Guns And Roses

Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

Walker leaned back on his chair, the grin vanishing from his face, with every name that he read on the list again and again. He hadn’t expected this at all. The case had taken a gruesome and unexpected turn, personally. He held his hands on his head, pulling his dark hair like a madman, yet trying to contain an emotional outburst in front of his colleagues and subordinates. Shaking from head to toe with the helpless feeling of fear and personal loss, Walker went into the washroom and locked the door behind him.

As soon as he entered, he went near the basin and kept on splashing his face with water, until his arms could take no more. Panting, he let out a guttural growl; enough to let go of his angst whilst not terrifying the rest of the people on the floor. He saw his face in the mirror, not looking nearly like the man he had seen in the mirror on Thornton’s wall before arriving here.

Taking in and letting out deep breaths to regain as much of his composure as he could, he left the washroom, though the abysmal chasm which had formed itself in his heart kept terrifying him. He sat down on his chair once again, not able to believe the names he was reading. They were all good friends of his from their University days, and they still met a couple of times every month. Even Thornton knew a couple or maybe more of them from his time at The University of California.

Kenneth Anderson,

Eric Wright,

Gregory Rivera,

Aaron Bryant,

Craig West,

Kyle Sullivan,

Vihan Dixon.

He still couldn’t believe his eyes, yet the evidence was in front of him. All of them were of American descent, except Gregory Rivera, who was from England, and Vihan Dixon, an Indian. Both of them had opted to establish themselves in the States, instead of returning to their motherland after completing their education. The last time they had all met together, was just a mere three weeks back. The faces of all his unfortunate friends, grinning happily, encircled his mind, making him feel worse than ever.

Suddenly, as if struck by lightning, he abruptly got up from his seat, and started pacing the room, utterly perplexed. He remembered something which couldn’t in the least account for the murders of his friends.

He had, with his own eyes, seen the bodies of the victims, had he not? He distinctly remembered the dazzling fireplace at the centre of the backroom, and the bodies of all seven victims lying in pools of blood. Hadn’t he noticed their faces, their eerily calm, wide-open eyes? Being his best friends, wouldn’t he have known who they were? Had he not remarked upon this fact to Thornton as well? He surely had, as far as memory served. Yes, he was sure of it now. But, then how were the victims identified as his friends? He couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Deciding upon the best option, he told the Chief that he was heading towards Forensics, before instructing his subordinates to once again confirm the identification of the victims for which he received a few understandable glares, as identifying seven people again would be a lengthy process, but Walker was a firm man when he needed to be, and the subordinates soon fell in line with his orders.

The Forensics Lab was a separate building in itself, on the same road as that of The Precinct, but not nearly as vast. It was a short walk, which took Walker about 5 minutes. He came here on an occasional basis, but never in such a hurry. The circumstances this time were dire, critical even, so he didn’t have time to admire the window-studded building’s modern architecture. There were four floors in the building, excluding the small lobby. Two were used for research, primarily in fingerprint, facial and footprint analysis. The Three F’s, they were commonly called. The third floor comprised of the morgue, where bodies were stored until given the all-clear to be buried after the autopsy, or the hearing. It was to the fourth floor now, to which Walker was headed. On reaching, there was apparently a new guard in place, so Walker had to show identification before being permitted.  Walking towards the autopsy room, where the body of the current victims were kept, he checked his Timex watch, which showed him that it was twenty-past-twelve already.

He recalled hearing from Larkin that the results from the Lab would be out by afternoon. Just in time, thought Walker. He opened the door of the autopsy room, and in front of him stood Dr. Frederick Burns.

Dr. Burns was a stooping and lanky man, who looked extremely frail; as if he had been subjected to malnutrition. He had curly dark brown hair which reached the collar of his Lab coat. His eyes were of a dark brown colour, which looked upon every individual as a specimen, not a human. Though used to it, Walker still felt a little chill as Dr. Burns put his eyes upon him. “Ah! Walker,” he said coldly, though not meaning to. There was a slight tone of joy in his voice, the very slightest, but which anyone who knew him would consider equivalent to any other friendly gesture humanely possible. “What makes you come here today?” he asked in the same mechanical fashion. “Well, I’m sure you’re very busy with the examination of the seven bodies,” said Walker gesturing with his hand towards the bodies, which all lay covered with a white sheet, “but if it isn’t too much, I would consider it a personal favour if I could have a glance at their faces,” he finished politely. “Well of course you can!” exclaimed Burns as high as his voice could go, which wasn’t much, really. “Just put on those pair of gloves lying there near the sulphuric acid; yes those, and you can proceed with your examination,” he said. “By the way,” said Walker while putting on the gloves, “when will the report be arriving?” “Oh, didn’t you hear? We’ve sent it to The Precinct,” said Burns, mildly amused. “You must have just missed it.” Walker sighed, but with relief, for at least the report had been finished.

“In any case,” said Walker clapping his glove-covered hands, trying to look confident but trembling at the thought of having somehow not identified his friends’ faces the night of the murder, “my gloves are on. Can I see the bodies now?” Dr. Burns nodded, and took him towards each of the bodies. Walker pulled off each sheet’s upper half to see the bodies’ faces with anticipation, of seeing a friend, but his fears were extinguished soon enough, only to be rekindled again.

The faces were the same as of that from last night, when he had seen them in the bar’s backroom, with those crystal-clear eyes. He sighed with relief, that his friends weren’t the victims. But then, why were these men identified as his friends? Of course!

“Burns was there anything in the pockets of the pants of the victims?” asked Walker, getting quickly excited now, as he remembered that the victims lower garments had been intact, just their torso nude. “Well,” said the doctor meticulously choosing his words, “the usual. Credit cards, driving license and cash.  Again, Walker frowned. He had thought that as the credit card or driver’s license would have the name of the person, on them, The Precinct wouldn’t have thought of re-checking their identities through facial recognition, or through their fingerprints. Clearly, this lethal organization had his friends’ hostage, or maybe already dead; he shivered at the thought. They had implanted his companions’ credit cards etc, on seven innocent and random victims. Larkin hadn’t done a good job of checking upon the history of his companions, as he surely would have seen that they had all attended the same University. It was very poor work on the part of The Precinct, but it was really late when they were working, so he couldn’t really blame them.

At least the problem of the double identity has been solved, thought Walker. Despite Larkin even saying that the faces weren’t disfigured, he hadn’t cross-checked after hearing about the credit card. Also, most probably, the photos of the real victims had been superimposed on the credit cards of his friends, to completely baffle the Force. Seven innocent men have been killed, and seven more men, if haven’t been killed yet, are being kept captive by this sinister group of people. The thought that his friends were still alive, gave him more will and strength than ever to find out who these people were and what they wanted, as they clearly had a vendetta against him for some unapparent reason.

Thanking the doctor, he left the Lab and went back to the Precinct to check on the Lab report, now with a completely rejuvenated and determined mindset, of catching these criminals at any cost, and saving his companions as quickly as he could.

They had taunted him with their warning, telling him to discontinue the investigation, which they knew that he wouldn’t when it was on such a personal level. They had jeered at him by scaring him out of his wits’. But what they didn’t know was that Sebastian Walker was a deadly hellhound. Once he picked up a scent, he wouldn’t stop till the end. He was a force to be reckoned with.

They had messed with the wrong man, and Sebastian Walker was going to live up to his reputation, now more than ever, without a doubt.