A Rather Interesting Case

A Rather Interesting Case

I always had a dull perspective on things, yet I was regarded as one of the best detectives in the police force. I worked at the NYPD Detective Bureau as a homicide detective and every case I worked on seemed to bore me as I always solved them pretty easily. I never felt any empathy for the victims of the cases I solved; I’d just make sure I finished my job and move on. 

I turned off my blaring alarm clock at 6 o’clock and sat up on my bed and heaved a sigh, I despised the monotonous routine of my life. Nevertheless I got up, took a shower, neatly shaved my beard and put on my well pressed white shirt and tucked it into my black pants. After having my usual breakfast of pancakes and a cup of coffee, I combed my wavy black hair and threw on my black jacket and left. 

I sat at my desk in my office in the bureau and turned on the computer. I stared at the face of the victim of a home invasion case I was working on. The victim had died due to strangulation.

Pathetic. She couldn’t even defend herself in her own house, I thought.

 Just then my telephone rang, so I picked it up and answered.

 “Hello?” I said.

 “Good morning. Is this Detective James Walker?”

 “Yes. Who’s speaking?”

“I am Detective Ethan Roberts, we have been assigned a homicide case together along with Detective Dylan Oliver. If you can please come to my office right now, I will give you the briefing and we can start the investigation right away.”

“Yeah sure,” I hung up. 

Another case to bore me, I sighed, although three detectives for a single case sounds important.

I took my belongings and left the office.

 “Detective Roberts?” I asked as I opened the door to his office.

 “Please come in Mr. Walker,” he said. He was a tall and sturdy man and had graying hair. He looked like he was in his late forties. Detective Oliver was already seated there; he had brown hair and an average physique and looked thirty, just about my age.

I shook hands with Roberts and said, “No need for the formality, just call me James.”

“Alright then,” he chuckled, “This is Detective Oliver,” he gestured to the seated man. 

 Oliver rose up and we both shook hands with a small nod.

 “Let’s begin then,” Roberts placed the case file on the table, “The victims are Lucas Smith, 23, Liam Taylor, 22 and Aaron Wilson, 22, found dead at a lonely street in Manhattan two weeks ago. Their personal details are in the case file. The strange thing about this case is that, it was originally assigned to Detective Daniel Jones, who went to Manhattan about a week ago in order to investigate this case and is presumably missing for the last three days.”

 Hmm that’s a rather interesting case.

 “So are we dealing with a missing person case as well?” asked Oliver puzzled.

 “Not yet. A missing person case hasn’t been filed for Detective Jones yet since we are speculating that he has gone undercover for the investigation and that he would return,” replied Roberts.

 “Does Detective Jones usually go missing when he’s undercover?” I asked.

 “Not really, although he had done that once when he went missing for a day and came back claiming that he was only undercover,” he said.

 “Well then, assuming Detective Jones went missing after following or going to interview a person of interest, we can conclude that that person could potentially be the prime suspect of the case, so if we find out who that person of interest is, we could solve the case but if Detective Jones does return, this theory can be disproved,” I said.

 “Well said Mr. Walker!” exclaimed Oliver.

 Roberts seemed satisfied with my theory and said, “Alright then, we have an ongoing record of the case from Detective Jones’ investigation. Let’s split the persons of interests and investigate them.”

 We agreed to it and dispersed. Finally, something amusing, I thought as I walked to my office.

 We engaged in active investigation for weeks. Detective Jones never turned up which made us suspect that he might’ve been killed. Then, to make things worse, Oliver went missing for a day after he left to interview someone for the investigation.

 “I’m thinking it’s the same person whom Detective Jones left to interview or follow,” reckoned Roberts.

 “Yeah but this time we have the upper hand,” I said handing him a piece of paper, “He texted me where he was going before we lost contact with him. I suggest we visit that place ourselves right away.”

 Roberts looked at the piece of paper rather skeptically and then agreed to my idea, so we drove to that place at once. It was an old, abandoned warehouse in a desolate area of the city. We drove till the entrance of the warehouse and got out of the car.

 “Are you sure this is the place?” Roberts asked, surveying the warehouse, still skeptical.

 “I guess so,” I reckoned.

 “Alright then, I suggest that I enter the warehouse alone and you stand outside and keep watch, so that if things go wrong you can flee and call for backup because I feel like this could be a trap.”

 I considered it for a moment and agreed to his plan. “Let’s draw our guns then.”

 We drew our guns. Roberts marched inside the warehouse and I crouched near a window next to the entrance of the warehouse to have a look of what’s going on inside. There was a man standing there with his hands in his pockets. Roberts walked to him. It was Oliver.

 “Oliver? What’s going on here?” Roberts asked confused.

 “I’m afraid this is the end for you,” Oliver’s face broke into a wicked smirk. “You see, I killed Jones.”

 “What?!” Roberts exclaimed and clasped his gun with both his hands.

 “Now don’t make a silly move, I’ve got eyes on you, I can take you down any moment,” he said casually.

 Roberts stood there bewildered for a moment, but then, on an impulse he made a fatal attempt to shoot him.

 Shots were fired. Roberts collapsed to the floor and blood began to pool around him.

 I slowly walked to him.

“James! It’s him! He killed Jones!” cried Roberts. It took him a whole minute to realize who had shot him.

“W-what? N-no why?” he whimpered.

What a fool.

I merely stared at him. “You were in my way Mr. Roberts.” 

“I only killed Jones but he killed the other three,” started Oliver fanatically, “seems like he does that usually, I was helping Jones privately with the case and when we found out about Mr. Walker’s part time job, he wasn’t much interested, but I was!”

“What are you nuts?!” Roberts groaned in pain. He turned to me, “Why?”

I shrugged. “I was bored.”

“You both are crazy,” he muttered. “I am haunted by humans.”

There was a gunshot and then silence.