Living Among Wasps: The First Case

The Lovely Rebecca

None of the suspects had 'killer' written on their foreheads. I tossed the testimonies aside and looked through the dossiers of other residents. This case was a genuine puzzle, and I can proudly say that I enjoyed sniffing through it. The rest of the residents were just as ordinary: An aspiring entrepreneur with a housewife and two children; an IT expert who had just gone through a divorce; another pensioner with wealthy offspring... Lastly, there was a family with the wife working as an accountant in a bank, the husband working in construction, their kid studying law. In other words - absolutely nothing to grab on to. However, what did strike me as odd was the last empty apartment on the fourth floor. According to official papers, it has never been occupied. Yet, from the pictures Rebecca had taken, I could tell that the door was being regularly opened. Even though it was barely visible in the pictures, it was clear that paint had been chipped off of the door frame because the door had been repeatedly slammed shut, without pressing the door handle. I made a note to myself that Rebecca should thoroughly inspect the suspicious apartment. There was no other material on it, so that definitely was something the police had missed.

It was late in the evening when I heard a rattle behind my steel door.

"Finally!" I exclaimed.

The guard insisted that he would stay in my cell until I'm done, which was amusing since all he ended up doing was leaning on the opposite side of the wall in absolute misery. For four and a half hours. I did not bother myself with offering him a seat, and stretched my legs across my bed. I bet he did have a thing or two to say to his colleagues and commanding officers after the experience.

During these hours, I skimmed through the video footage of the day of the murder, and the days before and after it. I started with the 'day before' footage to see how many people walked in and out of the building, and marked my observations on a sheet of paper. The approach was flawed because often the camera did not catch the faces. So, I tried to distinguish them by their clothing, gait and posture. I'll admit that these observations were not completely flawless either, for the people could easily change their clothes or have similar walking style. Besides, occasionally the residents would run to the door, covering their heads, or frantically waving their arms. The victim, the husband and the elderly were the only people I could clearly recognize. Therefore, my estimates about the precise identities remained rough. I managed, however, to count the precise number of human bodies that entered and exited the building in these three days. But even that, in the course of the time, tallied to minus one. Yet, the efforts were not completely in vain, for a number of other interesting aspects of the plot were filmed by the security camera. Firstly, the husband returned only an hour before the wife was killed (there was no sign of him on the day before), but the wife herself had entered and exited the building at least six times that day before her death. Just before I handed the laptop back to the guard, who looked extremely tired, I remembered to closely inspect the minutes of murder as seen on the camera. And I'm glad I did, because it turned out that the husband's testimony was not utterly accurate. Yes, he goes out, wanders around a little, and comes back in with bags in his hands. But, as he was let inside the building, he did not react in any way to the supposed voice of his wife in the speaker. A voice that would probably have been full of desperate fear as the perpetrator must have already been inside the flat. No, there was silence on the microphone because the wife had already been stabbed.

Rebecca had provided me with an excellent time-waster. She herself is a brilliant investigator. Despite her fragile, feminine appearance, dark hair, lovely green eyes and passion for clothing accessories, she also possesses the mind of a mathematician that is supported by the notorious female intuition – a deadly combination if driven by dire exigency. The only reason she needs to turn to someone like me is because she lacks the willpower to work on her talents. Instead she'd rather spend the evenings in town with her friends, enjoying her fading youth in wildness, freedom and the attention of the opposite sex. Those are the things that, to her, symbolise the whole of life, even as her age gradually becomes closer to thirty than twenty. I spent the whole night sleeplessly, partially mulling over the case materials, but mostly remembering the sweet and soothing feeling of bliss I used to sense as I was around the only woman I've ever truly cared about. Realizing that it is a pleasure I am permanently cut off from by barbed wires and concrete walls.