Crazy Town

Gang Member

Eleanor's POV 

I licked the spoon clean, peering into my now empty yoghurt pot, I'd managed to get every last drop of yoghurt out of it, not even a smear left. I threw it into the bin and put my spoon down on Oliver's desk. 

I have spent the majority of the morning with him in his secret spy room, he is absolutely determined to find out who's committing these murders, and so am I but I'm not ruling Oliver out as a potential suspect just yet.

He's now looking deeper into the male nurse that I met at the asylum, 'anything interesting on Matthew?' I ask, leaning on the back of his chair as he types away on his keyboard. 

'I need a new piece of string' he states, I stand up, I already know what that means. 

I walk over to where his large board of people is, there's a small pot just beside it and I pick up the roll of red string and the scissors. 'Matthew to Logan' he states.

I peer closely at each picture, it takes a couple of minutes but I find Matthew's picture. I grab a pin and poke it through the end of the red string and into the picture of Matthew, I then look around the board again until I find Logan's picture, I trail the string gently and cut it, pinning the other end to Logan's picture. I grab a small piece of paper and pen from the pot. 

'What's their relationship?' I ask, uncapping the pen. 

'Matthew's one of Logan's gang members, that makes both Matthew and Logan strong suspects now, why would one of his gang members have a day job working as a nurse in the asylum' Oliver explains, I nod slowly. 

I write the words 'gang member' on the piece of paper before attaching it securely onto the string I've just used to connect the two together.  

'Why would Logan need to kill old people in an asylum?' I ask confused, 'don't gang members usually kill their enemies on rival gangs or people that owe them money?' 

Oliver shrugs a shoulder, 'I guess if we could find that out, we'd probably find out if he's the killer we're looking for'

'Maybe they're parents of his enemies and so he's killing them' I say, Oliver shrugs again. It seems unlikely, but in this town you just never know. 

'I don't think the police know that Matthew's Logan's gang member, he's been managing to keep it pretty lowkey' Oliver states, staring at his board.

'I wonder which patient at the hospital is James' father, I also wonder why he doesn't go and visit him' I purse my lips, mostly talking to myself. 'Do his mother and sister ever go to visit his father?' 

'I guess that's an area we'd also have to look into' Oliver replies, I nod absentmindedly. 

James doesn't speak about his father, in fact he barely even speaks about his mother and sister, but I know he has regular contact with them. Maybe something happened, a disagreement with his dad which led to never speaking to him? Did his dad leave their family? Clearly James has somewhat of a tab on his father if he knows that he's a patient in the asylum. 

I look over at Oliver and the realisation slowly dawns on me that I'm standing in his basement, a guy I don't actually know anything about. Does he have parents? Siblings? He seems to live alone. What motive does he have to murder people in an asylum? Is he doing all this research to try and give off the impression that he's innocent? Why has he recruited me to help him? 

I realise that I have far more questions than answers, I need to step up this research if I want to actually start getting any answers, but how? 

A memory pops into my head and I turn back to the board and start searching for a specific picture. I look everywhere but can't seem to find it, where is it? Surely it must be on here. Ok, slow down, look again, take your time Eleanor! I mentally coach myself. After what seems like ages I find it, towards the edge of the board a small picture of an old woman. The same old woman that I've ran into a couple of times. She doesn't have a lot of strings attached to her picture, one string leads to a picture of an old man and is labelled 'husband'. She's married? Maybe he died?

I move to Oliver's filing cabinet a look for her folder. Oliver has long since resumed his frantic typing on his keyboard, I find her folder and pull it out. There's not a lot of information about her, I guess she must not be that interesting. 

Married since she was in her early twenties, her mother died during childbirth and he father died not long after she married, how does Oliver manage to find out such information? It's impressive. She had one son but there's no information on his name, just that he moved out once he reached eighteen and they have not had any contact since. Oliver has also managed to find out information that she currently sees a therapist and has been diagnosed with a couple of different mental health issues since she was young.

Surprisingly, it says that her husband is still alive but was admitted into the mental asylum quite a few years ago. I wonder if she visits him regularly? I close the folder to put it back and glance at her name one more time. 

Ruth Mary Sullivan, maiden name: Knight.

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I know I haven't updated in agessssss, but I'm back! VOTE&COMMENT