Checkmate
By Lily Evans and Matt Lee
Chapter 6
Izzy sat at home the day after Sora's death. He was at his laptop with his chin resting on his steepled fingers. He had to figure out this whole thing before another one of his friends died. What also troubled him was that Sora had accused him. Was he really acting like he was the one who did it? He knew it wasn't him, but the rest of them didn't.
He got up from his chair. He was going to Sora's funeral, hoping the murderer would confess. Really hoping. There was no possible way they could really accuse Matt without further evidence. Acting suspicious wasn't enough. Even if he was acting suspicious, Izzy was beginning to have his doubts.
As he walked down the street to the cemetery, where the funeral was going to take place, he ran the clues over in his head. What did it all mean? Kheckmat? What kind of a clue was that? He didn't realize it as someone joined him. As soon as he sensed the presence it was too late. The person grabbed his jacket and slammed him into a wall in the nearest alleyway.
"Matt!" Izzy yelled. "What are you doing?"
"I'm giving you a clue, stupid," he snapped, as though it were obvious. "What does it look like?"
"Well…"
"Nevermind," Matt said impatiently. "I know what you all think of me."
"What?" Izzy was astounded, but then again, it was kind of obvious they all suspected him. "Well, what's this clue you have for me?"
"Kheckmat."
Izzy stared at him. What was that about? He knew the murderer kept leaving that clue. Was Matt just confessing or something? Matt looked at him. He repeated the word again. He was empathizing the first, fifth, and last letter of the word.
Matt could tell Izzy didn't understand. He rolled his eyes, sighed, and walked away, shaking his head. Izzy stood in the alleyway, his back still pressed against the stone, cold wall. He slumped down to the bottom, his breath coming in shallow gasps. Was that supposed to be a good clue? Matt knew very well that it would stump him. Izzy spent no more time thinking about what Matt said.
~*~
The funeral was nearly unbearable for everyone. Mimi had sobbed throughout the whole thing, except when she was giving her speech. She spoke quite beautifully, in Izzy's mind. When she sat back down next to him she smiled a weak smile, just enough to encourage him.
"Do you have any other leads?" she asked him.
"No," he replied, still trying to force what Matt said out of his mind. "Nothing."
Once the funeral was over Izzy and Mimi began to walk home.
"I'm sorry Izzy," she said.
"For what?" he asked. He was beginning to feel ashamed of all he wasn't understanding today.
"For suspecting you," she said, ashamed. "I know you wouldn't do anything like that."
"It's all right," he assured her. "Everyone was on the suspect list, and I'm no exception." She smiled at him, another weak smile, but a smile nonetheless. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. It was at that time that Matt came running up.
"Izzy!" he yelled. "Thank God I found you!"
"What is it?" Izzy asked alarmed.
"I know who the murderer is, I was trying to tell you earlier without telling you directly but it didn't work."
"Who is it then?" Izzy said, beginning to feel anxious.
"It's—" Mimi let out a loud scream as a gunshot rang out, the bullet hit it's mark, right in between Matt's shoulder blades. Izzy stared wide-eyed down at Matt and took off at a run to the spot where the gunweilder was. Izzy heard rustling in the brush, obviously the murderer was running away. He wouldn't let them off that easily. He ran after the person, not even having to dodge the misaimed bullets flying past his ears. After about five blocks the murderer began to tire. As they neared Kari and Tai's old apartment the murderer suddenly stopped, the gun had run out of bullets and the murderer was to tired to carry on. Mimi came running up behind him. Izzy could tell by the build that it was definitely male.
"Who are you?" Mimi demanded. "Why are you doing this?"
He was obviously refusing to talk and Izzy didn't want to wait any longer; he pulled off the black ski mask the murderer was wearing. Underneath it was—
"TK!" Mimi screamed. "Why did you do this?"
"Kari," he said simply. Then he elaborated, "She chose him over me."
"Davis?"
"Yes."
"So you killed her?"
"YES!"
"What about the others? Why did you kill them?" Izzy was beginning to understand.
"Tai always liked Davis better than me. Davis stole her from me—"
"He did NOT steal her from you!" Mimi burst in. "She CHOSE him over you! She must have seen right through you. She must have known he was a better person. She didn't want a little bastard like you!"
Izzy was glad he had taken the gun away from TK, it looked like, if he were still loose, Mimi would have been next.
"Sora was getting too nosy, she was too close to figuring it out. Ken did figure it out. Kari's parents had installed an instant camera in her room and it took a picture of me killing her. I tried to get rid of it in the computer lab, but Ken found it. So I killed him too."
"You're disgusting!" Mimi yelled.
"What about Joe?" Izzy asked, knowing why he killed Matt.
"He bugged me." Mimi made a face of disgust. "So now you know," he said. "So," he was beginning to take something out of his pocket. "I guess," it was another gun. Izzy raised the gun in his hand, but there was no need. TK pointed the gun at his own head, "Goodbye."
Mimi shut her eyes tight as Izzy watched him with amusement, but there was no gunshot. Izzy smiled as TK looked at the gun, wondering what was wrong.
"They took the bullets out when you came to the funeral," he explained. "Thought it good for safety precautions. You didn't show them this one," Izzy waved the gun he was holding in TK's face. "Did you?"
TK let out a scream of rage and threw the gun into the bushes by the apartment. Many passerby were beginning to stare as TK threw himself onto Izzy with another howl of rage, trying desperately to wrench the gun from his hand. Mimi was trying to pr TK off, with no success. She screamed and jumped back as TK swung a fist at her. It was at that moment that Yolie and Cody ran up from down the block after seeing the commotion. With Cody and Yolie's help they were able to get TK off, still kicking and screaming.
"What's— going— on? Yolie panted.
"TK," Izzy said, rubbing his arm where TK had been clawing at it. "He's the murderer." Cody looked up from trying to tie TK up with a length of rope he found on the grass. He finished tying TK up and rubbed his hands on the grass, as if he had some disgusting chemicals on them.
"Why?" Yolie asked, Izzy had heard that word enough to last him the rest of his life.
"I'll explain everything later," Izzy told her. "Let's just turn him in."
"Way ahead of you," Mimi said, hanging up her cell phone. "The cops are on their way."
Not long after that two patrol cars arrived and took TK in. As the patrol cars sped away, lights flashing, Mimi turned to Izzy.
"We never found out what his little clue thingy meant," she said sounding disappointed.
"I think I know," Izzy said. "He spelled it K-H-E-C-K-M-A-T, didn't he? Well, if we flip the word around the first letter is a T and the last letter would be a K. He was telling us what he did. I think he just wanted to end it."
Yolie looked upset, "Well, we can't change what he did, can we?"
"No," Izzy said. "At least we stopped him before he could finish us all off."
"But what about his arm?" Cody asked.
"I thought that one would be obvious," Izzy said. "He faked it to raise suspicion off of him and could possibly pin it on Matt."
"I can't believe we fell for that," Yolie said. "I mean, well, if we hadn't been trying to catch Matt in the act of something he wasn't even in then we probably could've caught him earlier."
"That's true," Izzy said. "But he's not going to be killing any of us for a long time."
"But if he doesn't admit it in front of the police, then no one will believe that he did it and they'll let him off, won't they?" Cody asked, sounding alarmed at his own realization. Izzy just smiled at this one and pulled a small tape recorder out of his pocket, Mimi looked as though she could kiss him.
"Just a little backup evidence," Izzy said. "To close the case."
Mimi smiled, this time it wasn't weak, but there were tears streaming out of her eyes. "Thank God for you Izzy," she said. "Thank God."
END
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