Chapter 7
(Leya’s POV)
I go back to the art gallery and I get a call from Claire,
“Hello?”
“Hey, you need to come to Tabatha Conti’s house NOW.”
“Ok,” I get in the car start heading over there, her house his near mine, “what’s wrong?”
“She got murdered.”
“Oh my goodness!” Then I should see all the cop cars, I’ll find her house.
“I’m heading over there now so don't worry, see ya in a few. Bye.”
She hung up. Who would kill Tabatha? She seemed like a nice person at the station, why? I get to her house and Paul’s there.
“Paul why are you here?”
“Oh,um well you see,” He starts sniffling, “she was my fiancee, I was planning to move back because we were getting
married.” He broke down, he started to cry. I give him a hug and say,
“Hey, it’s ok.”
“Thanks, I need to go, maybe I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah, sure.” As soon as he left, Claire pulls up. I was wondering why Tabatha never mentioned Paul, she should’ve been excited.
“Hey, why was Paul here?”
“He said Tabatha was his fiancee, but she never talked about him.”
“Huh, that’s odd,”she pondered on that for a moment, “have you seen the inside yet?”
“No.” We walk inside to her house, it was a nice house. She was in the higher end of our neighborhood. I saw she does pottery, a big sculpture a horse, it was probably as big as a baby horse but it had the features of a full grown horse. It was cracked, still moist though, I look at the EMS take Tabatha’s lifeless body away. She was killed with a knife, stabbed in the back it looked like a hunting knife. The murder weapon wasn’t at the scene of the crime, nor any place near the house., apparently the mask of death, (the one that was stolen from the art gallery) was put over Tabatha's face when she died.
“Who made the 911 call?” I ask an officer
“Paul Harris, her fianceé.”
“Ok, that's what I thought.” I go over to Claire to see what she’s looking at.
“Doesn’t it seem odd that the clay horse is cracked?” She said curiously.
“Huh, that does seem a bit odd, why would it be cracked?” I say pondering on the thought.
“Well if the murderer was rushing out, they could’ve run into the statue.”
“That does make sense, but everything just doesn’t add up.”
“Well what do you mean?”
“So, the murderer is most likely the thief from the art gallery. Why would that person come after Tabatha?”
“Well you can’t jump to conclusions about the thief from the gallery being the murderer here.”
“I think I can, at the gallery the officer told me that the murder weapon was a hunting knife, they never found the knife at the gallery. Tabatha, it looked like was also killed by the same hunting knife.”
“Wow, no wonder all of your cases have been a success. So, what would be the motive?”
“I have no idea, do you think that Paul would be a suspect? I mean, he made the call, I just wouldn’t think that he could kill someone, he’s like another brother to me.”
“I’m pretty sure we do, do you know where he went?”
“I don’t know, but I would think he’d be at his hotel, no wait he would be with Tabatha, their getting married so I would hope to think he would be at her house.”
“But he wasn’t here so, where would he be?”
“Maybe they got in a fight and he stormed off? No, that’s not like him, I’ve known him for many years, no way he’d get in a fight.” I say, I’m wondering where was he?
“Ok, well I hop-”
“Why is Paul pulling up?” I mutter to myself, totally forgetting what Claire was saying.
“Where are you going Leya?”
“Paul just pulled up again, come on!” I go towards his car and ask, “Paul why are you back here?”
He hesitates and says, “Well I’m a suspect, and the police called to ask if I could come back here.”
“Oh, ok well we have some questions for you. Where did you go when Tabatha was murdered?”
“I went to the store, I was going to go get her a gift.”
“Ok, what time did you return?”
“Around 11:20 am.”
“And your staying here, right?”
“Actually no, I’m staying in at Hilton Head.”
“Why? You guys are getting married and-”
“You see, Tab’s parents didn’t fully approve of this whole thing. They said that both of us can’t live in the same house until we're married.”
“Ok, well thank you, uh stay here until the police let's you go, bye.”
“Bye Leya.”
Chapter 8
(Leya’s POV)
“Leya,” Claire was saying, “I don’t completely trust Paul, that alibi isn’t that good, and why wouldn’t Tabatha's parents approve of such a big CEO getting married to their daughter, everybody likes him.” Now that she is saying it, everything doesn't make sense.
“That's true, but I don’t think he has anything to do with the murder, do you?” I ask Claire, hoping she doesn’t suspect him. I just can’t believe that he could do anything with the murder.
“I don’t know, let’s check the hotel if he’s actually staying there.”
“Ok, fair enough.” We get in the car and drive over to his hotel. We walk into this grand, and beautiful lobby.
“Woah.. This is pretty cool,”The room was a nice golden color and a big, I mean huge chandeliers. Claire started to talk and I had to listen,
“Let's go check with them.” She points over to this old and groggy woman.
“Hey we work for JI, uh do have any Paul Harris staying here?” Claire says to the woman.
“We don’t.” The woman said in a monotone voice
“And he didn’t just check out?”
“Nope.”
“Ok, thanks." We walk a little and Claire says, "I told you so Leya!!”
“Yeah, you did.” I’m in shock, why would Paul lie to me? “Claire, this doesn’t make sense." Nothing added up.
“I know it doesn’t.”
“Let’s go.” I say.
“Ok.”
We both get in the car, I'm still in shock, Paul is such a close friend, he would never lie to me. Claire looked at me she probably saw that I'm gloomy and said,
“Hey, things happen and it’s ok, let’s go home now. You should come to my place."
“Are you sure? I don't wan-”
“Yes I’m sure, now pull over and let me drive to my place.” Claire said firmly.
“Ok, let's switch sides.” I pull over, now we’re going to Claire's house, I can't wait to see her place! I can just imagine it! In about 20 minutes, after a while Claire put's the radio on, I guess it was getting a little awkward
“Ok, here we are!” Claire says, her house is very nice, considering she’s a CEO of a pretty big company.
“Wow, this is beautiful!” Her house is a mansion compared my little apartment. When you walk in there's a big chandelier greeting you in this big, 4 story house.
“It’s not much," She says like it's nothing, but it's something."Let's talk about the case.”
“Ok, so we know that Tabatha was killed by a hunting knife.”
"So this could somehow relate to the murder of the guard.”
“Your right, do you think that he could've done it?”
“No, no way, he couldn’t do that. Paul wouldn't kill her.”
“Well…”
“No, I won’t even consider him-” My phone starts ringing,
“Uh hello?” I say
“Hey, Claire Myrice are you with Leya?”
“Yeah she is, who is this?”
“This is the chief from the police department, Cameron Doyl.”
“Oh, ok! What do you need?”
“Can you come to inspect Tabatha’s place, we don’t have a search warrant, but you guys do, so can you guys inspect the place?”
“Yeah, we can. We’ll be there in a few.”
“What happened?” Asked Claire.
“They want us to inspect Tabatha’s place, plus we had to go early due to, you know the Paul situation.”
“Yeah, I think we should go there now.”
“Sure, uh do you know the way?"
"Yeah, she's near my house." Both of us get back in the car. The drive over to her house was kind of peaceful, the sun, just dipping down into the ground, and before I know it, we're at Tabatha's house.
Squeakkk the door opens with a little creak.We walk into the 3 story house, filled with white decor and an accent gray wall over to the left.
“Ok, uh I’ll check this side of the drawer,” I say, “and you can do that side.”
“Sure."
The cabinet, engraved with the most beautiful patterns. I run my fingers over the patterns, touching every little detail, I am memorized, but I had to get back to work. I pull out the first drawer and I found letters, blackmail letters. Tabatha wrote them, I call Claire over so we can both read them
“Claire come here I found something.” We both read them, Claire looks up in confusion after reading them, but I know who did it. I had to sleep on it.
The next morning I wake up early, I head over to Tabatha's house to catch the murder...
Chapter 9
(Leya’s POV)
The murder comes into Tabatha’s house, my crew is behind me. I called the murder pretending to be a cop saying we are doing an inspection tomorrow at 9 am.
That person would have to come to cover up one mistake. The murder weapon. I step out from behind the wall and catch the murderer red handed.
“You did a fairly good job covering this up.” I say.
“Leya, what are you doing here?” The murderer says anxiously and surprised.
“More like what are you doing here Paul?”
“Oh, uh nothing, just coming to get some of Tab’s things.”
“What’s that in your hand?”
“Oh nothing!”
“Oh no, it’s something alright, it’s the knife you used to kill the guard and Tabatha.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about Leya.”
“Oh you do. You went on a work trip for your company, but at the same time you got an offer that could give you billions of dollars, sell drugs through you company you had to keep it a secret or else you’re reputation would be ruined. Tabatha decided to give you a surprise visit and caught you with a drug dealer, the most wanted in the world. She was so angry, she never thought you'd do something like that. She started to blackmail you, and when Kathy Myrice invited you over to New York, you thought that would be the perfect opportunity to talk to Tabatha face to face about the situation, you would tell her how fed up you were about this whole thing. She didn’t have a care in the world of what your thought, so you killed her. But in a rush to get out, you hid the knife in the horse sculpture and that's why it was cracked. To create a suspense, you first hit the gallery to steal the mask so you could put it on Tabatha's face when you killed her. In the process you got caught by the guard patrolling that area, you couldn't take any chances, so you killed him."
“Now you listen here,” he said pulling out a gun, “I hate doing this to someone I really thought I could trust, but you-”
“Cameron Doyl from the police department, drop your weapon.”
He dropped the gun, my whole crew came out and Cameron (the chief of the police department) handcuffed Paul. This other dude blabbered on about having the right to remain silent.
“Paul I can’t believe you would do this.” I say, I would never ever suspect that Paul would do such a low thing for money
“You don’t understand Leya.” I walked towards Claire and she said,
“Good job! That was awesome, now can we go out to dinner?”
“Sure!”
"You know, I'm real sorry what happened with Paul."
"It's ok, things happen."
And that was that.