The Case of the Secret Gems (P.Du Sang Mystery) pt 2

“Hi Pauline, are you alright?” Mr. Brown asked as he watched her slam her car door and storm up her front porch.

“Hey, Mr. Brown. Everything is superb.” She said as she opened her front door to the house. She turned giving him a slight smile, in hindsight, it might have looked a little strange since she never smiled at him before. She went inside, dropped her keys on the little table by the door, and straight to the guest bedroom on the second flight.

Pauline opened the door and immediately regretted that she left all her things in boxes.

“Well, there is no time like the present to unpack.” She said to herself and the amount of adrenaline and anger coursing through her veins helped her bulldoze through everything. That very night.

It was three in the morning when she finally situated the room to her liking. No one knew of her past and she wanted it to stay that way, as she unpacked her things an idea came to her on how to keep her anonymity. She had only one house call to make in a few hours. She will begin her investigation right after.

It was ten-fifteen and she drove to 835 Vahallen Road. That was where the victim was found in her home. Quickly she noted that her home was secluded from prying eyes. Anyone who knew gardening knew the best way to keep people from spying was by planting trees of different heights and kinds. Then organize it strategically so that it looks decorative but serves its purpose.

She needed to see the amount of police around the scene. There were six plain-clothed officers standing guard outside. She could see the forensic squad was on sight. She also noticed that there were surveillance cameras still watching the area.  As she drove off, she noticed the female detective she had seen yesterday at the nail salon was there. Standing in the front of the house looking at the second-story window.

She took a glance and smiled. She was green. It would be too obvious to go in through the window. By the looks of the tree growing beside the window, it could not handle any type of weight without bending and eventually snapping. She drove off as a plan started to form.

Eleven O’clock

Entering the only florist in the town of Valhalla, she unknowingly walked in on a distraught florist making a floral arrangement that had to be for the recently deceased Ms. Arkwright.

“Excuse me. Hi, I’m Annie and I’m here to apply for the delivery position.”

The florist looked up facing a dark-haired young woman wearing a unicorn t-shirt, ripped jeans, and a pair of white tennis sneakers.

“Do you have a driver’s license?”

“Yes, I was told you just needed someone temporary?” she said with a lisp.

“Why do you sound like that?” he asked with a look like he smelled something bad.

“Oh, sorry It’s my Invisalign retainer,” Pauline said.

“Alright, this job does require you to speak a little. So, can you take that out when needed?” the florist asked.

“Yes, no problem.”

“I am Filo Anastas. I will need you only until this, this---” He began to cry into the arrangement.

“Are you alright?”

“How can I be alright when my love has been killed.”

‘His love?’

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, never mind you're too young to understand things.” He went on to tell her of the deliveries to be made. That arrangement had to be delivered to the Valhalla Road at twelve fifteen today.

Annie (Pauline) took the arrangement and set off in her sherbet-colored Kia sports car. She stopped two blocks down and placed a camera in the vase. It was waterproof and she needed to see who came and went.

She walked up the driveway past some of the officers and into the house. After being stopped and speaking to a couple of officers they received the okay to allow her to drop off the flowers.

“Bradley, when will you make the transfer of funds to our estate? We have to pay for the funeral and things.” A woman with a bob cut, tailored suit, and a look of intolerance that seemed to be etched into her face said.

“Emily this is not your money until the will is read and besides. This is a murder investigation do you not care about your cousin.” A man the same height and stocky build stated.

“Like you do? You are just the banker? You want your cut just as bad as we all do.”

“Excuse me place those flowers on the stand in the library. We will have it moved to the wake when we can have one.”

“Yes, alright miss,” Annie said.

As Annie walked to the library, she passed the detective right by. Another clue is that she was still new to her position.

“Detective Vine, have you any clue who may have done this and where are the earrings? I still think it is natural causes.” Emily asked as she looked at the detected with boredom.

Detective Vine looked tired and seemed to be mulling around the fact that this can be a natural cause of death and whatever is missing could just be lost.

“I still do not think that it’s natural causes. Why would they only take her expensive heirloom jade earrings?” Detective Vine asked as she looked at both Emily and Bradley.

“I have questioned everyone who has seen it on her the day before her birthday celebration. It should have been in her safe in her bedroom, but it was not.” Emily stated annoyed.

“Detective as you said it is the only thing that was missing. She was in her late eighties and tended to forget things. Maybe she had forgotten it somewhere and we just cannot locate it at this moment. Don’t you think?” Bradly said looking around at the officers all over the place.

Detective Vine turned and left the cousin and the banker standing there waiting for her to answer. She could not help but smile at the look of annoyance on both of their faces as she watched the scene play out.

Annie left and went straight to her car. She placed the camera in the perfect place. She did not take the order of the cousin to place the flowers in the library, but at the entrance to the library since it had an empty pillar before it. It gave her a view of who came in and out of the house.

Two fifteen

Pauline went straight into the guest bedroom to the right of her house.

“Okay let’s dust the cobwebs off and get to solving.” She said to herself.

She sat at the far end of the room but parallel to the door. Before her, she set up three large screens. The first setup was recording what was going on in the household. Who came in and out?

The second was running background history on all that came in and out, which she will have to answer for in a couple of days. The third was right before her as she started to use her blood tubes.

Yes, you heard correctly. Pauline Du Sang had a strange fascination with blood and created a unique system that only she knew how to use. She labeled the tubes to the prime suspects.

She had the cousin Emily Curtis, the banker Bradley Barker, the florist Filo Anastas, and the manicurist Rose Ocampo.  Looking at the background history of these four individuals, they only had reason to want to see Hayley Arkwright dead. Just who had the guts to pull it off? As she delved deeper into their past none of them had the skills to be a thief but one of them must have done it.

“Something is missing.” Pauline loved the rush she was getting as she was completely stumped.

Right next to her, she received a ping on a plant she placed on Lance. See she knew he was not the lead mortician on the case, but he was the town's mortician, and he would do anything to follow Nate Varden and learn something new in Mortuary science.

She pressed the icon to allow her to hear their conversation.

“So, Nate what do you see that I do not, because I could have done this all myself,” Lance said in his annoyed voice.

“Alright You tell me what you see,” Nate said.

“The specimen was late in age, and had a good diet shown by the way she was still slim. She loved keeping up appearances since she slathered cold cream on her face and internally it looks as if she may have had an allergic reaction to something causing her throat to swell.”

“Typical textbook. She did suffocate but what you missed was the shocked appearance and the dead stare. She was leaving a clue.” Nate told him.

“Which is?”

“A natural death does not show such a startling appearance and you would not die lathering on cold cream on your face. A natural death is peaceful and at times strikes when one is asleep or sitting peacefully somewhere. She had a good heart so no attack. She is not overweight and does not need pressure medication and we can also rule out she did not take any blood thinners, so no aneurysm. No, she was killed, and she saw who it was and all that from her eyes. Windows to the soul Lance.”

“Then who did she see?”

“That is not my expertise. I just report what I find. My job is done.”

Pauline had to get into the police morgue tonight. She needed to see the body and she knew how to do it.

The tubes were slowly being filled with facts. The information Nate unknowingly gave her helped but there is something she needs to see on the body. She stopped and began her work on one of her best disguises yet.

It took her over two hours to get it right and some of it had to be set for another hour, so she decided to visit the nail salon to see how Rose was holding up.

The shop had a few customers and Rose was sitting at the front looking off into the distance as if caught in a memory. Pauline walked in making a mental note that a customer was walking into one of the rooms she spotted the last time.

“Hello. Was the manicure done to your liking” Rose asked.

“Yes, thank you. I wanted to leave a tip, but your daughter rushed off before I could.”

“I’m sorry she is so worried about me. My health is not so good, but I still like working occasionally. You can have a seat if you want to wait to tip her personally?” Rose said with a sincere smile.

“Alright. I admired the nail art on the walls. Who did them?”

“Thank you. We all contributed to it. Do you see something you like?”

“No, I think they're too glitzy for my taste. Do you mind me asking how you know the late Ms. Arkwright?”

That is when Pauline heard the footsteps come from behind her since she was sitting facing Rose.

“You don’t know the story? You must be new to town. She was her manicurist. Right, mum. Until she told you that you were no longer good enough for her.”

Rose's daughter came out of the other door wearing white plastic gloves. She seemed annoyed that I was asking questions. Why?

“Sorry for prying. I came to give you a tip for the manicure.”

“I told you all that was taken care of. Now can you please stop bothering my mother about that woman? I do not need her more upset than she already is.”

Rose looked sad and tired as if she were beaten down too many times in her long life.

“That was not my intention. You're right I am new here and I just used the excuse of the tip to see how your mom was doing.” She said as she took a good look at the daughter.

“I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Pauline.”

“Ava.” She said

“Well, I am glad you are alright, Rose.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, I’ll give you a tip since you know. Mind your business in this town. You understand?”

Pauline left and accidentally bumped into Ava.

Ava sucked her teeth and walked away, back to the second room.

“Bye Rose,” Pauline whispered.

“Excuse her. She just never wanted to come back home to take care of me.”

That struck Pauline too close to home since she did not want to take off her ailing mother either.

Six Thirty

“Hello, Nate why are you back so soon?” An officer asked

“Hey, I left a notepad in the morgue. I must write a detailed report for the investigation. It will only take a second to go get it.”

“Go right ahead.”

Nate walked into the room and went straight to the deceased Ms. Arkwright. He looked her over and took a couple of dead skin cells from the face and nails on a strip of tape.  He looked at the face, then covered it back. Nate went to the desk and opened the drawer. There was a filing cabinet on the bottom that they kept close to go over the evidence. Inside was a picture of the deceased and how she was found. She did appear in shock. He put it back and walked out of the room.

“Did you find the notepad?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

He walked out of the precinct and went straight home.

Seven Forty-five

The tubes were almost filled with suspects yet what could have killed her, who and why?

The bell chimed as the centrifuge stopped spinning. Pauline took the dead cell and put it in a chemical solution to see the base substance of the cream. She took the vial out and took a drop of the substance to examine it under the microscope.

Pauline stood up and all the pieces began to fall into place. She went to the tubes and rearranged the contents and saw what they all could not see. There it was. The missing tube.

“Brilliant!” she said out loud.

She decided that she did not want to come out of her self-imposed exile, but she needed the case to be solved and she knew exactly who she would let have the credit.

Nine AM

Detective Vile sat at her desk looking at all the evidence before her and she was ready to through in the towel. She could not prove who did it and that was the worst thing a detective had to admit.

“Excuse me detective this arrived at the front addressed to you.”  The desk officer handed her a manila envelope with only her name on it.

She opened it and began to read”

Detective Vine,

I have been following the case you have been assigned to and I will let you know who did it. In these pages, you will see the criminal as clear as day and I will tell you how the person should be captured. Once you read over the information you will do as instructed or the murderer will escape, and your case will be done for. You are probably thinking it was me who did it. That is far from the case. I just do not feel like being revealed to the public. You will not find me even if you try. I am good at what I do. Now read on and let us catch the murder.

Detective Vine looked around the office to see if someone was watching her. If this was a joke to play on the new detective. She debated on giving it to the sergeant, but her curiosity took over.

The detective read the information from cover to cover. She did as the letter instructed and found out that everything, she said was accurate. It was time to gather everyone.