Author's Note: Thank you for reading and reviewing!
Story So Far: Suspicious events follow one after the other. The latest development is the murder of Ariana Willin. Michael is worse than ever, and for some reason Jenny Willin wants to have a chat with him. What next? Read on to find out!
Chapter 8: Foggy Thoughts and a Newspaper Cutting
Having managed to brush off Jenny, John led Michael back to their tent.
George was posting an update about this murder, so Dad would know about all of this in a matter of minutes. It would be better if I called him first, so that he would know that I was eager to discuss this case with him instead of merely relying on George's posts.
Bess was tapping on her phone as well and Amelia was surely at her father's tent, meaning that our tent was empty.
I almost ran back to the tent and dialled his number. When he took the call, he could barely say 'hi' before I narrated the whole incident to him without a pause.
"I don't want to spill water on your excitement Nancy," Dad said once I had finished, "the rock climbing incident was one thing, there was a decent chance of one of your fellow campers being involved in it, but this murder, for one thing you don't know anything about Ariana Willin's past life, and this death might be related to some past scandal or past event, honestly, where do you expect to start investigating for clues?"
Even though I realised that Dad didn't want me to be involved in this murder, I also knew that it would be a wild goose-chase to carry out the unauthorised investigation of a person I barely even knew.
"Hello?" I heard Dad's voice. I realised I had been silent for a long time.
"Hi, you are right but I have a feeling...never mind, I will keep out of this," I said untruthfully.
"I know I can't keep you out of a mystery once it gets your attention," there was a long pause, "Just be careful. Bye," he hung up without even waiting for an answer.
I looked down at the phone's screen, close to tears. I couldn't remember when the last time Dad had hung up on me halfway through the call was. He clearly didn't want my involvement in this murder but I just, I just have a gut feeling that it's related- the rock-climbing incident and the murder.
Taking a deep breath, I stood up. It was time to start with the investigation. I will make up to Dad later.
I found Bess and George and told them my next course of action, "I want to have a look at the barricade first." It would tell me whether the campers are to be included or not.
One of the police officers, who had seen me talking to Julian, told me that today the barricades had only been removed from the path leading to and from the bungalow. The rest of it was still in the woods.
I walked into the woods accompanied by Bess and George. We walked around twenty metres when we found it. It was ten feet high, with wire-mesh nets. It was portable and could be moved quite easily because it rolled on wheels.
"Anybody could scale these," George said, "At the most; it could be used to tell the campers that they are expected to be within the territory."
I was about to agree with her when my eyes fell on a signboard. 'Warning: 440 volts'. There goes my lead, I thought.
I pointed it out to Bess and George. I, however wasn't convinced, "The barricades are put up at nightfall. Somebody from the camp could have snuck out before nightfall. Or," my eyes landed on a tall tree close by. I started climbing it. One of its branches branched out over the barricade to the other side. Someone could have jumped from here but the land won't be a desirable one. Still, if the person had a pillow or something to cushion the fall, it is an option.
I climbed back to the ground and we made our way back to the camp.
As we exited the woods, my eyes fell on a piece of paper. It was a newspaper cutting, a few months old probably.
'Plane gets hijacked and 4 hostages get killed'. I remembered this vaguely. As far as I could recall, my exams were going on when this news came out, so i don't remember any details about it.
I started reading it aloud, "On the 8th of March, 20XX, a plane which was heading to Toronto, Canada from New Jersey was hijacked by an infamous organisation and 27 travellers and flight attendants were kept as hostages. Their demand was the release of one of their imprisoned accomplices. However, when the government initially denied any claims of imprisonment, four of the hostages were killed brutally. It was only when the government complied with the demands that the rest of the hostages were set free.
Our Intelligence Agencies believe that the handler of this hijack was an American, Jennifer Lincer. Sources report..."
"Give that here," Jenny Willin snatched the piece of paper from my hand and before I could say anything, she had pulled out a lighter from her pocket and burnt the cutting to ashes. "Youngsters shouldn't be reading things like this," and with a half-crazed glance towards us, she briskly walked away.
That was one crazy girl for sure, but I couldn't help the half-grin from forming on my face. Jennifer Lincer. From the way she reacted, I could bet it was one of her family. Infamous, ugh.
She didn't want us to read the cutting though. Maybe she didn't want too much discussion about this scandal. Or could this be linked with Ariana's murder? Was there any more to this story? Or had I started suspecting everyone for apparently no reason?
We sat down there, on the edge of the forest to think. John came out of the tent to our right, his brows furrowed as he stood at the mouth of the tent scanning the entire campsite. His eyes fell on the three of us and he came over to us.
"What's up?" he asked.
I told him about the newspaper cutting, about how Jenny had burnt it.
"Actually, we came here to see the barricade. It's legit but not fool-proof," Bess said, "For one thing, it could be crossed and anybody could have gone over to the other side before it was set up."
"So everyone is a suspect on the detective's list, right?" John smiled, "Or at least that's what Mike said. He loves crime fiction, you know."
"He's right," I said, "Everyone is a suspect, even you and me," I smiled.
"Even us," Bess said, "We might have been holding an ancient grudge against her or something," she said rolling her eyes dramatically.
Trust Bess to lighten the atmosphere.
After some more small talk, John returned to the tent. Sitting there, on the edge of the woods surrounded by the trees and separated from the rest of the camp had a calming effect on me.
Slowly, my brain fell into a thinking process. There were some imminent questions that needed to be answered. Who was the sabotager of the rock-climbing incident? Who murdered Ariana Willin? Were they the same people? Was it somebody from the camp who had managed to sneak out last night? Or was it somebody else and my efforts were futile?
There were some other suspicions as well. Could the incident of Mr. Derek's house burning up have any link to the rest of the incidents? Could the rope have been tampered with earlier? Why was Jenny so furious with the newspaper cutting? Could Jennifer Lincer have any link to all of this? Why did it persistently feel like I was missing something completely? Everything was still so foggy.
If the rope had previously been tampered with then, I hated to say it, Mr. Jones would be involved. He was probably not in a state to talk so it would be best to ask Amelia. I found her by the logs again. Apparently she had given up trying to convince her father.
I started off the conversation easy, asking about the type of rope which was toughest and least probable to break.
Amelia understood what I was angling at pretty fast. She told me to follow her and took me to the place where the ropes were kept. Silently she handed me the severed rope. It was the first time I got a close look at it, but it only confirmed what I had seen at first sight. The ends of the rope weren't frayed. There was no way this had worn out. It had been cut, a little inexpertly perhaps, and with a heavy weight dangling from the other end. I could infer it from experience.
"Of course, had it already been tampered with, Dad would already have noticed it and there would have been no question of using it," Amelia said.
I decided not to tell her that I had been suspecting her father just a few minutes ago. Besides, Mr. Jones' concerns did seem genuine.
I went back to Bess and George. I found them talking to Julian.
"Hey, I was waiting for you, actually," he said. And without further ado, he jumped straight into the details, "According to the doctor, if it is 12 noon now, the murder was committed 7-11 hours ago. The murderer stabbed her with a knife. It was a common knife; you would find it anywhere really. No fingerprints. The victim had been asleep for quite some time. According to the victim's sister, the victim didn't have any enemies, at least nobody who would kill her. Tell you what, she is reluctant to cooperate with the police, wants to close the case if possible."
That's odd. She was all for the police a couple of days ago. Probably just being nervous, I thought. Nervous and wants some peace. I have seen this before, relatives of murder victims often want to be left alone to their miseries, but that can't be done. Not if they wanted to know the full story anyway.
I pondered for a second, "Would it be possible to get a look at the body?" I asked with an edge of doubt.
Julian smiled, "I presumed you would ask for it. No, you can't actually just walk up there and demand to look at the corpse. However," he turned on his camera, "Here, I took some extra shots so that you get a fairly good idea of the crime scene."
I looked at the screen and browsed through the pictures. The first one showed the room, the crime scene. It was a well-decorated room. There was a single bed in the far end of the room. On the opposite wall there was a huge cupboard covering the entire expanse of the wall. Other than that there were a table and a chair, a dresser and a bookshelf.
Another picture was a close-up of the corpse. Ariana's eyes were wide open and her mouth was lightly open, looking like she was shocked. From other shots, I saw the knife. It really was an ordinary knife, anybody could have bought it. With a jolt, I remembered the knife in Mr. Ropkins' hand, the one from the rope-cutting incident. It was another common knife as well...
Having finished with the pictures, I handed the camera back to Julian. "Is that all?" I asked.
"Yeah, that's all," he said and then added, "Don't worry, if I get to know anything more, I will ring you up."
Julian went back after exchanging a few more words.
After a late lunch, the three of us were sitting on the logs. I tried to make any connection among all of this but every time I thought about it, things just got more and more muddled up and foggy. I had that feeling that I was missing something entirely. I tried to call Dad a few times but the network was blank.
Afternoon gave way to evening and, to my surprise, many of my fellow campers came over to tell me that now, they felt that something was indeed wrong. They assured me that they knew I wasn't making a mountain out of a molehill.
Bob mumbled something like an apology and agreed that with the present circumstances, it was unlikely that the rope had worn out. Sara Millent said, "It's all so upsetting. I returned to America, after a full one year, I barely had any contact with anybody here, and all these terrible incidents." Ruhi said, "Just imagine, we are camping here and that's when this murder was committed. How embarrassing!"
Falling asleep that night was easier once my self-doubt had been erased. I let out a sigh. How will I get to the bottom of this?
Author's Note:- The name Jennifer Lincer is purely fiction. If you know somebody with that name, then it's nothing more than a coincidence. Drumboy 100 suggested adding Bess and George as suspects. Thanks to her for the brainwave!