The stairs

Chapter 17

Rosa pushed the door open a crack. Cassie noticed the smell of blood immediately. Rosa was wearing an old shirt, and it was clearly covered in blood.

Phillip had to steady himself. He took a deep breath. "Can we come in?"

Rosa opened the door in response, and walked in. Phillip followed. Cassie turned and looked at Detective Clark. She nodded, so Cassie followed Lex into the room. Detective Clark followed her in.

Rosa grabbed a blood stained knife off her work table. "You said it was just you."

Rosa didn't look like she wanted to stab anyone in particular, but it was best to get to the point as fast as possible, Cassie decided.

"We had no choice," said Cassie, "you did kill Robin after all. That wasn't your decision to make."

Rosa turned to Cassie. "Is that wrong? He killed someone, and he was going to get away with it. The police was going to let him go because he had the right contacts. Am I wrong?"

"We had to release him because we didn't have enough evidence," said Clark, "that doesn't mean we'd..."

"That's a lie! You wouldn't have arrested him for real. His father wouldn't have let you."

"It's a homicide," said Clark, "there is no way he could have covered that up permanently. Yes, he could have made our jobs harder than it would be otherwise, but..."

"You let him go. He killed Mark - Mark, who was completely innocent - because he thought Mark had some dirt on his side projects. That wouldn't have happened if..."

"Mark could have killed Lorna, you know. The 'information' he was going to give could have been misdirection..."

"Cas, shut up," muttered Lex.

"Mark didn't kill Lorna - I know that!"

"Because you killed her," said Cassie.

"What?" asked Phillip.

Cassie ignored him and pushed her attack. Was it smart? Probably no, but she had little choice now. And if Rosa decided to use her knife in her, we'll, she could think about it if it came to that.

"How does that make you superior to Robin in any way?"

"Mark was innocent. He hadn't hurt anybody, not intentionally..."

"But he did break up with you," said Cassie.

"Pretty brave. Cassie, isn't it? I am the only one with a weapon here, and I've already killed one. What makes you think I wouldn't..."

Clark sighed. "Put that knife down. We can talk about this..."

"I don't think you killed Mark either. I think you killed Lorna because you assumed Robin would be suspected. Did you know about his other activities? I suspect you had an idea, because you stalked Lorna, didn't you? You knew she was afraid of him. You had good reason to think he'd be suspected first if anything were to happen to her. So you rolled with it."

Rosa glared at her.

"Yes, I killed her." 

"And as you thought, Mark reached the conclusion that it was Robin. What you didn't know was that Mark had information on him. Robin acted on impulse like an idiot and killed him, instead of picking the lock and stealing the chip, or just robbing the guy."

"Cassie, you're..."

"Shut up, Lex. The guy had a million other options if he wanted to recover that information. Instead, he thought he was invincible. Then, he got precariously close to walking away scot-free, so you decided to take things into your hands. After all, you didn't care about anything anymore."

They heard the other officer run up the stairs. Presumably, he saw the open door and rushed right in, and stopped at the door.

"Put the knife down, Rosa," said Cassie.

"You missed a spot. I knew Robin would enter that mall twice. I knew what he'd do that day."

Rosa dropped the knife.

"His other business?"

Rosa grinned. It was true, Cassie had no idea what the other business was.

Clark had Rosa in handcuffs in seconds. She was told what her charges were. Rosa did not protest. She was led out.

"How did you know it was Rosa?" asked Lex, after she was led out.

"Cyanide. It's not very easy to get, you know. Yes, it has its applications, but getting it wouldn't be that easy. Besides, if anyone had the expertise to extract it from plants, that would be Rosa."

"About her stalking Lorna, all that stuff..." started Phillip.

"It was an educated guess."

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Rosa was arrested. Mark's murder remained open for two more days, until the police found Robin's accomplice retrieve an SD card from a shed outside the civil engineering department. The accomplice was arrested, and he had no problem implicating Robin for the murder.

Lex had dissolved the Detective club with immediate effect, despite the record number of applications they had received from other students. 

Cassie had returned to her internship. There wasn't a lot of work to do, but at the very least, it kept her occupied and away from campus. It seemed like she didn't actually want to be in campus during the summer.

Something else she had discovered was that she hadn't enjoyed the experience at all - in fact, she was more nervous around campus than ever before. 

But, in the end, she had been right. She had solved the case, and Lex and Phillip had lived through it relatively unscathed. That was enough for her.

THE END