Note: At last, I've completed chapter three! By the way, Adam and Nadia will act sweeter to each other, eventually, but not quite yet. ;)
Chapter III: I'm On Trial
"And the only reason I know that is because I was a suspect. I'll have to start from the beginning," Lawrence reveals, resting against the pipeline in the corner.
Adam and Nadia exchange glances and listen silently to Lawrence.
"The newspapers started calling him the Jigsaw Killer, because he would cut wounds the shape of a puzzle piece out of his dead victims. Actually, technically speaking, he's not really a murderer. He never killed anyone. He finds ways for his victims to kill themselves."
Lawrence reminisces, thinking back to how he first met the detectives, Tapp and Sing, and when they first began to suspect him.
Doctor Gordon was explaining to three medical students the condition of a patient who was lying on a bed before them. They looked at him in admiration as he described the tumor in the patient's head. Doctor Gordon pointed with a pen to an x-ray and smiled smugly when he glanced back at them. A young, beautiful Asian woman was smiling with obvious infatuation when he regarded the students. Doctor Gordon returned the grin.
"The patient ha-" Lawrence began.
"His name is John, Doctor Gordon," an orderly with brown hair stopped pushing a cart once beside the door, and smiled with kindness, and something else unknown, towards the sleeping patient. "He's a very interesting person."
Doctor Gordon lacked caring in his voice, "Thank you for that information, Zep." He turned to his idolizing students, "As you can see, our orderlies form very special bonds with the patients."
Zep stared at Doctor Gordon with loathing before he turned away and continued to push the cart down the hall.
"Continuing on, the patient ha-" but Doctor Gordon was cut off again, this time by the intercom.
"Doctor Gordon, Doctor Lawrence Gordon, please page the operator."
"Obviously someone doesn't want me to tell you what the patient has. Excuse me," he stepped around the amatory students and left the room.
Inside his office, he was met with two detectives who suspected him of a crime. At first Doctor Gordon didn't know what to think of it, but when they confronted him with evidence that belonged to him, he was taken to the police station. There the doctor's lawyer explained to him the enormity of the situation and persuaded Doctor Gordon to tell him where he was at the time the crime was enacted. Doctor Gordon's alibi was proved honest, eventually, and he was able to go home. Yet, the police asked him of one other favor.
"We have one of the victims who managed to escape. Wanted to know if you wouldn't mind sticking around and listening to her testimony? Maybe it'll trigger something," an Asian detective by the name of Sing asked.
Doctor Gordon didn't really care, "I'd like to help, really, but-"
"Well, we'd really appreciate it. She's the only one who made it," Sing had interrupted.
Sing turned his attention to the interrogation room next to them, where a young woman with a brown ponytail, and the detective Tapp, who besides Sing brought Doctor Gordon to the station, had sat. Doctor Gordon looked as well. Though the woman and Tapp could not see them, Doctor Gordon and Sing listened to her story through the glass.
"Amanda, in your own time, tell me the first thing you remember," Tapp asked the woman gently.
She shook slightly and began, "I woke up. All I could taste was blood. And metal. There was a heavy, bear-trap like device around my head and my wrists were tied to the chair I sat in. The room's lighting was lime-green, it was cold, across from me was an old television set."
Amanda took a breath. Tapp had put his hand on her shoulder and urged her to go on. In the other room, Doctor Gordon felt uncomfortable, and wondered why this person who trapped Amanda would set him up.
"The puppet on the television screen told me that he knew me and that he wanted to play a game. He said that the locked device around my head would set off like a reverse bear-trap if I didn't find the key in sixty seconds. He said it was in the stomach of my dead cellmate. The television turned off and when I struggled out of the chair, the timer to my device went off. And then I saw the body."
Doctor Gordon is interested in her story now, and leaned closer to the glass. Sing's mouth was open with horror as they listened to Amanda continue.
"There was a knife, and I… I ripped him open until I found the key. I unlocked it at the last minute before the puppet came into the room and told me that I should be grateful for the life I'm given."
Sing had placed a syringe, that was already in an evidence bag, on the table and explained it to Doctor Gordon.
"He'd been injected with an opiate overdose. He couldn't move or feel much of anything."
Doctor Gordon was shocked, "You mean he was alive?"
"Was," Sing nodded.
Tapp asked Amanda, "You are in fact a drug addict. Isn't that right, Mandy? Do you think that is why he picked you?"
Amanda had let out a sob and nodded.
"Are you grateful, Mandy?"
She raised her head for the first time and looked into Tapp's eyes, "He… He helped me."
Tapp looked over into Doctor Gordon's room right into his direction. Though he couldn't see him, he knew he was there. Doctor Gordon was frightened that this killer knew him, and he had hoped to God he didn't meet the man that Amanda had met.
"They let me go finally and didn't think I was a suspect anymore. I was nervous after that day though, because the detective Sing concluded that the killer might be a patient of mine. How else would they have my pen?" Lawrence finishes.
"Are you sure it's him?" Adam looks up from the floor and asks softly.
"Yea, I'm sure."
Adam becomes hysterical and stands, "How do I know you're telling the truth? You could be apart of this!"
"Adam, he's in the same position we're in," feeling vulnerable beside Adam's shadow, Nadia jumps up as well.
"I don't know that. He's got information, and you! Apparently, you're the one with the key! Where is it?"
"How am I supposed to know? We're still here!" Nadia raises her voice.
"Just calm down! Both of you," Lawrence stands. "We need to think
together, think about what the tapes say. This guy doesn't just pick random people, he has reasons and usually those reasons are faults his victims have. He wants us to overcome our faults and play his game by his rules."
Nadia gives him an apprehensive look before he continues.
"That's just what the tapes said," Lawrence throws in. "They also said that you were the only one who could find the key. Do you have any ideas?"
"No, none at all," Nadia frowns.
"Has anything happened the past couple weeks? Anything out of the ordinary?"
"No, nothing. Well, besides…"
"What?" Adam is confident she has a lead.
"It's nothing," Nadia gets uncomfortable.
Adam's face drops and his hope fades, "Just your accident?" Nadia looks perplexed so Adam blurts out, "Suicide attempt?"
Nadia glares at him, embarrassed, "That's the only thing, but it has nothing to do with me finding a key, damnit!"
She tries to hide the bandage on her wrist and arm, feeling ashamed, but it's still, unnaturally, tender so she let's go. She glances at Lawrence, who nods and smiles slightly as he focuses down, and than she peers back at Adam. He's shaking slightly from his damp clothes that have only dried somewhat.
"What about you? Your tape said you had to kill Adam by six o'clock," She's speaking to Lawrence and notes up at the time. "It's almost three."
Adam returns Nadia's stare with unbelieving eyes and than watches Lawrence, jaw hung open. Lawrence feels weary and sighs.
"I'm not going to kill a man if that's what you're asking."
"I would hope not!" Adam chimes in.
Lawrence gives Adam a look that tells him to shut up. Adam closes his mouth, too furious to reply, and crosses his arms against his chest, shivering.
"Look, obviously we depend on you, Nadia. If you think of anything, even if it's a small detail, please don't keep it to yourself. Three heads are better than one," Lawrence smiles softly.
At first, she didn't care. But analyzing it, if the two men are free they can call the police and free her too. Nadia thinks tediously, but she can't come up with an answer. Feeling hopeless, she slides down, leaning against the bath tub, and stares at nothing in particular.
Lawrence glances at the clock and sits down as well. He remembers what his tape asked of him; that if he doesn't murder Adam, his family will die instead. He ponders this, battling decisions and ideas. Lawrence asks himself silently if he would be able to kill Adam. Soon enough, he starts wondering how.
Watching everyone else settle down, Adam moves to the horizontal pipe in the corner and takes a seat on it. The air is calmer and quiet, except for the buzzing of the fluorescents above. Suddenly his stomach growls and Adam makes a look. He thinks about how he'd saw off his foot for some junk food and a premium cigarette and bows his head into hands. He smiles softly in dark humor, realizing that sawing off his foot is a realistic option.
The silence is making Nadia nervous. She begins to feel nauseas as the bathroom's filthy, white walls act like they're shrinking. She panics inwardly at the growing claustrophobia. Nadia isn't afraid of small, closed spaces and can only think of feeling claustrophobic once before.
She was in an elevator with her mother, soaring up towards the twenty-seventh floor where her father's work office had remained. Half a minute in the elevator passed and before long she had begun to feel distress. Her mother recognized the symptoms and advised her to sing. Nadia sung a favorite lullaby with her mother and all panic disappeared. Remembering that day, Nadia closes her eyes and uses her mother's advice once more.
"Like an ancient day, and I'm on trial," she whispers a song. "Let them seize the way, this once was an island…"
All at once, as he becomes aware of the woman carrying a tune, Adam feels that acknowledgement once more. He's convinced he's heard her sing in the past, but doesn't know from where or when. He assumes maybe a buddy in a band is a mutual friend of their's. None the less, he confronts her this time.
"And I could not stay for I, belie-"
"Hey! HEY!" Adam catches her attention.
"What?" Nadia is bewildered and taken back.
"You! I keep feeling like I know you, and I have a damn good feeling you know me!" Adam barks at her while she speculates if he's schizophrenic. "Who are you? Do you know me?"
"No, what the hell? I've never met you before. Stop yelling at me! What's wrong with you?" she tenses up and starts to feel irritable, as well as hurt. She ponders that maybe he knows something, instead.
"Look, Adam, maybe she looks like someone you know or-" Lawrence begins.
"No, it's her voice and her face and hair! I've seen her before!" he turns to Nadia. "You could be the one who put me in this room!"
Nadia's jaw drops and she cries back. Adam bends down and picks up glass, a fragment of shattered mirror he smashed earlier from throwing the snapped saw.
"Now you tell me what is really going on!" Adam angers himself again. "Or I'll cut you this, you hear me? I'll cut-"
Nadia was contemplating hitting Adam again when he stopped shouting, looking at the broken mirror in his hand. Lawrence, who was rolling his eyes and turning away, looks back at Adam when he notices Adam's ranting ceased.
"What?" Nadia can't help but laugh out loud at Adam's expression.
Adam gazes at her, astounded, than his eyes roam to the mirror behind her.
"It's a two-way mirror."
Note: Read and Review! Expect me to return the favor, as well, to show my thanks. (:
So, what do you think is going on? I want to hear some predictions and thoughts from you!
Disclaimer: The song, that the character Nadia sings, is called The Penalty by Beirut. An american band from New Mexico, whose vocalists and instruments sound foriegn. Beirut is an underrated, brilliant band that you should definiately look up on youtube, if you're interested!
