Case File #13

(3rd Crime) 

Sharna called Matt and Detective Tom to meet at her place and discuss the case, she share Lily's drawing with them and they tried to analyze it and extract all the important elements.

"tall, muscular, Untidy beard, scar on the face, long hair, thick eyebrows and tattoos all over his body" Matt said "this looks like the stereotypical 'evil' guy" he added "are you sure this is relevant and not just a cartoon character?"

"Of course it is" Sharna insisted "Lily drew this to help us!"

"She's just a kid, but at least we have something to look into, I guess" Matt replied with doubt all over his face.

"Great" Tom said "We now have a mysterious man to go along with out mysterious woman" he joked and Sharna just ignored him, she realized it was the best way to deal with him.

"So we agree it's an organ stealing organization" Share said in conclusion

"Makes sense" Tom said as he grabbed his pipe and lit it while holding it with the tip of his mouth while showing off. "Markus was found dead"

"We'll have to check his autopsy then" Sharna said

"We need to get them before they strike again" Matt said aggressively as he looked at the missing kids reports on the table.

"Good thing I have a plan" Tom said arrogantly as he pointed towards them with the tail of his pipe "a criminal always messes up when he knows someone is onto him" he paused and looked at Matt's direction "Thankfully we have a reporter on our team, huh?"

"You can't be serious Tom, you wanna use him as bait?!" she nodded in disagreement "This ain't safe for neither us nor Ben"

"It's already not safe for him" To adds coldly

"But what if they kill him?"

"It's a possibility anyways"

"Sharna, this just became bigger than Ben" Matt said "Of course I don't wanna put Ben in danger, but when we get them, we'll save so many prospect victims"

After a long conversation, Tom and Matt were able to convince Sharna, but they agreed Matt would publish the article anonymously online, so he left to go work on the piece.

"So that's why you agreed to let him join us in the first place" Sharna said raising an eyebrow "you knew we might need them"

"It's actually good to know how to benefit from other" Tom replied "and he was willing" he laughed

Sharna still couldn't figure out Tom; at times she really appreciated his way of thinking and thought he's a genius in his own way, but still 90% of the time he was just senseless and frustrated her. "He doesn't care about human lives" she thought.

Tom left as well and Sharna went to open her window to get rid of the smoke smell from Tom'm pipe.

She noticed that Tom was still down there, he looked up towards her "Detective" he shouted "Don't forget about the autopsy tomorrow, I've got another lead to follow"

Sharna was angry that he's keeping things from her "You never mention a lead before" she said as a fast car came rushing towards Tom, he fell to the ground and the car fled away.

"6PCI397" Sharna kept repeating till she grabbed a pen and a paper and wrote it down then she called 911.

Soon enough an ambulance arrived to take Tom to the hospital.

"It's okay, just a broken leg and a few scratches" the nurse told Sharna after a few hours, but she was still anxious because she knew this meant more than just an accident. "It's a message to stop digging" she thought then decided to call Matt and try to stop him from posting the article.

"He's stable now" she said "but don't post that article, they can track your IP address and try to shut you up as well"

"I can't" he said "It's already done"

"Crap" Sharna was silent for a moment "You should leave your laptop somewhere else. I think you should even stay somewhere else for the night"

"So you're worried about me" he said a joking flirty way

"I'm not" she replied abruptly in a serious tone "I just don't want anymore blood"

"Whatever" he laughed "I'll stay at a friend's house for a few days, don't worry"

"I said I'm not!"

"Goodnight Sharna"

"Goodnight"

Sharna went home, she was worried that Tom was hit in front of her house. "What if they know about me too" she tried to keep that scary thought out of her mind, but she couldn't. She changed into her PJs and laid in bed skimming through Twitter on her phone when she received a message from Matt "U 2 take care of urself" it said which made her smile. He has a goofy childish charm that she admired about him.

She still couldn't sleep, so she decided to call Emily.

"Hey" Sharna said "Did I wake you?"

"No, I was working on a new design. What up?"

Sharna told her about some of what's been going on in her life and in the case. "I'm exhausted em, and I'm doubting myself a lot" she sighed in distress "I thought this would be easier"

"Any change is hard and you're going through a lot of changes. Plus Shar, you're super smart, you know that right?"

"Not sure about that anymore. They say empathy is getting in my way, but I can't control it especially knowing that those kids are in pain and their families are suffering holding onto any hope"

"Well" Sharna noticed Tyler's voice

"You're putting me on speakers again!"

"Sorry" Emily said shyly

"I was gonna say" Tyler said "that you chose to work in this field, knowing all of its drawbacks and downsides, you know there will always be crimes and a lot of times people will die, so you'll definitely feel emotional at times cause you're a freaking human!" he laughed

"Exactly" Emily added "don't let that get you down, use it as motivation; like you told me to use that bitch Jenna at work as motivation to work harder" they all laughed

"Thanks guys" Sharna felt a little relieved "I guess sometimes I still do need reassurance"

"and we'll always be here for ya" Emily said

Sharna was able to sleep after that call feeling a little better.

The next morning she went to the hospital to check on Tom, Matt was already there. "Number of readers increase by the minute" he said as she walked in "people are commenting and sharing as awareness for schools and families"

"Good" To said "we're on the right track"

Sharna laughed "You were hit by a damn car yesterday!" her tone was more aggressive "we need to be more careful.

"Careful won't take us anywhere honey, we're gonna need to be risk takers to solve this and it just got personal." Tom said emotionless "Can you do that?" 

Sharna couldn't understand if he was serious or joking or mocking her, but decided to trust him and see what his plan for them was " he solved the unsolvable" she thought. "What do you have in mind?"

"You'll go to the police station and check out the autopsy report as we said before" Sharna nodded in agreement. Tom then turned to Matt "You got a backpack?"

"Yes?" she said in doubt, unsure why would Tom ask him that random question.

"Good, go shave that sample of facial hair that you call a beard, put a few books and a couple of pens in your backpack and go to school"

Matt looked towards Sharna and they both burst into laughter.

"Did you get a head injury or something?" Sharna joked

"I talked to the principle at Ben's school, you'll be okay" Tom paused "Try to talk to Marla, she was Candice's best friend. She's a junior in you class, befriend her; she might be useful cause Candice's parents don't want to talk"

"That's crazy" Matt said angrily "I'm not gonna pretend to be in high school"

"You told me before that you were willing to do anything, didn't ya?" Tom asked and Matt was silent for a moment thinking then nodded yes.

"Good think you look so young" Sharna said mocking, she didn't agree with Tom's plan, but she knew by now that when he puts his mind into something, he makes it happen.

Tom pointed to a large folder on the desk and Matt grabbed it for him "That's the teachers and employees list at Ben and Candice's school and I'll have the lists from the other schools in an hour. I'll look into them"

"Are you sure you wanna do that alone? I can help" Sharna said, she didn't want him to keep anything from her.

"No, you go get that autopsy" he then turned and pointed at Matt "and you go to school"

Sharna went to the police station and asked for officer Caleb.

"Hey" he said coming from behind her after waiting for a while "any news about the case?"

"Oh yeah" she gave a sarcastic smile "we've got a lot of catching up to do"

She told him about everything that has been going on "So now I'm here to see Markus' autopsy"

"Sure, I'll let them get it from the archive" Caleb called for his secretary.

Sharna looked at her right and noticed a familiar face.

"You know him?" Caleb asked her

"Yeah, that's Nick, the real estate agent who get me my apartment," Sharna paused thinking "but I don't know what he's doing here"

"You don't know?" Caleb laughed "That's Detective Young's son"

"You're kidding!" Sharna was over-whelmed "Well, he definitely doesn't get his looks from his father" she joked.

After a while, the secretary came in holding the autopsy folder. Sharna was disturbed by the images of the little boy's pale body.

"That are scars and stitches all over his body, this supports our theory." Sharna said "Does it say if there are any missing organs?"

"The report says the autopsy is incomplete" Say says disappointed "apparently the family caused a lot of trouble and they just wanted to bury Markus as fast as they could without further complications"

"They must've felt awful, they hold to every hope of him coming back, but when he did he was already dead."

"Of course, but at least we can help other kids and their families by catching them"

"Yea, I HOPE SO" Sharna said in doubt "I guess I'm just not feeling so confident these days"

"Confidence is overrated," he joked trying to lighten the mood "but seriously if you ever need any help tell me, I know I'm not currently on this case, but I'm always willing to help"

"I know, thanks"

Sharna went to the hospital and informed Tom about what she learned.

"At least we now  know he had scars and stitches which backs up our evidence" he said

The next few days, Tom and Sharna spent carefully studying each employee from the different schools.

Meanwhile, at school, Matt was trying to fit in and seem normal, too normal that at times he felt invisible which he thought was a good thing.

He kept a look on Marla which made him feel creepy, but on the first day, he didn't know how to talk to her, she was quiet and lonely.

On the second day, they had Chemistry lab on the third period and Marla was the only one with no lab partner, he knew this was his chance to talk to her.

"Hey" he said taking the seat next to her "Can I be your lab partner?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever" she then then remained silent.

"I'm Jack, I'm new here" Matt said

"Marla"

The teacher came in and they started class. Matt kept trying to talk and joke with her, but she was mainly quiet.

After class, they started cleaning behind them.

"You definitely saved us from an explosion today" Matt laughed

"If you were listening to Mr Graham instead of talking, you wouldn't have don that mistake" she said in a way that was sarcastic but still serious.

"Well, thank God you listened then" he laughed

"I'm going to the library to study for out literature quiz, wanna join? I can share my notes" she said and Matt was surprised that she offered, but figured she was just lonely.

"Yeah sure and I can share me excessive knowledge of To Kill A Mockingbird"

"Great"

for the next couple of days, they were getting more friendly; Matt wanted to ask her about Candice, but didn't want to see suspicious.

"I hate school" he said as they were eating lunch "People are just so mean, look at them staring at us"

"They are not staring at us" she said and looked down "they're staring at me" she put down her sandwich "they haven't seen me talk to anyone since..." her voice started breaking "since Candice.

"I heard about her, but I didn't want to bother you" Matt said "What happened?"

"A year and a half ago, she went missing and never came back, we don't know if she's still alive or,... or dead:

"I'm really sorry about that" he gave her a sympathetic smile "hopefully she'll come back soon"

"Don't" she said shutting him up " I don't want any more false hope" her eyes were getting wet "do you know how many prank calls and false leads we received"

"I can't even begin to imagine what her family's been through"

"The problem is" she lowered her voice "I can't help, but feel guilty"

"Why do you say so?"

"Can you keep a secret?" She whispered and he nodded "A while before she disappeared, she told me she was seeing this older guy who wanted to keep it a secret because she was still in high school"

"Did you ever meet him?" Matt asked

"No, but I covered a lot for her, sometimes she'd say she was staying with me, but she was actually staying with him" she sighed "I should've told her parents, they would've interfered somehow and maybe saved her. 

"Stop blaming yourself, how could you have known" Matt said "Did she ever show you a picture or something?"

"Why are you asking this?"

"Maybe this could've been useful to the police"

"I did not tell the police, I didn't want her parents to hate me, you're the first person I've ever told"

"Thanks for trusting me"

They tried to talk about other things and then the bell rang, so they got up to go to class.

"She never showed me a picture" Marla said on their way to the classroom "I only know that he had long hair and she thought it was cute that when they kissed, their hair would be on the save level"

It was Thursday and Matt received a message from Sharna telling him to meet them at the hospital at 7, they had news.

"Good, I have news too about the mystery guy" he texted her back.

That night, they met at the hospital and Matt told them about what Marla said.

"Officer Caleb called me a while ago, he told me they found an abandoned car on the main road with the plate number I gave him, it was a stolen car" Sharna said "It was no lead"

"Let's just focus now on what we gathered" Tom said and pointed to Sharna to hand him a folder then opened it "Look at these pictures" Tom handed Matt 2 papers, each had a photo on top.

"They look really similar" Sharna added "excluding the glasses and hair"

One photo, from Ben's school, had the name 'Joana' and job title as 'School Psychologist' and the other from the school Markus went to with the name 'Bianca' and job title 'French substitute teacher'.

"It can't be a coincidence that she's only been working at Ben's school for just a few months" Matt said "So that's our mystery woman"

"That's our best guess" Sharna said

"You should pay her a visit tomorrow" Tom gestured to Matt

After their meeting, Sharna and Matt walked out of the hospital

"So how's school?" Sharna asked in a sarcastic tone.

"I hate waking up early, teachers give us a lot of homework and the kids are mean" he laughed

They kept walking until they reached Sharna's home "Good luck at school tomorrow" she said and went up the building.

The next morning, at school, Matt checked the psychologist's office only to learn that she was taking a sick day off.

He tried to open the door and found it unlocked, so he decided to come back later during class time, so that no one sees him.

In 4th period, Matt went out of class and into Joana's office; he kept the light off and walked on his knees and started looking around. Nothing seemed abnormal.

Matt heard someone's footsteps outside getting closer, so he went to hide under the desk and tried to keep silent till he felt no one outside anymore. He then started to look through Joana's desk which had 3 drawers; the 2nd and 3rd ones had a bunch of Psychology books, an empty notebook, gum and a few pens but the upper drawer was locked.

He kept trying to open it, until the office door was open, it was Marla.

"What the hell are you doing here?" She whispered

"Close the door and get down" he urged her

She did, but was still confused. She walked towards him on her knees "Why are you here Jack?"

"A few days ago, you trusted me with your secret; can you please do the same and just trust me"

She looked a little scared and he didn't know what to do "I promise I'll tell you everything, just trust me for now"

"Okay" she nodded and looked at the locked drawer then grabbed a bobby pin from her hair "Nothing a bobby pin can't solve" she said and in a few seconds was able to open the drawer.

There was a copy of Ben's folder, Copy of Candice's and a couple more.

As Matt lifted the copied, a piece of paper fell to the floor, he didn't notice, but Marla did. It was an article from a news paper.

"Interesting" she said

"What?" he turned to her

"Why the Rich Owes the Poor" she rad out the title of the article.

Matt was silently think for a few seconds before he spoke out "It makes sense now, the private school thing"

Marla was still confused, but she still helped him to take photos of the folders and the article, then they left the office before anyone could see them. He then sent Sharna the picture of the article.

Thanks for reading. What did you think of this chapter? Next Friday, I'll be posting Case File #14  and it's the last one related to this case and then a new crime.