Obscure Blood

Chapter Five

What's so great about this house, anyway? he thought. The case was wrapped ten years ago, and the clue I'm looking for is the reason my father resurfaced. The house could no longer be of any use to him since everything concerned with the case had been wrapped up. He exited, jumped in the taxi that picked him up from the hospital to his childhood house and made his way to the office.

"Where have you been, Octa?" Chief Detective Albany asked.

"Don't worry about me," he said.

As he was making his way to his office, his boss said, "You need rest."

"I'm fine," he said.

"Suit yourself," she said, as she walked away. She did not say anything about the files that were missing on the children's cases, which made Octa think she must have not known about them. Damn, I have a lot to pay for taking those files in the first place, he thought. Now they've been shredded. Should I report them missing? Better than telling her I took them home. A few minutes later, Albany called him to her office. When he entered, she handed him his badge.

"I know you took the evidence of the child murders," she screamed at him for taking those files home and someone shredded them.

Octa froze.

"Are there any evidence left?"

Octa remained speechless.

"Don't tell me you lost them."

"They were stolen from me," he answered.

"Huh, Octa, this is the last time I'm covering for you. I know you took them, because the teapot links to your family incident. You already know the FBI has control of the child murder cases."

"Indeed, I do."

"Just walk out of my office, please," she said while pointing her right index finger toward the door. "Sometimes, you get on my nerves."

He walked out of her office.

***

It was seven in the evening, and as Octa walked the length of the police ward room with a cup of coffee in hand, he requested updates on the investigations that his squad was working on and reviewed plans to solve the cases. He started a preschedule to decide who would be on duty over the weekend. They had over 66 murder cases opened. Still, many detectives were at the office on off hours to work on as many cases as they could.

"Did you ever know that the detective who investigated your mother's case was assassinated three days after he was assigned to the case?" asked John Intel, the oldest of the department's detectives, when he walked in Octa's office. His hair was grayish-white and short. Octa made a quick motion with his hand for Intel to close the door, which he did, and then sat down in the chair near Octa's desk. He took a chair and sat facing the other men in the room.

"No," he answered. "What do you know about the case?"

"That it's dangerous. In fact, all the detectives who investigated or had anything to do with that case; they're all dead. Accidental death, car crushed, reckless driving, and no survivors."

"One thing I noticed," Intel continued, "is that the first detective died three days after being assigned to the case, then a new detective was assigned to replace the first detective. The second died after six days, the next one after nine days and this went on and on. The investigation stopped after twenty detectives had lost their lives. If the three days rule applies to you, ten years after your mother was killed, then you have sixty-three days to solve the case."

Octa flipped the picture he had found across the desk to Intel. "Do you remember a Chelsea Cracker during the investigation?"

"Yes, this is your aunt. She died from cancer two years after your mother was murdered."

"What do you think happen to my father? Was he a suspect?"

"According to the evidence found at the scene, your father was kidnapped and beaten on a chair. No one believed he was alive, because of the amount of blood that was found for him."

"Was my father a corrupt man?"

"He was as clean as your mother. That incident might be a personal issue."

"Someone didn't want the case to be solved," Intel said. "Since then, no one has wanted the case," he said. "All of the evidence on your mother has been lost." The silence deepened in the room.

"However, someone in this office destroyed the evidence, maybe to avoid some further damage or they were close to getting caught. There was a big fire in the evidence room and, according to the firefighters, the fire came from an evidence box, which we identified as one of your mother's evidence boxes. It was a grenade. Someone put a grenade in it. Everyone who went to the room was a suspect, but no one was ever found guilty or of having had anything to do with it. However, we finally concluded that the perpetrator climbed between the ceilings all the way from the electrical room. A hole was found in the basement floor, so it had to have been someone from the outside."

The phone rang and Octa answered it.

"Yes," Octa said.

"I've got to go to a fire at 125th Street and 2nd Avenue," Bob said. "Octa, I think you might want to come, because it is around where you grew up."