The Case Files of Mundane Man

Suddenly, a male voice called me from a short distance in front of me. It was the ever-cheerful Officer Marty, always smiling and greeting politely. I don't know why, but sometimes I felt like I want to give that cheerful face a punch.

"The Lieutenant is already waiting for you upstairs, on the second floor. This one's a real doozy I tell you," said Marty as if I care what he felt on any of these cases.

"Yeah, yeah..." I replied, exhaling puffs of smoke and throwing my half-smoked cigarette to the ground and stomping it flat.

When I arrive at the top of the stairs and entered the room, "You're late as usual," the greet given to me by the ever "lovely" Lieutenant Shadee. Shadee is lovely alright, has curves and edges all at the right places but she's one cheeky chick.

"Well, better late than never as they say," I replied.

"Never would be better in your case I think," Shadee retorted giving me the mean look.

"Alright, fine. I apologize for being late for the thousandth time..." I said in contempt.

"At least now you learn some manners and at least now I know that you can count," smirk Shadee.

This is getting tiresome. Better just let her have her way for now. "So, what do we have here Lieutenant?" I said trying to be as polite as possible with a monotone voice.

"Well, how about you tell me what you see?" she replied nonchalantly.

With a heavy sigh, I started looking first at the scene of the crime. First of all, there isn't any body that can be seen. What's left is a charred silhouette of a sleeping person imprinted on the bedsheet on the bed. Weird thing is, the bedsheet is not that badly charred elsewhere, only badly charred within the area of the silhouette. Even weirder, the silhouette shows no signs of struggling. It's like the person spontaneously combusts into nothingness in his or her sleep instantly without ever feeling any pain.

After a brief contemplation about the weird burned silhouette, I turned my observation elsewhere in the room. This room is quite bare, it looks like a monk lives here, a messy monk that is. A few crushed and uncrushed beer cans and bottles can be seen scattered on the floor, a few on the desk, and at the bedpost.

No posters on the wall to indicate any kind of interest like music, people or anything in particular. The closet is filled with the same type of clothing, though I cannot tell the colours of the clothing due to my "condition". But, I can certainly tell that the victim was a male based on the clothes in the closet.

No cigarette buds or cigarette boxes can be seen. Only a few empty packets and bags of miscellaneous snacks and sweets added to the whole mess within the room.

To sum it all up, I can see clutter all around the room. However, directly opposite the bed was a huge window. The huge window is bigger than the expansion of my arm from tip to tip. And you can clearly see the streets below and a few of other buildings on the other side of the street. It's like a peeping tom's best view here.

"Do we have any information regarding the victim, Lieutenant?" I asked Shadee.

Shadee just used her finger to instruct one of the officers to provide the information that I asked for. The officer seemed nervous and gives out a nervous cough before started talking, "The male victim was Alec Cela, 32 years old and have been renting here for about 3 months. The landlord, Mr. Eckerson, which is also the owner of the convenience store downstairs that Mr. Alec frequently goes to, says that Mr. Cela always pays rent on time with cash. And Mr. Eckerson added that Mr. Cela was a good tenant, not making much noise and Mr. Cela's water and electric use was also very low compared to other previous tenants."

"Is that it?" I asked with my arm crossed.

The officer stammers while checking his notes."Ummm... Mr. Eckerson did inform that he did not know where Mr. Cela works as he only sees Mr. Cela entering the store from time to time to buy some food and drinks and directly head back upstairs."

"Who reports the incident to the police," I asked the officer further.

"Ermmm.... Well, the tenant from the first floor informs Mr. Eckerson about smelling something burned coming from the second floor. As Mr. Eckerson has the spare keys to the apartment, he uses them after receiving no response after knocking and calling for Mr. Cela several times. After seeing of what remains of what was supposed to be Mr. Cela, Mr. Eckerson immediately called the police," stammered the officer while delivering the report.

"Thank you for the information, Officer Johnson," said Shadee dismissing the officer.

"So, what are you thinking, detective?" Shadee asked as she sees me deep in thought.

Does she think of me as a supercomputer? I still need time to think. But, I'll lay the facts that I know of now.

"To start, I think Alec Cela is not the real name of our victim. Because Alec is Cela backwards and Cela is Alec backwards. Maybe he used either his real first name or last name or none at all," I explained.

"Secondly, our tenant does not live here. This is like his temporary space or perch, in which I suspected that Mr. Cela is observing something or someone through this huge window," I continued.

"Thirdly, Mr. Cela was murdered during the night, I suspected the murderer to be an ultra-human with some kind of combustible power. The reason behind the murder is still unclear," I concluded.

"Well done detective, all that information in just being here less than 10 minutes? I'm very impressed with your deductive ability," complimented Shadee that almost sounded sincere.

"But, isn't it time to use your real gift, detective?" smirk Shadee with her arm crossed.

I think I'm having a headache. But, to find something that is unseen, I need to use as Shadee said; gift.