the second ring.
“Where are you?“, she said, with the same seriousness.
“On my way, but it will be easier if I knew the way”, he said.
“Check your messages, I left a dozen”, said the voice.
“You are talking to me now right, so isn’t it better that you just tell me,” he said.
“God Lucas, you are one lazy guy, the hospital, you will see our people just follow them and you will get there”, she said and the line disconnected.
“Okay,” he said but his words were left hanging. He had an idea about the location, the thing that surprised him was she always told him the precise location of the homicide but today it looked like we caught a big one. He kicked the accelerator and after thirty minutes he was at the hospital.
His Sedan was climbing the ramp road. He reached a big concrete gate that had its entrance covered with two police vans parked nosed in. He parked the vehicle a few feet away from the vans. There was a yellow tape attached to one van which extended towards the other one. Lucas went close and ducked his head down, and two officers were standing right next to the police van, one of them saw who he was and nodded, and Lucas reciprocated. There was another ambulance standing right behind them and there were people in white suits covered from head to toe, who were coming in and out of the ambulance, Lucas went near the back and saw there was a glove case, so he took a pair and wore them.
The hospital faced the north side; he saw police people coming and going on the west side so he followed them, he passed the front entrance and kept on going, after passing the quarter of the front he saw the corner coming as a lot of them were turning left and he knew where the homicide has occurred. Lucas reached the corner and turned left; a tight road covered in mud, he moved very slowly looking at one side of the road. To his left was the big white wall of the hospital and to his right was a fence that led straight. After a few meters of the walk, there was man hole made in the fence, he had to duck to get past it, he was still walking west but away from the hospital. After walking a few yards; he had to take left and now he was towards north. After walking a few meters, he finally reached his destination.
There it was; the old ambulance was facing the west side and he was facing the front end of the vehicle, the glass was shattered, and the headlights were gone. The nameplate was dangling from the right side, with the air from the front two tires gone. The ambulance looked the same as it had looked a few years ago. But there was one thing different this time, as he got closer, he had to cover his nose with his hands.
He walked past the front going through the passenger’s side he reached the back side, and there she was standing with other officers talking, her hair tied in a bun and her regular blue jacket and white shirt, and black jeans, she looked tired like she had done some time here, or she didn’t have a sleep, with her both hands on her waist; she transferred her weight from one leg to the other. As she was busy with talks, Lucas turned to face the back entrance of the ambulance and saw three bodies, lying close to each other, one of them was a girl and the other two were boys. The girl was in the center; she was sitting facing him, whereas the boys lay on her each side, with their heads resting on her shoulders. He heard footsteps coming closer and heard her sigh. She said something but he didn’t hear, he was completely lost in the sight in front of him.
Lucas got on the Ambulance and walked closer, the girl had her head tilted to the left, and the boys staring at something. The two boys were wearing a jacket each and torn jeans, there was so much dust and dirt that made the smell worse. The girl on the other hand looked decent compared to the boys. She was wearing a shirt without any cuts and a jean that looked brand new. But there were needle marks on both of her arms and they formed a pattern like the ones that someone gets if they regularly go to the doctor. On the other hand, the boys looked completely junky, they had needle marks all over their body or whatever part was visible, there were marks on the arms but they were all random like self-inflicted, teeth were completely yellow, the hair looked hard with a lot of dirt stuck in them. On the other hand, the girl’s hair looked clean apart from the dust that didn’t look old, her nails pedicured and the only thing bad about her was the pale color with her eyes open, she was beautiful but dead.
The only thing that distinguished the girl from the boys was the number of needle marks.
“Overdosed?“, asked Margaret, from the outside.
“Girl or the boys?” said Lucas with a question of his own.
“What do you mean?” said Margaret, she sounded confused.
He waved his hand asking her to come aboard, without looking back and she joined him.
“Look at the needle marks, on the girl and the boys, and tell me what you see?“, said Lucas pointing to the needle marks.
Margaret got closer to the bodies and reached the same verdict.
“A murder and two overdoses!?” asked Margaret.
“She did overdose but the cause of her overdose was not natural”, said Lucas, looking at the girl.
“Get out Lucas! You are disturbing my scene”, said a voice from the back.
“Good morning to you too, Sean”, said Lucas taking a few steps away from the bodies.
“For you, it is, for me, not exactly. I had to come here while I was having my breakfast”, said Sean as he waved them to come down.
Lucas and Margaret got down from the ambulance and Sean got on it. Sean Davis; the forensic expert of the department, looked a bit older for his age, but it was quite natural as he was quite used to spending his leisure time with dead bodies. He was the only one with his white suit open from above his face to neck. He got close to the body and said all the necessary things. There were two more guys with him that got on the ambulance with their gadgets in their hands.
The flashing of the camera light, people scribbling through their notepads, Sean Davis doing his job; moving the bodies just slightly to not disturb the crime scene. He looked at the boys first, while doing his routine work, and he looked back at Lucas, he opened his mouth to say something but Lucas said it first,
“Two different crime scenes, two suicides, and one murder, right?” asked Lucas.
Sean closed his mouth and nodded. He got up and then down from the vehicle. He took off his glove and threw them in a dustbin near the vehicle.
“The boys look like they died for about two days, and the girl, for about eight hours or so”, said Sean looking at Lucas.
Lucas nodded at this discovery, “and the cause of death?” said Lucas.
“Well, it looks like they all died of the overdose as their bodies have no defensive wounds to suggest otherwise, the autopsy will show more”, said Sean.
“Yeah, you do that and we will focus on other things”, said Lucas as he turned to Margaret.
“Who found the body?” said Lucas.
“Staff boys found the body, they come here every day in the morning, at least that’s what they told me”, said Margaret pointing towards two boys standing with an officer who was writing something in the diary while asking questions.
