Case of The Confounding Jester (Editing)

Chapter 7

After contemplating my options, I took an emergency appointment with the psychiatrist. Post an hour-long session, the psychiatrist prescribed anti-depression pills and asked me not to drink coffee. I went back home with the intention of sending the mask, the hat and jester clothes to the forensics. However, despite turning the house upside down, I could not find the items.

Frustrated, but determined to nail the actual criminal, I made a plan. I bought a video camera and started recording myself at home. I turned on the location services on my cell phone and checked my location history every day. I stopped drinking coffee and began taking anti-depressant pills to reduce anxiety and stress.

Blade and I doggedly pursued every lead in the case. We isolated the genuine sightings from the fake cases and copycats. We unsuccessfully tried to get a profile from the behavioral analysts. Unfortunately, they did not take up the case as they had other high priority cases. Having been unsuccessful in finding the mask seller in the city, we began searching nearby towns. Blade, for some reason, showed great reluctance. He would provide silly reasons to not go to the nearby towns.

After a painstaking search of all the costume shops in the nearby towns, a glimmer of hope finally emerged in the last town. Blade and I were in the last costume shop in the last town. The shop was being repainted. We questioned the owner of the shop. However, he never saw the mask before. Due to my innate clumsiness, I tripped over a plastic sheet. This had the cascading effect of tripping the painter whose can of paint then spilled all over me. I was covered in blue paint from top to bottom.

The owner showed me the bathroom where I could shower the blue paint off and change into new clothes. When I was returning from my wash, I spied the bulletin board. The board had an advertisement by a professional mask maker. Immediately, I questioned the owner for the location of the mask maker. Blade believed it to be a long-shot and reluctantly agreed to accompany me to question the mask maker.

The mask maker lived in isolation atop the Berry Hills. His house was at least 300 miles away from the nearest town. After traveling for half a day, we finally reached the house. An old man invited us in. We informed him of the recent events and showed him the picture. 

"Oh, I remember this mask. A young woman came and asked me for this particular mask", said the old man.

"A woman sir? Not a man? Are you sure?," I asked surprised as we didn't consider the jester to be female. 

"Oh yes. I'm quite sure. I do not have many customers," the man replied with a toothy grin. 

"Would you allow a sketch artist to come here and draw the woman who bought the mask?," I asked. 

The old man smiled widely and nodded, "I would appreciate the company."

It took a few hours for the sketch artist to come. The artist drew a face based on the old man's description. The sketch was that of Carla Zanders. She was the civilian whose dress I had mistakenly ripped a few months earlier. 

Glad to finally have a viable suspect, we made our way back to the city. Blade was silent and moody. As soon as we came back, we began to look at the incidents with new eyes. We did not find anything new. However, we agreed that it was possible for a woman to have pretended to be a jester for all the incidents. 

Due to the prior track record with Carla Zanders, Blade and I decided to get the chief's permission before bringing in Carla Zanders for questioning. However, the chief had left for the day. Blade and I decided to call it a day as well and began to wind up. Blade seemed to be out of sorts. To appease him, I asked him for a cup of coffee. Blade cheerfully brought me a cup. Pretending to drink the coffee, I stealthily poured the coffee into a co-investigator's cup.