Unforgivable Crime

Chapter 15

The story was ending, and Messer needed to know the vital details. Pushing on was his only option to truly discovering the answers. "Alfred, I know this is very hard for you, but you can, and I will not let you blame yourself for your daughter's death. In life we make certain choices which we believe are the right ones. As parents these choices are much more critical and vital because not only are we making choices that will benefit us but the choices we make impact the ones we love the most. All you did was make a choice which you thought was the best for and your family, for Beth. You tried your best but sometimes in life no matter how hard we try, no matter how much thought goes into a choice we make, the outcome itself is always unpredictable and we need to accept it no matter what. We need to accept that the choices were our own and we did it out of love and because we believed in them. If we start to question every single choice we ever made because the outcome was not one, we wanted than surely, we will lose ourselves and our minds. Beth wouldn't want you to be doing this yourself. She wouldn't want you to be saddened and destroyed over your death. She would want her beloved and caring father to know that he did his best to protect her and I am sure she knows you loved and cared for her deeply." He placed his hand on his shoulder. "We are going to find out the truth and we are going to put this matter to rest. Your daughter deserves to be resting in place. Now let me help you and her to finally rest easy." Alfred smiled with tears running down his cheek. "Thank you, Messer. Thank you for everything. I can see that you only want the best for me and my family. Find my boy, find out who killed my daughter and bring her peace. Whatever you need, you can have." Finally, Messer had gotten through to him. "I know this is a difficult time, but I need to see your daughter's room. I believe the first investigators didn't take this case as seriously as they should have and they pointe their finger at the first person that even smelt guilty." Alfred called out for Bruce. "Show him to Beth's room please." Bruce lead the way to the room and once their he stopped and thanked Messer. "Nobody has been that honest with him before. People are so afraid of telling him the truth that they have stopped the healing process for the poor man. Thank you, detective." Messer just nodded and walked into the room closing the door behind him.

Had Messer not been informed it was her room, he wouldn't have even known it was her. The walls were bare, no signs of any posters or any favourite bands stuck up. The room felt dead. There were no signs of life. No cuddly toys, no stuff on the desk, no fancy pillow cases. It was if she was trying to get rid of her past life. Inspecting the walls, you could still see the holes from the thumbtacks that were forcefully pushed into the wall to hang posters up. Now they were just there to serve as a reminder to the life that was occupied in this room. The life that was taken away, the life that was stolen and ripped out from her just like these posters were ripped off the wall. How incredibly strange it is that one event in our lives can change us so much. Messer was busy looking through drawers and cupboards trying to find anything and everything. He tried his best to keep things as neat as possible, not wanting to disrupt this shrine that Alfred had kept for his daughter. It is not weird or uncommon for parents to leave the room untouched when a child goes missing or passes on. For the ones that go missing, they believe that as long as the room goes untouched then there is hope that the child may be brought home back to safety and if they do then wouldn't it be best that they come back to a room that is all still the same. That is how parents think. They have hope. In our world however, having hope is a killer. Still, it is best to hope for a good outcome. Searching the room Messer still couldn't find anything interesting. It doesn't make sense he thought to himself. There must be something here that could lead him somewhere. Normally teenage girls love to write stuff down and save it. Her phone was empty which would mean she wrote her stuff down somewhere else. Just as he was about to leave the room a vent just tucked away in the top left of the room caught his eye. There were three screws missing from the vent. An interesting place to hide something. Grabbing a chair, he moved it towards the wall, climbed onto it, unscrewed the only screw there that was already loose. Throwing the vent onto the floor, he took out his phone and shined the light into the hole and to his surprise there was nothing there. Sliding his hand inside he felt some sought of stickiness on the surface of the vent. Strange, there was no need for the inside to be sticky. Then the thought occurred to him, perhaps whatever she was trying to hide had to be tied down and she used tape. Yes, that was it but where did she move it to. She wouldn't leave it on the surface of the room or anywhere that someone would go looking for it. Looking around the room his eyes fell open an aircon. "How often does anyone clean an aircon? Not a lot. That must be the place." He said out loud. He took off the aircon cover and there he found it. A small book, small enough to fit in the aircon cover without disrupting the flow of air. Finally, he found what he had been looking for. The book was not much bigger than his palm. It was extremely dusty and the cover was covered in pen marks. From what Messer could tell, it was probably white before it was damaged like this. He debated sitting down to read it. If anyone was to walk in and see the book, Alfred would definitely want to see it and right now that wouldn't be the best idea. Skimming through the book, Messer finally began to understand this case, but the book would need to be read thoroughly and in a better environment. Rushing out the room he intended to sneak out the house, but he was caught just before he reached the front door. "Messer, I can see that you are in a hurry, but have you found anything?" Alfred called out to him just as Messer touched the front door handle. He turned around to face him. He needed a way out and just as he thought all hope was lost his phone rang. It was Flak. Answering it, the colour drained from his face. "Alfred, I am really sorry, but I must go. There is an emergency but if I should find anything, I will let you know." With those words he sprinted out the house and raced towards Flak.

The car came to a screeching halt outside the flat of the journalist. Flak was already there ready to greet Messer. The two walked side by side as they entered the apartment. "What does it look like Flak?" he asked as they entered the apartment. "Well, his tongue has been taken out or to put it less slightly ripped out and left on the table, cut in half. This was a brutal kill Messer." The door had been smashed in, clear sign of a breaking and entering. "I am guessing that nothing was taken. Just, of course, his life that is. The most valuable thing anyone has to offer." The state of the apartment was exactly how one would expect it to be. The apartment itself was trashed. "Someone was looking for something in here Flak. I don't know if they got what they were searching for but one thing I do know.." Messer crouches next to the body and looks at it. The blood stains cover his shirt. "This was a message for us. He who talks will talk no more." Messer straightens up and looks at the wall. "It is clear that whoever committed this act did it while he was alive. The blood spatter of the wall indicates that he ripped his tongue of his mouth first before he even cut it up. There is so little blood on the cutting board here that this was done long after he was dead. I believe the medical examiner will concur the same. He was left to bleed out. Perhaps a punishment of some sort for speaking to us. Who ever did this wanted to punish him for talking and send us a message. Have the techs sweep the place. There must be something here that will lead us in a direction. In the meantime, I found this little diary written by Beth. I think this may hold a few answers for us. Few vital answers. Also try and see if you can get the autopsy report for Beth. I have my doubts that this wasn't a suicide." Messer started to walk out the apartment passing by broken plates and broken shelves. "Wait Messer!" Flak called out. "Why don't you think it is a suicide? The guys working the case ruled it as a suicide." Messer sighed. "Yeah, they ruled it a suicide after they couldn't pin it on our main drug dealer. That was the whole point. They didn't want to be doing all this heavy work and the proper detective work. They didn't care about anything. They just wanted to pin this on someone and as they didn't get our main man, they decided suicide was the best choice. Tell me, during the whole case they didn't once speak about what killed her. How can someone rule it a suicide or a murder when they didn't establish the cause of death? I think they are covering up for someone, but I dint know who. It can't be the father because he is too broken up about all of this. I think it is time we take a closer look at the case files. I think we may have missed something. You get on that and I will read this book. We don't have much time so let's get it done on the double and meet back at my place. Flak agreed and headed off to the police station.