"I think that will be all?" Her further words registered with me, much to my amusement. She sure knew how to deduce a scene.
"You're wrong. How would you solve the case?" I wanted to know as well. It didn't escape me that she looked straight at me as if looking past the one-way mirror and peering into my soul. I stood there stunned before I could conjure my nerve and speak into the microphone.
"Miss Lewis, you may leave. We will call on you if there are any further questions."
.
Jameson ran to me in haste and handed me the sheet of paper that Miss Lewis had passed him. He was ecstatic about something, what I didn't know, but it seemed important. By the time I had glanced at the paper, he had already rushed out without greeting me. I was irritated but chose to put my concentration on what was written. The name of the convention and Dr. Singh's name.
It startled me. I pulled out my phone from my trouser pocket and dialled his number.
"Dr. Singh, this is Sebastian speaking. Do you know of Evie Lewis?" my voice was panicked. I had never seen her in class, and this level of knowledge usually meant she was part of the department but had never showed up for my classes. Was that why I remembered her name? From registers where she hadn't shown up? Or was it that my classes were not to her liking and she opted for someone else. Had Mr. Singh got her as an intern while I was stuck with this good-for-nothing who was possibly not going to amount to anything in life?
That would indeed be sad.
I couldn't let such a talent slip out from under my hands, speaking so eloquently about a situation while she had stumbled upon it and analyzing her surroundings immediately showed inherent expertise in her.
Had she not taken my class because of the types of courses I taught? Surely, such a brilliant girl couldn't be only interested in adolescent delinquents.
"Sebastian, why do you sound so breathless?" he asked from the other side, confused by my excited state.
"Dr. Singh. Evie Lewis," I said, far too excited for my own good. He was stunned into silence for a couple of days.
"Did she get into trouble? Did she ask for me?" the older man seemed excited at the prospect.
"She found a body and had a nice chat with my assistant. She gave an alibi that I need to check on."
"Oh yes, we returned yesterday. Is she okay? Do I need to bail her out?"
"No, no. She was just a witness, we were questioning her just in case. Is she a student in our department?" I asked, sincerely hoping that she was.
"No. She is from the department of foreign languages. She was with me there as a translator."
"I see." I was disappointed by the news of her not being from my department, but it also meant that she had not intentionally avoided my classes or taken other courses. It posed one problem, though. I didn't know where to find her next. If she wasn't a student of my department, it meant that all the analyses she spouted were a product of her own deduction and no amount of reading books or watching those trashy shows could make one understand that. It took a keen mind to pick up on such things.
"Can I get her contact number?" I asked, not knowing exactly why I wanted it. But I still persisted. If my brain had blurted it out, there would be some use for it in the future. There was no harm in taking the number.
Dr. Singh wouldn't give out her number, but I was adamant. He asked me not to call and that he would ask her if he could pass on her number to him. All in all, he was all praises for the young girl.
"She is just like her father, that one." The nostalgic tone to his voice got me interested. Where they acquaintances?
"You know her parents?" I asked, fishing for information. "Were you friends with them?"
"No. Her father was a big name in the police force. Charlie Lewis, you must have heard of him." I found myself nodding but then it struck me.
"She is Charlie Lewis' daughter? The one who…" and it all came back to me. The happenings from six years ago, when I had spent night and day trying to figure out where this girl was, in what condition she was, flashed across my mind. It had been a long time since I had felt that thrilled. It had been one of the first cases I had worked on, albeit under supervision but it had left a mark on me because of high profile and ingenious the circumstances of the case were.
A brilliant detective becomes prey to the criminal he is trying to capture. The killer slaughters his family and takes the daughter captive for god knows how long. .And the daughter miraculously survives even though the serial killer only keeps people for about two weeks, maximum, before killing them off and getting rid of them.
I also remembered how bloodied and bruised she had been when she entered the police station, pleading for help from the adults around her.
"Save me," she had mumbled over and over again, looking terribly wretched and exhausted. I remember imagining how she had managed to live and commending her on her excellent survival skills. She was barely skin and bones. She had somehow managed to get help from a fellow victim and broken loose. Though she did not remember what had happened, they had found the serial killer, Elegant Butcher, as she had come to be known, in a pool of her blood, a baseball bat near her. How that baseball bat came near her or how Evie's body managed to survive for that long and run so far from the place of captivity I didn't know but she had managed it.
---------
[Donate @ paypal.me/SunScar9 and ko-fi.com/sunscar9 to ensure I don't starve.]