Rod - The Weapon

Chapter 5: Dead or Alive?

I'm in my house now, washing up. The hot shower feels good on my skin. I wash my hair with some weird products which make my hair look good, that Rachel suggested. I don't understand the concept but it makes my hair look smooth, so it's good.

I get out of the shower and stand in front of the mirror. I'm just an average 6'0 foot male. I have brownish blonde hair and I go to the gym 3 times a week. I have muscles, built for strength, not for looks. When I was in college, I was an outcast. I didnt look amazing, was studious, never really involved myself in anything that the others did.

Somehow I caught Rach's eye, she saw me from the inside and then outside. Honestly, I feel like the luckiest man alive to have spent the rest of her life with her.

I wear shorts and a shirt and get out my room and go straight to the kitchen. I am hungry, I feel like I have been deprived of food as if I was punished for something. So cook up some macaroni and make a quick cheesy garlicky sauce and make my own instant Mac n cheese. This is Rach's recipe. She was a terrible cook to be honest, but she always loved making this Mac n cheese. It tastes awesome too, so I plate myself some and sit down at the table.

Our friends used to call us 'Mac n cheese' because apparently we used to go so well with each other. Rach agreed with them and she always said that, she was the macaroni and I was the cheese because I made her feel well put together. So, it was just a small cute thing which happened.

Well, the Mac n cheese without the actual 'Macaroni' was good I guess. I just miss her at times like this.

I drink some water and vitamins and then go to bed. I hope tomorrow is as productive as it was today.

                               ****
I wake up in the morning and get ready to go to Henry's office. I grab a bagel in my hand and rush out to my parked car. I drive out of the garage and now I'm on my way to their office.

The sky is very blue today, pretty for the eyes, eerie for the heart. The sun shines, but is covered with clouds. Feels like it might rain I come to a halt as I reach my destination and get out of the car.

I walk inside the room to see Henry and Guy waiting with a coffee for me. How nice of them to remember? I thank them and then take my seat. "Where were we on the topic?" I ask and Guy says, "You were saying about how there were no DNA traces."

I continue, "Oh, yeah, I remember. So, Rachel and our team accepted that we  were not going to be investigating this case. Kenny's parents wanted to keep this rape case out of the public's eye for privacy concerns and the department did as much as they could to keep the media off their tracks. I think they were quite successful at that. Not many people were aware about the case.

After some research the team in charge found out that Kenny's bus stops at two places before his. So obviously a little boy couldn't have walked out of the school alone, there were strict guards in the school, in front of the gates.

The investigating team found out where Kenny and the 'abuser' had gotten off the bus, from other students on it, but it lead to a dead end. They looked into it a bit more, asking few students who she teached, but they didn't breathe a word.

The abuser had apparently moved out of the little cabin that she lived in, and was on the move. That lady was good at hiding and disguising herself, because after searching the whole city, they couldn't catch her at all. I mean, the only description that they had was, a woman, suspicious looking, blonde, with maybe a little bruises. They found a long blond hair, on Kenny's woolen jacket when he was found in the dumpster.

The hair wasn't his obviously because he was a brunette. The abuser might have forgotten to wrap her hair up before clothing Kenny, because she always used to cover up her tracks.

The team couldn't find her, but hear me out. After one or two weeks, her corpse showed up on our street's doorstep. I already described what happened then. She fit the match for Kenny's abuser by the forensic team. They also sent out a request to confirm her identification to her home country, where she served her jail time, and guess what, she was the same pedophile.

So, on that day, it was confirmed that Alice was the horrible pedophile who had raped Kenny."

Henry looks at me sternly and says, "I feel like she had it coming."
"That's what everyone felt," I reply in a monotonous voice. Guy says, "It's kind of cool how the forensic team identified her quickly, I mean it kind of would have been obvious though, you know, blonde hair and an almost homeless looking woman."

"When I saw the body, I had my doubts and the forensic team confirmed it. It was her, except not how I expected to meet her, dead," I say as they shrug. I don't feel the slightest bit of sympathy coming from them when I talk about Alice, I understand.

I continue by saying, "The case was then handed over to Rachel because there was no progress before. I asked her if she was sure that she wanted to do it, but she said that it was her duty to thank the person who killed Alice. I asked her what she would do if they arrested the killer and she just bluntly said, 'I'd proudly handcuff them and I would get them the best lawyer who I can find.' I wasn't surprised, it was who she was. She worked for the law even though sometimes they didn't get along. She knew very well that the sentence for Alice's death would be comparatively lesser, so she was quite confident on the bail.

Now the case had become too big that we couldn't handle the media. We tried our best to keep the rape case under the shadows, and left media to engulf the whole news about the murder.

The homicide case was now under our radar, officially and Rachel was more than ready to solve this case."

Henry says, "I like Rachel more now, seems like we would have got along quite well." I reply, "Well it's hard to dislike someone who has her personality. She knew what needed to be done, when and where. Here is the thing, I absolutely hated murderers so this case was quite a test for me. But, I honestly didn't feel the same way in this case, I didn't hate the murderer at all to be honest. A good part of me felt that it was right, but at the same time I felt that Alice should have been sent to court and then executed by law."

Guy interrupts by saying, "I honestly respect your line of work and every other in the service sector which deals with justice."

I just smile at him and say, "It's quite difficult and beautiful at times because you get to help the helpless."

Guy said, "Well said, you deserve an ice cream."
I think that he says it metaphorically and chuckle but Henry actually gets up and goes to the fridge. Then he pulls out this giant tub of 'Salt Caramel and Pecan' ice cream and scoops out three times for the three of us. Honestly I won't lie, Rachel introduced me to this flavor and I fell in love with it. I am happy, ice cream makes me happy.

"Here you go Aiden and here is some for you Guy," Henry speaks as he puts down our ice creams. I take a bite and enjoy it as the coolness of the ice cream goes throughout my body and tickles my feet.

Henry looks at me and says, "At moments like this, when we relive the lowest times of our lives, breaks with ice cream should help."
I just look at the boy and think, 'Am I in a lecture hall right now?'
I just say, "Sometimes you don't realize the wisest things that come out of your mouth," to which he just laughs.

I continue while taking another bite, "Okay, so I'll continue. The first thing to look onto, was all the people we suspected. Obviously we couldn't trace Alice's steps like I had said so, we had to start from first. Starting with who we suspected."

Guy interrupted and says, "And who were they? I think there might be a lot of people."

To which I nod and say, "Yeah, starting with Kenny's parents and the other 11 families on our street, followed up by Kenny's other friends and relatives. And another important couple too, Rachel and I. But we were obviously in the clear as we were with our team at the beginning of our night, and then went home together to sleep. Since we were detectives too, they let us off the hook easy, not many questions."

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