The Face Thief

Chapter 5

~Sometimes,gathering your thoughts doesn't help you.

I sat in a corner of the security room gathering my thoughts. What the actual fuck was happening. I wanted to scream,but thought against it. At most,it'd irritate Marcus even more. I tried to piece everything that had suddenly happened in the span of a day.
One: We'd found a dead body on the pavement
Two: Selena had achieved the world's fastest hit-and-run accident (Sad)
Three: Selena wasn't in her ward, and
Four: some unknown guy had gotten his hands on all the CCTV footage.
" What do you mean,Wendall is not an employee?" Marcus asked one of them.
"Ain't know of any employee named Wendall" he handed a file to Marcus. "That's some employees on room 104 floor. The IT dude is soon coming to get it" he was still chomping his burger.
That's five: Fake employee turned Oscar actress overnight. Really sad.
"Wesley" "White" "Whitney" "Wridge" Marcus muttered continuously as he scanned the names. "No Wendall" he combed his hair with his fingers. Looks like we weren't in luck.
"Thanks by the way" I said.
"The cop guy who came for the CCTV footage,how did he look like?" This was Marcus asking. The security guy turned his head left and right as if trying to remember.
"Tall,I think, blonde,white guy" he continued. "Thanks" Marcus told him,he motioned for me to go out. I stood,stretched a bit and followed.
"Yeah,he had this weird tattoos too!" The security guy called out to us as we left. Tattoo guy again!

✪

The police office felt stuffy when we returned. Marcus looked frustrated. I looked worse. Something wasn't just right, and I was sure of it. I tugged my tie loose and relaxed on a small couch facing Marcus's desk.
"What's the plan now?" I asked Marcus. I peeled off my coat and took out a cigarette.

"You've got another of those?" Marcus was pointing to the cigarette. I pulled another stick and gave it to him. I lit mine,and puffed slowly as if reminiscing. "We've gotta find tattoo guy,that's the plan" he bellowed cigar fumes in my face. I almost choked.
"The diary, find something in it" he said after. I took out the small diary from my coat pocket and opened it. The words 'Alice sabath' covered the top corner of the front page. A very shoddy hand-writing. I flipped the pages one by one. Nothing really suspicious. Just daily girly stuff. I almost puked.
"Lookout for numbers too". I flipped the previous pages. Naah,no numbers. I turned to the back.
"There's some weird numbers here" I called after Marcus.
"JD- 18151513" I read aloud. The numbers didn't make sense. I came across another set of weird numbers on the other page. "CDE- 2308092005" then "appointment"I mumbled. "Appointment?" Marcus repeated. What the fuck did this numbers mean?! I wanted to scream, AGAIN!
"Is this some sort of Morse code?" I asked Marcus, entirely clueless. He took hold of the book.
"She's actually making use of the exact dates" Marcus was flipping pages over. Wonder how I hadn't noticed that.
"What do you mean?" I wanted to confirm. But Marcus didn't answer me. He turned to the back page and kept on looking. Wow,the guy really was a stickler for details----and dates!
"Found anything?" Marcus really didn't want to answer me. Ughhh,I sighed. "Take a look" he motioned for me to come closer. He started pointing to the dates and notes. Gosh,this guy keeps showing me bunch of dates and love notes.
"She stopped writing in her diary,sometime during may " he started. "Okay"I nodded,not that I understood what he was saying,but still.
"She wrote this codes---he was referring to the weird numbers---a day before her death " he pointed. I didn't see what he was getting at.
"JD-18151513" he repeated. I got it! An idea crossed my mind. I pointed to the numbers.
"I think she used some sort of alphabet number code to write them" I told him.
"Maybe she inter-switched them" Marcus completed. " JD as in 104" I think I just figured it out. Weird,that's the same ward she was admitted to.
" Then 18151513 should mean R-O-O-M" Marcus completed. We both had this weird look on our faces. "That's the same ward Selena was admitted to" we said in unison. But how did she---
"Did Alice sabath have some connection to Selena?" Just the same question I asked myself.
Alice Sabath was killed around this day last week. Marcus rumpaged his folder and pulled out the file on 'Alice Sabath'. " Her time of death here says 17:03, Friday" he paused.
"The 911 ambulance arrived here around 17:25" Marcus was scratching his head. He took out his phone and typed something. "The nearest hospital from lake white is about a 15-to-18 minutes drive. Roughly from the twenty-minites, there's still seven minutes" Marcus was staring at me this time,his eyes bulging. "So you mean---" I started.
"Selena and Alice were murdered on the the same day of the week at roughly the same time" he completed. I stared hard,as if dazed.
"What about the female victim from today. And the other man" I asked. Marcus rounded towards his desk. "We'll have to find a connection between the four of them" he say down. "Let's try figuring out what the second numbers mean" he opened the diary again.
"345- white" I had already decoded that earlier. Marcus looked like he'd seen a ghost.
  "What's wrong?" I asked.
   "Does it strike a memory?" I waved my hands repeatedly in his face.
"345- white avenue" Marcus repeated,as if possessed. " Another hospital ward?" I asked.
"It's where the town ends". I still don't understand what that meant.