Prologue
Hello, I’m Lieutenant Will Masters of the Boston Police
Homicide. At this very moment, I’m lying, on my back, on the own huge
four-poster bed in my own bedroom of my own house.
My hands are bound together by thick ropes from my own tool
shed. My feet are chained to the foot of the bed by a thick metal chain having
two circular vice grips which fit perfectly around both my ankles. My mouth is taped shut with a roll of thick
cellophane duct tape. I have been completely stripped of my clothes, which are
lying in a heap on one side of the bed.
The ropes are cutting into my wrists. I try to move, but I
can only turn over on my side, which is, I think, because of the vice grips in
which my feet are ensconced. I can’t move. I can’t scream for help. All I can
do is make muted sounds of pain through the duct tape, which no one can hear;
realize that I’m a prisoner in my own house and feel waves of great fear and
panic.
Yes, I can think too. Think of how I came about to be in
this position, and how I’m most certainly going to die. Die like those murders
victims for whom I swear to get justice and fulfill my duties as a cop. In a
few hours, I’m gonna be a corpse, just like the hundreds I’ve seen. I also
realize that my death shall come about after I’ve experienced the extreme pain
of torture which shall be inflicted on me, physically, emotionally and
psychologically- just like some of the recent homicide victims, whose murders I
have been investigation. My death will come as a mercy, a reprieve, and I’ll be
made to plead for it; because I’d die rather than bear the pain which shall
drive me insane and tear my soul apart.
But before I die, I want to tell you a story. The story of
how all my cops instincts were not enough to save me from my current
predicament. The story of how this situation came about, and how I never
thought I was gonna be taken prisoner and die in my own house. My death shall
not go in vain- the world should learn some lessons from my mistakes, and never
repeat them in the future.
Time is running out. So I better start on my story, which
starts from about a year ago…
12th June
2013, Maple Street, Boston
I’m standing in a narrow alley on Maple Street, with my
colleagues in blue. We have arrived five minutes ago, after Dispatch received
an anonymous from someone reporting a dead body here.
The alleyway stinks heavily of urine and beer- no surprise
there as it flanks the left side of a bar. But tonight, there is something
else, apart from the stink, which has pervaded my senses. It’s a body, or
what’s left of it, lying at the base of the huge wall at the rear end of the alley.
I’m saying what’s left of it because, seriously, the
condition of the corpse is so bad I can’t bear to look at it. The head has been
severed from the body, is a hand and a leg. The corpse is nothing more than a
bloody mass of flesh, arranged in a way to keep the limbs together and yet
emphasize the decapitation and dismemberment.
Another thing has grabbed my attention. On the wall behind
the corpse, there are words written. In huge bold letters, with something that
looks like blood- a crimson hue. I can clearly read the message in the clear
daylight.
“HELLO COPS. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING.WITH LOVE, THE
CRIMSON DAHLIA” is the message inscribed on the wall.
“What do you think it means, Lieutenant?” asks my colleague
and friend, Detective Lance Carter, standing right beside me and staring at the
message curiously.
“I don’t know, Detective. You have any ideas?” I ask him in
return. I really have no idea about what to make of the message. It doesn’t
make any sense. Who is this Crimson Dahlia person? And how can someone be so
audacious so as to directly address the cops and say the words ‘with love’?
Someone, I suspect, who isn’t afraid of the police at all, and think they can
get away by taunting us directly in our faces, apart from leaving a dismembered
corpse for us. Their idea of a horrible joke. Well, whoever this Crimson person
is, I will soon catch up with them, and then the joke will be on them.
“No, Lieutenant. I’m as confused as you. I think we’ll know
more when Dr. Styles is done with this” he says, looking at the corpse.
“Yes, Detective, I think so too. Till then, you go around
with Detective Cole and find out if anyone at the bar saw anything last
evening. Meet me at the station later.” I tell Lance.
“Yes, Lieutenant. See you.” Saying this, Lance rushes off to
his partner, Detective Ansen Cole. One of my most promising young detectives,
and, if I’m right, my successor to the Lieutenant position in a few short
years’ time.
The crime lab people are processing the scene, one of them
taking pictures of the mangled body from various angles. Another one is
collecting samples from the message inscribed in red on the wall, and I hope it
has not been written with the victim’s blood. It would be too disgusting.
Meanwhile, I watch as the people from the coroner’s lift the
body, part by part, onto a stretcher. I have never understood how they can
manage to do so with such efficiency, without flinching and throwing up. True,
in my fifteen years of police work I have seen a lot of dead bodies, some of
them mangled badly beyond recognition. I can tolerate the sight, but not
actually having to touch it.
Its afternoon now and
I’m sitting in my office at the station and thinking of grabbing some lunch, as
I peruse, on my desktop PC, the report Detectives Carter has just mailed me.
It’s the report of the inquiries both Carter and Ansen Cole at Joey’s, the bar
beside the alley where we found the body today morning. As usual, the staff at
the establishment saw or heard nothing unusual, and if they were to be
believed, neither did any of the patrons at the bar last night.
After all this time in the job, I have come to recognize
that cracking such cases isn’t that easy. It will be sometime before we can
even get our first break.
I proceed to file the report in the PD database, when my
phone rings. It’s my wife, Luciana, on the line.
“Hey, Doc. How you doing?” I ask her, in the affectionate
manner we had of talking with each other.
“Hey, Lieutenant-husband of mine. I’m not okay because I’m
starving like mad, and I hope you will get your butt out of that office to join
me for lunch,” she replies, her tone mirroring mine.
“Where do you fancy we should go, Doc?” I ask.
“Sanjay’s. I wanna have that chicken curry with the fried
rice thingy again” she replies.
“Okay, honey. Meet me in the parking lot in 10 minutes. See
you” I say.
“Allrighty. Love you, hon” Luciana says, bringing an
involuntary smile on my face. We declare our love at least a 100 times to each
other every day, even after being married for almost seven years now. I know, I
know, it sounds silly and too lovey-dovey.
“Love you too babe” I reply, and hang up. After the hectic
schedule and other demands my job makes on me, going back home to Luciana makes
me so happy and content. Or rather, I should say, going home with Dr. Luciana Masters- we both work
for the Boston PD. My wife is a forensic psychologist, and her office is in the
station itself, but on a different floor. We come to work together every
morning, and leave together every night. Our schedules suit each other perfectly,
and we get to spend enough quality time with each other. I love my wife with
all my heart, and she reciprocates my love with warmth and care. I am the
luckiest man in the world.
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