Dorian Mystery - Art of Murder

Chapter II

'What do you mean?' Shrevenport asked a little bit nervous.

'He is congratulating for deciphering his clue. He left this on purpose to try to find him. From the way he sew it, I think he's an expert at sewing. He's smart and precocious. Very careful with everything he leaves. He knows how to cover his traces and he knows how we will move next on trying to find him.' I explained to him calmly and a little bit more curious about this case.

'So what now?'

I looked at Shrevenport and thought of the next course of action. If there is a message in the sewing patch with this message it might be another message hidden in another patch. I asked him to bring them all to me at once to check on them, however Hydes seemed a little bit hesitant when it came of this strange request. Like he was still suspecting me of something.

'Is something wrong?' I asked him.

He just looked at me and said that nothing was wrong, except that this person asked for me specifically to be involved in the case and that was already rising many questions.

I told him I was, just like him, very surprised of this turn up of the events, but if this is the only way to stop this lunatic from killing even more innocent persons then we should do all our best to catch this man.

Hydes kept on looking like that for a while and sighed in the end saying that he is aware we have no other choice, but if something goes wrong and all the leads will go against me, he will not hesitate arresting me.

'I would've not asked for more from you.' I replied to him smiling and a beautiful friendship started from that very moment when he smiled and offered to get the evidence from the forensic lab.

'He's quite a young good man.' Said Shrevenport while looking at Hydes leaving the room.

'What's his problem anyways? Does he have trust issues or something?' I asked out of curiousity.

He looked once again at me and told me the following story:

'Junior Hydes became orphan when he was five years old. His parents were cold blooded murdered 20 years ago while he was sleeping, however the killer was never caught and all the leads drawn us to a dead-end. He became an FBI agent to solve the mystery of his parents death and to catch out the killer. Sometimes I even think he plans to kill that guy, but doing so he won't be any different than the murderer and all he will have will be just regrets.'

I was shocked to hear and somehow I could relate perfectly to his suspicions over me. He was thinking that this Artist would be behind his parents death or at least can take him a step forward to catching up the real killer.

' Thank you for telling me this, now I know exactly why is he acting like this. If I can help him out in a way or another, please let me know.'

Shreveport just smiled and told me that he would feel much better if I am gonna work with Hydes personally on this case as it might help everyone, especially the two of us. I shrugged after hearing this since I had a bad feeling about it, but I decided to give it a chance and work with Junior.

'Then it's a deal. I'll set up the arrangements and we will make sure you will have everything you need. I will talk to Junior too to let him know some paperwork details about reporting the situation and we are good to go. Unless there aren't other questions...'

'There is one last question.'

He looked at me surprised as he thought we were clear on everything that we need to do from this point onward.

'Can you bring me as well Hydes' parents files to review them a little bit? I wanna compare some details of what we are discovering about the current situation.'

He smiled again and this time he looked much younger. At first I was giving him around 50 years, but now he looked like he was 40. He agreed of course to forward me the files via email, but also he asked me to keep it secret as Junior might not agree to this action.

He left the room and the silence started to rule again, but my mind was all a fuss. Who was this Artist? Why is he murdering only during nights with full moon? How comes he knows my secret alias? And most important why he wants me involved into this?

So many questions, such little time and answers. Hopefully I will find something on the other patches the victims received.

I stood up my office chair and pulled up the map in the closet. I stapled it into the wall and put the patch in the plastic bag and the note on the top right corner of the map. This would help me out later on connecting the dots.

I was looking in the room to see what else can I do while waiting. There was the library shelf, full of old books about code deciphers and some about the cultures of the world. Heading towards there, a thought hit me up in my mind: What if the killer is copying something he read in a book? That was a long shot, but then I remembered that that quote is familiar and looking throughout the books, I found it: Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abangale Jr.

His book was more of an autobiography in which he was pretending to be multiple type of people to get what he wanted. He went as a Pilot, then pretended to be a doctor and afterwards an attorney and everyone believed he was part of them because he was so convincing and no one checked his actual background. He was researching everything needed to know about the job itself, its ups and downs, tips and tricks and when he was asked about anything he knew the answer right away. Was this Artist trying to copy this particular Author?

My thoughts were interrupted when my phone started to beep. Seems I had a new message. It was a number I never seen before, but the sender made himself clear as the day: Well done, detective Mystery! You've managed to discover the secret behind the note. Did you enjoyed getting inside my mind while reading that book?