The Demise of Mayor Frye

Chapter 11: The Deceased Detective

Teenage boys were playing in the street with a bottle of gasoline with them. Kris Walker, who himself was no more than fifteen, was watching them through the window of his room. He saw them pouring the gasoline on the plants in the garden of one of the neighbors and setting it on fire. He saw the fire rise and reach all the trees of the garden, the walls of the house, and the windows. And he saw it break the glasses of the windows and reach the curtains. Gradually, the fire burnt the whole house down. He was watching all this from his room, but somehow, he realized that their house is being taken from them because he was accused of setting that house on fire. They throw him alongside his father out of the house, but all of a sudden, he realized he wasn't in the street. He wasn't a teenager either. He was now a grown man in an ocean of light brown liquid full of bubbles, holding the dead body of Detective Stone in his arms, eyes open, looking directly at him, saying some words he couldn't understand. And at that moment, Detective Walker snapped out of his nightmare.

For the past couple of weeks, after the sudden demise of Detective Brian Stone, Detective-Superintendent Russel Carter, who was also the head of Precinct B14, had been working himself to get the cause of his death as soon as possible. As it turned out, Detective Stone had been poisoned by Lily of the Valley, a plant that causes death if ingested but not necessarily right away. It also turned out that he had been poisoned between six hours to three days before the day of the parallel talks.

Now, Max Hale and Detective Walker were put in charge of both Detective Stone's and Mayor Frye's cases. "Start with Detective Stone," Detective Carter had ordered. "Check everywhere he had gone in his last three days, including the café."

Detective Walker got up, washed his face, and after suiting up, he went to his car to pick Max up. They were going to get to 51 Nevil Street and the same café one more time.

"I'll finally lock that man up, Kobe Mason, I mean," Detective Walker told Max while driving nervously.

"Calm down, Boss."

"I'm calm. I'm OK. I try to be, at least," he said while thinking of all the past events.

"We'll find something today; I've got a hunch."

Detective Walker pounded on the steering wheel with both hands. The car turned right a little bit, but he regained its control soon. "Hunch?" he said in a loud voice. But he, almost instantly, became calm and relaxed. "That's right," he said in a soft voice this time. "We'll find something today."

"Still seeing those nightmares, Boss?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do," he said desperately.

"Why? I mean, yeah, he was Detective Stone, but you two weren't that close, were you? I always thought you never got along."

The car was again getting out of Detective Walker's control, and Max took the steering wheel with his left hand. "Boss!"

"You don't understand, Max. I... I thought he'll just sleep and wake up in the hospital. You can't imagine the pressure I'm under."

"So what, Boss? He was just an old nag. Yeah, he was sharp, and he knew what he was doing, but he was rude. Kind of not bad he's gone, I think."

Detective Walker didn't know what to answer. Although he didn't like Detective Stone, and also, he had wanted this case to be his from the beginning, he didn't want him to die. He had been his coworker after all. He knew it was all his fault. He probably could have prevented it.

"I — well, Max... now that Brian is gone," he smiled, but it seemed like an involuntary and forced smile that just came out of nowhere, "I'm thinking whether I'll be the next one. Perhaps the one after it," he smiled again, thinking about the possibility of Kobe Mason dying first. "Yeah, yeah. I prefer to be the one after the next one."