Detective Story – Toboggan
Photo credit: mantasmagorical from morguefile.com
Part -1
Flash news announcing disappearance of seven children including the recent one Clara, on the daily report channel. Saunder reduced the volume, when I entered his house. Saunder was my one of the best friend among few though. I always used to ask some advice from him regarding the cases.
He asked, “Hey Hardie, It’s been a long time seeing you man, how do you doing?”.
“It’s nice to see you Saun after a long time, I am going to handle this case” I said.
“I knew man, that’s why you must be here, did you get any lead?” he asked.
“No, actually I need some help as well as your advice saun” I replied.
“well, you would not lose your interest first, you should be more exuberant in taking over this type of case” he said in a encouraging tone.
“Okay, whatever I need you by my side, don’t bother to ask what you want to do with me” I replied. The conversation ends, when I received a call from my senior officer. I waved bye to Saunder and headed towards the headquarters since it was an emergency call. I had to urge myself fast.
The pretty sealed and armed door was opened, when I pressed my ID card onto the screen. I entered the head quarters emergency meeting room with impertinent thoughts to know why we were called for an emergency meeting or whatsoever.
Mr. Tasman and Ms. Brenda were already there in their respective seats. While I seated, someone entered with strongly built body and abstruse facial expression. Tasman introduced him as Nelson Young and he asked him to sit beside me. He forced a smile against me and enquired about the case lead. Tasman said that Nelson was going to be my partner for this case. Though it was my first case, I didn’t need anyone, that too a person like obstinate Nelson was not at all my kind. Brenda was Tasman’s only daughter as well as one of our detective here. I thought she might accompany me along with the case.
Thoughtfully, Nelson asked me, ” Did you get any lead in the case? you were taken this case three days before”.
I was simply staring and thinking, “how will I get the lead only in just three days? I don’t even know where to start”.
He called me once again and I was spaced out. Then he again told in a gravid voice, “Hardie, let’s go” by saying that he left out of the meeting room. I stood there not knowing what to do for a minute and ran behind to catch him over the steps. “Oh god, he wasn’t using elevator also” I thought while I ran behind him.
He had taken me to his house. His house was not rigid like him. It was entirely different, might be due to his wife Linda, who was soft, kind, and delicate person. She welcomed us with a pleasant smile and strongly brewed coffee. After a warm talk, Nelson took me to his cabinet inside a room. He showed a couple of papers revealing targets to be achieved. He said, “you must be new to this type of case and handling in first form basis, but you should know where to start from”.
“we would be attending to the recent victim house first, so that we could collect information regarding the missing child and also to check whether it was related to previous disappearance of other six” He said in a rigid tone.
After few hours of investigation, we collected some of the information which would actually help us. We headed to headquarters and compared with all the previous information we had. It was almost the same as the previous incident. We were probing for the information that would match each of the missing person. The seven of them were disappeared in different days in different areas, but almost of same age between ten to twelve and also they got disappeared only when they were playing in either park or some ground, not in their own house or their premises. We couldn’t find any other similarities other than that. Suddenly we heard a sound coming from outside our office premises, we went and checked to see that a vivid man shouting violently for sluggard action of officers against his complaints. He had been sent out without any disciplinary action.
Later that night, I was so pissed off with the information we gathered and there was no improvement and I didn’t know where it was leading. My stomach was growling and craving for food. I was damn hungry, probably I would have pizza, I thought. I ordered extra cheese pepperoni pizza. Till then, gummy bears were twirling inside my stomach. So I stepped down to the kitchen and checked whether I could have eat anything instantly. I was grateful to see an apple and some blueberries. So I quickly made some smoothie out of it.
Someone knocked the front door when I stepped back to my room. I thought, it was pizza, so I opened the door quickly to see Saunder. “Hey dude, what a surprise man” I said. “I came at exact time I think” by saying that he pulled my smoothie out of my hand. We were fighting for the smoothie, by the time the pizza had been delivered. Our hunger pangs were satisfied by delicious pizza. Suddenly he asked, “hey, Where is Thiya? I didn’t see her for long time, I missed her so much”.
Thiya was my only sister. After my parents died, she was my only hope and happiness. “She had gone for a school trip, she might return on Monday, I did miss her too”. I said. “She must be fine hopefully” I thought. Later we were watching our favourite movie. It was far more relaxed state from all sort of frustration.
Next morning, I went along with Saun to the places where the incident happened. He asked me while driving, “Is there anyone missing other than these seven children? Did you checked it?”. “That was pretty cool question, but the answer was unknown”. I said. We questioned some of them who were regular to the park or ground. I thought that this angle might help us. We left home with gathered information.
The mystery was not going to solve until unless something or someone would come and surrender themselves. Out of seven, four of them were disappeared when they were playing in slanting plane in the park according to their report. “Does it make any sense?” I thought. Something was to do with inclined play plane. I thank God, the tragedy wasn’t continued for past 2 weeks. When I was thinking, I heard a grunted sound. It was Nelson.
“Did you find any clues?”. He asked in hard tone. I gasped for a second and showed the information.
“That was a score” he patted my back and left. But then, I remembered about Saun’ s question. I checked out the old and new records in computer. There were so many results. I narrowed down with particular date of that incident. There were only three person, but one was found out recently. I was slightly relieved to see only two of them. I clicked the picture. One was named as Livingston and other was without any picture, but it actually had a picture of the person who complained about that incident. It was familiar to me. I was thinking deeply. I startled when I heard my alarm beep tone. I found him. I had to investigate about these two, but I had pretty much doubt about that vivid man. A lady told that he was not at home, when i reached his address. Then, I checked with Livingston, it’s not quietly related.
Later, we had planned to effort a goal without knowing the opponent with the help of Lea and Saun. Lea was my neighbor’s child. She was an fearless and fortitudinous, paragon of super cool child. She lend an hand to us in implementing the plan. Saun had taken Lea to the park in the west for the past two days. She was told to play in the slanting plane much of the time. Saun pretended like reading through newspaper, but he was watching Lea keenly. Nelson and myself were hiding near the car behind a bush. Nothing happened till two days. Nelson had been upset for a while. He had no hope in doing this trial again. But I had a feeling to redundant the trial. I wanted to give it a try, but it might fail without any results like before. I would hope for the best. I was alone with Saun and Lea. Saun was asked to focus in his smart phone. Lea was playing alone in the slanting plane. Nothing happened untill 15 minutes.
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(to be continued.)
