Variable X Ch 5: Interrogation

Journal Entry 15: January 13th 2008

About a week has passed since the fake journal was taken. As I reported before, it was taken by one of Matilda’s friends, a man with long black hair and a goatee. After that day, I worked on finding a way to get this man alone so I can talk with him. A few days ago, I came up with a plan to lure him into a trap, using this notebook as the bait. Expose him for what he really was, and find out if he knows anything about Matilda Benedict.

So two days ago, I walked by him in the hallways of my school, with my coat conveniently open, exposing the journal in my right coat pocket to him. He didn’t say anything, as I walked by quickly enough so that he didn’t have enough time to speak to me, but I did see the expression on his face, so I know he saw it and, considering how crude a thieves like him usually are, I could pretty much guess what he was planning to do. Although, this theif is a little clever than I thought he’d be.

The next day, I drove home from school and I noticed that up until I got home, a black car was tailing me around. The same black car that I saw the thief walk into at the parking lot at school. It seems our thief  was waiting me to stop somewhere where he could either sneak up and steal it, or take it by force. He did the same thing yesterday and earlier today, so I can only guess he’ll try it again tommorow, which is why I’ll be going out for a bit tommorow. I know exactly where to go.

~

The alarm clock in Vincent’s room went off at exactly 9AM. Vincent woke up immediately, spun himself off of his bed, and turned the alarm off.

It was Saturday, so Vincent had the day to himself. After getting dressed, he grabbed his keys and headed for his car to get breakfast at the usual spot at the Cornerstone Café. Before he got out the door, his mother called him. “Vincent? Can you come here for a moment?” she said from the living room.

“What’s up, Mom?” Vincent asked.

“I need you to run some errands for me.” She answered. “Your father had to go to the station early so you’re the only one with a car. You see, we missed the recycling truck yesterday, so I need someone to take the cardboard boxes and the news paper to the recycling center. You’re going out for breakfast anyway, so…”

“It’s alright, Mom. I can do it.” Vincent exclaimed. “By the way, why did Dad need to go to the station early?”

“He wouldn’t say much.” His mother replied. “All he said was that there was some kind of emergency and that he had to take care of it.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I guess I’ll take the recycling out then. I’ll see you later.”

“Oh, bye, Vincent.”

Vincent head outside. The cardboard boxes were already busted up and piled for him to pick up. He had plenty of space in his trunk to fit them all in. He put the news papers in the backseat. After that, he got in his car and drove to the Cornerstone to get breakfast.

While driving, he was paying particular attention to his rearview mirror, looking for anything suspicious. However, there weren’t any cars following him like yesterday and the day before.

At the Cornerstone, things were a little more quiet than they were on that dreadful day he met Eric, who he found out later to be Matilda’s brother. Vincent always payed attention to his surroundings. He always did that ever since he was little, since his father started giving him pointers on how to be a good crime fighter. However, with everything that was happening, his awareness had elevated to the point of borderline paranoia.

The waitress came over to his table. He ordered the usual, a Belgem Waffle, and luckilly for him, there wasn’t an over abundance of sugar like there was the last time he came. He ate quickly, paid for his meal, left a tip and headed off to the recycling center.

While driving, he noticed a familiar looking black car behind him. It belonged to the man with the goatee. The car followed Vincent’s all the way to the recycling center, and parked near his car. The center was a wide open space and there were several workers and other people dumping their recyclables. Vincent guessed that was the reason the driver of the car stayed in his car while Vincent dumped his recycling into the machine.

Vincent then left the center and headed elsewhere. The black car followed, and Vincent watched as it followed him at every turn. Gripping his journal with one hand, Vincent pulled over at a gas station. He asked the man working there to fill his gas tank up. While the car was being filled up, he walked toward the bathroom and went inside.

Meanwhile, the black car had already parked at a sidewalk oppisite that of the gas station. The man with the goatee walked out, crossed the street to the station. He had watched as Vincent went inside the bathroom. He walked to the gas station door and opened it, and suddenly, he felt something grab the collar of his hoody and pull him into the room. The door slammed shut as the man was thrown across the bathroom, hitting his back on the walls of one of the stalls. Shaking his head, the man looked up and saw the young man with the trench coat that he had been tailing for the past few days. Before he could do anything, Vincent grabbed his collar again and picked him up, pulling the man’s face very close to his.

“What did Matilda send you to do?!” Vincent harshly spoke in a low, threatening voice.

“M-matilda?” The man studdered. “I don’t know what you’re talking abou-“
Vincent already knew he was going to try to stall, so he opened the stall, pulled the man with the goatee into it, and flung his face toward the toilet so that he could see it’s contents. Clearly, it hadn’t been cleaned in years. There were flies crawling on the edge of the toilet seat, there fungi growing on the sides, and the inside of the toilet was so incredibly grotesque that the smell alone had the potential to kill if exposed to it for a long period of time.

“You’re gonna tell me what I want to know, unless you want to spend the next few months cleaning the shit out of your goatee.” Vincent roared with an even more threatening tone. “That is, if it doesn’t melt off the second I plunge your face in there.”

“Alright! Alright!” the man shouted. “I’ll talk! Just don’t stick my face in there! Please!!”

Vincent pulled him up and spoke again. “I already know you were after my notebook and I already know Matilda Benedict sent you to do it. I want to know why, and I want you to tell me anything you can about her, understand?”

“Sure, sure.” He spoke with a typical New Jersey accent. “Look, Matilda said she’d pay me a lot of money if I took your book. I mean, you wouldn’t believe the numbers she was throwin’ at me, you know? I thought it was a load of B.S., but when she told me who her dad was, I knew she wasn’t playin’ around.”

“What can you tell me about her father?”

“Charles Benedict, C.E.O. and co-founder of Shwern & Benedict Inc. He runs a lot of the money in town, and people used to say he was involved with some dirty stuff.”

“What do you mean, ‘used to say?’ “

“Well, there were a lot of rumors going around, my pops says, and then the rumors just stopped. My pops works at the harbor, so he hear a lot of stuff about things like that.”

“Alright, what about Matilda. What can you tell me about her?”

“Matilda? Well, she’s polite and stuff, but she’s got the scariest eyes, man. It’s like-“

“She doesn’t have a soul.” Vincent interrupted.

“Yeah… I mean, you should have seen the look she gave me when the book I took from you turned out to be fake… Say… how did you know I was gonna.”

“I knew Matilda was up to something and the book is important enough for me to take precautions to protect it. That’s all you need to know. Now, are there any rumors about Matilda?”

“Well, people do talk, but all I’ve ever heard about her is that she likes to spend money.”

“Hmm…” Vincent pondered. “What about Alexis Crane. Do you know anything about her?”
“Who?”

“Nevermind. I’m done. And I trust you’ll stop trying to steal my journal?”

The man in the goatee nodded. “Yeah yeah, sure sure.”
Vincent let him go and walked toward the door. The man in the goatee sat on the bathroom floor, panting , his heart pounding loudly. As Vincent opened the door, he turned his head to the man. “I wouldn’t sit there if I were you.”

As Vincent walked out, the man in the goatee could be heard squealing and stomping around. It’s never a good idea to sit on the floor of a gas station bathroom in New Jersey.

The man who filled up Vincent’s tank was already there waiting for money. Vincent payed and then drove off.

Vincent came back home at around 12 o’ clock and went up to his room. He went to his desk, pulled his notebook out and started writing once again.

~

Journal Entry 16: January 14th 2008

I successfully interrogated the man who was trying to steal my journal. Before I forget what he said, I’m going to write it down now.

He said that Matilda was willing to pay a large sum of money to get her hands on this journal. I suppose if she turned it in to the principle, she may use it to accuse me of stalking either Alexis or herself. Either way, it would not turn out well for me. I don’t have enough concrete evidence to say anything about Matilda or Alexis.

He also told me about Matilda’s father, Charles. Apperantly there were rumors about him being involved in crime that were floating around the  harbor. I’ll have to ask my father if there were any police reports or investigations on him. It wouldn’t hurt to ask around at the harbor either.

The last thing he told me is that Matilda likes to spend money.

Considering that everything that I’ve been told by this man, about Matilda’s generous ransom on my journal, about Matilda’s rich father, and about her spending habits, it seems that all of these things involve money in one way or another. I can’t help but wonder if Variable X involves money in one way or another. But how is Alexis involved? If this does involve money and if Matilda is doing something criminal, where does Alexis fall into all of this? And why would it make her drop all of her friends? (myself included) That’s what I really need to find out if I want to solve this mystery.

One thing is clear to me, however. Whatever it is, Matilda is determined to make sure I don’t find out about it. She’s even gone so far as to hire a thug to steal from me. I’ll have to remind myself to pay her back for that when I solve this case and save Alexis.