Temperature Rising (A Novella) - 8. Chapter 8

The very first thing that Detective Harold Garson did upon waking that morning was to take a handful of aspirin. How much of this stuff would actually mean death, anyway? If one or two pills were good then five would definitely be better. The headache was splitting and no amount of over dosage would stop it now.

Harold decided to defer himself from working that day-at least for a few hours or until the pain subsides. He was not an absentee kind of person. A gunshot wound on the leg hindered him from going to work that one time-an incident involving several armed men, a robbery and quick thinking. But, that was only for a day. He had to go to work even if he would risk bleeding through his pantsuit and die of haemorrhage.

Besides, he still had to work things out. The trip he had last night back to parking lot garnered him a mother load of answers. How to go about solving this crime so everyone would believe him was the next question he had to address.

First things first...a phone call to the department would kick-start his plan.

"Morgan, I called earlier. Would you do something for me?" Harold said over the phone. "Could you cross match a profile for me? It's about the Williams case. The files are on my desk. Search every hospital available in our databases and see what you can find. Check specifically psychiatric wards. Yes, you heard right-every mental hospital within reach. Thanks."

Another phone call and this time to the just-turned primary suspect Chloe Delle.

"Good morning, Ms. Delle," Harold said, after the Chloe's machine prompted him to talk, "It's Detective Garson. Listen, we need to talk. Call me as soon as you receive this message. It's about Marcus. I'll be at my office," he added.

That seemed odd, talking to her like that. There was no point in calling her at all. He could arrest her right now but he still needed the evidence.

When Harold came to headquarters, Morgan greeted him with all the information he could muster. There was nothing new to what Morgan offered him. It just added details to what Harold already knew first hand.

"Chief, it seems we've got some serious stuff here. I ran the profile you asked me to and got blinding results. But, when I ran the results against the information about psychiatric wards and hospitals, the results came easy," said Morgan, catching up with Harold's quick strides towards his office. That is the problem with intelligent people; they usually beat around the bush.

"Stop giving me generic info, Morgan. Just cough up the meat, will you?" Harold said, irritated.

"Sure thing Chief," Morgan said, pausing.

"Well..." Harold said, snapping him out.

"Oh right." Morgan said. "Well, I ran the names Marcus Williams and Chloe Delle through the network and guess what? Those names do not appear to be legit. In fact, those names only appeared five years ago. They existed on temporary IDs, fake licenses, contracts that expired over weeks and loosely accounted legal papers," he added.

"So we've caught an identity thief, it still doesn't count as a major offence until we've pinned enough evidence that it is so," Harold said.

"I'm still working on it, Chief. Meantime, get this. When I ran those two names on the database, the name Mark Dellasandro keeps popping up. It didn't hit me at first but seems odd though that the name Mark Dellasandro stopped registering on some database networks, a few months after the first Chloe Delle name came in. Yet there have been no official Dellasandro missing persons report," Morgan said, with pride in his voice as if he had just cracked open a high security case. This time, it looks like he did.

Harold slowed down to think.

"It's really odd, indeed. Have you got the profile of this Mark Dellasandro fellow?" Harold said.

"Right here, Chief...just printed it off the machine," Morgan handed over the manila envelope as if handing over the spoils of war to his king.

"Great," Harold said as he flapped open the envelope. "Mark Dellasandro...mental clinic...interesting." Harold read aloud. "I think, this time, Ms. Chloe Delle and I should have a very serious talk," he added, intently looking at Mark Dellasandro's picture.

"See if you can contact the hospital where Mark Dellasandro was admitted and see if any doctors can give us more information about his personal background. And if were lucky, his whereabouts. Contact me through my mobile. I'm off to see Ms. Delle," Harold said, heading towards the exit, without even looking back at Morgan.

"Sure thing Chief," Morgan said, unaffected by his boss's coldness. It seemed like Rodney was not the only one.

Harold was expectant. He was rubbing his hands all the way to the car and his breathing was very shallow. He was breaking out in cold sweat. He couldn't wait to see Chloe's expression. Maybe Harold was just making his balls bigger. This would prove that he could still get it up and be a man. Who's the old dog now?

By the time Harold reached Chloe's door, the apartment's hidden silence greeted him. His "spidey" senses working overtime. Not all people have the gift. In fact, detectives regard them as bullshit. Nothing compares to good old fashion luck and balls of steel. Of course, Harold's years of experience had a lot to do with it. A slag ripped his leg once, not because he was careless, but because of intuition. It was either his leg or his life. Heightened senses make poor shots (or pre-ejaculators) accurate, even those with no prior shooting experience (virgins, so to speak). Though Harold was quick enough to have dodged the speeding lead, he was not fast enough to have gotten out unscathed. Sure enough, when the gunmen where making their escape from the money bin, Harold's gun unleashed a single bullet to incapacitate/kill one of them-there wasn't that much difference between those words. They thought Harold was dead-and dumb. The chicken-shits scattered. Shaken and confused, the gunmen made one mistake after another. They went out into the open where the cool guys in uniform picked them all out like crud. Not one lived to see another day.

This occurrence made Harold bolder, almost ready to step in front of the barrel again. It was an addiction.

As Harold pushed open Chloe's door, his heart rate increased. He was itching to dive into the situation. He touched the handle of his gun, gently at first as a sort of precaution. It looked like someone gently caressing his cock prior to masturbation. It didn't seem Harold was aware of this nuance. He was too enthralled at the circumstance.

"Ms. Delle" Harold said aloud. He treaded carefully inside the apartment, knowing perfectly that this was a lions' den. The light from the aquarium, set at the corner of the living room, provided a soft illumination.

Upon initial inspection, the apartment seemed in order except for the phone lying on the floor. He also noticed that the some of the fishes in the tank had floated belly-up.

"Ms. Delle," Harold said again, just to be sure. "It's Detective Garson," he added, expecting no answer.

He took out his mobile phone to call reinforcement but hesitated. He needed to know something else first before anything else gets ‘scat' on. He was in too deep. The case was too weird and too surreal for him to plug the hole.

He did not know where to begin but he needed to do it fast before he'd stir up unnecessary attention. He does not need it at this time. All he needed was to put a name for him for cracking one of the most bizarre cases ever filed in LA or, possibly, in history. Time was running out for him but it'll soon be over if he didn't act fast.

The first instinct was to scour the bedroom. The living room was very generic, nothing to give him a lead.

He made his way to the bedroom, inspecting briefly the ones that he passed through. The kitchen seemed a nice place to dig up next. You will never know what people store in their refrigerators.

He got to the bedroom and slowly made his way to the bed. It was unmade. By closer inspection, he noted a few hairs on the pillow. He pinched one up and inspected it. When he pulled the hair apart with his fingers, it snapped with no recoil indicating that it was probably synthetic. He placed it down on the pillow again, making sure it laid the way it did before he picked it up.

"Brown..." Harold said to himself. He quickly scanned the room for a place where someone would normally store wigs and hairpieces. Of course-the closet, he saw it, cracked open a bit and illuminating a faint red light seeping through the gap.

He approached it and carefully swung the closet door wide open. It was a mess, everything was either out of place or crumpled and thrown in their like trash. A red thigh-high boot hanged down from the second shelf, half covering the bulb that served as the lighting inside the closet.

He found several women's clothes but no sign of wigs anywhere. In fact, he did not seem to find any incriminating evidences whatsoever. He was about to close the door when a corner of a cardboard box stuck out like a sore thumb. He went down on his knees and pulled out the box. Caught on the flaps were some garments including which looked like pantyhose. He literally had to untangle them before he could completely remove the box out into the open.

He noted the initials written on the side of the box, which read M D. He flipped the flaps open and immediately a couple of framed pictures met his eyes. One was of Chloe and the other, an unidentified picture of a young man. At the bottom of the photographs were dates: 1977 for Chloe's and 1982 for the other.

He took them out of the box and continued to dig. There were more several assorted photographs. Some were very old. He went through them and stopped as a particular picture that caught his eye. It was a picture of a boy and a girl. The photograph was electric. It rather triggered an electrical storm on his nerves. So it seems Sam Ross was telling the truth after all.

He turned the photographs over and noted the words scribbled at the back: WEST VIRGINIA Chloe, age 2 and Mark, age 7. A piece of paper fell from the set of photographs he was holding and it was a newspaper clipping. Headlines read 'Dellasandro Girl Found Dead'.

‘...Christina Dellasandro, age 22 was found dead yesterday morning...her body was recovered behind a motor shop, in a dumpster where the owner noted an unusual mass wrapped in tarp...naked...died of asphyxiation...believed to have been raped and killed a day before she was found. Authorities say..."

Harold quickly folded up the clipping and pocketed it. Behind him, a sound stirred and before he could turn around and see the person, he was bludgeoned. He fell unto the side of his face and before he completely blacked out, he saw a silhouette of a woman peering down on him.