How many times do I have to apologize for updating after such long periods of time? Thank you for your patience everyone. The reviews really keep me alive here :) Happy MLK Jr. Day!

I am proud to present you the final installment of The Case. After this, this whole story will wrap up after a few chapters.

Prepare to be mind-blown.

Review, and Good Luck,

-Olo Eopia03


- Chapter 28 ~ The Case (Part III) -


Betrayal is the only truth that sticks. It's quite brilliant, actually.

Shem looked at himself in the mirror.

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The normally slightly pale face, dotted with stormy gray eyes, was matted with a splash of cold water.

"Shall we, Miss Vagler?"

The two students in front of him were looking at him oddly. He did not really need to pay attention to them -

Ira kissed him lightly on the cheek.

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Discombobulated.

That never happened. He could read everyone. It only happened during that time when -

Shem dried his face and walked out of the bathroom. In general, he was slightly confused, and he didn't understand why she did that. She needed to? She wanted to? She -

"Sorry."

Shem looked up to see Ira sitting on the bed, looking guiltily back at him. Shem just shrugged as he walked over to sit next to her.

No. It wasn't that she needed to or wanted to do anything. It was just the fact that no matter how he looked at her, Shem would just see nothing. There was nothing to read about her. For some reason, he couldn't deduce anything.

"You know you're the only person I'm not able to read, right?" Shem said quietly, and next to him he could see Ira's face flush pink.

He was lying.

"Um, no," Ira said shakily. Then, she looked at him dead on - another expression that he was clearly not expecting. "Okay, look. I'm sorry about that, but I really needed to do that not just because of them but also because I have these feelings I just couldn't -"

Her sharpest intake of breath almost severed the beat of his own heart as his thumb reached to nudge her chin towards his face. They were just centimeters apart, her sapphire eyes widening slightly as her gaze stayed glued to his. He couldn't look back either.

For a moment, he thought he could tell what she was thinking. It was so uncertain though. It was - it was a feeling that was so new to him yet so familiar because it had been used in a completely different way.

Longing.

Shem smiled as he drew his face closer to hers. He could smell the mint in her short breaths, feel the warmth of her skin where his thumb tenderly touched her. Her cheeks were a light pink, almost matching the color of her lips.

"Good night, Ms. Vagler." Shem whispered, and he could feel her breath stop slightly. A beat passed by. Two.

And then he'd drawn away from her gently - the rare half-smile on his face as he heard a sigh that was not his - and called it a night.

He had not kissed her like he had intended to.

[xxx]

"We're almost done." Shem said, his voice full of excitement and relief.

It was an early morning, and Ira let Shem scan perfunctorily through Alex's room as she took a good look for a second time. She'd skipped school for today - which was definitely okay with her since she would just spend more time with Shem. When she'd told Shem about the fingerprint issue between Alex and Taylor, Shem had gone giddy with excitement.

He was probably more happy that this case was finally about to come to an end - with a plethora of solid evidence. Two days was extremely short for solving a Class A Case, but for Shem it must've been such a bore.

"Doesn't it make sense to all of you?" Shem spoke to the other three in the room. Alistor, Kitts, and Ira all looked at him expectantly. "Fingerprints . . . Alex's ravenous devotion towards the advanced books concerning genocide . . . You've been looking well, but for the wrong things!"

"Okay . . ." Christina Kitts said slowly, and Shem let out an exasperated sigh.

"My gods, all of you are so - !" Shem stopped abruptly, and Ira could almost see the new idea blink into his mind. His mind was always so preoccupied with something else other than the current situation. His eyes darted to Ira. "You know the way to Grandma Carter's house, don't you?" Ira nodded. "Take me there."

Ira had asked Grandma Carter kindly - while reintroducing herself even though the efforts would be futile - and the elder had graciously allowed them in.

Shem opened a drawer, and threw a collection of objects onto the now unused bed. Ira almost wanted to reprimand him for the messy clutter, but then she saw all of the tools that were scattered onto the sheets: a small tube containing ebony-colored powder, a tiny flashlight, thin brushes, and small pads of paper dotted with broken patterns of fingerprints.

Shem let out a soft chuckle to himself. Then, suddenly another glint passed his gray eyes and his hands hastily rummaged through his own pockets. In a few moments, a wrinkled ziploc bag containing the original picture of the two girls was thrown on top of the bed as well.

"He did try," Shem smiled to himself. "Bright kid. Would've been able to climb the ranks faster than Kitts or Alistor ever could."

Ira cleared her throat, and she mustered a smile. "Sorry, Shem."

"Why are you apologizing?" Shem asked, although a bit excitedly as he took her hand and led her to the objects on the bed. He pointed at each one of them. "Black magnetic powder, a small - although impaired - ultraviolet light, brushes . . . All for fingerprinting analysis. Just think of how obsessed he was."

Ira looked at the tools a second time, focusing.

"He went through all that trouble, and he even asked Taylor because . . . He knew his tools were too low-quality." Ira said thoughtfully, and Shem nodded enthusiastically.

"And why was he doing all of this?" Shem asked. He snatched up the ziploc bag from the bed with the picture inside - the picture of the two girls Ira heard Alex wanted to track down for the sake of the friendly janitor. And then it all clicked.

"Oh."

"Yes," Shem saw the realization in her eyes as he let out a soft laugh. "You can see it now, can't you? Alex had a good heart. He wanted to track them down for Mr. Ward, but what he needed was more than just a name. He needed a real identity - where exactly did Mr. Ward live, his ancestry."

"But that's -" Ira said with bewilderment in her eyes. "That's just a copy."

Even though she knew the copy would probably have Mr. Ward's fingerprints as well, they would be much more faded as compared to the original, and harder to detect.

Shem chuckled.

"But it isn't," Shem grinned. "I took a look at the "original" picture in Mr. Ward's office, and it seemed that Alex switched it out secretly to obtain more solid prints. To keep it a surprise."

"But . . . What does this have to do with anything?!" Ira asked, almost slightly confused. It was that feeling that you had - being so close to your goal, but still so far away from it. "How did this have to even do with Alex's death?"

Shem's eyes looked to the area behind Ira. His posture was rigid - body still - but the smallest smile did not fade. His gray eyes sparkled intensely.

"Because of what he found out," Shem whispered quietly, and he nodded to where Ira's back was facing. "Get me that book."

Ira turned around, and she saw a mass of books piled carelessly on top of the table - tens of books regarding the genocide in Libya.

Okay, Shem, Ira thought to herself. I know I'm not really a Mr. Holmes like you, but there's like a hundred books and you just said to get one -

And then she saw it. It was blatantly obvious after Shem had pointed it out to her.

There was only one book from the large pile that had been marked with a few white notes - the same pieces of paper that had been scattered on Alex's bed. She took the heavy book from the table and handed it to Shem with some difficulty.

"Here."

Shem's hands swiftly opened it to where the white pieces of paper were, but snapped the book shut just as quickly. His eyes glittered as he looked up to see Ira.

He found something, Ira thought. He found what Alex found.

"We need to get to Alistor."

[xxx]

"Scan them." Ira heard Shem's voice as she entered the room right behind him. She stopped when she took a step through the door - it was a new area of the detective's headquarters that she had never entered.

It was a blue-lit room, with glowing computer screens lining the walls. It looked like a miniature of Lynx's lair.

Alistor had taken the slips of white paper from Shem - unlike the ones on the bed that had broken patterns of someone's fingerprint, the slips Alistor had were dotted with complete fingerprints.

Alex really tried hard to get what he needed, Ira thought.

The book laid open in Shem's hands as Ira looked up to see Alistor insert the prints into a small machine.

Almost immediately, thousands of faces whipped through the computer screen in front of them. Tens and thousands of faces blinked by, with an enlarged version of the original fingerprint on the right side of the split screen. The faces blinked by faster, and faster, and -

The monitor froze to a single face on the screen.

Ira gasped.

"Who is -?" Kitts said in consternation.

Shem was beaming from ear to ear.

A beat passed by. Two.

"His name isn't Yosh Jumani." Alistor said, his voice wary.

"Oh, but it is." Shem laughed softly.

The picture of the janitor's face continued to stare blankly at them from the screen.

[xxx]

Repeated knocks on the door. Black coated officers waited expectantly outside as a bandaged hand grasped the door and timidly creaked it open.

"Mr. Ward, I'd like to have a word," Alistor sighed as he walked from the flurry of officers and to the front of the door. The janitor opened the door fully this time, a small boy clinging to his leg. "Or can we just make things easier by having you come with us, Mr. Jumani?"

"Yosh Jumani was believed to rise in the Rundu power movement, related to the Libyan genocide two years prior," Alistor quickly briefed as Ms. Kitts sorted through the papers. Shem sat across the metal table with Ira by his side. The four turned to look at the glass wall beside them, revealing another room that was empty except for the man sitting sadly in the middle on a chair, handcuffed, and in front of a table.

"A fugitive since-" Kitts said.

"2012," Shem said, yawning as he stared at the ceiling. He looked at everyone. "Oh sorry-" it came out as a mutter. "Read too many articles."

"His whereabouts have been unknown," Kitts continued slowly. "Until now."

"Honey, what's going on?" A woman's voice called out from inside the house. A rush of footstep. A woman appeared quickly in the doorway as well. "Thomas -" She stopped, her eyes blinking at the officers in front of them.

"Daddy?" The little boy questioned as the man gently picked him up from his leg, and settled his son back onto the floor.

"Thomas, what's going on -" The woman said.

"I'm sorry," The man said softly. Alistor waited patiently. "I must go. I will come back."

"I don't understand," The woman said in shock. "You didn't do anything wrong, did you? Thomas-?"

"Thousands of people died." Christina Kitts said as she placed a document back onto the table.

"Two million, to be more accurate," Shem said. "Murdered. Only 22 survived after the killing."

The other three turned their eyes to the table, unable to react to the high number of people that were slaughtered. Shem decided to continue.

"Thomas Ward does not exist." Shem said.

The car drove off quickly, leaving the woman and the child to stand in the doorway. The woman had been given papers - papers concerning Mr. Ward's true identity.

The man turned his head from the back of the car to see his family.

The family he knew he could no longer have.

"His real name, is Yosh Jumani," Shem said. Although everyone already knew that since the early morning, Shem's words still felt as though a weight had finally settled - to make things done. "He was not only a participant, but one of the chief architects of the mass murder. He threw the first grenades into a church full of thousands of people. Those who escaped the church's walls were attacked with machetes."

The double doors opened. The man held by the shoulders firmly with the metal cuffs clanging together around his hands. The flank of officers followed closely.

Yosh Jumani walked into a dim-lit, empty room.

He awaited the consequences.

"Alex Carter," Shem said, at the same time opening the book he'd kept with him this whole time onto the table so that everyone could see. "Discovered Mr. Ward's identity," Shem pointed at a small black and white picture surrounded by strings of sentences. Their prime suspect stood among the bushes, machete in hand, but the face was almost hard to make out because of the low resolution. "A huge shock, really. But as you can tell, Alex couldn't be certain that it was him. He tried to prove it by getting one of the janitor's fingerprints after asking for the picture of the two girls in Libya. But - unfortunately - he had no method of running the print to match it with anyone."

"So Alex decided to confront Mr. Wa- Mr. Jumani," Ira managed, and Shem nodded. "And . . . Mr. Jumani - he -"

"Stabbed Alex Carter with a screwdriver to protect his secret," Alistor finished for her. "He did it out of anger."

"No," Shem said. "Out of shock."

"How?" Kitts asked.

"Bring him in." Shem said. "It's time to talk."

Shem took a couple of steps back from the mold of silicone that was formed into a shape of the human torso. He looked at the table, his eyes glazing over the cracked Philips Screwdriver that rested on the flat surface.

The clock next to him blinked monotonously.

12:58 A.M.

"I had some spare time during the night a few days ago." Shem said to the three of them, and they looked back at him in confusion.

Shem fingered the slab of silicone before placing it on his own right palm. The substance was cool and rubbery - it brought chills to his skin.

He felt his hand - which was padded firmly with the silicone - wrap around the screwdriver.

"The crack on the handle," Shem muttered to himself. "What if it left a mark?"

"You never told us you snuck into headquarters in the middle of the night." Kitts said, almost accusingly.

The door opened, and a couple officers were holding Mr. Jumani by the shoulders as they brought him into the room. Ira noticed his bandaged hand in the gleam of the light.

"Well, I think Shem has just as much access to this place as you do." Ira shot back. For a few seconds after, Ira could feel the glare emanating from Christina's direction.

"We had the murder weapon," Shem dismissed Christina's comment with a shrug. "I just wanted to put it in the hands of the murderer."

Shem lunged towards the silicone-made body, thrusting the screwdriver straight into the body's left side.

Schloooop!

The screwdriver embedded itself into the fake body, and Shem left it hanging there as he peeled off the silicone material from his own hand.

Shem looked at the hand-sized silicone and smiled.

Three long slashes appeared on the center of the silicone material.

The suspect had been seated across from them.

Mr. Jumani stared at the ground, the trepidation imminent in his eyes. Ira wondered what was going to happen next.

When she turned to Shem and saw that he was looking back expectantly at her, she squeaked in confusion.

"W-what?" Ira said, her face turning hot. "What's up?"

Shem's eyebrows flicked in Mr. Jumani's direction.

"You saw it first, Ira," Shem said. "Do you mind unwrapping it?"

Ira stared at him in confusion.

"What do you - Oh."

For the second time that day, she realized what he was trying to tell her. Ira looked at the bandage that covered Mr. Jumani's hand. She'd noticed it on the first day of school when she first saw the janitor in the hallway.

Ira approached Mr. Jumani slowly, but it didn't seem like he was going to hurt her anyway. How could he, with all the police standing by and the cuffs around his hands?

Ira proceeded to gently unwrap the bandages around his right hand, only to reveal three slightly red, long slashes on the palm of his hand. The janitor in front of them winced.

Shem shrugged, although his face was full of triumph, as he tossed a piece of silicone onto the table. The markings on the silicone were identical to the ones on Mr. Jumani's hand.

"It was an accident." Mr. Jumani cried out for the first time since he arrived at the station. He looked worried out of his mind.

"How can that even be an accident -" Christina Kitts snapped.

"Fear," Shem interrupted before Christina could continue again, and the room was silent. "He was blinded by fear. He threw the body into the storm drain out of shear panic, unaware that Alex Carter was still alive due to the loud patter of the rain and the anxiety he was feeling."

Shem picked up the photograph of the two girls that was sitting on the table.

If . . . Ira thought slowly. If Mr. Ward isn't who he really is, then who are those girls?

"You have no idea who these girls are, don't you?" Shem said calmly as his eyes flicked to the picture while holding it in front of Yosh Jumani. The janitor shook his head and lowered his gaze, full of shame. "Your lack of body language and affection for them when you first introduced them to us was key. You found the photograph on a pile of bones, knowing that when you left Libya you would have to create a new future and a new past."

"Yes." Mr. Jumani said quietly.

"You were Alex's good friend, and he wanted to track down these two girls for you out of love. He wanted to do something good in his life, but he didn't know it was going to end so quickly." Shem said.

"He was the good man in the end," Jumani said sadly. "I tried to do the same. I talked to Alex hoping that making him happy would at least alleviate some of the bad things I've done."

Shem nodded, then looked at everyone else.

"Mr. Yosh Jumani did nothing wrong. He wanted to save himself as well, so he proceeded to tell Alex Carter of all the injustice that occurred in Libya - that it was wrong, even though he was a killer. He wanted redemption."

"Alex found out, but he didn't know that Mr. Jumani was trying to atone for his wrongdoings." Ira said, and Shem nodded. A crooked half-smile appeared on his lips, making Ira's skin tingle.

When you think about it, it's actually very complicated, Ira thought, her heart sinking. It wasn't really anyone's fault in the end.

"Still charged for murder though. I apologize." Alistor said gruffly, and Shem shrugged. Alistor looked at him. "How long have you known the solution to this problem?"

"The day you told me about it," Shem yawned.

"You just didn't have evidence."

"Case closed. You're welcome Inspector Mills."

Inspector Mills.

Ira would never forget the look of respect that reflected in Alistor's smile.