Investigation Diaries

  • 03 Sep - 09 Sep, 2022
  • Salaar Laghari
  • Fiction

‘…I don’t think so,’ he replies after thinking for a while, ‘I know one thing about him that he never cheats.’

‘But we can be wrong. We are thinking you secretly overheard his conversation, leaving him behind. But perhaps he’s already two steps ahead of you, leaking wrong information purposely.’

‘Not at all possible,’ Brian replies confidently.

‘So, what are we going to do next?’

‘I know two school principals who have earned a lot of black money. I’ll send undercover cops towards their houses. If they find any sort of crime, then we’ll rush our way towards them.’

‘Fine, anything else?’

‘I have some work for you,’ Brian says remembering something, ‘within two days, give me list of all the people whose name was Logan Bale two years back. Use any sort of legal or illegal way.’

‘But that would be of no use. Logan has changed his every last detail of past two years, even his death if we believe. And besides, we don’t know his current identity and new face look.’

‘I know…but we have to put our every effort to catch that criminal and prove Landon who’s better.’

Bret stands up and walks towards the computer table, to find list Logan Bale names.

Brian talks to Dr Adrian

That night, Brian goes to Dr Adrian’s home and knocks the door. Dr Adrian comes at the gate and allows Brian to enter inside. Moments later, two of them were at the guest room, Adrian says to him,

‘Look Inspector Brian, I know exactly why you are here. But unfortunately I can’t help you.’

‘Well…I’m glad that you are not hiding that you helped Logan. And as we all know that your patient becomes a breaking news every week.’

‘Look sir, I didn’t help him. I just served my client…and secondly, he was my patient two years back and now he’s no more in my record.’

‘I’m not here for his historical crap,’ Brian replies getting to the point, ‘I just want you to show me a photograph of him, before and after the surgery.’

‘Take me to the interrogation cell or someplace else. I can only show you his before version. He strictly forbade me from having his new look’s picture.’

‘You’re lying!’

‘Hey inspector, don’t accuse me,’ Dr replies, ‘I just did the best I could to serve my client. That’s the job of a surgeon for your information.’

‘Okay, just shut up,’ Brian says getting irritated from him, ‘tell me can you give me an idea of his new face.’

‘You must be aware of Randall Davis, the soccer player who won last year’s tournament.’

‘Okay, I got it!’

‘But sir in our recent breaking news, Commissioner Barrymore just told everyone that police knows about the criminal that he changed his name and face.’

‘So?’

‘He did a blunder,’ Dr says, ‘you know why? Because now the criminal knows a lot about what you all know about him. If you want to get any closer and be one step ahead of him than don’t let anyone know what you guys know about him.’

Brian remains silent for a while and says:

‘You’re quite right, but sooner or later he’ll be caught, I guarantee. And thanks for giving me a brief idea of the criminal’s face.’

‘That’s not brief, that’s exact…’

Brian stands and after thanking him, he leaves.

Landon gets Frightened

The following Saturday, at seven o’clock in the evening, Landon gets a phone call from the commissioner, after answering the call, he is told about a robbery that was about to take place in a particular place.

Landon goes to his room and takes out his pistol from the closet and inserts more than five bullets inside its magazine. He tells himself:

‘No matter what happens, you have to kill him today. Because if he survives then you’ll definitely die by his hands.’

He puts his pistol inside his pants waist and leaves.

A couple of minutes later, he reaches the place where Mr. Barrymore and Brian were standing along with their team. This place was outside a school principal’s bungalow. So he waits along with them with no purpose. Suddenly, his and Brian’s cell phone get an SMS from an unknown number. Brian reads his SMS aloud:

‘ENTRADA APARTMENTS, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!!!’

Landon looks at him getting surprised and says:

‘I’ve got the same message…’

Landon immediately sits inside his car and turns the engine on. He leaves for the appointed address with the sole purpose to get his brother killed.

On the other hand, Brian follows him in his van with Bret who was driving the van. Brian stops other cops from coming along with them. His sole purpose was to catch the criminal alive.

As Landon and Brian both reach at Entrada Apartments together, Landon enters inside the building with his pistol loaded in his hands. He searches the entire corridor till the third floor and finds nothing. Brian reaches the spot where he was standing. They both stand next to each other waiting for a crime to take place.

‘I hate this stuff,’ Brian says to him. ‘Your brother’s playing games with us.’

‘Oh, so you know it’s my brother…’

‘Everyone in San Diego knows his earlier name, and the FBI knows your history with him.’

All of sudden out of nowhere, Brian gets attacked by being hit on his head with a metal rod. Brian gets injured on his head and blacks out. Landon gets scared that he falls on the ground. He sees the attacker wearing black shirt and grey pants. His face was covered. It was his criminal brother. Landon gets so frightened that even though having a pistol in his hand, he had no courage to shoot him. The criminal throws away his metal rod, as if he was giving Landon a chance to kill him.

Someone shoots a bullet towards the criminal, but misses the shot. Landon and the criminal see that it was Bret. The criminal jumps over from the window and escapes the place as if he vanished. Bret runs towards the window to see, but finds him nowhere. He angrily turns towards Landon and says:

‘What the hell were you thinking? You had a gun, why didn’t you shoot him?’

‘I don’t know, I was scared, or perhaps I lost my mind.’

Brian moves his arm and touches his head’s injured part.

Brian’s Next Plan

In the hospital, as Brian was getting bandaged, Bret was standing next to his bed. Mr. Barrymore comes towards them and asks Brian:

‘How are you Brian?’

‘I’m good, anything you need to know?’

‘No, but there’s one thing you ought to know,’ Mr Barrymore replies. ‘After you and Landon left, we were told by the school principal that he was actually robbed by someone.’

‘What?’ Brian asks getting surprised. ‘How can that happen? The robber attacked me. He was right where we were.’

‘I’m not saying that the robber was at two places at the same time, no. I’m just saying that someone is affiliated with him.’

‘You mean someone else is involved?’ Bret asks. ‘As if the guy who attacked him was at Entrada Apartments, and the guy who robbed the principal was someone else involved with him?’

‘Maybe!’ commissioner replies. ‘It can be possible…’

‘So, what if we find that guy first?’ Brian asks.

‘Do what you like, but mark my words, you’ll never catch him unless you stop this competition.’

Mr Barrymore leaves giving Brian a piece of paper. Bret asks Brian:

‘Sir, what should we do now?’

‘I have another plan,’ he replies. ‘We won’t waste our time working on Logan Bales. Now, you will secretly follow Landon everywhere and extract those two secrets of his life.’

‘Okay, I understand,’ he says opening the piece of paper.

‘What’s in this?’ Brian asks.

‘Another stanza of that poem on Black Money!’

-----------No good will come out from it,

Because it’s worth a shit,

Finally from you one day,

It shall be taken away,

And you shall cry for your ‘Black Money’.

Bret Figures out Landon’s Secret

Next day, Landon and his wife were asked to join Mr Barrymore for lunch at a restaurant. While three of them were there having their lunch, Landon dinks too much alcohol before they could start any important conversation.

Bret who was already following them sits next to sofa, where he could secretly hear their talks. However, Mr Barrymore says to Landon:

‘Come on, please stop drinking. I don’t want you to lose your mind before we talk about our criminal.’

‘I’ll tell you about this criminal’s next target…’ Landon says dizzily, ‘I know why he’s doing all this. He is actually here to take his revenge…I failed to kill him years back, but now it’s his time…he will finally kill me.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘And one more thing…he has one more target left if I’m right.’

‘One target? You mean to steal from one who earns black money?’

‘Yes…’ Landon replies. ‘I’m assuming this because…his poem had four stanzas and according to that…only one stanza which means one last victim is left.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Mr Barrymore replies getting concerned and worried, ‘look Landon, listen to me. Brian is very persisting sort of police inspector, he won’t listen to me. But I better tell you that this criminal is going to get away only because of you two, if you don’t stop this competition.’

Landon looks at the piece of paper on which that third stanza of his brother’s poem was written. He laughs sympathizing on himself:

‘You know sir? This guy’s actually enjoying all this…he knows he will leave us blind and get away with his purpose by finally killing me.’

‘So, you’re giving up?’

‘I’m not just giving up…I’m actually trying to escape. Because if I continue investigating my brother…he will eventually kill me.’

‘I’m just tired of listening this that you’ll be killed,’ Commissioner replies getting irritated. ‘At least tell us about the secrets and lies that you have buried inside your heart, if you’re leaving the case.’

Bret who was secretly listening gets a little more attentive.

‘Firstly, I have lied to most of the people…’ Landon says, ‘that I killed my brother because he changed his identity. This was not the actual reason…the actual reason behind was wealth inheritance…my father Mr Bale gave 70% of his wealth to Logan, I got only 30%. And the only way that I could get 100% of my father’s wealth was by having him killed. As our father died, Logan inherited his share and changed his identity. So I just didn’t care about his new identity, I just ordered a serial killer to kill him. The serial killer I hired told me that my brother was having a plastic surgery. I didn’t care to see his new look I just had him killed.’

‘And that didn’t happen, right?’ Commissioner asks.

‘Right, he didn’t die, but I got all the wealth that was around billions and have in my San Diego’s Bank account.’

‘Do you know Landon that your mysterious brother is not alone, someone else is affiliated with him!’

‘Yeah, because as you told me that the robbery took place at the very moment when he was standing next to me and Brian.’

‘Yes,’ Commissioner says, ‘but tell me one thing, I won’t ask you what’s your second secret. But I just want to make sure that are you not hiding your brother’s new identity.’

‘I’m not hiding that because I don’t know what it is. I’m honestly telling that…’

Bret notes everything he heard as he had to tell Brian about this.

At another corner, the criminal was seated in black shirt and grey pants along with his face covered with a cloth. He had also heard the entire conversation, so he said to himself:

‘San Diego Bank?’

Brian’s Assumption

That night, Bret comes to Brian’s house and tells him about everything he heard from Landon. Brian gets quite shocked and frightened as well. He thinks about what should be done further in this case.

After thinking for a while, he makes out nothing and just sits on his sofa with Bret.

‘What are we going to do now?’ Brian asks.

‘Landon’s right, this guy’s enjoying all of this. He knows our every next step. We will end up with nothing. The criminal might just kill Landon and get away.’

‘You know Bret? No matter how much I’m capable with my work, I always care more about bribe. Money has been my sole purpose. For the first time in my life, I’m getting worried about the crime. I just can’t let the criminal get away. I want him alive because he is very different than my other cases.’

‘Sir, don’t get stressed’ Bret comforts him, ‘I suggest that both of us should find the guy who’s affiliated with him.’

‘No, maybe Landon’s second secret can be of any use.’

‘But sir was the first secret of any use’

‘Yes’ Brian smiles, ‘one thing is clear, that who shall be criminal’s next target.’

‘Who?’

‘Landon Bale, why because he inherited his father’s wealth through illegal means. Which means he earned black money, so who is our possible assumption.’

‘Obviously Landon, you’re right!’

Brian remains silent and stands up to have a glass of water.

‘Sir, there’s one more thing I need to tell you,’ Bret says.

‘What is that?’

‘As Landon left today with his wife, he saw me. Perhaps, he knows that I’m spying….’

‘Don’t worry, he won’t kill you.’

‘If he can kill his brother, then he might…’

Brian realises he was right, but just walks away.

to be continued...

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