The Stolen Heart: A Regal Whodunnit

Chapter 8

"The next morning, Detective Baker knocked on my door at precisely 9:28 AM; he was coming over for tea so that I could share the rest of the results from the prince's autopsy. Before we began, he started looking around in my living room. 'A detective's work is never done, you know,' he joked, as he walked the circular shape of the room. I laughed at his remark as I headed for the kitchen to put on a pot of tea. I watched the detective from the pass-through, as he lifted small knick knacks from their shelves and examined them.

'So we found that Paisley girl and brought her in for questioning...'

'Oh really? What happened?' I eagerly asked.

'When I asked her why she came in and questioned you, she told me that she was 'curious by nature as a student of medicine',' he said as he wiggled his fingers in air quotes. 'She said that she knew the prince and wanted to see if she could find the reason that he died on her own, but she thought you wouldn't answer any questions she had unless she was coming from a perspective that was representing the greater community.' The detective threw me a doubtful glance.

'Hmmm, what do you mean she knew him?' I asked the detective.

'Apparently, her father has been the royal family's primary physician since the prince was born. She's been to Buckingham a handful of times to play with the prince while her father worked with other members of the royal family. She said that over the years, her father had visited the castle more and more because the prince had something called hypertrophic cardio- something?'

My heart sank. 'Cardiomyopathy?'

'That's the ticket! What is that anyway?'

'It's... a heart condition. That's probably what she was talking about when she asked about the thing with his heart,' I explained, remorse building in my mind as I thought about Paisley being detained and questioned.

The detective was silent for a moment before calling out to me:

'Where's the bathroom?' he asked.

'Uhh, just down the hall, 2nd door on the right,' I yelled to him from the kitchen.

I heard his heavy footsteps quiet as they stepped further away from me, halting as the door clicked closed. I walked around the kitchen, collecting the sugar, milk, biscuits, and cups from various places when I heard a thud thud thud from the bathroom followed by a loud crash. The kettle started to whistle as I tried to run back to check on the detective, so I quickly darted back to the kitchen and removed it from the stove. Just as I started for the bathroom again, I saw Detective Baker standing in the hallway with a small red box in his hands, his face pale as he stared blankly at me.

'What the hell is that?'

The detective didn't say a word as he put the box on the ground with just enough force to pop the lid slightly open. I walked closer to him to try and make sense of what was happening. As I approached him, Detective Baker drew his gun from his belt and pointed it in my direction.

'Get on the ground Faith,' he growled at me.

'What? Baker, what is that?' I asked, a cry starting to crack in my throat.

'I said get on the ground.'

I didn't protest any further with the man who could choose life or death for me in a matter of seconds so I got to my knees, then laid on my stomach. I lifted my head just enough to see the floor surrounding me, including the box. Inside, I could see what appeared to be a giant raisin. I squinted at it and cocked my head to the side before realizing what it was. As Detective Baker began clamping the cuffs around my wrists, I looked on to see dust and drywall coming from the bathroom door. 

'What's happening, where did that come from? I don't know what's going on, just please, tell me what's happening,' I cried to him.

'Faith, don't act like you don't know,' Detective Baker answered. 'You've got to be pretty bloody sick to take the heart of a dead man, hide it in the ceiling, and pretend like you know nothing.'

I stayed silent on the ground until Detective Baker picked me up by the elbow and escorted me out of my house. He shoved me by the head into the back of his car before he returned to the house to retrieve the box. He took me to the police station, not saying a word the entire way there, just throwing glances at me through the rearview mirror. When we got to the station, I was booked for abuse of a corpse."