On Cuthbert's order, we were allowed into the victim's house. The house was a single storied house with various rooms. The room where the murder had occurred led directly onto the lawn.
"Has anything been changed here?" Adrian asked the officer in charge.
"No sir. Everything is as it was the day before yesterday. Only the body was taken away."
Adrian nodded and we entered the room. The room held a single table. It was long and rectangular. I walked around and noticed a pool pf dried blood in the distance. A chair lay on its side near the blood. So, that was where Damon had been sitting. It must have been knocked down when Damon fell with a knife in his throat. What a painful way to die. On the table, right in front of the fallen chair was a cake. Or what had been of a cake. It was splattered and red. With blood? Now that I thought about it, Paul had said that Damon had been smeared in cake from chin down. Poor guy, falling on his own birthday cake while dying.
"This is where Damon sat eh? Right behind his place is the door that leads to the lawn," Adrian said.
"Is it possible that someone from outside came in and stabbed Damon?" I asked.
Adrian was kneeling next to the pool of blood, examining the carpet.
"I don't think so. These footprints present here (that's an awful lot of mud) come in from the outside, the lawn. But none of them lead back outside. If the killer had come in from outside and stayed, surely he would have been noticed. No Peter, someone inside murdered Damon."
He walked over to the opposite side of the table and stood exactly opposite to Damon's place. "Hey Peter, stand in Damon's place." I obliged. He suddenly lashed out his hand across the table at me, startling me.
"What the hell Adrian?"
"My hand is too far away from your throat. Even if I had a knife with me, I couldn't stab you in the neck with it." I understood what he was trying to do.
"So, the killer could not have been someone seated opposite Damon."
"Unless he or she had really long arms. No. Cuth must have figured that out since the person sitting here was not taken by the police. And from that, we can safely assume that the person's arm is just as short as or shorter than mine." Adrian looked around the room. "There are fifteen chairs. Damn, I have to interrogate fifteen people?"
"One is dead. You already interrogated two. So, only twelve left."
Adrian sighed. "That still sucks. I'll look around a bit more before I start."
I just strolled around the room, completely bored as Adrian looked for little details. The room reeked with smell of food beginning to rot on the table. The police officer was serious when he had said nothing had been changed.
"Find anything?" I asked.
"Still looking. God, you're impatient Peter."
I shrugged and leaned against the wall. After completing a round, Adrian headed back to the fallen chair and stared down intently at the carpet. Then he took his mobile out and took a photo.
"Did you find something important?" I asked, curious. I walked over to where he was kneeling.
"It could be important. These two marks made here by the mud in the carpet, right underneath the table. What does it look like?"
"Well, looks like Damon dragged his feet over there. You know, to maybe get rid of the mud in his shoe?"
Adrian didn't answered. Instead, he dialled a number in his mobile.
"Hello? Cuthbert? No, not yet ... I just came here ... I wanted to know something ... The knife that was used to stab Damon, did it have any fingerprints? No? Just as I thought ... I can't tell you yet, it's still too early to confirm anything ... Yeah ok, I'll call you later."
"What did you find?" I asked as soon as Adrian put his mobile back in his pocket.
"Like I said to Cuthbert, it's too early to confirm anything."
"No, about that knife."
"Oh, that. There were no finger prints on the knife except Damon's own. He must have tried to pull it out. And the knife was smeared in cake."
"So, the killer used gloves. Well, not exactly unexpected. We just have to find out how he did it if the killer was neither Paul nor Lance."
"I need to talk to a relative of Damon's," Adrian said. He walked out the room with me in tow and over to the officer in charge. "I was told that the victim was married. Is his wife in the house?" he asked.
"Yes, she's upstairs in her room. Her name is Marion."
"Thank you officer," Adrian replied and we headed for the stairs. As we were climbing up, we stumbled upon a woman (her eyes were red - from crying, I suppose). "Excuse me, are you Marion?" Adrian asked.
"Um, no. I'm Dianne, Damon's sister. You are?"
"Adrian. I'm a detective. I was assigned this case by the inspector. And he's–"
"I'm Peter. His ... friend helping on the case," I said.
"Oh. You are looking for Marion?" Dianne said.
We nodded simultaneously.
"She's in her room. You might want to be gentle. She's heartbroken."
"Yes, I can understand how difficult that must be. I lost someone dear to me too. A long time ago," Adrian said.
"Um, I must be going now. Her room is on the right."
"Thank you Dianne," I replied and continued upstairs.
Marion was in her room. She had apparently been sobbing, her eyes were redder than Dianne's. I looked at Adrian. He had that stoic look on his face that betrayed no emotion. The only person more emotionless than Adrian that I knew of was Michael.
"... I can't imagine who would try to kill him. He was such a good man," Marion was saying. While I was lost in thought, Adrian had been talking with her, consoling her for her loss.
"Did you take any video yesterday?" Adrian asked.
"Well I didn't but Jeff did," Marion answered.
"Who's Jeff?"
"He's my brother and Damon's best friend. I met Damon through Jeff six years ago."
"Can you give me his number? I would like to see those videos."
"I can call him here if you want."
"Oh no, we don't want to trouble him. We'll head over to his-"
"No, it's ok. Jeff does not live far away. I'm sure he'll be more than willing to come here, to help you people." Before Adrian could say anything, Marion had dialled Jeff and called him over. I waited patiently, keeping myself busy by looking outside the window while Adrian chatted with Marion. About twenty minutes had passed (I had become bored of looking outside and was playing a shooting game in my mobile) when Jeff finally arrived.
After exchanging greetings, Adrian got right down to business. Fortunately, Jeff had recorded a video in a camcorder; the video would play continuously and we would not be interrupted unlike in a digital camera where one has to search between a gallery of still pictures for any video recorded.
"Could you skip to about ten minutes before you entered the room from the lawn?" Adrian asked.
"Sure thing Detective," Jeff answered and promptly did as he was requested.
Adrian watched intently (I tried to do the same but was already very bored) as the video showed them drinking and partying outside the lawn. Then Damon had led everyone inside. I could see that Adrian's interest rose when the people in the video began to sit down. Sure enough, on Damon's left was Paul and right was Lance. As everyone was settling down, Dianne brought a small thick cake, with white and purple frosting into the room and lay it down on the table in front of Damon before sitting opposite him.
"Did Dianne make that cake?" Adrian asked her.
"You know her?" Marion asked. In the video, Damon was thanking everyone for attending his small party.
"We ran into her on the stairs," Adrian exclaimed. "She seemed pretty upset. Her eyes were red, kind of like yours (no offence)."
"Poor girl is devastated. She loved her brother very much." In the video, Marion, who sat beside Dianne was raising a toast to her husband's good and long life (how ironic that seems now, I thought). Then, after she had finished, Damon rose up to cut the cake. This was it. Everything went dark in the video suddenly. We could hear Jeff cussing. Suddenly, there was a thud as something (Damon) hit the table and fell down. Someone had turned on a torch on their mobile phone. Due to lack of light, we could not make out much. All we heard was more cussing and screams.
"That'll be all," Adrian said. "Thank for taking the time to see us and showing us the video Jeff. And you too Mrs. Marion."
"Anything to catch the killer Mr. Adrian," Jeff replied. "You will catch him, won't you?"
"I will. Don't worry."
We left in my car and headed for the police station.
"So, you know who the killer is don't you" I remarked.
"I am 99 percent sure. I just need to see one more thing before I can confirm it," he answered while staring outside the car window.
"And you're not going to share it with me now?"
"No."
"As expected. So, what is this 'one more thing' you need to take a look at?"
"The victim's clothes."
ns 15.158.61.8da2
