Enigma

Teaser:

John Moses arrives at his friend – Frank Tillman’s house, because he had received a frantic, pain filled call from Frank. Upon reaching the house, John notices that the door is already unlocked, he nervously takes out his gun and enters the house, upon searching, he finds a dead Frank lying on the bed with his throat slit.

It’s 11:00 in the night, extremely unnerved and filled with fear, John travels to the police station and hysterically confesses to detective Farrell.

Plot:

One month prior to this event, a seemingly common citizen – Alan wells goes missing. A complaint is filed by Alan’s wife – Margaret wells, and police captain Kevin Keynes is handed the case. Later in the day, Kevin visits his friend and detective – Charlie Farrell’s house, and tells him about his case. Even though it is a common type of case, Charlie is intrigued by it and requests Kevin to let him conduct the investigation, Kevin agrees. It is revealed that Charlie has helped the local police department in solving cases numerous times before, but the credit always goes to the policemen.

Charlie visits Kevin’s police department, receives the case file and makes only two viable leads – Alan’s wife, and his workplace – a modest tailor shop. When he visits Margaret, he notices two men eying him as he walks into the house, seated in a ’67 Chevrolet.                

When he questions Margaret, he learns that Alan and Margaret settled down in their current home 10 years prior, and Alan began working as a tailor and earned just enough money to provide the necessities.

Charlie inquires whether or not the couple had any children, to which Margaret solemnly replies that they had a son – Alex, who died in an accident 11 years ago. Charlie offers his condolences and departs, again noticing the suspicious men in the ’67 Chevrolet.

Next, Charlie arrives at the tailor shop where Alan worked, when the owner – Willis, does not comply to which Charlie uses a fake police badge and a concocted warrant to question them.                                                                    

Each of the three employees in the shop give different descriptions regarding Alan, Charlie suspects one of them, but dismisses this assumption and deduces that none of them really liked Alan, and so, had no idea about what kind of person he was. When Charlie asks the owner whether or not he noticed any change in Alan’s behavior, or anything else suspicious regarding Alan, Willis nonchalantly tells Charlie that Alan was fired from the job two weeks before his disappearance.

Farrell retires to his residence for the day, and notices that the same Chevrolet has been following him everywhere. The next day, Farrell yet again visits Margaret’s house and presses her for more information on Alan (taking into consideration that she hid the fact that he was fired), but to no avail.

Farrell then has Kevin and two other officers strongarm Margaret into divulging more information on Alan, clearly deducing that she is hiding something. Later, Kevin returns and reports to Charlie that Alan was, in fact a petty criminal many years ago, but after his son’s death, he sobered up and made an honest living.

Having acquired this new insight, Charlie informs Kevin to check the records for Alan’s name, and is about to exit the precinct, just when he sees the two men (who were stalking Charlie the previous day), entering the precinct, getting more suspicious, he decides to wait in the precinct. Along with the other policemen, Charlie eagerly awaits as the two men, who are none other than John Moses and Frank Tillman, give a statement and exit the station. Soon after, Kevin mobilises other policemen, and when Farrell curiously asks why, Kevin replies that John and Frank gave them the location of a drug containing outhouse, and they are going to raid it.

The next morning, Charlie and Kevin are sipping tea at Kevin’s house while Charlie is reading the newspaper, where in, an article mentions the very raid that Kevin conducted the previous day; a large amount of money and drugs were recovered from the outhouse, when Charlie inquires what Kevin is intending to do with the money, Kevin remains adamant and gives vague answers. Farrell deduces that the police have pocketed the money for themselves.

Farrell is later informed that the investigation into Alan’s disappearance is to be halted, much to Margaret’s disapproval and to Farrell’s disappointment. Later that day, Margaret visits Farrell and hires him for privately continuing into the investigation, and divulges everything she knows about Alan.

11 years ago, Alan was a successful gangster working for French criminal – Rene De'cartes. In a shootout by Rene’s rivals, Alan was one of the intended targets, but instead their son Alex was killed. Alan was grief stricken over his son’s death and blamed himself and his lifestyle of crime for it. Subsequently, Alan left his former crime lifestyle, and shifted to the suburbs with Margaret.

But Rene did not tolerate this, he was relentless in finding Alan. Margaret concludes that that Rene finally got what he wanted – Alan’s death. Farrell, now having received this new information, deduces that John and Frank also work for Rene, and were the ones who killed Alan on Rene’s orders. Now, the two have successfully bribed the police and stopped any further investigations into Alan’s supposed death.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN,

Meanwhile, Frank is extremely paranoid of two things – Rene’s anger, and Alan’s reappearance, John reassures Frank that nobody will find out what they “have done”, but Frank corrects him; they have not “done anything”, thus revealing that the duo has failed to kill Alan, and are worried that either Rene will find this out, or Alan himself will emerge looking for revenge.

A pessimistic Frank remarks, “Rene will eventually know”, which seems to deeply unnerve John.

While John no longer wants to intimidate the detective Farrell, a sceptical Frank wants to make sure that Farrell has indeed scrapped his investigation, having followed Margaret and witnessed her meeting with Farrell.

John and Frank are then seen staking out Farrell’s house.

Knowing that Frank and John are outside his house keeping an eye on him, Farrell walks out and confronts the duo, having an ulterior motive, constantly cursing and berating them. John responds to the obvious provocation, and soon enough (much to Farrell’s deduction) a brawl breaks out between John and Farrell, with Farrell letting John take the upper hand. As a result, Farrell is badly beaten.

Immediately after, Farrell visits the police precinct and files a complaint of harassment and physical assault, on John. Kevin clearly realizes Farrell’s ploy and duly brings John in. And even though badly hurt, Farrell questions John about Alan and pressures him increasingly, wanting to get a confession from him, but to no avail. With no other choice, Farrell lets John go, and when Kevin asks whether or not Farrell wants to press charges on John, Farrell refuses, admitting that he provoked John.

Meanwhile, Frank is getting more and more paranoid of Alan reappearing and exacting revenge. He has a dream where-in Alan beats Frank to death. Not able to cope with his paranoia, Frank visits the bar, gets drunk and supposedly sees Alan at a table but, dismisses this as a hallucination.

The next day, John gets a cryptic call, which only says, “I know where you are, I’m coming for you”. John gets visibly afraid after this call. Frank, on the other hand gets a letter which says the same thing. Having reached his breaking point, Frank has a panic attack and loses consciousness.

In the hospital, John visits Frank who tells him that it would be wise to confess to the police, “We haven’t done anything wrong”, Frank says and continues to say that receiving police protection is the only viable way out of this mess. But John dismisses this suggestion remarking that Rene would never forgive them if they confessed. Noticing John’s cautious behaviour, Frank comments that he is afraid too.

Meanwhile, Farrell has obtained the number of the ’67 Chevrolet that belongs to John. When he checks who the real owner is, he learns that the car is legally registered in Rene’s name thus, confirming his suspicions. Farrell also learns that Margaret is receiving money from an unknown source, brushing this off, Farrell decides to spend the night in the police station itself.

Frank has since been released from the hospital. Upon returning to his home, he is mortally beaten by who he believes is Alan. He somehow manages to reach the phone and call John, “He’s here! He’s killing me! John, help!!”, John quickly reaches Frank’s house and finds him dead, with a slit to the throat.

Frantic and deeply shaken, John visits the police station and confesses whatever he has encountered to an appalled Farrell. Farrell now learns the real situation; Rene found Alan’s location, and appointed John and Frank to assassinate him, however, Alan went missing before either of them could make a move on him. Afraid of retaliation from Rene, John and Frank used intimidation to stop Margaret from divulging any valuable information to the police, and when that did not work, they gave up the location of a drug den to the police, and in return the police would halt the investigation into Alan’s disappearance.

Their plan worked, but they were afraid of retaliation from Alan, and, now he has already murdered Frank. Farrell deduces that Alan is still alive and being well aware of their intentions, voluntarily disappeared to protect Margaret. Farrell now wants to bring justice to Frank by arresting Alan when he comes for exacting revenge on John, but only on the condition that John gives up information that would implicate Rene and also serve community service. Left with no choice, John agrees.

Subsequently, John’s testimony provided enough evidence to convict Rene, but Farrell’s plan did not work, Alan never showed up to murder John and John spent the rest of his life being wary of Alan and ever on the run from vengeful mobsters who wanted to even up on the fact that John implicated Rene.

Five years hence, Farrell reveals that Alan is still at large, though surveillance was done on Margaret and John separately, Farrell could not apprehend the cunningly elusive Alan, who deliberately left dead end trails to keep Farrell on the hook, but never enough leads to have him arrested.

                       

                                                            THE END