Other than that here is Chapter 8, plot thick. Also I'm just shy my "Target" for today.
Chapter 8: November 22nd – New York – Evening
Paul O’Healy doesn’t keep normal retiree hours. He isn’t found at old country buffet at 4pm for his early bird special, nor does he wake up at 5am to start his day. He sleeps all day, wakes up mid-afternoon, and drinks until he falls back asleep. The best way to talk to Mr. O’Healy is sometime after 6pm, that way he has already eaten along with a few drinks inside of him. Joseph knew this from past experiences, and why he purposely waited until 6pm before he pounds on O’Healy’s door in a rapid and urgent matter. He continues to pound on the door until the door is answered, Paul O’Healy greets Joseph still dressed in his blue & white striped pyjamas. What’s left of Paul’s hair is unkempt and unwashed as it sticks out everywhere as if the old man just woken up. Paul looks into Joseph’s light brown coloured eyes and shakes his head, “Bout fucking time, expected to hear back from you days ago you fucking twat.”
“What do you mean by that?” Joseph didn’t expect insults being thrown so quickly during his little house call. The only thing that’s stopping Joseph from beating the old man to death is respect of his abilities, he believes with a phrase from Paul’s lips everything in Joseph’s life can get worse. Any admiration he had for Paul before this case is thrown out the window. Being blackmailed into doing cases isn’t his idea of honourable business, but then again, Paul O’Healy would argue Joseph doesn’t have the ability to comprehend the notion of being honourable.
Paul O’Healy is already making his way up the stairs by the time Joseph is inside the house with the door closed. Joseph immediately went up the stairs, his shoes causing the old staircase to creek as he steps on each stair. The house isn’t only old and creepy, but seems like it could break at any time. The odd creaking with each step irritated O’Healy who is several steps ahead of Joseph.
“Ya fucking hear me you deaf twat,” O’Healy cursed turning his head to see Joseph is still nearly half a flight behind him between the first and second floor. By the time O’Healy reaches the third floor he walks towards his bedroom. “When you get up here take your fucking shoes off you inconsiderate shit, and wait at the library.” He shut his bedroom door as soon as he enters.
Joseph made a point to remove his shoes and place them at the foot of the stairs. Joseph would never understand O’Healy, he claims that Joseph is a loose cannon but any little thing can set the old man off like forgetting to remove ones shoes before entering a house. He enters the library, lights already turned on before he even walks in. Like the first time he saw O’Healy’s library, the stones scattered across the bookshelves catches his eyes as they faintly glow, activating a calming energy inside the library. The library is noticeably warmer than the hallway or staircase, indicating Paul O’Healy may be spending a lot of time in this room. Joseph looks around Paul’s desk noting a closed laptop computer and the Onyx stone with a white ghastly sphere buzzing around inside it.
Joseph picks up the Onyx stone to examine it further. The stone itself is smooth to his hand as he raises it up to eye level tilting the stone and watching the ghastly sphere fly around, as Joseph tilts the stone it moves around more frantically. Where ever the small sphere is, the Onyx gets hotter to the touch. After a few minutes playing with the stone it got too hot to play around with so he settles it back down on the desk. Joseph may not know how to use magic, but he knows the Onyx is a prison for the unlucky soul inside of it. He puts the stone down and takes a few steps back from O’Healy’s desk, as time went on the stones around him begin to glow brighter. The brighter the stones the stronger their calming effect, and Joseph needs to remain calm since he’s about to be interrogate the most adept man in spell casting in the western world.
“Why so nervous?” Paul O’Healy says, walking into the library noticing the stones are glowing brightly. He looks at Joseph as he sits down at his desk, again Joseph would have to stand. O’Healy opens the laptop seeming more interested in what’s going on there than Joseph in front of him. “Well? What is it? Like I said it’s about bloody fucking time you decided to show up.”
Joseph shrugs at the comment, he stood a few feet away from the desk like a private debriefing his captain about a recent mission. Joseph’s face shows disbelief as he doesn’t understand what O’Healy is saying, “So what do you mean it’s about time I showed up?” This isn’t the way Joseph thought this interrogation was going to go, even retired, freshly changed out of his pyjamas, and seemingly too busy browsing online the man is intimating.
Paul O’Healy doesn’t even bother to look away from his computer screen to answer. “Because it’s been days since you started this case and I’ve heard shit all from you. Fuck you’re lucky I’ve been keeping myself busy here or else I may’ve come looking for you, and we both know that won’t be pleasant.” O’Healy sounded like he was threatening Joseph. Joseph grew visibly pissed off being treated like a lap dog who is supposed to be at his owner’s side at every possible second. Again the rocks in the room glowed brighter, calming Joseph but don’t seem to be having an effect on O’Healy. O’Healy smirks behind the computer screen, “Seem to have struck a chord now?”
“I’m not here to be your spy in the investigation, you brought me here to stop the Angel, and that’s what I’ve been doing. I don’t have time to check-in with you, I’m too busy going to crime scenes, conducting interviews, and special investigations to fucking tell you everything. I know you have your own people you can ask because I’m too busy in solving this shit you’re black mailing me to do, which is why I’m here. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me about your Granddaughter being a victim? And why were the police unable to gather camera evidence from any nearby streetlight cameras?” Joseph knew Paul O’Healy had something to do with this, or else he would’ve mentioned it and possibly used it as leverage to get Joseph to help him out. Joseph is visibly upset by this revelation, his face changing into a shade of red and his fists clinched when he spoke.
Paul O’Healy is shocked, he thought the stones were able contain any outburst. Still he remained calmed and put his cussing sarcastic tone away for a few minutes. “Because I didn’t want her to be on that sick bastard’s offical body count.”
Joseph shook his head, “No that’s a fucking lie. You pulled the evidence before the shooting. You didn’t know that this Angel was going to be a big new item, so you must’ve did something else to warrant you messing with evidence, what is it?”
O’Healy didn’t answer his question right away. He looked down, as if he was a child and his hand was caught in the cookie jar. He shook his head, “I have no regrets for what I did. At the time I didn’t think it was anything more than what it was, I didn’t know it would blow up like this.” O’Healy pauses reaching for his laptop, turning it towards Joseph. On the screen is a paused video of what looked to be the missing streetlight camera video that was missing from his Granddaughter’s case file. Joseph reaches for the spacebar to hit play, only for the laptop being pulled back before he can hit the button.
“I only knew something bad happened to her, it was like a pinch on my neck. You know that feeling you get when you believe someone you care about just received bad news or having a bad day? That’s the kind of hunch I was getting. I just so happened to be talented enough to find out where she was, so I went there right away.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?” Joseph asked, fearing he knew the answer to his question.
“Just in case it was nothing, but it wasn’t.” O’Healy replied, his tone changed from minutes before, he sounded almost guilty. Joseph was afraid to look at the tape, he knew O’Healy must’ve had a good reason to try and hide the evidence. With that warning, O’Healy pushed the laptop back and Joseph hit play on it crouching on the ground so he can see the video screen.
The video starts out with O’Healy’s granddaughter being chased by Dan, her African American attacker. O’Healy’s granddaughter attempt to run away, but Dan was too fast and was able to catch up to her with ease. As soon as Dan was within reach of the younger woman, he pushes her and she trips into the woods that separate the park from the streets. Dan follows the woman inside the woods, Joseph wasn’t able to see what was going on between Dan and the young woman. After a few moments, the Angel walked into frame revealing his back to the camera along with his automatic weapon in his right hand. Joseph paused the video as soon as he got a clear shot of the angel’s back.
The first thing Joseph notices verifies his suspicions, the wings aren’t held up by a harness as the man in the video is clearly naked. However he is unable to zoom into the video, which means he’s unable to tell how the wings are actually staying onto the man. The same with the gun, the Angel is clearly holding a rifle but the type and any attachments are hard to make out. Joseph attempts to play with the video file to see if he can get a close up of the video, but the media player wouldn’t allow him. He plays with it trying to find a way to get a better look, but in the end he continues to watch it.
The next part of the video shows the Angel walking into the forest, then nothing. Joseph fast forwarded it for a minute or so and then sees the angel walk out of the woods, still naked and appears to be covered in blood. Instantly Joseph knew that Carl Henderson, their main suspect isn’t the Angel. He lets the video play cursing it. “Fucking fucking bad luck.” He said, shaking his head. The video continues to play as Joseph speaks to O’Healy.
“Okay, so what’s wrong with the video?” Joseph asks.
“Keep watching.” O’Healy replied.
Paul O’Healy doesn’t keep normal retiree hours. He isn’t found at old country buffet at 4pm for his early bird special, nor does he wake up at 5am to start his day. He sleeps all day, wakes up mid-afternoon, and drinks until he falls back asleep. The best way to talk to Mr. O’Healy is sometime after 6pm, that way he has already eaten along with a few drinks inside of him. Joseph knew this from past experiences, and why he purposely waited until 6pm before he pounds on O’Healy’s door in a rapid and urgent matter. He continues to pound on the door until the door is answered, Paul O’Healy greets Joseph still dressed in his blue & white striped pyjamas. What’s left of Paul’s hair is unkempt and unwashed as it sticks out everywhere as if the old man just woken up. Paul looks into Joseph’s light brown coloured eyes and shakes his head, “Bout fucking time, expected to hear back from you days ago you fucking twat.”
“What do you mean by that?” Joseph didn’t expect insults being thrown so quickly during his little house call. The only thing that’s stopping Joseph from beating the old man to death is respect of his abilities, he believes with a phrase from Paul’s lips everything in Joseph’s life can get worse. Any admiration he had for Paul before this case is thrown out the window. Being blackmailed into doing cases isn’t his idea of honourable business, but then again, Paul O’Healy would argue Joseph doesn’t have the ability to comprehend the notion of being honourable.
Paul O’Healy is already making his way up the stairs by the time Joseph is inside the house with the door closed. Joseph immediately went up the stairs, his shoes causing the old staircase to creek as he steps on each stair. The house isn’t only old and creepy, but seems like it could break at any time. The odd creaking with each step irritated O’Healy who is several steps ahead of Joseph.
“Ya fucking hear me you deaf twat,” O’Healy cursed turning his head to see Joseph is still nearly half a flight behind him between the first and second floor. By the time O’Healy reaches the third floor he walks towards his bedroom. “When you get up here take your fucking shoes off you inconsiderate shit, and wait at the library.” He shut his bedroom door as soon as he enters.
Joseph made a point to remove his shoes and place them at the foot of the stairs. Joseph would never understand O’Healy, he claims that Joseph is a loose cannon but any little thing can set the old man off like forgetting to remove ones shoes before entering a house. He enters the library, lights already turned on before he even walks in. Like the first time he saw O’Healy’s library, the stones scattered across the bookshelves catches his eyes as they faintly glow, activating a calming energy inside the library. The library is noticeably warmer than the hallway or staircase, indicating Paul O’Healy may be spending a lot of time in this room. Joseph looks around Paul’s desk noting a closed laptop computer and the Onyx stone with a white ghastly sphere buzzing around inside it.
Joseph picks up the Onyx stone to examine it further. The stone itself is smooth to his hand as he raises it up to eye level tilting the stone and watching the ghastly sphere fly around, as Joseph tilts the stone it moves around more frantically. Where ever the small sphere is, the Onyx gets hotter to the touch. After a few minutes playing with the stone it got too hot to play around with so he settles it back down on the desk. Joseph may not know how to use magic, but he knows the Onyx is a prison for the unlucky soul inside of it. He puts the stone down and takes a few steps back from O’Healy’s desk, as time went on the stones around him begin to glow brighter. The brighter the stones the stronger their calming effect, and Joseph needs to remain calm since he’s about to be interrogate the most adept man in spell casting in the western world.
“Why so nervous?” Paul O’Healy says, walking into the library noticing the stones are glowing brightly. He looks at Joseph as he sits down at his desk, again Joseph would have to stand. O’Healy opens the laptop seeming more interested in what’s going on there than Joseph in front of him. “Well? What is it? Like I said it’s about bloody fucking time you decided to show up.”
Joseph shrugs at the comment, he stood a few feet away from the desk like a private debriefing his captain about a recent mission. Joseph’s face shows disbelief as he doesn’t understand what O’Healy is saying, “So what do you mean it’s about time I showed up?” This isn’t the way Joseph thought this interrogation was going to go, even retired, freshly changed out of his pyjamas, and seemingly too busy browsing online the man is intimating.
Paul O’Healy doesn’t even bother to look away from his computer screen to answer. “Because it’s been days since you started this case and I’ve heard shit all from you. Fuck you’re lucky I’ve been keeping myself busy here or else I may’ve come looking for you, and we both know that won’t be pleasant.” O’Healy sounded like he was threatening Joseph. Joseph grew visibly pissed off being treated like a lap dog who is supposed to be at his owner’s side at every possible second. Again the rocks in the room glowed brighter, calming Joseph but don’t seem to be having an effect on O’Healy. O’Healy smirks behind the computer screen, “Seem to have struck a chord now?”
“I’m not here to be your spy in the investigation, you brought me here to stop the Angel, and that’s what I’ve been doing. I don’t have time to check-in with you, I’m too busy going to crime scenes, conducting interviews, and special investigations to fucking tell you everything. I know you have your own people you can ask because I’m too busy in solving this shit you’re black mailing me to do, which is why I’m here. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me about your Granddaughter being a victim? And why were the police unable to gather camera evidence from any nearby streetlight cameras?” Joseph knew Paul O’Healy had something to do with this, or else he would’ve mentioned it and possibly used it as leverage to get Joseph to help him out. Joseph is visibly upset by this revelation, his face changing into a shade of red and his fists clinched when he spoke.
Paul O’Healy is shocked, he thought the stones were able contain any outburst. Still he remained calmed and put his cussing sarcastic tone away for a few minutes. “Because I didn’t want her to be on that sick bastard’s offical body count.”
Joseph shook his head, “No that’s a fucking lie. You pulled the evidence before the shooting. You didn’t know that this Angel was going to be a big new item, so you must’ve did something else to warrant you messing with evidence, what is it?”
O’Healy didn’t answer his question right away. He looked down, as if he was a child and his hand was caught in the cookie jar. He shook his head, “I have no regrets for what I did. At the time I didn’t think it was anything more than what it was, I didn’t know it would blow up like this.” O’Healy pauses reaching for his laptop, turning it towards Joseph. On the screen is a paused video of what looked to be the missing streetlight camera video that was missing from his Granddaughter’s case file. Joseph reaches for the spacebar to hit play, only for the laptop being pulled back before he can hit the button.
“I only knew something bad happened to her, it was like a pinch on my neck. You know that feeling you get when you believe someone you care about just received bad news or having a bad day? That’s the kind of hunch I was getting. I just so happened to be talented enough to find out where she was, so I went there right away.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?” Joseph asked, fearing he knew the answer to his question.
“Just in case it was nothing, but it wasn’t.” O’Healy replied, his tone changed from minutes before, he sounded almost guilty. Joseph was afraid to look at the tape, he knew O’Healy must’ve had a good reason to try and hide the evidence. With that warning, O’Healy pushed the laptop back and Joseph hit play on it crouching on the ground so he can see the video screen.
The video starts out with O’Healy’s granddaughter being chased by Dan, her African American attacker. O’Healy’s granddaughter attempt to run away, but Dan was too fast and was able to catch up to her with ease. As soon as Dan was within reach of the younger woman, he pushes her and she trips into the woods that separate the park from the streets. Dan follows the woman inside the woods, Joseph wasn’t able to see what was going on between Dan and the young woman. After a few moments, the Angel walked into frame revealing his back to the camera along with his automatic weapon in his right hand. Joseph paused the video as soon as he got a clear shot of the angel’s back.
The first thing Joseph notices verifies his suspicions, the wings aren’t held up by a harness as the man in the video is clearly naked. However he is unable to zoom into the video, which means he’s unable to tell how the wings are actually staying onto the man. The same with the gun, the Angel is clearly holding a rifle but the type and any attachments are hard to make out. Joseph attempts to play with the video file to see if he can get a close up of the video, but the media player wouldn’t allow him. He plays with it trying to find a way to get a better look, but in the end he continues to watch it.
The next part of the video shows the Angel walking into the forest, then nothing. Joseph fast forwarded it for a minute or so and then sees the angel walk out of the woods, still naked and appears to be covered in blood. Instantly Joseph knew that Carl Henderson, their main suspect isn’t the Angel. He lets the video play cursing it. “Fucking fucking bad luck.” He said, shaking his head. The video continues to play as Joseph speaks to O’Healy.
“Okay, so what’s wrong with the video?” Joseph asks.
“Keep watching.” O’Healy replied.
Joseph
continued to watch the tape. It took a few minutes but a Chevrolet Camaro Z28
speeds into the view of the camera coming from the intersection driving towards
the park instead of along the park which the camera focuses on. The Chevrolet
Camaro slams on the brakes as indicated by the tread marks behind his car, it
comes inches from hitting the tree line. The car fully stops on half of the sidewalk
and half on the street. The driver’s door opens and Paul O’Healy walks out of
his car, running down into the woods.
“Don’t
tell me…” Joseph mutters, but after a few minutes from the last time he saw O’Healy
on the screen a bright white light can be seen from the forest. Joseph shakes
his head, “You stupid fucker. And that’s why we can’t use the footage? Right?”
Paul O’Healy rolls his eyes, “Remember,
I didn’t know who the fuck killed them and I didn’t know what happened after
conjuring the nigger’s spirit. That’s what you saw, was me calling that fucker’s
spirit and he told me everything...” O’Healy hands curled up and his face
snarled as his eyes darts to the onyx stone.
Joseph sighed, looking at the Onyx stone. “No, don’t tell me…”
“He got
what he deserved and there’s nothing you can say that will tell me different.
Now, I wiped the fucking data because not only did I do what I did, but I also
didn’t follow procedure. You know what? I fucking waited till morning before I
called in my own granddaughter’s murder, you know how hard that was? Fuck that
nigger, he can rot in eternity of nothingness.” The white sphere inside the
Black Onyx is the soul of Dan, the African American who died at the hands of
the Angel. Joseph feels a certain amount of pity for the man, it was a face
worse than hell to spend eternity alone.
“Well
that’s great…” The video cuts out and Joseph minimalizes it. “I’m gonna send me
a video of this and edit it so your stupid ass doesn’t appear on the video,
that way we have something ok?” Joseph attached the video onto an e-mail and
e-mailed himself. “Fuck, I think this video made this case more difficult.”
“What
the hell do you mean boy, thought you were a natural? You have some rust to
work out?” O’Healy asked. O’Healy didn’t blindly hire Joseph, he did some
research on him before calling in his favour. He understood that it’s been a
while since he handled a case like this, but he assumed the Quebec RCMP would’ve
kept him busy.
“Let’s
just say, things are getting more interesting day-by-day, I also guess since
you know nothing that you didn’t kill the Horizon members?” Joseph asked, never
hurts to ask.
“No,
why the fuck would I’ve done that?” O’Healy replied and Joseph believed him.
Joseph filled O’Healy on the current goings of the case. How Joseph thought O’Healy
murdered the Horizon members because someone leaked him that Carl Henderson is
a suspect. Joseph doesn’t think Carl was the Angel shooter partly because of
the time frame of leaving Summerville to New York and the fact that the video
seemed to have shown someone else.
“So the
Angel killed the Horizon members?” O’Healy asked. “Guess there’s some bloody
good in him.” He finishes in a sarcastic tone.
“No, it’s
not him.” He says getting up from his crouched position as soon as he is
finished with the computer. “The MO is different, and where your granddaughter
was murdered shows he doesn’t just stick around in Harlem.” Joseph stretches his
legs looking at the books on the shelves maybe hoping he can find something
useful like a magic lamp that O’Healy hasn’t noticed in his rather large
library of books, stones, and antiques.
“What
do you think I should do?” Joseph didn’t ask advice for his cases, but it’s
been a while since he’s had a case like this. New York seems to bring the worse
in him.
“You
should visit her” is the response O’Healy
gives Joseph. “She probably knows, death follows her after all.”
Joseph
sighs, heading out of the library “Fuck, I’m going to end up more in debt to
people by the time this is done.” O’Healy
didn’t answer him. Joseph puts his shoes on, pulling a cellphone out of his
pocket as he dials Morrow’s number. Morrow didn’t answer, it went to voicemail.
“Hey
Morrow, It’s Joseph Pierre. Looking into something and taking the weekend off.
I have partial video of O’Healy’s granddaughter’s murder. I’ll see you Monday,
stay safe.”
With
that Joseph leaves Paul O’Healy’s house and heads for his hotel, he’ll deal
with O’Healy’s suggestion tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment