The Empty Room

Chapter 7

{From the perspective of Mr. Grubbs, the next-door neighbor}

"I'm sorry for your loss," I said, rushing into the Jones' front door. Mr. Jones, in the middle of crying, whipped his head around and looked at me skeptically. I continued hastily, ¨Have you began planning her funeral yet? Who do you think it was that committed such a horrible act? She was such a kind person, don't you think she deserves proper closure?¨

Mr. Jones suddenly seemed hit back at my words, "And how do you know? In fact, I bet that person I thought saw was you!"

Unfortunately for him, that just piqued my curiosity more. "Did you see your wife's killer? How tall? Are you sure you weren't just drunk again?¨

"Allen, I want you to answer me. How do I know the person that killed my wife was not you?" He looked at me expectantly.

"Martin, did you kill your wife while you were drunk?" I asked condescendingly.

That was the final trigger. Mr. Jones began shaking violently, with no sign of stopping.

"This is my wife we are talking about here. I would never kill my own family. Aside from that, why are you always inquiring in all of our business? How do you even know what happened? Are you just trying to get all the blame off of yourself? You never even answered my question earlier. In fact, you're probably trying to hide something here"

I raised my eyebrow in shock and breathed out heavily. Haven't they realized the whole time I've been trying to help them? After five years of lowliness and sorrow, one family after the next, I've been observing the house carefully. This morning I had only woken up to realize what had happened.

Attempting to lower the malice, I answered calmly, "I'm just trying to help figure things out. Maybe you should take my advice, Mr. Jones. Also, what was a person doing creeping around your house last night? I saw someone run up, go inside and come back out.

"Mr. Grubbs, I want you to tell me exactly what you saw last night."

I simply chuckled to myself, "I will tell you as much as I saw. Maybe if you allow me to investigate the crime scene. I might also figure out who the killer was." I hesitated, waiting for his approval. As a retired detective, I had always enjoyed the genre of mystery and murder, and this case seemed to be drawing me into it.

Finally, Martin seemed to give in and nodded. He led me to his room and I squinted my eyes to see the most horrific sight. A person's head was hanging down from the ceiling and a pool of blood lay on the ground beneath. My stomach lurched at the ghostly, placid eyes staring into my soul. Sucking in my breath, I noticed the rest of the body limp on the wall with a note scrawled beside. This was not what I had expected.

"Well?" Mr. Jones snapped impatiently. I grunted and cautiously walked around the scene, attempting to draw conclusions. With my background knowledge, the murder replayed itself to me.

"Despite that state of the body when you found it, the true cause of her death seemed to be asphyxiation. Whoever killed her had broken in, suffocated her, cut off her head, and slaughtered her body before hanging it up on the wall. You certainly seem strong enough to be a plausible suspect..." I suggested to Mr. Jones, glancing up and down at his built-up body. By now, Edgar had also joined around to watch me and I noticed him looking at me with cold eyes.

"Mr. Grubbs, don't you dare start accusing me again."

Too focused to acknowledge his threat, I paced around the dead body. As I drew nearer, a strong aroma of fresh beer reached my nostrils. Taken back, I motioned Edgar to come and check. "Beer." He exclaimed after smelling, wide-eyed.

"Mr. Jones," I said apologetically, "I hate to point this murder in your direction, however, I would like an explanation of this smell." Martin stiffened and glared at me with such bitter hate, "I'm telling you, someone took my drinks! I was nowhere near Opal at night!"

"Indeed, we can assume that she took a sip..." I trailed off as a sudden theory hit me, "Or someone could have used it to doze her off to sleep. However, it would be very unnecessary to leave such a strong odor."

All eyes bore into me as I continued as I bent down and took out my spare magnifying glass in my pocket. Inspecting every inch, I noticed a small strand of hair near the scene. Wishing to have brought a magnifying glass, I strained my eyes to see.  "It's brown. Now who here has brown hair? Mr. Jones, Taylor, and Tristan."

¨And so do you, Mr. Allen Grubbs,¨ Edgar spat out in defense.

"Well, this could just be any random strand of hair left around the house, so it doesn't count as much of an evidence. But as far as I know, you disappeared for a while when you got kicked out last night. You easily could have slipped into the house and murder your mother."

Edgar lunged and threatened to me, ¨I would never do that to my own mother! You dare question my family or me one more time, you will regret it.¨

"I was only stating where everyone was at a specific time." Poor lad lost both his sister and now his mother. I shook my head sorrowfully and continued my search. I read the writing written with the victim's blood and stroked my chin. I'm sorry. There was a messy scribble on the bottom, which I assumed to be the signature."It's signed with a T, as in Tristan or Taylor," I noted, "As Tristan was a witness of the murderer, our focus is on Taylor. Though I doubt a girl like her could do such a murder, in such circumstances she was in, it would make sense."

"That's enough, Mr.Grubbs." Mr.Jones cut me off, clearly agitated at the mention of his daughter's name, "Now we would all like to know where you were when all of this happened." 

All eyes were turned onto me, searching for an answer.

"Me?" I said smoothly, "Why, I was just observing out of my window." 

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What do you guys think so far? Do you think you know who the murderer is or are you completely stumped?

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-Anna