Chapter Eight
Fernando Romero
November 22nd. 21:04 hrs. Unit 18, 13 Broome Avenue, New York. Murdered.
Perpetrator: Omar Alderson
One day I received the name while shooting target alone at the booth, I was curious, excited, and angry. Curious because what kind of person would have done that to another human being. Excited because it’d been a while since I went back to the living side. And the last emotion stuck with me after seeing the vision of the crime. I couldn’t see the face of the victim nor the killer, I could only see the living room with lots of clothes and rubbished on the floor. I felt the rage crept into my mind. It was the first time I received the name of the killer.
“…Alderson…” August kept repeating the name for several times. His brows furrowed. He was deep in thought.
“Do you know him?”
“I don’t know. His name sounds familiar, but I could be wrong. Alderson isn’t that unique surname.”
“Well, that’s not important. He’s a murderer. He’s going to kill this man. What’s wrong with this world!”
August looked at me like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. He did that more often lately. It got me some time, to be honest. I just wanted to him to spill it and said it to my face whatever that could be.
“Don’t you want to see him before collecting his soul?”
“No. What’s the point? It can only make me what to save him. I can’t save him, can I?” I paused, “did you come and see me? Did you observe me before I die?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
It wasn’t like he cared. Why did he do that?
“No reason,” he lied. I could see it in his eyes.
I’d never learned how he die or how he’d become a grim reaper. August didn’t like to talk about his previous life. He said that he forgot everything in the past and enjoyed being grim reaper. I doubted he told me the truth.
“If you’re not going to the living side now, then I’ll go back to the garden.”
Gardenwas a code name for the library. I learned that from Mandy.
“What are you reading?”
“Book.”
Duh!
I thought when he let me shoot target with him, we became closer or something. It turned out I was wrong to think that we were friends. He was famous in Jericho. Grim reapers respected him, looked up to him. Yet, the man had secrets, and no one was close enough to be in his circle.
Or maybe it was only me who didn’t know what happened to him and too scared to ask from anyone.
On November 22nd, D-day, August and I blinked to the living side. He hadn’t let me blink by myself yet. I wondered would he ever going to let me blink.
I’d never been to this area before. The buildings had the same height and similar exterior. Broome Avenue had two lanes surrounded by tree lines and was possibly empty most of the time because children were playing on the street. As lousy as it was, the neighbourhoodseemed nice and lively. Who would have thought that in a few hours, a murder would occur?
Fernando Romero rented a unit; one bed/one bath in a five storeysbuilding. He wasn’t there when August and I arrived. His room was a mess; piles of dirty clothes and rubbishes scattered on the floor in the living room. His bedroom wasn’t much different.
“I thought Jamie’s bedroom is bad. This is worse.”
There was a trace of white powder on the coffee table in the living room and on the bedside cabinet in the bedroom. My sympathy for him dramatically decreased.
“We should have gone somewhere else and come back on time.”
Even August couldn’t stand this place, but it was too late to leave.
“We should ventilate the room. Can’t we do that? He wouldn’t notice, would he?”
“Who cares?” August shrugged his shoulders. Then he carefully walked across the room, trying not to step on dirty clothes and noodles’ boxes, to the small window, and lifted it opened.
Fresh air greeted both of us, bringing smiles to our faces.
The giggles from the kids on the street took me back to the moment when I was a kid playing with my friends after school in their backyard while my mom tried to feed me dinner. She told me that feeding Jamie was a lot easier. My brother loved foods; meat or vegetables, he could handle them all.
Oh, I missed them. I missed them so much.
“He’s here.” August nudged me with the elbow.
A part of Fernando’s body was visible, he was talking to another person which I could not see.
“Thanks bro. I know I could count on you.”
It was food delivery. I bet he made a call while coming back home.
Fernando was a huge guy, six feet at least. He looked like a basketball player from the NBA, minus the charm. He had tattoos on both arms; one of them was a red rose. I had to admit it was a beautiful rose. The man had got swag, street gang kind of swag rather than the super star one. I was certain he was using drug. And I was quite convinced by his looks that he was also a dealer.
“I don’t like this guy.”
I thought I accidentally said that aloud, but it was August who made the comment.
“Is this the first time we agree on something?” I joked. “Whether we like him or not, he’s going to be murdered. No one deserves that.”
August shot me the look like I just said something irrational.
“I won’t do anything. You have my word.”
Saving human’s live wasn’t an option for a grim reaper. There was an old saying passed down from grim reaper to grim reaper; ‘we’re here to collect, not to protect.’We were men and women on a mission.
As you might had noticed, I had learned a lot in these past few months. Salina was my first and would be my last mistake.
Fernando didn’t notice anything odd in his room, the man had no idea that his window was opened. He carried a white carton from Chinese restaurant, the logo was the same as other noodles’ boxes around him.
“Oh, I missed Chow Mein.”
“Chow what?”
“You don’t know Chow Mein? Well, the first time I tried it was when I lived in Philadelphia. Noodles and chicken are delicious.”
Fernando gulped down his food. I couldn’t help but swallowed my saliva.
“It’s almost 9. How does he die?”
“He is to be stabbed too many times, I couldn’t count.”
The rage I’d sensed when I saw the vision came back instantly as if it’d never left.
“He’s a big guy. How could someone stab him and where is that person?”
August looked out the window as he talked.
“I didn’t see how the killer came in…is he falling asleep?”
The food box was dropped onto the floor.Fernando dozed off while holding chopsticks on his left hand. August and I looked at each other. A sound of the door creaking open gave me goosebumps.
It was like watching a horror/suspense film; a mysterious man walked into the room, holding a knife in his hand. You knew exactly what was about to happen. You wanted to turn away, but you couldn’t.
With first stab in the chest, the killer was serious and determined. Fernando woke up, his eyes opened widely. He was confused. He didn’t want to go down without a fight, but he had no strength. He got stabbed for the second time while trying to push the other man away. They both collapsed on the floor, the killer was on top of Fernando. He had no chance to defend himself when Omar Alderson kept thrusting the knife in his body again and again.
The logo on the killer’s cap reminded me of the food’s boxes on the floor. I realisedFernando was drugged, Omar put something in his food.
“Oh my god I know him.”
I’d never seen August looked this horrified before.
“Thisis for my wife,” Omar stabbed the man hard. “Thisis for my daughter!”
Every stab was vicious until the floor turned to a pool of blood. Omar was crying. His hands were shaking but he didn’t stop. He said names which I believed they were his wife’s and daughter’s.
“You can’t get away now,” Omar continued. “You are not getting away this time.”
The last stab pierced the lung. Omar left the knife there. He was panting and sweating, trying so hard to catch his breath.
Fernando was already dead by that point. In fact, he was dead by the fifth stab. His spirit stood beside August who forced him to watch until the end.
August called another grim reaper to take Fernando away. He’d never done that before, at least not when I was around. He stepped beside Omar, lowered his head.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” August said.
Of course, Omar didn’t hear him. I thought he was going to leave, but he fished his mobile phone out of his jeans’ pocket and called 911.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“I’d like to make a confession. I killed a monster. We’re in Unit 18, 13 Broome Avenue. He’s dead.”
Mostly, August and I would leave the scene because our job had been done. This time we both stuck around to see what would happen next. August explained that he was the one who collected the wife’s and daughter’s souls.
“He wasn’t like this, you know,” August said. “He was a good man, a caring person.”
I wasn’t surprised to see Detective Carhart arrived at the scene. The crime scene investigators collected evidences from Omar, Fernando, and the scene. And then the police brought him to the station.
We followed them into the interrogation room. There were two files on the desk. The thicker one was Fernando’s criminal record, the other one was Omar’s family. Detective Carhart and his colleague took the chairs opposite to Omar.
The man had washed his face and hands and changed to more presentable clothes lent by one of the officers, though some bloodstains remained visible.
Detective Carhart took few minutes to study the files, then gently asked question.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Omar was calmer than earlier. He already stopped shaking. His gaze kept fixing on his family’s file.
“I’ve been following him since May because you, thepolice, can’t do anything. You know he’s guilty, yet he was released. He was in a gang, he had back up. You know everything about him, but you do nothing. So, I’ve made a promise to my family that he’s going to get what he deserves. I know he liked to order Chinese food, I’d worked my way to that restaurant. I delivered his foods for weeks, but he had no idea who I am. He didn’t remember me.
“He only knew me as a delivery guy, he trusted me. It was simple, very simple, to crush pills and put them in his food. I clocked the time, waiting until he dozed off. And the fear in his eyes when he knew who I am…”
“Was it worth it?” asked, another detective.
“Every single second,” Omar answered without missing a beat.
“Do you know what’s going to happen to you? You are a murderer now. You’re not different from him.”
“How could you say that? You read his files. You know what he did. It wasn’t only my family. He was a murderer and a drug dealer. You sit here and do nothing! You can’t even catch the guy!”
After a long pause, Carhart finally spoke.
“There are laws, MrAlderson. Laws that keep people from doing something they’re going to regret.”
“I have no regret, detectives. My fate had been sealed since I started it. I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ll do it again and again. I don’t care what’s going to happen to me. Justice is served.”
The detectives left Omar alone in the room. I watched him sitting there, staring at his own hands. His family was killed by Fernando and the police couldn’t do anything. So, he set his own path to revenge.
I felt him. I knew he’d been through hell over and over again in his head. I knew he kept asking himself; should I do it? Should I be the one who act on it?
You are a murderer now. You’re no different from him.
I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ll do it again and again.I don’t care what’s going to happen to me. Justice is served.
Their words kept bouncing back and forth in my head.
What do I have to lose?
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