A Touch of Memory and Revenge

4. Johan reads the crime scene

13 years later

Johan raised the yellow tape that was guarding the crime scene and bent to pass under it. He walked over to the place where he saw detective Lucas standing.

“Hey Lucas…”, he greeted the man as he nodded.

“Hey, sorry to call you in on such a short notice. But we would be needing an extra set of eyes on the crime scene. We assume it’s a case of arson, nothing was found here except the bodies that were burnt beyond recognition. Forensics couldn’t lay their hands on any important thing also”, Lucas informed him.

Johan was a special consultant for the police force and was only called in whenever they couldn’t figure out things on their own and they needed an extra eyes like his own to read the crime scene and find out things that only him would see.

 People knew him as the guy that worked with the investigation team but didn’t know what he specifically did for them.

Johan shook his head, “ No, I don’t think I can do it Lucas, you know I don’t do fires..”, he told Lucas. 

Reading fire scenes always left him bare and messes him up afterwards.

Lucas sighed, “ I know…,i am just desperate” , he muttered.

“There was a fire like this last month, the entire family was burnt without recognition and the house burnt to the ground too. We have gone through all the evidence forensic got from the scene but nothing was pointing us to what had happened. Please Johan”, he explained.

Johan shook his head, fires were a no for him. Anytime he goes close to a fire scene or a car explosion scene, his mind goes haywire. Sometimes he would find himself collapsed on the floor.

Erik had told him that it was a trauma as a result of an accident he witnessed when he was still little. He had made efforts to see a therapist to try and remember why he would be traumatized by an accident but all to no avail. Anytime he goes close to the truth, his entire body would shut down.

“Johan…”, Lucas tried to persuade him again.

Johan sighed rubbing his forehead. He was going to regret doing this, he thought. Hell, Eric was going to kill him first.

“Fine, let me get my stuffs from the car”, he told Lucas as he turned towards his car.

He opened his door and pulled on his  black leather jacket grabbing a bottle of glucose water, head set and a nose mask and stepped out of the car, shutting the door.

He walked back to the fire scene peering at the burnt down house in front of him.

“Is the scene preserved?”, Johan asked.

Lucas nodded his head, “yes, only forensics went in and you know them, all gloves and masks, so nothing was contaminated.

One time he had tried to carry out a reading on a contaminated scene and ended up with a migraine that took almost a week to subside. 

Johan nodded, “You know the drill, keep everyone away from the scene as possible. If you don’t see me out in an hour, you know what to do, right?…”, Johan asked him raising a brow.

Lucas nodded , “come get you…, I got it”, Lucas said turning around and giving an order for everybody to move back.

Johan wore his jacket covering his arms. He just needed only his hands to be bare. He wore his nose mask over the half of his face blocking his nose from any left over fire scent as he covered his ears with the head set, this time, choosing one of the songs by an orchestra groups.

The sound blocked out every other noise from entering his ears. He needed to concentrate and sounds that were not organized was a distraction.

He handed over his bottle to Lucas when the guy returned to his side and nodded, “lets do this.” 

Johan started to make his way towards the burnt building only to turn back to Lucas. “Don’t call Erik this time”, he warned Lucas before looking ahead and taking his first step into the building.

His boot crushed the wood that he stepped on rendering it to ashes as he passed. He took in a deep breath and removed his hand gloves.

Walking into a section of the house, he noticed that this was obviously the living room. One of the victims was found there in the room. He looked at the sign on the ground, squatting to touch the burnt wood.

He closed his eyes listening intently but saw nothing, moving to touch the burnt couch and all the burnt items around, nothing was there, he thought. 

He rose to his feet walking over to the next room, the wall was still intact, even though half of it had collapsed. He touched the wall, moving deeper into the room, a metal object was by the wall.

“A mirror…”, he whispered touching it’s edges. He ran his hand through the base of it and something flicked in his mind. He saw a woman who was panicking as she tried to remove something from behind the mirror.

He opened his eyes looking at the mirror. Something was behind it, so he tried to pull it open but it wouldn’t open. The fire probably must have rendered the lock useless.

He pulled to the side, using his hands to search behind it if there was a button or something that he needed to touch to open the mirror but felt nothing.

Johan released a frustrated sigh, they were going to drill it out if they couldn’t open it, he turned to call someone in but stopped when he remembered the image he just saw. The woman had tapped the base of the mirror.

He looked at the base and used his finger to observe any slight break in design. He opened his eyes wide when he found it.

“Got ya!”, he exclaimed as he pushed.

The mirror creaked open and he looked into the cabinet built behind it. No wonder the wall was still standing.