Crime Fiction: Murder: The Missing Past: Who Killed Who? (Mystery Thriller Suspense Shocking Serial Killer) (Police Procedurals Detective Investigate Family Relationships)

The Missing Past:

Who Killed Who?

By:
Jack M. Paton

Ó
Copyright 2015 by (
Jack M. Paton
) - All rights reserved.

In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

The killer watched the detective as he stepped into his office. Years of planning led to this moment. The murderer stood right in front of the investigator’s office, and yet he did not even know who he really was.

“Killing him right now would be way too easy.” The killer stood in the corner, eyes focused on the sad detective. “It just wasn’t enough for all the misery he’d caused my family.”

A small lamp illuminated the lone man’s desk. Papers and documents littered his office. Behind all that mess was Cade Oliver, a detective who, despite his cool demeanor, had gone some horrifying things.

No one knew exactly what happened to him. Most of his associates knew him as the cheerful guy in the squad, that’s how good he was at hiding his demons.

Dead bodies were nothing new to detectives, especially to Cade, but that kind of stuff could get depressing after a while. None of it now mattered to him. Cade was just riffling through the files as half-hearted as he could be.

Every day someone would visit him. It was a special person in his life. If anyone could resurrect the now ghost of a man that is Cade, it would be none other than his sister, Freline Oliver.

Freline decided to stop by Cade’s office to bring him his lunch. She faced her brother and said, “Look at yourself, Cade. What’s gotten into you?”

Cade barely reacted and kept scanning through his case documents.

“You've been pushing yourself too much. I'm starting to get worried. Why don't you pull back a bit and ask your boss to have it re-assigned to someone else?” she began, straightening her ponytail as she entered his office.

Cade’s fellow investigators eyed the two siblings as he sat outside the office. When he lost sight of them, his eyes went back to reading the documents, but his ears remained focused on listening in on their conversation.

“Stop worrying… it’s not good for you.” He heard bits of their conversation just outside Cade’s office.

“You forgot your lunch. Here. The city has no use for a starving and half-dead detective.”

Cade didn’t bother reaching for the brown bag. He just gave her a shrug and tried to smile, but found that he couldn’t.

Freline walked past the crumpled papers on the floor and said, “I know you’re still depressed about Mom and Dad, but don’t forget that I’m still here.”

Freline studied his face, her mind working on solving his brother’s condition.

“What happened to you? Mom and Dad-” She stopped.

“Freline… I, I,” he stuttered. He held her hand and gave her a meaningful look as if he wanted to tell her what pained him; as if everything would be all right if she knew the truth.

One of Cade’s fellow investigators knocked on the door, “Sorry for interrupting… Cade, the Chief wants you in his office right now.”

He looked at his sister and tried to continue what he was saying, but he just couldn’t find the words to tell her what happened.

“You don’t have to say anything. We’ll talk when you’re ready, okay?” She hugged him for a few seconds before leaving him to attend to his work, but not before giving the other investigator a curious look.

His sister was the only person who could understand what he was going through. If only he had told her sooner.

He went out to talk to his superior, wondering about his next case.

“You called, sir?”

“They found a body near the school building,” said Trevor Gale, the Chief of Police.

Cade wondered a bit why the Chief assigned him to a different case, but he did not bring it up since it doesn’t really matter to him.

“Did anyone see anything?” Trevor scratched his head.

“No, sir. The lab said the time-of-death was around midnight so there weren’t that many people in the area.”

The printer’s sound made it hard for Cade to concentrate on their conversation as it began printing pages and pages of photos from the crime scene.

All he could think of was the night that changed his life.

“Oliver, are you sure you can handle this case? Those documents won’t be examining themselves, detective.” He gave him a skeptical look.

James, Cade’s friend, looked at him and said, “He’s always like that, sir. Don’t worry about them.”

Cade went to the printer to retrieve the photos. He saw the pictures for himself. These were pictures of a man’s mutilated corpse. The pictures revealed multiple stab wounds on his chest and how his stomach was cut open. He flipped the photos upside down, covering his mouth to stop himself from gagging.

“His chest was almost ripped open. The examination confirmed that a knife was used to cut the victim’s body. Multiple stabs to the vital organs immediately resulted in death.”

Trevor held each photo and took a closer look, his left foot brushing the tiles on the floor.

“Nasty! Looks like this killer is one of those knife happy psychopaths. He didn’t even hesitate to carve the flesh out of the man’s body.” He looked at Cade who wasn’t feeling all too excited about lunch break.

The phone rang.

The chief answered the phone. “Aha! Leave it at the secretary’s desk. I’ll have James pick it up in a bit.”

When he was done talking, Trevor turned to the detective and said, “James, could you get me the latest autopsy report of the victim?”

“Alright, sir.” The James left to go fetch the documents from the secretary.

“Is that all, sir?” Cade asked.

Trevor took the photos and gave it to him. He handed him the files along with a sealed folder.

“What’s this, sir?”

Cade eyed the folder, noting the big red capital letters printed on top of the file. “CONFIDENTIAL” was all he needed to see to know that he had been fully entrusted with the case.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Oliver.”

James arrived with the latest autopsy reports.

“Sir, here are the files-”

“Give it to detective Oliver. He’ll be handling this case.” He grinned.

“Try to focus on this case, Cade,” he said as he handed him the file.

Cade went home late that night.

“I’m home…” Cade glanced at the empty chairs, looking for his sister. He stopped for a moment when he saw a portrait sitting on the small table just beside their living room. It was their family picture.

“They didn’t have to leave us… it wasn’t suspposed to be-” He held the picture in his hand, fingers blocking the faces of his parents.

When Cade got to the living room, he noticed something.

As he made his way to the kitchen, the mouth-watering scent of lasagna and freshly baked apple pie greeted him. He peeked inside, but there was no one there.

“She probably got home already. Might have just gone out for a bit.” He thought.

He took off his coat and went straight to bed, but not before taking a hot plate of lasagna with one big slice of apple pie.

And for that moment, he smiled. He was happy to have someone take care of him. It was something he wished he could give back. Something he promised to do as soon as he overcame his terrible deed.

Cade ate his lasagna as he examined the autopsy reports he spread on his bed.

“Nothing wrong here. Nothing out of the ordinary as far as I can see,” he grumbled, mouth filled with lasagna.

The door opened. Freline surprised him and shouted, “Aha! I’ve got you now!” She walked in the room, pointing her finger at her brother.

“You’re enjoying yourself, huh? Hahaha!” She giggled.

“Sorry… wait.”

Cade got up from his bed and finished off the last bits of apple pie. He said, “I thought you left. Where were you?”

Something caught his sister’s attention. Freline saw the case files on top of his bed. She realized he was working on a case.

“Don’t worry. I just took out the trash. What’s that? Are you working on another case? Can I help?”

Seeing her like that reminded him of the time when he was still a fledgling investigator; they used to work together on some of his cases. Cade could not explain it, but Freline somehow knew who among the list of suspects the actual perp was.

Freline jumped on his bed, laughing at her brother’s mess. She held the folder and said, “Okay, let’s look at the files together.”

Cade brushed off the crumbs of apple pie with his hand. He opened the folder with “CONFIDENTIAL” written on it and found a picture of two suspects.

“Hmm… two, why not three? It’s usually more than three, right? What gives?” Freline wondered, and that’s exactly what Cade has been wondering ever since he got this assignment.

Cade sat behind his desk, clearly bothered that he still could not figure out who the real perpetrator was, and why he or she is doing this. If he could find a connection to one of the suspects, he might just end the case early and prove to his superior that he can still handle high profile cases.

“I’m clocking out early today, James.”

“We’re still far from solving this case. Unless we get some solid evidence, that’s not likely to go anywhere,” James said.

“I know, I know. We might be dealing with a smart killer.”

“Whatever the case may be, just promise me that you’ll see this through. If you can’t handle this case, then the chief’s going to assign it to me, and you know how bad I am when working without that many leads.”

Cade was on his way to his car when someone called out to him.

“Detective! Wait!”

He turned around, and he saw a tall, lanky guy with glasses. When the guy had finally caught up with him, he was out of breath.

“My… name… uhh… is… uh… need water.”

“Can I help you? I’m detective-”

“…Cade Oliver. Yeah, I know who you are.” The guy looked ready to faint from fatigue.

“I’m sorry, have we met before?”

“No, I don’t think so. My name’s Sade Dollarsons, and I may have a lead on your case. I’ve been doing some digging and I discovered something interesting. There are more suspects than you think.” He wiped sweat from his brows.

Cade put the files in his car and gave him a good look. Sade looked like a kid who just graduated college.

“Click!”

He took a picture of him on his phone.

“I’m sorry, do you mind if I scan you-”

“No, not all. Listen, I just want to help with the case. I’ve been asking for the other detectives to let me in on it, but they think that I’m just some dumb kid trying to make a name for myself.” He sneered.

“Look, Sade. You don’t want to get involved in this case. If you put yourself in danger, there’s no guarantee that whoever did this to this man.” He showed him the picture of the first victim. “Is going to think twice of doing the same to you, you understand?”

Cade was sure that it would scare him off, but it seemed to have the opposite effect.

“I can’t stand here and do nothing when there are innocent people out there getting murdered. If I can do anything to stop these murders, I’m in. I don’t care how dangerous it is. Just please let me help you,” he begged.