Criminal Case: Grimsborough

Chapter 40: An Elementary Murder-Part 3

After Marie and Jones received a handbag belonging to their victim from Ramirez, Marie dug through it and pulled out a packet of dental dam. It was then, and with Grace's help, that the two officers realized that their victim was a lesbian and her secret lover is also a woman. Shocked and surprised by what he heard from the two women, Jones asked, "I want to make sure I'm getting this right you guys. The dental dan that Marie found in Irina's handbag proves that she's a lesbian?!"

Marie slapped her forehead with a groan and Grace said, "Yes David! That's what we've been trying to say for the last hour! That and we found out that Marie's bisexual, but her heart is set towards men only."

"But that must also mean that Irina's secret lover might've been a woman too," Jones exclaimed.

Marie snapped her fingers and said, "Now you're getting it! Lesbians are usually women who like women. Remember the Trixie Velvet case and the fashionista case, both of them involved lesbians!"

Jones told her that he remembered and he got to thinking and said, "I don't know about you Marie, but I wonder whether Caroline Fitzgerald knew that Irina was a lesbian?"

"I suggest we go down to the school bus and see if she's on afternoon monitor duty," Marie said and Jones agreed to that plan and they set off towards the school bus.

Once they got there, Jones was disappointed that Caroline wasn't on monitor duty, but Marie had plenty of time to inspect around the driver's station cause she found a gift box and Jones got curious about what was inside. Marie also found some pieces of a torn ticket and she decided to put them back together again. As soon as they were together again, Marie saw the ticket was a plane ticket and it has Irina's name written on it. After she looked closely at it, Marie and Jones saw that the plane ticket was a one-way ticket back to Russia. It was then that the officers knew that Irina was planning to leave Grimsborough forever.

Jones then said, "You would think that Irina would've mentioned her travel plans in her letter to her sister. And she would've also said goodbye to Sarah."

"I think Alex should be able to tell us exactly when this ticket was bought and by whom," Marie suggested and Jones thought that that was a good idea.

After Marie was done with the ticket, she opened the gift box and she started to rummage through it until she found a birthday card. When Jones asked if she found the sender of the gift that was forgotten on the bus, Marie showed him the card that she found. Jones asked if he could see it and when he opened it, it said, 'To Irina, Happy Birthday XOXO.' It was then that they both knew that the gift was for their victim. Marie suggested that they should also send Alex the card so he can analyze the handwriting and fund out who the person was that wrote it.

After a while, Alex was done analyzing the card and the plane ticket. As soon as the officers hit to the tech lab, Alex explained to them about the plane ticket first. He looked at Jones and Marie and said to them, "Well, it's just like what Marie revealed, this one way ticket to Russia was reserved for the same Irina Nemovska who was murdered earlier today. However, she wasn't the buyer if the ticket. It was actually her employer Mrs. Mills who bought it the day before the murder."

Jones crossed his arms and thought, well how about that! Marie then wondered, "I'm curious though. Why did Mrs. Mills not mention to us that she arranged a flight for Irina to return home?"

"I think it would be best to ask her that cause she also requested the immigration authorities to ban Irina from re-entering the country fir five years," Alex said to them.

Jones crossed his eyes darkly and said, "I'm starting to smell a rat. Mrs. Mills may be crazy about those overpriced teddies, but couldn't have tried to ban Irina out if the US because of them!"