AN: I fully understand this is late as hell. And I'll take full responsibility for it because I am preparing for finals at uni. And it gets hectic sometimes. Anyway, thank you to those who have started reading this fic, following/favoriting, and reviewing. It means a whole bunch to me!
Enjoy!
April 14, 2014
Brother,
By the time you find this, I will probably be off in the Navy, as I always wanted to. You shouldn't worry about me being here. If anything, I fear for you. first time living on your own after our parent's death. Please be kind with (illegible). Knowing you, you are going to give him hell about being friends with me. Also, please try to stay out of trouble! Only Lord knows you would probably get together with your friends and haunt all of our pretty neighbors.
I'll keep in contact with you soon. Please don't miss me too much!
Yours truly,
Benjamin Carriendo
Three days.
Three excruciating days to get in contact with Lovina. There was something suspicious about her leaving her country to visit distant family in Italy within the past week, the same week with the discovery of her friend's body. Unfortunately, there was no way for them to run off to the European continent considering that all of these cases had occurred nationally. Because of it, they now had to play the waiting game.
How boring, Alfred thought to himself, I'd rather be doing heroic deeds instead of sitting here collecting dust. His stomach rumbled loudly: his cheeks heated up. All of this investigating has put off on his routine eating schedule. He slowly stood up from his seat, slowly rolling his head around to stretch out his muscles supporting it. After a few more moments of stretching out, he headed towards the door to find something to munch on.
By the time that he arrived at the bistro, he was absolutely famished. Quickly ordering the food from his waiter, he spread out the few notes he had brought with him across the currently empty table. He tried grasping within his mind how all of these cases were part of a larger scheme of things.
The first cases were eerily similar: the bodies would be found, both hands missing. Nothing suspicious surrounding the victims. Neither of the previous two cases had any criminal records. Actively involved in the military or had family or friends actively enrolled in the military. According to their respective families, there weren't any suspicious activities going on in their lives, at least to their knowledge. It was as if their killer had just vanished.
"Are you the investigator for the case of Benjamin Carriendo's murder?"
He looked upwards to the voice that addressed him. The waiter (well, at least Alfred assumed was a waiter at this particular bistro at the heart of San Fransisco) looked down at him expectantly with his fiery red eyes. Alfred simply nodded and allowed the waiter to continue. He signaled the waiter to take a seat across from him, which the stranger willingly applied. What quickly followed was probably one of the strangest "unofficial" interviews he has ever conducted.
"So in case you haven't figured it out yet, I am one of this older brother's friends."
"Antonio's?"
The albino tipped his head in agreement. Alfred quickly began to search through the pocket of his briefcase and fished out a notebook and a pen in order to write down most of the following interview.
"Where you close with him? Or at least as close as possible considering the situation?"
"I grew up with the kid practically. He was only 2 years younger than me, so as soon as we became neighbors, we kind of hit it off. Antonio was part of my age group in the school, so we hung out basically all of the time. It was totally awesome!"
"And what was the relationship like between you guys?"
And such the next hour passed by without much of a hiccup until the owner of the restaurant interjected quite harshly.
"Mon ami, you are supposed to be working, not lolly-gagging with the customers. There is a reason why you are getting paid after all," he finished off with a little dramatic flair. The man (whom he figured out his name was Gilbert) looked at his friend with exasperation before excusing himself to speak with his boss in the back room. This gave Alfred some time to look over the notes he had written and do a quick comparison with what he had written when he conducted the interview with Antonio. For the most part, almost everything matched up with what Antonio had said, except for one notable exception.
What Alfred was highly concerned about was that Benjamin was rarely seen at the naval base during the weekends. Of course, he'll have to double check with the records once he can get in contact with his friend again, but if that were true: where would he have gone? And why was he hiding it from his brother?
From what Gilbert has told him, Benjamin didn't want to worry his brother about the things he did over the weekend, but every time Gilbert tried asking him why, the conversation was funneled somewhere else, and was never broached again for the remainder of the time they spoke with each other in that moment.
He looked briefly away from his notepad to attend his phone. With deft fingers, he pulled it out his pocket and unlocked it, only to find a notification glaring right back at him.
Full autopsy report got back. Sent it to your inbox for your full review. Toxicology found traces of propofol in the remains. He must have been on the drug for a while now since we did find traces of it. Double checking his medical records to see if he had a prescription. Also suspecting, as crazy as it sounds, that he must be a victim of revenge crime. Call me once you can. ~Alice
He frowned at his phone. Propofol? He quickly searched up the term in the search bar of his phone and clicked the first article that popped up. Each sentence brought more confusion: from what the article said, it mentions that propofol was used as an anesthetic for ICU sedation, general surgeries, open heart surgeries, neurosurgeries, and usually faded after 10 to 15 minutes after the last given dosage. Additionally, he continued to read as he scrolled down the page, propofol is used in low dosages to treat psychological diseases such as OCD, psychosis, and/or schizophrenia. He pulled up his emails and found the file she had sent earlier, skimming through the contents until he found what he was looking for;
The suspected cause of death: Blunt force to the temporal part of the skull.
He stared at his phone in disbelief. Thoughts swam through his head, none of them made sense with what he just read. None of the interviews disclosed that he had mental issues. Unless he didn't want anyone to know. But if that were true, he wouldn't have taken it for so long to the point that it showed up. Or would he have taken because of the anxiety he felt before his death? It only brought up more questions than answers. He quickly looked into the autopsy report of the others. There was nothing suspicious about the other cases that were assigned to his team involving drugs of any kind. The only thing that they did find with those bodies were only parts, and never the whole, but the way that they were killed most definitely matched the way Benjamin was killed.
So did it mean that propofol was actually used in the crime, or is it not related at all?
What statement was the killer trying to make?
