Iris Pierce is Detective Howard Parker's assistant and being a detective's assistant means being thrust into a world of death and blood. Not to mention the fact that Iris is a psychic who can see the ghosts of the people who's death she is helping s...
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Howard spent the rest of the day sleeping while me, Rowena, Hampton and Jesperson were desperately trying to get more evidence to convict the Martins. Howard was never wrong but there was no way this case would stand in court with such little evidence.
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The rest of the week, Howard monitored the possible victims of the murderer, watched their every move and every inch of their street for signs of a murder. Everyday, nothing happened. Only on the next Monday, just as I was about to head home, Howard ran into the agency (he had been at the police station the whole day) and told us to be ready for a stake out. Howard had briefly explained (with a big smile on his face) that Hilda Martin had visited Mary Hepinstall's house (one of the unidentified woman in the photo) with a picnic basket probably filled with poisonous muffins. He didn't give anymore details and insisted that we depart at once.
'Rowena and Iris, you're free to go home. Me and Robert will take this.' 'But what about Manfred Jones?' I asked. He was the seventh man in the photo. 'Not tonight,' answered Hampton, 'he got lucky. He gets to live while another person might die so me and Howard should get going.' Just as the two detectives were making for the door, I interrupted. 'But doesn't it seem odd? To be visiting the house of the victim in broad daylight? What if it's a distraction? He's never done this before.' Hampton and Howard stared at me with annoyance. Clearly he didn't want someone like me disrupting his investigation.
'Fine, then.' He succumbed. 'Take Rowena with you. You will have a police officer of Leo's with you, just in case.' 'Why? Because we're girls?' Rowena asked, her arms crossed. 'No, of course not!' Howard replied with a guilty look on his face.
So we went our separate ways and I couldn't help but feel uneasy knowing we might be faced with a murderer. Sure I had seen murderers before, I had been with Howard and Hampton when they arrested them, I went to court to testify against them, I saw their victims lying limp before me. But this was different. This murderer could definitely hurt me. He wasn't chained up or being watched by fifty police officers. It was just two assistants and a man in his fifties and a police officer.
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Rowena must have sensed my worry because while we were in the cab on the way to Manfred Jones' place, she said, 'Don't worry. We'll have a highly trained police officer with us.' She put a reassuring hand on my thigh. Her hand was smooth and bejewelled with two rings. Her nails newly painted fuchsia. It seems that even in the heat of the investigation, Rowena managed to groom herself and make sure she looked like a rose every day.
'I know that. It's just I've never had to do something like this without Howard.' There was a silence for a while. I know I hadn't exactly been welcoming to Rowena but she hadn't been nice either. Still, did I really want to hate her forever? I would like to come to work one morning and not plot for ways to kill her while making tea (garrotting was a nice choice but it would take too long). I don't enjoy having to contradict everything Rowena says just for the sake of my pride. 'I know you don't like me, Iris. And I understand I haven't been the best colleague but seeing as we'll have to work together now, we might as well call it a truce.'
