The scene didn't look like much, an ordinary home in the suburban area. Unfortunately the look of the place was quite deceiving. So much so that the local police were stumped on how the Louis Vanderhall murder had occurred. They had no suspects, no murder weapon and no evidence. Or so they thought.
Louis died from blunt force trauma to the back of the head. His body and a puddle of his own blood were found in his locked bathroom and those are all the facts Agent Miraz had when she stepped in to survey the area.
The body was face down, left hand out, as if reaching for something. That was her first clue. She inspected the direction he was reaching for. An open closet, neat, with the shoes lined up perfectly. Left side female, right side male. There was nothing on the floor near him and the position looked a little unnatural. Upon further inspection Miraz noticed a tan line along his wrist that indicated a watch. So not only was he murdered, he was also stolen from.
Entering the bedroom attached to the bathroom she saw a framed photograph of the deceased marrying a short brunette. In the picture his watched clearly showed, Armani, very expensive. Miraz then came out to tell her crew what she had found.
Gathering in the kitchen she said, "watch is missing, if no one has seen it that means it was taken by the murderer. Has anyone spoken to the wife yet?"
"Yes," said Detective Loch, "but she has an alibi, she was in Pennsylvania, just flew back this morning." "Any leads?" asked officer Perett.
That was when Agent Miraz saw the little green light on the dishwasher blink, indicating that the dishes were done. There was a full load of dirty dishes in the sink, so this struck her as a little odd. She opened the dishwasher to find a single clean frying pan. She bagged it as evidence.
"Who are our suspects? Who has access to this house?" Miraz asked the room. "The Mrs. Vanderhall said that the only other person with a key is Louis' old roommate Tony." chimed in another officer. "Keep searching for evidence, there is no such thing as a perfect crime." Miraz ordered.
After about fifteen minutes of searching she found a notepad on the office desk. It was neat, like everything else in the Vanderhall house, color coded and organized. Except for the most recent page, it was torn out. Miraz gently ran a pencil over the page to copy the message left on the former sheet. It said 'TONY OWES $5000'.
With further research into Tony Shilles' background, Agent Miraz found that Tony has bounced around from job to job and liked to gamble. It was time to bring him in.
After arresting a very drunk Mr. Schilles from his home, he confessed. "I didn't mean to do it. I went over just to see if he would lend me some money and he said I had to win it from him because he 'wasn't a bank'. Anyway, I ended up owing him like $5000 and I told him that I couldn't pay him, and that I couldn't pay my rent. And he said 'That's because you suck at poker'. And then we had a huge fight with him on his stupid high horse talking down to me, so I knocked him down a peg or two. It wasn't until I saw him bleeding out that I knew I had hit him too hard. Now Louis was dead and I didn't want to go to prison so I just put the bloodied pan in the dishwasher, took my receipt, and wiped my prints. Then I saw his watch, it could get me out of my financial trouble, so I took it and then locked up. It wasn't my fault, I'm not a murderer. It was an accident, please don't send me to prison!", he rambled.
"Murdering someone makes you a murderer, we will see what the jury has to say" Miraz said and closed the door to his cell with finality.
