A Startling Discovery

12:00 P.M.

Somewhere in Rosedale

 

      "So how was the university? Find anything?" Samuel asked Gregory over the phone as Gregory raced by faded buildings and broken down cars as he drove to his apartment. 

      "Nothing that would give us a lead. There was one professor, a Dolton Fax, who knew Munir during his teaching years but hasn't heard from Munir since the day he left. How was the visit to Munir's sister?"

      "She took the news as anybody who was close to their brother would.  She's still pretty shaken up."

      "Did she know what Munir was doing or why he was in the Pits?"

      "She didn't even know that he quit his job. Whenever she asked about his work, Munir always told her that he was doing research for the university."

      "Did he ever say what kind of research?"

      "No. He kept her in the dark for awhile. Then, just last week, Munir called her."

      "What did he say?"

      "He said that he had made a huge breakthrough on something and that everything was going to change for the both of them.  He told her that he just had to check up on a few things before he could go public. He then hung up before she could ask what he was talking about."

     "Anything else?"

     "Apparently two days after the call, someone broke into her house."

     "Anything stolen?"

     "Nothing that would be missed."

     "Any suspects?"

     "None."

     Gregory bit down on the cigarette he was smoking in frustration. "So we've got the world's worst thief and a sister that didn't know enough about her brother.  That still doesn't explain why Munir was killed or what he was doing in the Pits."

      "Yeah well, this might help. Apparently Munir never actually lived in his sister's house."

      "Come again?"

      "The place that Munir lived in was actually a guest house that's in the backyard. The thief completely missed it.  We checked it out and found something."

      "What?"

      "A notebook on Munir's desk, though it didn't really have anything useful except an address for an old restaurant on 14th street in Rosedale. I heard that place has been going through some rough times recently."

      Gregory looked around and saw many of the stores and shops that were out of business. "Yeah, yeah it is.  Listen, I'll head over to the address, you keep looking for something in the guest house and see if you can find anything else that's useful. I'll call you when I'm done."

       "Wait! Shouldn't we tell the chief what we fou-" Gregory hung up before Samuel could finish. 

       Gregory took a left and entered a street whose sides where lined up with closed and boarded up shops and eateries.  Gregory parked his car in front of an old restaurant that looked like it had been there for ages. Gregory remembered that this restaurant had been closed down a few years ago. He locked his car, put out his cig, and walked over to the doorway. It was completely covered with rotting boards but after few kicks the entrance way was cleared and Gregory walked inside.  The restaurant had seen better days, dust and dirt were everwhere and many of the tables were either broken in half or tipped over on their sides.  Gregory looked around and saw a door near the restaurant bar.  He walked over to it and when he opened it he saw that there were a set of stairs that led to the top level of the restaurant.

        Gregory climbed the stairs and came to a single door, most likely what used to to be the owners room.  He tried to knob and found it to be locked.  He sighed and kicked the door open, knocking it off its hinges.  The rotted door broke in half when it hit the floor. Why is it that everytime I go to some sort of abandoned building, I end up breaking something? Gregory walked over the remains of the door and entered what looked like a small personal kitchen.  Surprisingly, it looked fairly clean for a place that hadn't been used in years.

        Gregory saw a light coming from under a door in the back of the kitchen and walked over to it.  He tried the knob and this time the door was unlocked.  He walked into what used to be the owner's bedroom and his jaw dropped.  It was large, with a queen sized bed and luxery furniture that was well above Gregory's paygrade with enough room left to fit Gregory's whole apartment in it.  That is if it weren't for the piles of destoryed papers, computers, and equipment lying all over the place.

        Gregory stepped over the piles of burnt papers and smashed computers, seeing destoryed surveillance equipment everywhere as well.  There were cameras, video recorders, listening device, pretty much anything that a private-eye could dream of was here.  Gregory bent down to pick up a mostly intact piece of paper and was shocked at what he saw. The paper had a list of victims of the P.I. Killer on it with the name at the top of the list circled, Michelle Sinclair. Gregory gritted his teeth and crumpled the paper before tossing it as far away from him as possible.  He then started to search through the other papers, hoping to find something that would give him a lead.  Whoever was here before him didn't really make it easier for him though.

        Gregory was shuffling through another stack of papers when one of them caught his eye.  He pulled it out of the middle of the stack causing the rest to scatter all over the place. It had the word REAPER on top of it. "Some kind of new drug?" Gregory muttered, trying to make sense of the word. He tried to examine the paper for clues but the rest of the paper was scorched, making it impossible to know what it use to say. He put it down, deciding that it wouldn't help him find out anything else.  He then searched the rest of the notes that were mostly intact.  Some were about other killers than just the P.I. Killer and he found more notes with REAPER on them but they were just as useless as the first one.  One surviving note that he found interesting was about a new cult named ELR or the Eternal Life of the Rose.  Gregory had heard some gossip about it, supposedly it was some sort of new movement that was popular in the Pits. They worshipped some kind of holy woman named Sonata but that was all Gregory really knew.

        Gregory was about to get out of there when he saw a message machine on a desk buried in papers.  It seems that whoever caused this mess missed it.  He walked over to it and hit the playback button.  To Gregory's surprise Dolton Fax's voice came out.

        "Hey Munir it's me, the results you sent to me about the subject are amazing! From what I can tell the subject has no obvious cause to their powers, it must be from something that only they can see. I'll get back to you soon." Subject? Powers? Gregory hit the playback button again and got another message from Dolton, this one more recent.  "Munir, it's me Dolton. Look I took a bigger dive into this thing and I think that there's more than one of these things, maybe even a whole community! If we can find another one of them maybe we can make real breakthrough! Call me as soon as possible." Gregory hit the button again, getting another message from Dolton, this one a day before Munir died. "Munir, listen. I think I'm being followed. I can't help but feel that I'm being watched all the time and the other day I think my secretary was searching through my desks. Maybe we stumbled on to something that should have been left alone. Call me as soon as possible."

        Gregory was confounded with this knowledge. Not that Dolton Fax had lied to him, that he had already figured out awhile ago, but that there was something else going on that didn't exactly make him feel eager to find out what it was.  What the hell is going on here? He turned and started to walk out.  Just as he reached the doorway, one last thing caught Gregory's eye. It was an newspaper article pinned up against the wall. It was an old article about strange lights seen throughout the city with the name Greenwood Park circled.  Gregory looked at it for a moment before shaking his head, not making any sense of this.

        When he got to his car Gregory sat down in his seat and fetched his lighter and cigarettes out of the glove compartment. He put one in his mouth and lit it.  After a few minutes of smoking he calmed down and started up the car.  He headed back towards the police station, completely forgetting about his apartment.  As he drove he fished out his phone and punched in Dolton Fax's number.  The phone rang twice before a female voice answered. "Dolton Fax's office, Rachel speaking."

        Rachel? Is this the new secretary that Dolton was talking about? "Hello, this is detective Gregory Tanaka. Is Fax there? I need to speak with him."

        "I'm afraid he's out at the moment, do you want to leave a number?"

        "No, he has my number. Just tell him to call back when he gets back."

        "Alright sir. This is a Gregory Tanaka?"

        "Yes."

        "Ok sir, I'll tell him to call you when he gets back."

        "Thank you." Gregory hung up and continued to drive towards the station, a sense of urgency coming over him.

Reviews

[Ace D Portgas]

Alright Alright LOVED THE IMAGERY you put in this chapter...I could picture all this playing in my head as I was reading it

Love the chapters cause I'm fond of Detective Type Stories and thats pretty much what this chapter was dedicated too

Got to learn some more stuff too about Munir and Dalton and his new secretary. Eager to see what happens when Gregory reaches Dalton, that is if something hasn't already happened to him