CedRic Lthues. Claret City

Chapter 8

Idaliah, Qor, and I were in the interrogation room with Karen, while Jenntih and Roy were outside observing. We haven't even uttered a single word and yet the woman was already crying and fuming at the same time—it was an awkward place to be in.
"Ma'am-"
"DON'T MA'AM ME!" The old woman barked with tears in her eyes, "IT'S NOT ME! I SWEAR!"
"I don't think it's you," I said. The woman's water works stopped.
"What?"
"I deeply apologize for the ruckus I made back at the hotel," I said as an introduction. She didn't have anything else to say, so I continued, "We, or to be exact, I, do not believe you killed Susan Evans."
"Then why did you bring me here?" She asked with a cinch of fury.
"I wanted to ask some more questions about the death of Susan. Firstly, you told us when we interrogated you that you helped Susan with some strength training, why did she do strength training?"
"B-because she wanted to be strong like her boyfriend," Karen replied. I nodded in response.
"And did she succeed in being so?"
"Yes."
"And finally, did you help her with her acting?"
"Y-yes."
"And did she turn out to be good at it?"
"Yes, she did."
"Hold on," Idaliah cut in, "Why are you asking her these things?"
"Because those were validations for a speculation I had a few moments ago."
"Which is?" asked Qor.
"Nobody killed Susan Evans."
My announcement was a ctalyst for the dead air that came right after. Everyone else gasped in pure stupefaction, and quite undestandably so. "You're not making any sense," Qor exclaimed.
"What I mean is Susan killed herself." They all looked at me with eyes of skepticism, even Karen.
"We need some answer please," Idaliah said with a tone like begging.
"I only had the thought when we left. When I first met Susan, her tone was a bit sad, not to mention she was eating alone at that time. Karen just told us that Susan has some talent in acting, and she also told us that they were the best of friends."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Karen replied with scorn.
I continued, "Since you two are best friends, I can assume that she already knew of your grudge. Another question, when you two got back together, did she coddle you or give you special attention?"
"Yes, in fact she did."
"As you said, she coddled you in a way after you two came back together. If my speculation about her knowing your grudge was correct, then that would mean she tried to make it up to you. Another question, after the coddling, did you somehow feel distant with her?"
Karen put her cuffed fingers to her chin and nodded at me.
"And were you happy when she coddled you?"
"I kinda was, yes."
Checkpoints two and three passed, time to go through. I continued with my theory, "Knowing that, I can deduce that after she coddled you, you didn't budge, and so she felt depressed. Her sadness lasted for quite a long time until a few days ago, when you shouted at her after she introduced me to you—that was the final straw for her. Knowing that you won't forgive her, she killed herself."
"Are you sure that's what happened?" Qor criticized.
"I was just speculating, of course."
"M-maybe it was true." Karen's eyes began to turn red and streams of tears began to flow down her cheeks.
"Like I said, I'm just guessing," I replied to the crying woman.
She let all of her blues loose and started sobbing face-down on the table. The air was too awkward for the three of us to stop her, so we let her weep on the table for a few minutes.
"Ma'am-" Idaliah said when she felt enough time had passed. "Take note that everything Cedric said is merely a speculation and it's all not proven." Karen stopped her weeping for a good few seconds before looking up at the younger woman.
"But i-it just made sense," Karen replied in tears, "It might as well be true." Once more her wailing echoed around the room for a few more minutes, putting her head on the table once again.
"Ma'am," I called, she raised her head to me, "We're sorry for your loss, and we're sorry to be the bearer of bad news. You have our word we will do everything we can to confirm our speculation. But for now, we can only offer our condolences." The woman sobbed more intensely after my statement. I traded some looks with the other two and we decided to free the woman from the investigation room.
"Ma'am," said Qor, "Thank you for your time and sorry for your loss. Roy will escort you out of the building and back into your hotel, thank you."
Roy entered the investigation room and gently assisted the woman by the shoulders and got her out of the room, all the while sobbing and leaving droplets of tears on the floor.
"To be clear, you were just guessing right?" Idaliah asked.
"Yeah, why? You thought I made it up?"
"I actually did."
"Well in any case," continued Qor, "How will we make sure that Susan actually killed herself?"
"That," I replied, "Do not know."
The two glared at me like they were saying 'you stupid asshole.'
"I think I know where to start," Jenntih said as she entered the room.
"Spill it," Idaliah cried.
"Check everything that was found in her room. Everything was confiscated, right? Then we can review all of her items."
We three all agreed with her rather clever suggestion. The four of us huddled around the table in the investigation room with Susan's belongings on the table. Everything was wrapped in plastic, from her papers to her shoes. Along with the objects were the details about every item, stapled to the plastic. From every single amount of lint that touched the item from up to what country that item has touched. Every single detail, necessary or not, was listed. With plastic gloves on our hands, we rummaged through it all. Most, if not all, of Susan's objects were normal—nothing standing out, nothing suspicious.
"Here are Susan's glasses," Jenntih said, grabbing them then looking at the report for the object, "Nothing odd."
"Susan's board games," uttered Qor. He looked at the item report and just placed the board games back in the pile.
"Susan's jewelry," Idaliah was the one to speak this time. She looked at the item report and her eyes widened."Wait, there's something here!" Her words caught our instant attention and we huddled around her chair.
"Some guy named Lorek Koper touched all the jewelry here," she read aloud, "Who's Lorek Koper?"
Jennith left the room for a few minutes, leaving us in the room to gently argue, before returning with the information that the person in question was Susan's dead uncle.
"So it's not a criminal?" Qor inquired.
"Well, he did have a criminal record," said she while flipping through the records that she brought, "But it was for a minor offense."
"How small?" I asked.
"A few petty thefts, and by a few I mean like, literally just three. His punishments were simply a day in jail and a few fines."
"Nothing to see there then," I instructed, "Let's keep looking."
A few minutes of looking passed by, none of us uttered a word to each other. We were all too busy. A lot of the objects I searched through were normal and as the unsearched object pile grew smaller and smaller, I started to lose hope that we would even find something. With four final objects left on the table, we all grabbed one object, one for each of us, and searched through thoroughly.
"Nothing here," Jenntih said first.
"Nope," Qor muttered after.
"All clean," Idaliah sighed.
I was the only one who had an item left: a book. The item file wasn't the object that caught my attention, but the item itself.
"Well?" Idaliah asked, "Is it clean?"
My eyes were getting too invested in the item and unfortunately, the three were observant enough to see where my eyes were stuck on.
"What's up?" asked Jenntih.
"What book is this?" I asked.
"U-ummm, we don't know," Qor replied.
Immediately but slowly, I opened the plastic wrap, sending the others almost feral for a few seconds.
"You can't do that!" Idaliah raged.
"This is relevant to the case, it's fine."
"Wha-"
They tried to shriek their way into stopping me from opening the package, but it was already opened—they were too late. I gently lifted the book out of the wrapper and saw something that stood out, "This thing has a lock."
"Well, yeah," Jenntih claimed, " It was all in the file."
"I'm opening it."
"DON'T DO THAT!" The three bellowed but, of course, I didn't listen. Although it took a little bit of force, I pried the book open with my bare hands.
"You are breaking so many rules right now," cried Qor.
"This is for the case, don't worry," I said, undaunted, "Besides, I think this'll be an interesting item."
"What?" Idaliah asked in sheer fury.
"Who'll put a lock on a book?" I asked rhetorically. "The only way that there'll be a padlock on a book is if there's some juicy secrets inside." I flipped throught the pages, all the while the others were glaring at me with looks of anger and concern. As I skimmed the papers pretty fast, but quite thoroughly, I understood what I was looking at.
"It's a diary. It's Susan's diary."
The others huddled around me after my statement, "I told you this is for the case." With a massive smug on my face, the others amazed with the revelation unraveling before us, I flicked through the papers with eagerness. The eagerness, though, started to fade away as no interesting pages popped up, until the last entry revealed what we wanted to see. The writing was in a red hue, instead of black like the others.

"They keep following me. No matter what I do, no matter what turn I take, they're always there. I don't want to do it, I don't want to hurt people. I do not want to be a part of them, I refuse! I have no choice. If they won't leave me alone, then I'll go. I hope no one blames them, this is all on me. They care about me, I know it, so I know this'll be hard for them, but this is needed. Goodbye."

These words opened our eyes to how big this conundrum of ours was. Who were 'they'? Who were 'them'? Was 'they' and 'them' the same groups of people? But one thing was for sure: my first speculation was confirmed. Susan did kill herself. Qor asked Jenntih to call Roy inside the room, which she did right away, but at the moment she was to send for him, the door of the investigation room was slammed shut and locked tight—there was an intruder. Our instinct took over and tried to open the door, Qor charged at the door, it didn't open. Idaliah attempted to kick the door open, she kicked the door with all of her leg strength, it didn't work as well. Jenntih tried to unlock the door with her craftiness, it failed, obviously. I observed the surroundings and found another way out: I ran and charged at the one-way glass and fell hard on the other side. With a pathway opened, the three ran out through the former window and charged out of the door, with me not far behind. "Head control, lock down the entire building. We have a 10-33, criminal break out." Not a minute later, red sirens inside the building went off. Every single door, whether or not it led to the outside, was shut air-tight close with a heavy metal door. As we ran through the hallways, we bumped into Roy, who was just coming back from the office, and he joined us in our dash to the emergency at hand. "What's happening?" He asked. "10-33." Idaliah answered while she ran like a cheetah, "Someone locked us in the interrogation room and dipped." Heavy sheets of metal covered every pathway while we gathered up some more agents and searched the entire building, top to bottom. The sun was starting to fade away and even after our thorough search all throughout the entire building, we came up with nothing. Whoever the criminal was, he or she was quick on his feet. The five of us gathered back at the lobby to talk. "Nothing," Qor sighed, "Absolutely nothing." "Whoever that was, they knew what they were doing," Jenntih groaned. "How would they even enter the office?" questioned Idaliah. "That's my question exactly," I replied. "This place has so many guards, how could they slip past them?" "Maybe they disguised themselves as an agent?" Roy suggested. "I guess that's possible?" Qor muttered, almost like he was asking himself. "Or maybe-" I said grimly, "They didn't have to disguise themselves as an agent because they already were an agent."