The Devil's Deal, page 9
part #3 of Deadly Deception Series
“Absolutely, I will contact them this afternoon. I really don’t care whether it is Christmas or not, this part is probably the most important of all, besides being the most time consuming, so the earlier we start, the better it will be,” Dr. Wright agreed.
“I couldn’t agree more, you are going to take care of the surveillance cameras, and the alarm system of the place, I will arrange the moving of the lab to the B&B and on the 28th we are going to meet each other there and see what else needs to be taken care of. What do you think, does that sound like a plan?” Prof. Doyle asked quizzically.
“Yes, that will be perfect. I shall see you in three days, then!” Dr. Wright replied smiling.
As he hung up with Prof Doyle, Dr. Wright started to feel calmer, “now everything will begin to take shape and be ready for the next phase. Just one last call to organize the technical work and then the holiday can start,” he said taking a deep breath.
Once again, he dialed the phone number of the person who was in charge of coordinating the technical work at the resort. He thought he would be able to start from the following day, but people who worked on a steady basis for Mr. M. seemed to be always on call.
“I was waiting for your call, Dr. Wright,” Howard, the man who coordinated the technical part of the operations replied. “Mr. M. had informed us you would be calling a couple of weeks ago, so that we could begin to make all the preparations. I hope you haven’t waited until the last minute to take care of those details.”
“I really hope not. Yesterday was the soonest I could get the keys to the resort, which is now totally empty for us to use until the 21st of January. The therapy will not start before the 7th. Will two weeks be enough for you to act?” Dr. Wright said, fearing that there wouldn’t be enough time.
“That should be plenty, but can you meet me there this afternoon, so I can assess the situation and coordinate the work that needs to be done more efficiently?” Howard asked.
“That would be just fine. I will be there within three hours,” Dr. Wright said glancing the clock and calculating the time it will take for him to get ready and reach the premises.
“Perfect! See you then,” he said and hung up the phone.
“He must be a very busy person,” Dr. Wright chuckled, but he knew that from that moment on, he could have taken his life with a more relaxed schedule. “Everything will be fine; I can feel it.”
Chapter 6.
It felt strange for Justin to not be celebrating Christmas on December 25th. Jonas’ mother was very kind to organize a traditional Christmas dinner just so he wouldn’t feel too homesick.
“What are you thinking?” Jonas asked noticing his thoughtful expression as they were resting in Jonas’ room in his parents’ apartment.
Justin glanced at him smiling, “this is the first time that the family of one of my boyfriends is treating me like a family member. I feel so grateful to be able to have Christmas dinner with your family, even if you won’t technically celebrate it until next month.”
“That’s because you already are part of my family. You are my boyfriend, and soon there won’t be any obstacles standing in our way for us to live our lives together. This is the time to think about the future, and the way we want our relationship to develop,” Jonas said holding his hand. “I have never loved anyone the way I love you, and I want to share everything from now on, from the times we’ll share in our bedroom all the way down to the times we will wait for our turn in the bathroom in the mornings.”
Justin chuckled, “sounds like you are very serious…”
Jonas smiled, “of course I am, and although this is not the best time and I am not what you might call a romantic guy, I would like to ask you if you would do me the great honor of marrying me.”
Justin turned dead serious for a second. He wasn’t sure whether he understood him right, “are you proposing to me?”
“I do not have a ring yet, but if you say ‘yes’ now, I swear to God, I am running to the first open jewelry shop and picking you one out,” Jonas replied, his eyes steady on Justin’s.
Justin didn’t know what to say. He never thought about getting married, and he wasn’t prepared for Jonas’ proposal, so he just remained silent, open-mouthed.
“So?” cautioned Jonas.
“Are you still here?” asked Justin.
“Is this a way of saying ‘yes’?”
“Fuck yes, yes, yes, yes!” Justin yelped.
Jonas stood up from the bed and started to run towards the door, “where are you going?” yelled Justin as he saw Jonas disappearing from the room.
Jonas peeked from the door, “Don’t move, you’re going to have your ring.”
Without even waiting for an answer Jonas rushed out of the room and from the apartment, leaving Justin collecting his thoughts and replaying all the events of the past few minutes, just to understand what happened.
“What’s going on?” asked Jonas’ mother. “I saw Iona running out of the house like fury, did you argue again?”
“I believe he went to buy me an engagement ring, as apparently, he just proposed to me, and I accepted,” Justin replied standing up from the bed, still trying to reconstruct the facts.
She looked at him like he was just gone crazy, then she burst into a loud laugh. “Welcome to the family, son!” she yelled holding Justin so tight that he feared she was going to strangle him in her enthusiasm.
She parted and looked at him with a bright smile on her face, “you wait until I tell my husband, and from now on, you can call me ‘Deda,’ which means mother, and you can call my husband ‘Mama,’ father.”
Justin looked at her not understanding what she was talking about.
“The Georgian language is very different from English, and it might sound funny for you, but you will have time to get used to it,” she replied amused.
It wasn’t more than half an hour, before Jonas returned at home panting and excited, “Let’s do this the right way,” he said and kneeled in front of Justin, who started to chuckle amusedly.
“Justin, my only love. Would you make me the happiest man in this world and accept this ring, to become my husband?” he asked with a trembling voice.
Justin tried to keep serious, “I do, I will marry you, Jonas.”
Jonas’ mother was already crying, she felt so emotional at that moment, and wanted to tell the whole world how happy she was now that her son, finally found a man to share his life with. Her only sadness was that she knew she couldn’t tell anyone about it very loud, knowing that not everybody would have shared the same happiness at the news.
Right at that moment, as they were all celebrating the good news, Jonas’ telephone started to ring. He grabbed his phone and recognized the phone call.
“It’s Janet,” he said aloud. “Hello Janet.”
“Hello Jonas, I am sorry if I’m disturbing you, I just wanted to ask you whether you had the chance to call Lieutenant Sabari,” she hesitated.
“No, not yet, to be honest, I was thinking about going over there and see if I can get an appointment to speak with him. I am not sure how will I approach him, but it shouldn’t be that difficult, after all, we are not talking about having a chat with the president,” Jonas chuckled.
“Of course, but you might not be invisible, if you think to keep everything from Giorgi,” Janet warned.
“That is a good point, I need to be sure that he is out following a lead, or he might find my presence at the Police Department suspicious.”
“Why don’t you call the Department and ask to get connected with him? Giorgi would never know who you are calling,” Janet proposed.
“That is a great idea, I will call him as soon as possible, and I will let you know. However, I am not sure whether I really want to do it either tomorrow as I just got engaged with Justin and I would like to celebrate without thinking about this case.”
“Really?” Janet yelped excitedly. “I am so happy for you! I wish you all the best for the future. Is there a date for the wedding?”
“No, I just proposed, but it will be awesome to have an engagement party for friends and family. I will keep you updated on that,” he replied.
“Splendid! Have fun, then, and see you soon.”
“Sure, bye!”
Justin looked at Jonas, “what did she say?”
“She was saying that I should have called Lieutenant Sabari to have a chat with him about the case, without Giorgi finding out about it. I am afraid that if I go to the Police Department, Giorgi would get wind of it,” Jonas explained.
“I do believe that is a better idea myself,” replied Justin, sitting down on the couch. “are you going to call him tomorrow?”
“No, there isn’t any hurry for us to investigate in that case. I prefer to spend some time with my fiancé and have a real holiday with him,” Jonas replied, holding Justin tight to himself.
As the days went by, the last two days of the year approached, and everybody was preparing to greet the New Year, and before it would have been too late, Jonas decided it also arrived the time to call the Police Department and clear all the doubts that he had with Lieutenant Sabari.
As he forecasted, there wasn’t any problem to be connected to him from the receptionist, the only problem was that the case might have been still classified.
But I am not searching for information about the case, I just want to know why my cousin changed his mind so suddenly, and whether he has something to do with this decision, he thought as he was waiting on hold.
“Lieutenant Sabari,” a male voice replied.
“Oh, Good morning Lieutenant, this is Iona Avaliani. I am Giorgi Bochorishvili’s cousin, and I was hoping I could have a short chat with you about him,” Jonas replied.
Lieutenant Sabari didn’t know what to say, for this was the first time that a family member of any officer in his Department had called asking to speak to him.
“If there is anything, I can do to help you, I will be pleased to assist,” he replied, curious to understand what that phone call was about.
“I really appreciate your time, I am a Police Lieutenant with the Boston Police Department in the United States, and I have been informed about the case of the murder of a prostitute that happened last year here in Tbilisi. The main suspect was an American tourist, but all the charges against him were dropped when there wasn’t any credible evidence of his involvement,” he started to explain.
“I cannot disclose to you the details of our investigation on the case without an official request from your government,” he replied resolutely.
“I am not looking for any information about the case, what I am looking for, is the reason why you have decided to close the case,” Jonas pursued.
“We didn’t close the case. To be more precise, we simply decided to keep it on the back burner,” Lieutenant Sabari clarified.
“This is also what Giorgi told me about it, but I am wondering about his behavior, more than the reason why the case was put on the back burner in lieu of other operations.”
“I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean,” he wondered.
“I will try to explain myself better. I had talked to Giorgi about this case when Mr. Ethan Jackson returned to the States and had to be debriefed. At that time, Giorgi was literally obsessed with finding the murderer, and if I know him the way I think I do, he doesn’t give up easily on a case. Now after an entire year of obsessively pouring over the details of this case, he suddenly told me that he has been convinced to give up the case and focus on more important crimes. Of course, if that was an order coming from you or from the Chief of the Police Department, I do not have any other questions, and for me, the case is closed. However, if you also think that his decision was too sudden to fit with Giorgi’s behavior, then I guess we have another mystery to solve.”
Lieutenant Sabari remained thinking about what Jonas just said, and he had to admit that perhaps there was something strange in Detective Bochorishvili’s behavior.
“The only time we have spoken about this case was a couple of months ago, and I told him that there were also other cases to solve. I asked him to give the right priority to each case so that we are not falling behind with investigating any crime,” he explained. “What I meant was not to close the case, but to give the right priority to all the cases we have to deal with. We do not have unlimited resources, for this reason, we need to prioritize.”
“So, you are telling me that you didn’t talk to him recently about the murder?” He wondered.
“No, as I already told you, I asked him to put the murder investigation in the background a couple of months ago. I am not sure whether he really listened to me or not, but it was clear that he was able to coordinate the investigation for whatever we are having at our hands,” he confirmed.
“I understand, let me ask you a final question, and I promise I won’t bother you any longer,” Jonas considered. “Have you noticed any sort of behavioral changes in Giorgi?”
“Hmmm…” he mumbled thinking carefully on how he was going to reply. “Well, there has been a couple of days where he has behaved very strangely. It was almost like he was on another planet and getting his attention was almost impossible. I thought it was because of the stress at work, so I asked him to take a couple of days off and return only when he would have regained his strength. After that, he returned as the same old person I used to know.”
Jonas tried to fill in all the gaps he had about his cousin’s behavior, “when did he take those couple of days off?”
“I can’t say exactly, but it was perhaps at the end of November or beginning of December, somewhere around there,” he replied uncertainly.
“I see, well for the moment I do not have any other questions, and I am really grateful for your availability. I understand you must be quite busy, and I do not want to take up too much of your time. I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,” Jonas wished.
“The same to you, Lieutenant Avaliani.”
Jonas hung up the phone and glanced at Justin who was waiting for any news from his fiancé. “So? What did he say?” Justin wondered impatiently.
“We have two main facts we need to clarify either with Giorgi or with Janet,” Jonas commenced, as he went to get a notebook and a pen.
“We have the confirmation from Lieutenant Sabari, who claimed that he has never formally asked Giorgi to close the case. The only thing he told him was to prioritize his caseload and give the adequate amount of time to all the cases they were dealing with. This happened a couple of months ago,” he said writing the date on the paper.
“Then,” Jonas continued, “we have Giorgi who has been behaving so strangely at work that Lieutenant Sabari told him to take a couple of days off to take care of himself.”
He wrote the date on the paper adding a note about Giorgi’s behavior.
“Another thing that must be noted is that during that same period, Giorgi called me stating that he has been convinced to put the investigation aside and focus on more urgent cases,” Jonas said. “Now, I don’t know what you think about it, but for me, this means that Giorgi has been lying to us. The reason why, I do not know yet, but you can be sure that I will look deeper into this. Something’s just not adding up here.”
Justin grabbed the notebook and started to think about the timeframes, and indeed there was something that didn’t make sense. “The most important question is why lie to you when he asked so insistently for your help? He practically dragged you back to Tbilisi to help him close the case. Then he lies to you by telling you that his supervisor convinced him to give up the case, which by the way, hasn’t even been closed. Either he has developed some mental illness, caused by on the job stress or whatever else it might be, or he has been threatened into leaving it alone,” commented Justin. “Personally, I cannot say that I know your cousin at all, but I think I know something about human nature. I don’t believe he has gone insane, perhaps someone forced him to step aside.”
Jonas nodded thoughtfully, “He doesn’t look scared…”
“Maybe because he agreed to close down the investigation,” Justin pursued.
“We need to talk to Janet. See if she recalls any suspicious behavior during the same period. Then we can consider talking to Giorgi himself,” He stood up from the chair and started to walk to the closet to get his coat.
“Where are you going?” Justin wondered.
“You mean where we are going, you are coming with me Detective soon-to-be Avaliani. We are going to meet up with Janet, I will call her as soon as we get outside.”
“Who told you that I would take your name once we get married?” Justin challenged.
“Because I say so. Besides Justin Avaliani sounds better than Jonas Sheen,” he replied winking.
“I wouldn’t be so sure, if I were you, Lieutenant Sheen. Or maybe we can keep our surnames.”
“Diplomatic answer, and perhaps this is the best way,” he chuckled.
As they were getting into the car, Jonas called Janet to make sure that they could meet as soon as possible. She agreed and invited them to drop by her apartment, so they could have plenty of time and privacy to talk about the whole case.
“So, what is that you needed to talk about so urgently?” Janet asked as she invited them into her apartment.
“Before I tell you what I have found out, I want you to remember the day when Giorgi told you about him stepping aside from the investigation. Can you tell me when it was and every detail you can remember of that day?” Jonas asked as he sat down on the couch.
“I can’t tell you the exact day as it happened quite some time ago, I guess it was during the first week of this month, or maybe even a little bit before that. I found it strange because this case was all he could talk about,” Janet replied, trying to recall that day.
