Detective Inspector C. J. Johnson

 The desk was a mess. It had been organized less than an hour ago, but once again it was filled with papers, medical reports, post-it notes, drawings and three disposable cups that once held strong black coffee, which didn't have a change to cool down before being swallowed in just four sips, having enough caffeine to keep the Detective Inspector up until that time. 

His shift was supposed to have ended 40 hours ago, but he couldn't leave the office yet. He and his team have been working on that investigation for a month already, without any progress. And even though he had been part of numerous investigations, that one had been somehow more intense and more fascinating, making him wanting to stay up until late almost every night, being at the office almost 24/7. But regardless his passion and curiosity and desire to solve the murders, by the end of the day they'd once again came up with nothing. 

The first murder had happened a month ago. A body was found in a trash can by a garbage man, rolled into several layers of black plastic, without the right hand and the head. They had been unable to identify the victim, all they knew was that it was a young woman, the cause of death being poisoning. 

 And then another body had been found by the end of that week. The next week they had three more bodies, and four more the next one, all  disposed like trash in a well known neighborhood. They had, so far, nine bodies, all women, all killed by poisoning. 

The Detective Inspector C. J. Johnson was sitting in his office, staring at the gigantic mess at his desk. He was usually very organized, but this case was happening so fast he had little time to organize the information he already had. Bodies kept on coming up every week, the only pattern was the poisoning and the missing head and right hand of all the dead bodies. Apart from that, there was no connection. They were unable to identify the victims, or the causes, or to come up with a profile of the murderer. His team was working really hard, but he knew that if they kept on stuck like they'd been, the energy of everybody would slow burn out and times of distress were just ahead of them. He needed to do something, but he didn't know what. 

C. J. Johnson started organizing his table, making three piles: one of all the victims they had so far, nine files with pictures and medical papers and descriptions. The second pile was of lists of people who went missing the last six months, and the third pile was made with more and more files related to poisoning. The rest of papers was turned into a separated pile, deposited in the seat in front of him on the other side of the desk, what was left he threw away. 

He made more notes in his notebook after looking at all the files once again, one by one. He was expecting to catch something he hadn’t seen the first and second and third time he looked at them, hoping there would be one little detail that went unnoticed, but that now he'd see it and it would make all the difference. But he didn't. The papers showed him the same things he had seen and already knew. There wasn't a detail, or error, os overlooked information.  

Getting up from his now tidy and cleaned desk, he opened the office door, stepping into the room where all the rest of the team was. There were five rows, two desks each, all of them equally filled with more and more papers and coffee cups. Bur apart from him the room was deserted. He walked up to the far end of the room, where boards once white were now filled with information about the bodies. Though none of the victims had been identified, they had decided to give each of them names, to remind themselves they were once alive and now depended on them to bring justice to their deaths and find the responsible for such terrible crimes. 

In the center of the board there was a map of the city, red pins marking the location where each of the bodies were found and when. There was a list of the components of the poison used to kill the victims, suggesting it was the same killer, using the same mixture of ingredients to make the lethal poison the sealed the destiny of all those girls. 

The Detective Inspector couldn't get his eyes away from the board, and couldn't avoid making the same questions again: what was he missing? What was the reason for the murderers? Where were the right hands and heads of the victims? What linked one death to the other? 

After a moment that could've been ten minutes or three hours, he rubbed his eyes and massaged his temples, looking outside one of the many windows of the investigation room. It was dusk. There was no sound except for one or two cars that eventually passed through that street. In the office everything was quiet, he could hear his own thoughts, as if they were talking to him in the room, showing him points in the map, making him look again at the papers on his desk. He shook his head to quiet them down. He needed some rest. He didn't want to leave the room and close his eyes, but he needed to.  

Going back to his office, he took his watch, notebook and pen, turning off the lights and closing the door as he left. The first floor of the building was as silent as the second, the only sound disturbing the peace of the night was the echoing of his shoes as he went down the stairs, leaving the building and emerging into the night. 

He felt as if there were people following him. He could almost sense the nine shadows on his back, accompanying him, watching him. He kept on looking behind him, knowing there was nothing, nobody was following him apart from the thoughts of the girls who had been killed by a person who was still walking free in the very same city he lived. He felt a goosebump.  

He put on his long black coat as he walked slightly faster down the street to the little building three blocks away, the place where now he lived, all by himself. It was a new building, with twelve floors, four apartments per floor. When the selling of the apartments had begun, the detective didn’t lose time and bought one for himself, glad with the perspective of living closer to his working place.  

The guard at the reception greeted him, sleepy. Johnson was happy he knew personal defense and many methods to keep himself safe, for the guard didn't seem very reliable and he was always looking very distracted and tired, undoubtedly not ready to defend the residents of the buildings if it was necessary. He ignored the elevators and took the stair all the way to the third floor, keys in hand before he reached the door for his little but comfortable apartment. 

He opened the door and just stood there, listening carefully. Then he went in and quietly verified all the windows, checking that the lock was still there. After convincing himself nobody had broke in, he relaxed a little. He went to the kitchen and opened up the fridge, to find only three cans of beer, milk that had certainly gone bad long ago and some yogurt. He closed it and searched into the cupboard, not finding anything appealing there either. He decided to make himself some tea.  

He put water in the kettle and turned on the stove, looking for his tea box as the water heated. He found the box almost empty, only a few bags of green tea, herbal tea, oolong and Jasmine. He took one bag of herbal and deposited it into a teacup, thinking about one of the victims, that they named Jasmine. The image of the dead body flashed into his eyes, together with the list of the components of the poison that got her killed. Many of those components could have been easily put into somebody's drink or food, and the person wouldn't be able to realize it until it was too late. 

When the water was hot enough, he turned off the stove but left the kettle and cup where they were, not wanting to drink tea anymore. At least not for the following nights. Instead, he drank a cup of water and headed to his bedroom. The lights were on, like he always left them, and the person who greeted him in the mirror hanging on the wall seemed to him very tired and old. He avoided the person and went to the bathroom, taking off his shirt and shoes and leaving them on the floor.  

He washed his face and started brushing his teeth, looking into the mirror this time. He hadn't had time to shave properly for the last couple of days, the shadow of a beard becoming more and more noticeable. His eyes had a darker color, a different type of green that only appeared when he missed many hours of sleep. There were bag under his eyes, and he could swear there was more white hair in his head. He looked at least five years older. He washed his face once again with warm water, the sound it made as it ran into the sink used to be pleasant, but now it reminded him of blood running down the drains of some abandon house as the head of a deceased person was being cut by a heavy instrument, probably a butcher's knife. He'd do anything to know to whom that knife belonged to. 

He made his way to the bedroom, lights still on, not bothering to put on his pjs as he slipped into his bed. It felt nice in there, as he tucked himself under the warm blankets comfortably, his cell phone still in his pocket. He didn't want to surrender to that warm feeling, he didn’t want to fall asleep and to forget about the girls, victims of human cruelty. But he could feel his strength slowly fading, leaving him with nothing but weariness.  

Part of him wanted to shut down all the thoughts about the investigation, to just give himself a break for the first time in weeks and enjoy the little peace he now had, laying in bed ready to sleep. But he couldn't do that. Even if he made an effort to shut everything down, even if he closed his eyes for hours, even if he got himself immersed into any other activity, the faces would still be there. 

He had been a Detective Inspector for five years, and all the faces of all the victims of all the cases he worked on where always there to haunt him. Faces without names, bodies without faces, they always found a way back to him, and they were always there every time he went to bed, glowing in the dark, ghosts staring at him, looking disappointed, sad, angry, claiming for vengeance, craving a peace they would never have. 

He saw these faces every night, and the more cases he worked on, the more faces piled up and appeared to him. He tried his best to believe he was doing all he could, that people were going to die regardless what he did, that he could not save everybody, that sometimes there was nothing he could do.  

It was hard on the beginning, he'd barely sleep, weariness taking over his body and mind, making him be at the edge of losing his position as the D.I. and also his mind. But as time went by he learnt to control his thoughts, to not allow the weight of his work crush and break him to pieces. And still, every night, the faces where there. And every night he had to deal with them and pray he would be able to get at least a few hours of sleep. 

"Forgive me for not being able to save you" he said, like he did every night, to the faces looking at him, as he closed his eyes and tried to transport himself to somewhere else, a place where there was peace and silence, a place where there was no crime and murder, where faces would not judge him, a place where his nights were always pleasant and peaceful, filled with serenity and sweet dreams.