The Masked Murder

The Masked Murder

A Short Story by Jeff Davidson












© 2005 Jeff Davidson
This story is solely the author’s work and no part of this
work may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form
without author permission.






The murder of Mr. Hen T. Green seemed like the most interesting of cases on my behalf. It took my eye while reading an article about the famous writer’s suicide.
The Grendich Time’s banner read “Notoriously Well Known Writer Dead”
“The well known write, Hen T. Green with his classics like Gordon and My Boy was found dead last night. He was spotted when Mr. Fruff found. Fruff said, ‘I was walkin’ with my dog you see and I saw somethin’ shimmer. I walked over to ‘dis her body cause I saw his watch, flickerin’ in the moon light.’ The body at the bottom of Red’s Cliff was not an eye-pleaser. It was mangled from an obvious fall of over a hundred feet.” at the side of the article was Fruff in a black suit, along with a large black lab.
“The body had splatters of blood on its surroundings like tree’s and bushes. Everyone came to the conclusion that Mr. Green committed suicide. Why? No one really knows. He was very accomplished and everybody liked him. He was a kind, gen-tle man. He has three kids and a loving wife that he has been married to for twenty years now. They refuse to speak on the matter as of now.”
The article continued onto the next page while Mr. Green closed shut the paper, sitting his cup of coffee down on the table. He stood up, walking over to the door. The man turned and thought about Mr. Green, he had been a close friend of his.
Why would he kill himself? He had everything going for him and he just throws it all away.

A clang of coin was heard as a sack of gold and jewels were thrown onto a table.
“A cliff,” said a mysterious figure from a corner, he walked forward exposing a dark hooded figure, “I like it. Now take you dough and scram.”
“Yes sir.” said the man who grabbed the bag. He pulled off his hat, gesturing it out to the dark figure, bowing low, “At your service.”
The hooded man pulled out a gun and shot the man three times.
“I am no longer in need of your service.” he said, walking over the body, “Take him away Patrick.”
“Of course.” said a very low, deep voice. It was another tall and hooded figure that stepped out from the shadows.

On my way to work I pondered these questions. He was just be-coming a very popular writer. His works had inspired many. He had told me that he was almost finished with his next book, his best one yet.
Why? Why? Why?
There was a clash of papers and other work materials on that sunny day off Main Street. I had run into a man, a very tall one. He was bulky, his arms full of muscle.
“Watch where you’re going,” he said in a very deep voice, “you could get hurt next time.” He picked up his papers and something very shiny. It was something silver with a black grip from the looks of it. Before I could get a better look he had turned the corner.
“Out of sight and out of mind.” I said to myself. Yet I knew this man was not going to be out of my mind.

I sat by the fire that night, thinking about everything. I felt horri-ble, like I was ready to cry. I held onto a teddy bear my mother had given me as a child for comfort.
The night made nothing better. It was pouring rain with winds that would knock you right off your feet. The trees would sway and snap in the gale force winds.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door.
“Who would be here at this time?” I asked myself, yet de-cided to go to the door anyway. Before opening I looked out and saw a hooded figure polishing a very long revolver.
I fell to the floor with one giant gasp. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. The first thing I could think of I did.
I ran upstairs.

I heard a loud crash as I sat in that closet, huddled in the corner. He had broken through the door. I heard him walking around downstairs, smashing whatever he could.
Then it happened, the foot steps moved up the stairs. The creak of the fifth board, he was half way there now. I felt my blood go cold and I almost passed out.
Yet I didn’t, I knew that would be my death. I sat and waited, until he entered upon my room. The man walked around, picking things up then shattering them down. Another floor board creaked, the one in front of my closet door. I could almost see him smile.
The door flew open and I jumped out, throwing him to the ground. I ran to my window and jumped. He got in one shot at my leg on my mad dash out the glass. I grabbed the wet nearby vine that ran down my house. I slid to its’ base and jumped off; screaming in pain from the shot that only skinned my lower leg.
Blood covered my lower pants while I ran and ran. I knew the man was still in my house. I turned once when I was far out of his guns range and saw his dark shadow standing in my window. And on that black night, I knew my life would never be the same again.

I ran off into the night at top speed. Things were swirling through my head; I was trying to make a connection. The possi-ble suicide of my friend and now this. Something was wrong…something was very wrong.
I reached the police station far after midnight. It had been about ten fifteen when he broke into my home; the police station was about twenty miles from my home. It had to be at least five in the morning.
I crotched down under the police station sign by the door, waiting for someone to come.
***
I jumped awake at the sound of more foot steps. I looked under the sign to see a pair of police shoes walking through puddles. Sighing, I got up to talk to him.
He jumped at the sight of me coming from behind the sign. I don’t really blame him though; my sight was not a pleas-ing one. I was wet and covered in mud. My face and hair had pebbles and dirt all over it. I could have been mistaken for the sand man that bright morning.
The officer grabbed his belt and held up his pants up a lit-tle higher. He was the kind of stereotyped officer, wide and ap-pearing as if he had a couple donuts back in the day. “You scared me there son.”
“Sorry officer Henry, but I have a little problem.”
“By ‘gum you do. Come inside, tell me what’s hap-pened.”

Inside the station I felt a lot safer. The atmosphere was nice and simple. Things were clean and organized. He made me take a shower before I talked, said that would be better than me freez-ing to death.
After the warm shower I was feeling a little better. I sat down on a large cushiony couch and talked.
“Well you see sir, last night, a little after ten; I heard a knocking at the door. I looked outside and I saw a tall hooded man holding a long silver gun. I ran up to my room to hide cause he broke in. He came up to my room and I tackled him and ran. He shot my leg on the way out the window, nothing serious.” I said, unraveling the ripped shirt around the cut.
The officer sat down behind his desk, holding a large cup of coffee, “Tell me son, you got any enemies?”
“No sir.”
“Did you do anythin’ to get someone mad recently?” he asked me.
“No, I stay to myself in my little home.” I said, “And I don’t believe he was there to rob me.”
“No,” he responded, “neither do I.”
The officer was rubbing him chin and I said, “Sir, you’ve heard of the death of Mr. Green haven’t you?”
“Of course I had,” he said, standing up and pacing the room, “I was on the case. Wonderful man, his death was a big surprise to us.”
“Well I was a good friend of Mr. Green. I don’t under-stand either why he would kill himself. I’m starting to come to the conclusion that he didn’t.”
“Hmm.” said the officer, once again rubbing him chin.
“I’ve been thinking that maybe there’s some connection. Is there any way we can go see the body.” I asked him.
“Yes we may be able to see it before the autopsy but…”
“But what?” I asked.
“But they don’t usually let anybody see the body before they perform the autopsy.” he said, “You know I was a good friend of Mr. Green too. I don’t believe that man killed himself, and it’s our civic duty to figure out why he died,” he paused, “we move tonight.”

Officer Henry said it was not safe to return to my home any time soon. He showed me to the hotel next to the station, said he would be there to pick me up around midnight tonight. I was go-ing to go sleep until then, maybe get something warm to eat.
I slept all day until my alarm clock went off around 11:45. I sat up in my bed, rubbing my eyes. I was ready to find out the truth.
I heard a knocking at the door, he was early. Without thinking I unlatched the door to find the hooded figure.
“Well hello.” he said and pushed the door back. His voice was deep and horrifying. I fell to the floor as he pulled out his very long silver gun. A large dog stood behind him growling.
“What do you want? Why are you after me?” I screamed at him, hoping someone would hear and help.
“You are a bad man, and bad men deserve to die.” he put the gun in front of my face, placed his finger on the trigger, “Say bye bye.”
He crashed to the floor and I scrambled backwards to miss the falling corpse. The dog ran off yelping.
“Bye bye.” said Officer Henry who was standing in the open doorway, “Are you alright?”
“Yes I’m fine,” I said, gasping for breath, “You saved my life.”
Henry was already at the body; he picked up the gun and observed it. “I think I saved a lot more than just your life. Look at this.”
I got up and walked over to the fallen body. The officer said, “Look at this, it’s a wire connected to a bomb under his shirt.” He exposed the man’s chest with a bomb taped to it, “This much explosives could blast our city along with the next three. These guys mean business, but I don’t know what for. Any ideas?”
“No,” I said, still breathing heavily, “I don’t really under-stand anything right now.”

We decided that we should go; he said I could stay but I couldn’t wait any longer. This may be a once in a lifetime chance to find evidence about my friend.
We walked up to the building after midnight. It was pretty funny actually; I was breaking into an autopsy room with a po-lice officer.
“Now this place is locked but I think I can get in with this.” he said, holding out a fake ID card that read Joshua Burn.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
“When you’re an officer you learn a lot more than just how to shoot a gun.” he replied.
We walked up to a back door, careful to be low to the ground. He put the card into the scanner and we jumped in.

The place was spooky. Its walls were covered in filing cabinets that were completely filled. Rooms to each side had small glass windows with metal wire weaved through. We walked to the end of the dark hall, and went through a door labeled “Holding Room.”
The holding room had looked as I expected, hundreds of black metal lockers lining the walls.
“How do we know which one is his?” I asked, wondering how we could find his body in the hundreds of lockers.
The officer looked around and then pointed at something, “Over there, the computer.”
Yes of course I thought, the computer.
We jogged to the computer and turned on the monitor. The computer had stayed on but it needed a password. Simple enough, Joshua would help us. Officer Henry typed in the code on the back of Joshua’s card and came up with a screen that said, “Search Database.”
Officer Henry typed in Green to find over thirty names. “Here,” he said, “Hen T. Green, Male, Age 37. He is locker 92.”
We turned and ran to locker 92. It was the third row from the bottom and easy enough to view the body. The officer put his card in front of the locker and it scanned. There was an unlock-ing sound as the locker became undone. Together we pulled it out to expose a pool of blood.
And nothing else.

“A little late aren’t we boys?” said someone from behind them.
We turned around to see three hooded figures, the middle one was the one talking. The center one was also the one holding the gun.
“How nice of us to finally meet.” he said, “It’s been so long.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Who am I?” he said, the three of them laughed, “Why I am Bert, don’t you remember? We used to go to school to-gether.”
“Oh my god.” I said, “No, Bert no.”
He walked forward, talking extremely loud now, “Yes, you and Green used to always pick on me. That I dealt with; I could live with your torment. But you took the woman I love. YOU STOLE HER FROM ME! NOW I’M GETTING REVENGE BUDDY, OH AND HOW SWEET IT IS!”
Out of nowhere Officer Henry shot the mans gun out of his hand, then again at his arm (aimed at his head but he was al-ready running). The main hooded figure ran, holding his hand tightly. The officer shot at the other two but missed. They were all gone within seconds.
“Officer Henry, what a nice surprise,” said another offi-cer.
“Officer Fern,” said Henry nodding to him, “did you catch those men? They were after this man here. I came just in time. They chased him in here and he pulled his gun. I had no choice but to fire.”
“Yes we know. And no we didn’t catch them.” the officer changed to me, “Go home son, get some sleep.”
“I’ll take him home sir.” he said with another nod good-bye.
“Take care officer.” Fern said.

Officer Henry’s car was a wreck, the complete opposite of his office.
“Come back to my house, I don’t want you at your home right now.” he said to me.
“Yes,” I said, “But why didn’t you say that to officer Fern? You told him you were taking me home?”
“You see, not all officers are good with these types of things. He could connect a few things very easily if he wanted to, in which I’m sure he does, then get us both thrown in jail.” he stopped at a red light in town, “You are no longer safe. Now he has a reason to be after you. There are many questions running through my head that I don’t understand, you have to just trust me.”
I hope I can officer I thought to myself, God help me if I can’t.

“Come on, get inside, don’t let no one see you.” said the officer in a very sketchy tone. He was obviously afraid, anxious. Now this scared me because when you’ve got an officer afraid, there’s good reason for yourself to be afraid.
His home was a humble one, clean and bright. Yet not for long, he shut the blinds and all the lights except for one at a com-puter.
“Pull up a chair,” he said, “I have a feeling we may be up for a while.”

We were searching through his computer, through files and internet sites. He would ask me loads of questions about this Bert.
He started off with, “What’s his last name?”
“Ramos,” I said, “he’s…”
I was interrupted by the fast paced clicking through a huge cyber file. Up popped a page that said “Zero found.”
“No criminal background in our area.” he said, “But he could on a higher level. I should check.” he started talking to himself, he sounded almost crazy, “that’s difficult, very difficult though. Getting into those files are dangerous material for a local cop.”
I started to lose him, he was speaking so fast. Soon his clicking started up again, he went to an internet page and at-tempted to get into what looked like a federal website. It was use-less, the password was invalid. He was mumbling now.
“Hacking, the only way.” he mumbled to himself, “Yes.”
He started to do things like shutting off firewalls and spy blockers. Then he walked out of the room for a few seconds and came back with another computer that he connected into the wall.
His talking continued, “I can get into my computer.” He went to the original computer and clicked on the web page again, same error, “Through this computer, and possibly find the code. Difficult, yes, very difficult.”
He obviously had his mind set to this, something was go-ing to happen soon, I could feel it. He was on a role, a dangerous one that could end you up at the bottom of a cliff.
He started to type on the other computer, doing very odd things I had never seen or known possible. The officer was a su-per genius and I had never known it.
“How did you learn all this stuff?” I asked him.
He started to talk without looking at me, “In college I did this type of stuff all the time. Never on this level of course, but I did this sort of stuff. My friends and I would hack into each oth-ers computers for fun. We stopped when our head mistress caught us one day. Said ‘You haven’t broken any rules because it’s your own computers but you could. This type of stuff could get you boys in a lot of trouble and I want you to stop. If I see you again you’re all going to be expelled.’ So we stopped, never to do it again until today.”
“Wow.” I said, amazed and a little afraid.
“Yeah, hopefully I can still do this type of stuff. It’ll be a lot harder like this though.”
“But wouldn’t they be able to track the computer?” I asked.
“No because this other computer is completely untrace-able. It was given to me through the police department so I wouldn’t be caught tracking criminals. Heh, they probably never though I’d be hacking into the FBI and CIA.”
I jumped out of my sea, “FBI and CIA!” I exclaimed, “Is that possible?”
“Oh it’s possible. Whether or not I can do it, I’m not sure.”
“But…do you really think this guy would be on an FBI/CIA level?” I asked.
“Yes I do. Anyone who carries guns and explosives with loads of henchman must be at least a little dangerous. Don’t you agree?”
“I guess you’re right.” I said, “I don’t understand though. If he has all these henchmen, how do we know that it was even him back there?”
“Because the murderer will always tell you who he really is before he’s ready to kill you. He wants you to know his re-venge, it would make it sweeter for him.” he said while vigor-ously typing away at both computers now.
“Then in the future how will we know it’s him?”
“It depends; if he attacks us then we won’t know until we reveal the face. That is why I am looking for all of this, for a criminal record. Yet if we go after him then we can know, we would have to stop him and all his henchman. Hopefully his voice is distinctive to him and only him. If his voice is not then it will be hard to tell by that.” he said it all very fast, “I want a criminal record on him and possibly his henchman so we can prove he was wanted or proven a criminal before.”
“Ok.” I said, and let him work for a while now.

“Yes! I’m in,” said the officer, “I got a fake name and password and now I am on the linked FBI/CIA website. Now I have to look him up before I get kicked off.”
“Kicked off?”
“Yeah they’ll catch me soon, but since it’s late it may take a little longer. Hopefully luck will be with us this night.” he said.
“How long do you think it will take?”
“About an hour I’d say. If were lucky we could get two or three.”
“What if we’re not?” I asked.
“About two and a half minutes.”
Luckily we had more than two and a half minutes because we were going to need it. It had been half an hour without finding anything. These databases were huge; it was like nothing I had ever seen. It was pile upon pile upon pile of anyone and every-one. Millions of people were named in here, for anything they had done. We were almost ready to give up when something odd came up.
“Bert Ramos is Under Level 5 Security. Level 5 Security Password Require.” Started to flash across the screen, over and over again. They meant business with this, they were hiding something that they didn’t want people like us to see.
But Officer Henry wasn’t just a person; he was a police officer and ex-hacker.
“So you can do this right?” I asked him nervously.
“I dunno,” he said, now he was rubbing his chin again, “Level five is difficult you see. This level is monitored continu-ously around the world, not only by computers, by humans. They watch this every waking minute. This is not like the TV shows where the guy falls asleep in front of the camera, no they are always awake. They have at least forty people I know of watching this part of the site, then hundreds of computers that will see anything. We have to get in here unseen, but that’s very difficult. I only know one person who could do it.”
“And who would that be?”
“Ghost,” he said, “they say he’s one of the best hackers, but he’s in retirement from hacking now and I doubt he’ll come out.”
“Who is this ‘Ghost’ though?”
“Officer McBride.”
“Officer McBride?” I called out, “Are you serious?”
“Yes now quiet down,” he said, shushing me, “nobody knows this, if they did it could ruin his life. He went into every-thing, not just each others computers and small websites. He’s the only one that could handle something like this.”
“You said he’s retired from this though.”
“Well we’re going to get him out.” said the officer.

It was raining again as we stood at the door of Officer McBride’s. This surprised me a great deal because Officer McBride seemed like one of the nicest family men in our town. He has never pulled a gun on anyone in his life, although he could have on a few occasions.
Henry rang the door, no answer. He rung it again and we heard a man come down the stairs saying, “I heard ya’, I heard ya’.”
The short bulky man opened the door to see the two most disgusting and dirty people on the face of the earth. We were not only covered from head to toe in dirt and other materials, we were worn out of our minds now. Things were racing and spin-ning.
“Officer Henry, what in blazes name are you two doin’ out there? Come in.” he said.
“No time, we have to get back to my house. We are in grave need of your help, there’s a murderer on the loose and you’re the only one that can help us right now.”
“What is it? What do you need me to do?” he demanded.
“You need to hack Officer. We need you now; I have got-ten into the FBI and CIA site. I need to get into a Level 5 though. We need the information in there; it can lead us to solv-ing this case.”
“Stop stop stop,” he said, “now I don’t know nothin’ about your case here but I told you, I’m in retirement. I don’t hack anymore, it’s a dangerous field. And a Level 5 man, I don’t even know if I’ve ever done a Level 5.”
“This man could’ve killed hundreds; he could have had even you dead today. He had a bomb in the Beamers Motel to-day. He had enough explosives to blow this town along with the next three, to pieces. You’d all be dead. Worst of all, it wasn’t even him; it was one of his henchman. I killed him right before he detonated the bomb. We were over at Hen T. Green’s body which we found out was missing. This man must have taken it, he’s hiding something. Green didn’t commit a suicide, come on. Connect the pieces officer, somebody killed him. We need you to get that Level 5 and now!”
Officer McBride thought about it for a moment then said, “For Green I will do it.”
“Thank you,” said Henry, “thank you, thank you, thank you.” He crawled up to him and gave him a hug, McBride hugged him back.

This would be another “work through the night” for them. Eve-rything seemed so complicated and extreme. Officer McBride was one of the most amazing hacker I’d ever seen, and I’ve watched a lot of TV shows. He takes awesome to the limit and over.
He started his work on the Level 5. We were on a race against the clock at the moment. No one knew how much time they had left, and ghost started to seem uneasy.
“This is difficult work Officer,” Ghost said, he was start-ing to sweat; “I’ve never managed anything like this before. Its dangerous, and I hope you know that.”
“I do sir, I do.” responded Henry.
Ghost’s work continued, he sent orders into the com-puter, codes to crack other ones. He piled in hundreds of pass-words and nothing seemed to work.
But none of that mattered when the power went out…and let me tell you, I doubted it was coming back any time soon.

Those horrid foot steps came from the front of the house again. It was him; he was back for his revenge.
Officer Henry ran to get his gun on the other side of the room but was quickly stopped by one of the hooded figures. He put his hand over the mans mouth to stop the yelling and two more stepped from the shadows. They took Ghost and I with an extraordinary strength, throwing us both to the ground. They tied rope around all three of our wrists, legs and mouths. That was the last thing I saw before I felt the butt of a gun come in contact with the back of my head.

I woke up in what looked like a hospital room. I had no idea what day it was, or what time for that matter. Yet something was wrong, very wrong. It wasn’t normal, no little TV or nurse who brings you drinks. All around the room were pictures of a black lab.
The ropes were still around my wrists, legs and mouth. I closed my eyes for a second, very tightly, then looked to both sides. On the two nearby beds lay the bodies of Officer Henry and Ghost.
“Oh how revenge is sweet.”