Outburst

Chapter 17 - The Furious Case of Luke Mercer

Good news: my uncle was released the next morning. Detective Banks explained—to Grant, who then told me—that the three witnesses’ testimonies were incoherent. They did see my uncle and Mr. Easton together, but since they provided their testimonies two days after it happened, they probably didn’t have any fresh memories left about it. The detective said the only plausible testimony that they could consider came from Chad, but it was still weak.

More good news: the gun that was suspected to be the murder weapon turned out to be not. The ballistics unit confirmed that it wasn’t used for a long time. Plus, my statement about the hospital kind of helped him.

Yes, kind of, because bad news: he was still this case’s person of interest. The police wouldn’t really let my uncle go just like that. I could see it from Detective Banks’ face when he left the interrogation room with my testimony to look at. He was sure that, even if it was a small bit, my uncle got to be connected to all the murders. The investigation was still ongoing.

Average, but important news: no one knew about this yet. Detective Banks didn’t release any statements to the press, even though they were craving for this story because the previous one, the ‘trouble in paradise’ headline, was really succeeded to draw attention. I knew there were so many reporters who were trying to reach my uncle for interviews, but Grant was just too good to make them go away.

It was just another day at home. Well, a different day at home, because my uncle just came back from his one-night custody. As usual, his expression didn’t show much what he actually felt, and I didn’t want to wild-guess it.

After the big revelation by Roman, I saw my uncle as a whole new person. It was no surprise that he could suddenly be angry at anyone—but to think that it was actually a psychological disorder?

Disorder. He was sick. He was sick and he needed help, but he didn’t want it.

“Your tea, Miss,” said Una while placing a cup of hot tea on the coffee table in the family room. I daydreamed too much lately that I almost forgot I came down here to do my homework.

“Thanks.” I touched it, and it was burning so I had to pull back my hand and blew my reddened fingers.

Seeing that, Una chuckled. “Be careful. You asked for a hot tea.”

I grimaced. Una then turned around to go back to the kitchen, but I stopped her. “Um... I want to ask you something about my uncle.”

Una didn’t seem to like the idea, but she nodded anyway.

“Does he, uh, have a personal doctor... or something like that?” Just after I asked this, she reacted a little, but not enough for me to guess what it meant.

“Why are you asking, Miss?” She maintained her smile.

I took a short pause. “I know about his rage. Grant said that you also know—well, the first to know because you’ve known him for a quite long time.”

By the look on her face, I was right.

“Not that I blame you, but... you should’ve told me,” I said. “I don’t know why everyone is keeping it a secret from me. I have the right to know.”

Una sighed. “I—we—didn’t tell you because you didn’t know him that well before. You wouldn’t have wanted to live here if you knew about this, would you?”

I didn’t answer. And her wry smile showed that she actually didn’t need my answer because it was really obvious—I wouldn’t.

Una managed to get herself sit on the sofa next to me. “I didn’t know about a particular doctor, but long before Mr. Olivier worked for him, there was this one man who was always coming here,” she finally started to tell what she knew. “At first I thought he was Mr. Mercer’s colleague, but he came here too often. One night, I heard Mr. Mercer yelling that he didn’t need that man to come here anymore because he was normal, and he wasn’t a crazy person. The man came out from his study with his right cheek bleeding.”