Connections

Providence Saint Joseph Hospital, approx. 11:55PM, March 31st

Daniel awoke and discovered himself sitting in between two other individuals, the person on his left was a male, he had a long blond beard and sharp emerald eyes which sparkled under the overhead lights. Some of his features were shared with Salma, Daniel concluded that there was a high chance that this was Mr. Patients, Salma's father. On Daniel's right was a woman, despite her age, she had only few wrinkles and her skin glowed like a golden peach, she was a brunette, and her eyes were a tamer green then the man to Daniel's right, her hair was braided and tied with the most beautiful red ribbon Daniel had ever seen. Salma herself was a spitting image of the woman to Daniel's left, there was no doubt at all in Daniel's mind that this woman was in fact Salma's mother.

Dan put his hand to his head, his head was throbbing. He examined his surroundings and not long after figured out that he was in a hospital. He had no idea how he got here, or any idea of what happened during the time of his unconsciousness; but this he knew for certain: he had a craving for ice cream.

Daniel spotted a male doctor leaving the ICU, he walked toward them and stopped in front of their seats.

"What's happing doctor?" Asked the brunette woman.

"She's going to be fine," the Doctor stated in a dark voice. "but there are things you should know. The bullet is lodged in the section of her brain that controls writing skills, if we remove it, there's a high chance she won't be able to write anymore. You'll have to re-teach her."

"Well, if we have to, then we will." Stated Mr. Patients.

"There is something else."

"Something else!" Mr. Patients exclaimed at a respectable volume, you could tell from his voice that he was quite shocked.

"Because of the bullet's location we had to do a brain scan to see the damage it caused. During this procedure we found a tumour. It's benign and fully operable, removing it will save her life and give her many years of life."

"My goodness! A tumour!" Stated Mrs. Patients, who then fainted.

"Do what you can to save her Doctor." Stated Mr. Patients.

"Of course. I don't know how you should feel about this, but if whoever shot her never did what he did, your daughter would have ended up in a much more dire situation. The bullet may not have taken her life, but it did help save it."

Daniel felt relieved, and he looked over to the blond-bearded man and saw that he too was just as relieved, even though he was struggling to hoist his wife back onto her seat.

Daniel made his egress from the hospital, and as soon as he stepped outside he became absolutely shocked at the fact that it had become as black as a lump of coal, he was desperately hoping that he would be able to solve the mystery during the night hours, but as he peaked at his watch to see, albeit faintly, that midnight had already passed. He was crushed and exhausted, there was no way to find information, the library would have closed hours ago. So he took a cab back to his hotel, journeyed tiredly up to his room and fell asleep the second his back hit the mattress.

Hilton Los Angeles, Room 312, April 1st, 8:00 A.M

Daniel was suddenly wakened by a ear piercing ringing sound. Daniel grabbed some earplugs which he kept in the drawer and put them in as a test to see if this was a medical problem, as soon he put them in the ringing then got quieter. He now realised that the phone was ringing, he removed the ear plugs and picked up the phone almost as fast as a fox runs.

"Hello, this is Daniel Smith, how can I help you?" Daniel stated as soon at the phone was in the correct position.

"This is David Lancer, get over to the studios as soon as you can, I would like to show you the surveillance footage of Robert's room the day of his murde."

"You couldn't have let me watch it earlier?"

"Well I could have, but I personally wanted to see if I could spot anything interesting in the footage, alas I did not find anything out of place. Maybe you might be able to see something we didn't."

"Alright, I'll over as soon as possible to see if I could find anything that could help." Daniel pressed the button that ends the call and dialled in the number to a taxi service to order a ride back to the studios.

Upon arrival at the studio, Daniel saw David outside the studio, smoking a cigarette like he usually did. Once David spotted Daniel approaching him, he stomped out the cigarette, he then picked up the smouldering remains and kept a hold of them, he didn't want to put the remainder back into his pocket as he didn't want to ruin his coat, he also wasn't going to leave the cigarette discarded on the ground like a piece of litter. It seemed that David wanted to dispose of the cigarette into a proper bin.

David used his empty hand to gesture to Daniel to follow him, he had great difficulty doing this as the arm attached to that hand was the one supporting the crutch he still had. Daniel nodded, he understood clearly the message David was finding so hard to send him. David Nodded back and began hobbling down the route to the security room, Daniel followed slowly and patiently behind him, as he didn't want to crash into him, David after all had already suffered enough pain and Daniel didn't want that pain to increase.

Soon enough they arrived, a man with brown toned skin opened the door before they could even have a chance to knock, it was clear to Daniel that this individual heard David's crutches hopping arose the ground. The man was wearing a security guard uniform, and he was smiling brightly, it was abundantly obvious that this man enjoyed the job he was doing.

"Hello Devin. I would like you to meet Daniel." David stated.

"Hello, it's nice to meet you." Daniel stated, he then proceeded to shake Devin's hand.

"Have you come to examine the footage? David said to me that he would call you." Devin replied.

"I am indeed here to examine the footage, please show me." Dan replied with great sincerity.

"Sure, just let me set it up." Devin stated. He then proceeded to run his index finger along the side of the videos stored away in the shelves inside this room, he found the tape he was looking for a few seconds after he began his search he found the tape he was looking for, he inserted the video into his VCR. He fast forwarded the footage to the point when Daniel left the room, he then paused the screen when the room was completely empty.

"This is where David began watching the footage." Devin stated.

"Very well then, I too shall watch the footage from this point on." David replied.

"Watch carefully, there are some glitches with the footage!"

"Glitches? What sort of glitches?"

"The recording randomly cuts out and restarts every now and then, meaning that this footage has time jumps in it. Sometimes it jumps a few seconds, other times two minutes of footage is lost."

"I'll keep that in mind." Daniel stated, after which he pressed the play button, and proceeded to examine the footage with intense scrutiny.

Soon the footage got to a point wherein Robert and Salma entered the room, they were probably about to discuss lines, or possibly kiss, but Daniel would never know as the footage skipped to another scene. In this new scene Robert was sharing a bottle of wine with Terrance, as soon as their glasses touched one another as they would in a toast the scene changed again.

This was the most vital scene in the footage, it showed Rodger sitting at his desk writing the same letter that Daniel had found on his desk earlier, suddenly a silhouette grabbed the lamp and smashed it on the table, making the room dark as night.

The next scene the footage showed was when Daniel entered the room to begin his personal investigation.

Daniel thought he spotted something in the scene where Rodger was writing the letter.

"Rewind it to the point when Bob was writing his love letter to Salma." Dan said.

"Ok." Devin replied, he then followed Daniel's instructions.

"Pause the footage!" Daniel exclaimed suddenly. Devin paused the video. "Look, inside the restroom!" Daniel shouted, he then pointed to something on the screen.

"Is that…" Stated David

"A wheelchair?" Devin exclaimed, finishing David's question.

"Yes, that is indeed a wheelchair." Daniel replied.

"That didn't show up in any of the other footage!" David exclaimed with a highly shocked tone.

"I believe the fact that a wheelchair shows up in the footage at all is very significant, I believe I know who committed the crime. But I'm still missing a few pieces, the picture is complete enough to make an arrest, but I'm going to finish the picture to ensure we catch this criminal." After Daniel made this statement he rushed out of the room.

"I wonder what he was thinking?" David stated, a look of confusion was painted across his face, he was still processing Daniel's monologue.

"How am I supposed to know? His your underling." Devin replied.

Multnomah County Library, 8:50 A.M.

Daniel was at the library, he was searching for information about the accident that Salma might have been involved in.

Dan searched for about half an hour before eventually finding files concerning an accident which Salma's full name was mentioned. When he found it he had to read it from the beginning.

According to the files, Edgar Riot's vehicle was rammed from behind, it was enough to force the vehicle to collide with a brick wall which was supporting a bridge. Edgar's wife died in the crash, Edgar himself received a broken right arm, two broken legs and a dislocated left shoulder, his son Jeffry was also in the vehicle at the time, he only received a few bruises, he was seating in the back, which protected him from the head on collision with the wall quite a bit.

Also stated in the files was the fact that Robert Altwitch was driving the vehicle that caused the accident. Robert was found to have no licence on him, however the woman who was also in the vehicle, whose name was Salma Patients was teaching him. At that time Salma herself only had received her license the day beforehand.

Daniel had an epiphany, he realised that there was a high probability that Bob was not driving the car. Salma was the one who called the authorities sure, but she could have caused the accident and to escape the blame she swapped places with her boyfriend, earlier she was trying to Daniel something that would have proven this line of reasoning as fact. This meant that there was a high possibility that Edgar has been blaming the wrong person this whole time, and that he almost succeeded in his revenge plan by shooting Salma, but she survived, and because of that a potentially deadly tumour was stopped before it became malignant.

Daniel knew he had to chat with Edgar as soon as possible, so he walked as fast as he was able as one does not simply run in a library, he walked to a public phone box and called Edgar's office. The earliest meeting time he was able to get was 10:00 a.m. which was highly manageable for Daniel at that time.

April 1st, Edgar Riots Office, Hollywood studios, 10:00

With all the information sorted immaculately in Daniel's mind and all connections firmly in place, he was finally prepared to face the man that he was completely certain to be the one who killed Robert. He knocked on the door, he was feeling nervous, but not enough for it to be echoed in his door knock. He heard Edgar's wheelchair as he moved toward the door and unlock it. "Why don't you let yourself in." Edgar stated from the other side. Daniel could hear Edgar wheeling himself away from the door, at this point, believing it was safe to proceed, Daniel opened the door. Daniel noticed that Edgar was practically back at his desk, he was in the process of parking the wheelchair back into place.

"What have I done to owe the pleasure of a visit from the elegant Detective Dan?" Edger inquired.

"Three thing, Extortion, Murder in the first degree and attempted murder." Daniel replied.

"What on Earth are you talking about?"

"Well it took me a while to understand why you did what you did. However it is quite sad and unfortunate that you did it to the wrong person."

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Now I may not have much experience, but I'm sure all criminals say that!"

"I'm not a criminal, if you believe I am one, then it is up to you to prove it!"

"Fair enough. First the criminal copied the Dr. Saemon book, this was because he was in an accident himself, and wanted to get revenge for a loved one, all of which is mentioned in this glorified dream journal, and guess who might have been seen by the author in his dreams, someone who would perfectly match the driver in the book."

"That's pretty convincing, I'll give you that. Dream abilities have helped catch criminals before, but you have no evidence linking me to this case, at least nothing you have shown me yet."

"Do you think I haven't scrutinised your profile to my absolute satisfaction? I have had a look at your resume, you have quite the coding experience, not to mention camerawork for school events, you may be a director here, but your experience goes way beyond that. You knew about the cameras issues, and didn't fix them as you knew it be advantageous for you to use those glitches to help mask your crime. However there was something you missed when you edited the footage after you committed the crime."

"Really? Would it be something that would be used as evidence against me?"

"Yes, I spotted your wheelchair in the bathroom just before you smashed the lamp."

"So, the wheelchair you saw might not be mine."

"True, but you are the only person in the studio who uses a wheelchair, plus you also had a very strong reason to both extort and murder Robert."

"AH! I don't like you detectives!"

"I'm right, ain't I."

"Yes."

"Then tell me what happened, tell me about the accident that claimed your wife's life."

"It was a average weekday, we were driving our precious boy to school, we went the usual route, which went through the tunnel under the blue bricked bridge…"

"The blue bricked bridge? Was that the accident site?"

"Yes, that's the name my son gave it, the accident happened at that location 5 weeks ago now. Now as I was saying, as we journeyed toward the bridge, we felt a sudden jolt from behind, I lost control of the vehicle and crashed into the wall on the right side of the bridge, me and my son became unconscious for a short while. When I awoke I discovered that my wife was buried underneath debris from the wall we just crashed into. Her blood was everywhere, and there was so much of it, I could only conclude that she was dead. I looked into the cracked side mirror and I could see Salma on the phone and Robert in the driver's seat of a car with a freshly dented front buffer, I was so angry at him that at that moment I swore revenge on him. I feel unconscious again for the pain of my injuries were too great for my brain to cope with them properly."

"So you killed him in the end. Right?"

"That's right, and I tried to kill Salma too to keep her quiet."

"There is an unfortunate twist that neither you, nor the person who wrote Dr. Saemon, saw coming. A major detail that may have changed your actions if you knew about it before killing my friend."

"What is this 'major detail'?"

"Salma was the person driving that day."

"T-t-that's insane! T-there's no way… she'd never hurt me, she called the ambulance and the police; she even helped us the best she could, I'd never hurt her."

"Rather odd thing to say after putting a bullet in her skull."

"That gun was supposed to be a prop, loaded only with blanks, how was I supposed to know it had real bullets in it?"

"That's rather unfortunate. After she awakens and testifies in court, she will probably admit that she was indeed the one driving that day."

"No! I won't believe that, even if she admits it."

"But Rodger never got his driver's license, nor has he ever had a learner's permit, he had never driven before in his life before that point, and at that time he wasn't even planning on it, the only reason he was in that car at all on that fateful day was to get a ride to work without having to pay a travelling fee, nothing more."

Suddenly Edgar began to cry. "I can't believe it, I killed an innocent person, and I almost killed the person who was truly responsible, I swore I'd never hurt her, she helped me and my son out of the goodness of her heart."

"You payed your debt by accidentally saving her life."

"I shot her in the head, she could have died, how could that have saved her."

"If you hadn't shot her she would have died anyway.'

"What are you talking about?"

"If it wasn't for that bullet, then the doctor wouldn't have found out about Salma's brain tumour, I'm sure she'll forgive you for shooting her after she finds out how you saved her life and that you never meant to hurt her."

"Really?!" Edger stated, tears still flowing from his eyes, suddenly he stood up, revealing the fact that he was able to use his legs again, he held out his arms, awaiting for them to be bound by a set of hand cuffs. "I'm ready to go now."

"David!"

David entered the room and arrested Edgar, David read Edgar his rights on their journey to David's police car, Dan followed behind.

Edgar's trial happened after Salma was dismissed with a clean bill of health. During the trial Salma did confess to crashing into Edgar's car, she sincerely apologised and because she was so kind, she also forgave him for his transgression against her. Edgar explained that he didn't want to sue her for damages, effectively getting her off the hook. At the end of the trail he was found guilty and later he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Despite this he still gets daily visits from his crew and was aloud to consult on the continuing production of his show. One of the members even said: "it wouldn't be the same without him."

April 1st, 9:00 P.M.

After spending way to long in Los Angeles Daniel decided to rest one more night, he had already booked a flight back to Perth city. When he got back to his hotel, he was out the second he hit the sheets.