Dead By Now : A Murder Mystery [COMPLETED]

Chapter Four: When

I

Elwood Adams's murder wasn't the only time death struck The Lynntonville Manor. It wasn't the first time murder visited it either, for that matter.

We were just children and our parents had just moved here. Our father had never been more financially successful than around the time we moved into our new house. He had always wanted a swimming pool in his house and we had plenty of space in the garden to get one built now.

But on the second day of its construction, the crew had to stop midway because they had found a wooden box buried beneath our garden. The reason wasn't the box itself, however, but the body locked inside of it, or more of a skeleton, by the time it was discovered really.

I mean the house always had a creepy vibe to it but my father could not have ever imagined a body buried in its backyard. It's weird, however, now that I think about it, how he didn't immediately move to a different house the minute a dead body was discovered in his new house.

Much about the body, however, always remained a mystery except the fact that it was probably of a man not older than 29. Naturally, it caused quite a scandal in the town but no one was ever arrested for the crime because no one who could be persecuted was probably alive by the time the body was discovered. It was approximately a 70 to 80-year-old body.

II

Madelyn wasn't expecting the answer she received when she asked Ophelia to tell her, her life story. She learned Ophelia was the prime suspect in the murder investigation of her husband who had died a few months ago.

Madelyn had always believed in the deeper meaning of things. "Everything happens for a reason," she used to say. This revelation that she, a criminal defense attorney, had somehow been connected with a woman accused of murdering her husband had provided her a somewhat reasonable explanation for having discovered a time portal in her house.

"Not to brag, but I have not only defended real-life murderer in court but also won cases for them. I can help you if you want," said Madelyn.

Ophelia looked at her with wonder in her eyes and said: "How?"

"I would be able to give a better reply to that if I knew a bit more about what happened to him, your husband, I mean," Madelyn said in her reply.

"Okay. So," Ophelia hesitated for a moment before continuing, "Some of his old friends arrived at our house one evening. They said they had all received invitation letters from him and that Mr. Adams had written in those letters that there was something important that he needed to discuss with them. But he had already gone to the bed before any of them could arrive because, he had said, he was feeling nauseous. His head was also burning up. Instead of calling home a doctor, however, he insisted that he just needed some rest. All of his friends, except the one who's a doctor, live out of town so I sent them to the rooms I had readied for them. I persuaded the doctor to stay the night as well lest my husband's condition worsened. The next morning Mr. Adams was found dead in his room. The autopsy revealed he had been poisoned."

"Was there anyone else present in the house that night? besides you and the friends, I mean," asked Madelyn.

"Yes, our maid, Evelyn," said Ophelia.

"Why are you the only suspect then?" said Madelyn, wondering aloud.

"The room he was murdered in was locked from the inside. There was no suspect in the beginning. His death was considered the complication of an infection at first, then a suicide after the autopsy. But shortly afterwards, they found a syringe and a secret door, and the death was, then, confirmed to be a murder."

"That still does not explain why you are the only suspect."

"When I said I was a suspect I did not mean an official one. The official investigation has not been able to move past the secret passage discovery yet. It is our town and its people to whom no one could have murdered my husband but me. They don't think anyone else could have known about the secret passage since it is my house."

"What about Evelyn and the others?"

"They don't have a motive, according to them."

"And what is yours?"

"A lover or money, perhaps. I am not sure."

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