Hunt Down Rose

Chapter 1: Paradox

 My name is Thomas James Alighieri Garcia.  I am an N.B.I. (National Bureau of Investigation) forensic artist, investigation specialist, 24 years of age, and I am still stuck in this type of atmosphere. Foolishly looking at the clock stuck to the wall in an unbalanced position inside Mr. Galvez's office, I am bored to death. He seems to be stating something about a case that arrived on his desk a few days ago.

Nevertheless, all of these are just the same thoughts out of the past 9 years that I've been here. Right now I'm a sitting duck with this long speech of his. I am not a listener when it comes to peculiar details nor the impeccable interest of others. My mind rejects such, and at this very moment of time, I enjoy being passive in front of Galvez. I mean come on, just look at his double chin jiggle like a jello.

"Are you listening Thomas?" He asked, his tone seems to be in a higher pitch than usual.

"To be honest with you, no… What you’re saying is pretty much just the same thing written on your desk so I might as well have that…" I replied to him fixing my sleeves. The ambiance inside is quite odd and uncomfortable. I do not even think he has opened this to anyone except me; it’s as if he’s giving me the upper hand to handle everything.

"If that is what you like, but you should still give consideration to my details."

"As if I care about that… Whenever you let me have something in advance, it means that you have something else in mind…" 

For a moment he was about to burst into laughter. But it's the way he speaks in particular that annoys me. Many years I’ve tried to keep my composure without being explosive with his approach. He is the heart and accolade of every gleeful officer in this department and I have to say, he can be the mascot if we need to promote ourselves to the general eyes of the public.

Then he threw a folder in front of his desk. Compared to the one I was looking at this one is really thick…

"What is this?" I asked, with the ideas of another cleanup at hand, he may have overestimated my capabilities far too well.

"Since you weren’t listening and instead you prefer looking at that old grandfather clock. I might as well give all of the details of this matter for you to internally assess it by yourself"

He stood up and opened something, probably one of his cabinets.

Then he said "The most interesting part about this is you'll be working with Melissa Cruz. She's a journalist and I'm sure you will enjoy her company."

I slammed my hand on his desk as I stood up. 

"No, No, No!! I don’t need a partner in this case. As long as I have the equipment I can do the task on my own. Plus, I heard she is just a mere magazine writer without any experience in the field. You wanna send her in a suicide mission? You got to be kidding me man..." I was already instructed on this one a few hours ago right after I finished my coffee. I thought it was just a joke but it appears to be more constituent in nature.

A guinea pig if not a token of their approval on the departments aside from the quarterly cross-examination by each office to assess if the employees are working well together. This Melissa Cruz based on her resume and physical examination tells me that she needs to be babysit than being a loose cannon in the field. I’m thinking of ways to utilize her skills but up to what extent exactly?

"I know lad, but it is time for you to understand that your conditions don’t revolve around this mad world and you outta know that."

"So what, we're going play let's pretend this partnership is ok until the due date of your retirement?" I asked.

“Based on her physique, she can’t even climb a wall. And that’s the type of partner you’ll be giving me? Are you serious about this?” I added; I kept on using redundant questions just to pull him out of his comfort zone. Even though Galvez is gullible, he has a lot of things inside his sleeve especially when it comes to giving uncanny decisions.

"Not quite Thomas. You'll be partnered with her not because it was requested by me, but it is because of her dad. He formally asked if I could help her develop her skills with the help of the agency. "He said leaning back on his chair.

"And like a puppy, you followed his orders, how cute. I will not entirely consider her help throughout the case." I said to him as I sat down opening the folder.

"Beats me" he replied with a shrug. 

As I look upon his face I can see the satisfaction of his works within those wrinkled eyes of his. I just continued scrolling down the files until I noticed something interesting about this case. 

"It’s Armando Yun again huh? I thought we were dealing with some low-grade politician but I guess we still can’t move on with this one.” I said to myself, skimming the data just to confirm what I know.

Armando Yun is one of the co-founders of the leading military arms developer in the entirety of the South East Asian market. So far, his company manipulates almost 30% of the existing trades to and fro the international communities. Whether or not most of them are illegal, the agency cannot proceed at their pace due to boundaries. It is no longer any wonder that an individual would give a ghastly grin just to have him down. Two weeks ago, the case pertaining to his death was declared closed due to the so-called “decisive evidence” that was established.

During the dictatorial reign, the country made various military technologies and drugs that were immediately brought down due to its harshness and inhumane nature. For him to survive the onslaught was already a form of miracle on its own but still, he was only able to delay the inevitable – his very own death. That information hasn’t been released to the public, although there are a lot of similar products that mimic the effect of the drugs made before. This made me want to check the history of everything to see if there’s a connection between the past and this one.

"Yes, it was, however it reopened due to some new evidence that existed within the grasp of our teeth. Based on what you've heard and seen on the news, it was Mr. Yun's mistress Anna Dela Cruz who was the one in charge of the house during that time. Quite odd that the court procedures only lasted for a day due to lack of decisive evidence but here we are; with this evidence.”

“According to the prosecution, they claim that both parties had some kind of dilemma with their rights. But it isn’t certain if that was purely out of money or something else.”

Reading the next page something caught my eye. It’s a list of some stocks and combined assets which also includes Anna’s numbers registered under Yun. “So this is the number of Mr. Yun’s stocks overall, is that correct?”

“Indeed, no wonder his death means a great loss in the economy after he took his belongings and sealed them out. Only the inheritor would gain access to all of those in due time according to some of his personal lawyers that we’ve interviewed. This is the reason why I only showed this information to you, because of the condition his lawyers stated.”

“You mean lawyers existing under his belt? Quite understandable that they have countermeasures to prevent leakage.”

“Yes. That’s true” Galvez leaned back on his chair and continued.

“His family once owned a military corporation selling weapons and security for a decade. Under the government's rule and order they were able to export these weapons to different neighboring countries here in the southeast. Now moving on to our case, we found something interesting.”

Pulling the laptop out of a bag under his desk, he opened it and clicked some folders, particularly about videos. "We checked the CCTV footage on a hidden camera that was placed on a book inside Yun’s master’s bedroom. This shows the scene of the two fighting about some matters. Apparently we found out two interesting facts."

He started clicking something on his laptop and showed screenshots of enhanced images from the video and the crime scene. The images were placed on separate tabs, giving me a quick comparison between the two.

"Now I want you to tell me what you can see?" he handed it to me 

  Watching the video which lengths at precisely three minutes, I could see the mistress resisting Mr. Yun's grasp. Stuff we're flying everywhere as she tried to escape the room. She did hit him with his walking stick in the head while hearing a lot of harsh words coming from Mr. Yun. Then I noticed something about the setting of the scene, the clock hanging on the wall and the calendar. It is said Mr. Yun has an odd behavior wherein he encircles his calendar on whatever date it is as a way of remembering them. Based on the timeline this video was taken, it was dated August 13, 2014.

   A day before the incident happened, this recording was made unconsciously along with the remaining exploits of Yun and his mistress that was on the laptop. With the misleading facts and timetable of the murder, it is stated in the video that the calendar has the numbers 1 to 13 encircled using a marker. But on the murder scene, the calendar wasn’t encircled at all. Plus, the patterns of circles seem to be different from the video of their argument even on the testimonies given by his maids. According to some sources, the circle Mr. Yun usually applies has a certain measurement of some sort. These circles round the number in an almost perfect enclosure using a large coin.

  From the first report of the NBI’s examination, the forensic team was able to find a coin inside one of his cabinets with black ink marked on the sides. It must be the coin that he has been using along with the broad tipped whiteboard pen on his desk. On top of that, there’s a splash of blood behind the calendar where the trajectory of the blade was supposed to be pointed at. Irresistible enough not to notice, the Blood marks stop in the middle of the calendar and continues onward to the other side. This means that the calendar was changed after the murder. Sadly, the rest of the videos were corrupted or bugged. The laptop must’ve been on for quite some time when it took a video of Yun and his Mistress’ fight inside the room. Who knows if changes were made these past few days considering that this is just some new evidence that arrived in our office. The images prove the irregularities on the report that was made. There’s definitely something fishy going on.

 There are no other items present that can support this theory, nor the idea that someone did change this stuff. However, for the court, it would be a vital piece of evidence---if used properly and from a different angle it could also bring a sure guilty verdict. Even though the written cause of death was a blown up pacemaker, it doesn’t make any sense on the autopsy’s assessment. According to the lab results, the s***h was strong enough to incapacitate the victim, why blow his pacemaker up? I still insist on the fact that the killer is cautious enough not to leave his target alive no matter what reason, and to use Ms. Anna as a scapegoat. This isn’t something that was planned on a whim…

"Everything is clear to me now," I said to him placing the laptop towards his direction.

I leaned back on my chair and continued, "the calendar pretty much sums up the day the murder happened. Whoever did this could have done his best to clear up the scene or he did leave it like that on purpose. I can’t believe the calendar could be this amusing if only you gave this case to me immediately we would’ve saved some face in front of the media."

“What do you think of it?” Mr. Galvez asked me, utterly disrupting my silence.

I carefully looked at the crime scene photo and the recording on any changes. Comparing them, there were a few things added but I can’t necessarily say what it is yet.

“It seems like he had a few minutes to spare judging on the wounds, and the number of people present during that time. I don’t think he would’ve made a mistake leaving those holes everywhere in the room, or worse it might be in the other places we haven’t checked in the mansion.”

“So you’re saying that our culprit was busy doing something? Perhaps that is what you are getting at, correct?”

“Probably, however, I need to investigate the place further if you want to squeeze more details out of this. It’s hard to give assumptions on such a fragile matter. It is trivial indeed that the murderer left such obvious remarks on the crime scene.”

“Hmm” He started tugging his small beard as if he’s a pirate.

“In any case, it would be wise to scan the whole area under my watch."

“Do you have the search warrant ready?” I asked.

“Indeed. Besides, if we hit this case from rock bottom back to the top we might increase our department’s credibility.”

 “It seems like you already have a goal to achieve on this one.”

“Yes.” He replied closing the laptop and placing it back inside his bag.

“Keep in mind that the Interpol is also watching this case from above.” He added.  I can agree with that since we are dealing with a big fish after all.

“So I’ve heard. They can’t take their eyes on something suspicious enough within our hands. That’s why I require you to gather new information on Mr. Armando Yun.”

And you expect me to do what?" I replied to him "Dig up his grave for further analysis?"

"Not precisely, but what I want you to do is take necessary measures to know who the killer is. Mr. Yun's name is at stake along with his shares and investment. We also have to make sure nothing happens to his family on behalf of his will."

“Will? Did he write something before his death?”

“Actually that’s the problem. His son Amadeo would soon inherit the shares in the next 4 days according to his attorney.”

“Have they received death threats recently?”

“Yes, and that is what bothers the authorities and his mistress.”

"Yeah sure, but what's really interesting here is why didn't you and your team immediately acquire this type of information?"

"It's because the video given to us by the security personnel was encoded. Meaning we had to access the file on a different perspective of network. The legal team of Yun also made things quite difficult for us since they were conscious that there might be business-related stuff inside the laptop. Unfortunately, the only existing network on the house during that time was Mr. Yun’s. Just imagine what kind of mess the legal department had to deal with…" I can already visualize chaos inside the briefing room during that time.

"And. . ." before he could speak another word.

"That is enough..." Standing up grabbing some folders related to the case on his desk. I tried my best to get fix my composure due to this sudden surge of weakness upon hearing the news of having a partner.

"I'll take this case as long as this Melissa will be out of my tail when I'm working… Let’s not make it too difficult on both sides shall we…" I said to him leaving the room with a clear view of the crime scene inside my head. 

  Passing through the information center I can hear a lot of women giggling of some sort as I walk past them to get the keys to the old elevator. The NBI building to be described looks like an ordinary office only with big guns. Every day is a busy day, cases here and there to soothe my mind from being idle. Reaching the elevator which is at the end of the hallway I immediately got down and saw the same dark atmosphere ever since the day I started working here.

 "Purgatory" as others might call it due to the history this place is known to, is the main attraction of the HQ. During the 1800 Spaniards used this as an underground burial chamber and study area for the dead. Here lies a long hallway, with 21 rooms on each side containing mummies and dead corpses very well preserved. 

When the historical commission took a visit inside this place, they were mesmerized with the number of corpses stored. Up to now I still don’t have any idea about their identity but throughout the years I've used these bodies for my research. A few relics such as pots and glassware have been donated to the national museum; I digress so many antiques in my surroundings since I have plenty of those displayed on a lot of rooms here. The cold air could be felt with the dark fog coming from each room and the rusty antiques that are hanging on the walls make it even more amusing.