Connected {Saw II}

look closer, detective matthews

Detective Matthews wasn't having any luck getting to sleep that night. All he could think about was his son. Daniel threatened about going back to his mothers' house, and Eric didn't even try to stop him. He kept trying to call Daniel but there was no luck in getting an answer.

"Hey, this is Daniel. Leave a message"

"It's dad" Eric began his message. "Sorry about yesterday. Look, I haven't heard from you. Would you give me a call, please?" He hung up the phone, only to have it ring a few seconds later. He answered it, thinking it was Daniel. "Daniel..." His voice lowered when he realized it wasn't him. "I'm sorry, sarge. I thought you were my son. Yeah. I'll be right there"

~

Eric arrived to the crime scene and immediately met up with his partner, Detective Kerry. "What do you got?" He asked her.

Kerry began to explain as they walked through the underground corridor. "County asbestos cleaners were working on a deadline. One of them finds a body, calls it in. Says that this whole section's been abandoned for two years. Spotted people down here, though"

"Who?"

"Well, homeless, mostly. And a bunch of kids held a rave in the boiler room about two months back"

"Get an estimate on the time of death?"

"Forensics just got here" Both of them came to a stop. Kerry turned to Eric. "But it was the arriving officer who called it in as your buddy"

"He wasn't my buddy. He was my informant" Eric explained. He slipped on some gloves. "The officer ID'd him just by looking at him?"

"Well, he wasn't positive. That's why I wanted you here"

"All right. Let me get a look at his face, I'll tell you in two seconds if it's him or not"

"Therein lies the problem" Kerry lead Eric into the area where the body was. She was right about there being a problem. His face was covered with an iron mask of some kind. Now-dry blood stained the mask from where it leaked out if the mouth and eye holes. It pooled onto the floor. Eric looked at the body and noticed a faded tattoo that confirmed the identity of Michael Marks. "Yeah. That's Mike" He took another look and noticed the jigsaw piece that had been cut out of Michael's shoulder. "When were you gonna tell me about that?"

"Thought you'd want to see it for yourself" Kerry explained.

Eric stood back up. "Okay, well I saw it"

"I'll have to admit it's a little early, but so far, everything matches Jigsaw's pattern"

"I can see that. What do you want with me?"

"Well, let's just pretend for a second that this is new to us, all right? Can you think of anyone that would want to do this to your guy?"

"Well, he's an informant, Kerry. You want a list of possible suspects? Grab a phone book"

"Crackhead county punks don't have engineering degrees. Now, I'd say that our cause of death here narrows that list down just a little bit, wouldn't you?"

Eric sighed and nodded. "Sure. But you're the expert"

He turned to leave when Kerry said, "Look closer, Detective Matthews"

Eric stopped, turned back around, and approached Kerry. "At what?"

"Ask whoever wrote it" She nodded upwards. Eric looked up at the ceiling. Those exact words were written in red paint.

~

Back at the station, Detective Kerry was watching the tape for Michael's game. She finished watching it, only to rewind it back to the beginning. "Hello, Michael. I want to play a game. So far, in what could loosely be called your life, you have made a living watching others"