Teenage Detective
Chapter 7: The Investigation Beckons
Amy's funeral was taken place immediately. The police has taken the case seriously and the townspeople became worried of what has become of their town. Harry and the others sat gloomily and frightened as they listened to the preaching.
"After Elisa, it was Farah and now Amy, a funeral one after another, damn it!" cursed Corbin under his breath. "What is happening to this town, it's like death is upon us."
They could not agree more with the blonde, but Harry was unusually quiet again.
"What the?" Darren said a bit loudly, rummaging through his bag a bit frantically.
"What is what?" Hermione asked the large boy beside her.
"I can't seem to find my bracelet, I know I put it in my bag just this morning," he told them, as the other three people began to search for their bracelets.
"What? Mines gone too," Kevin said disbelievingly.
"What is happening? Are they stolen?" Alin said in anxiousness.
"Rubbish," Kevin disagreed. "Why would someone steal them?"
Harry thought it was odd that all four people have lost their bracelets. It was too much of a coincidence. Then like lightning, his brain remembered Farah's words back when Elisa's funeral was held.
"We bought the bracelets together, how can I be the only one who should not bring it,"
Those words gave him a thread…
"Harry," Alin called the jet haired boy, her head lying on the table.
"Yup," he replied, drinking his coffee, sitting opposite of Alin. Hermione was on his right side watching piteously at Alin's gloominess.
"The darts used by the killer, should have one more right?" she asked in a muffled voice.
"Obviously," he replied,
"Maybe… I am his next victim," she said nonchalantly.
"Alin! Don't say such nonsense," Hermione sternly warned.
"But I won't die that easily," she spoke back and gave a furious look. "I will bite any parts of the killer so that everyone would know the person with my bite marks is the killer."
"I don't think you would be killed," Harry said, assuring his wavy haired friend.
Then Hermione opened up about Amy. "But the case happened at night," she said.
Alin felt odd about this fact. "Why would she go to the clubroom at that late hour?" she asked.
"Because she left something there, therefore she went back to find it,
Harry stated.
Hermione chirped in then. "Yes, we helped her cleaning up the clubroom though not entirely clean."
"Cleaning up the clubroom? Why?" Alin asked, finding it surprising.
"She told us she used to play Tennis during her junior high times," Hermione told her.
"There was no Tennis Club when she moved up to high school, she really wanted to keep on playing," Harry added.
"Oh, I see," Alin murmured softly.
"This morning I got a glimpse of the murder scene, the boxes have obvious look that they were moved. They were not from the scuffle between Amy and the killer but traces of Amy's search," Harry explained in a more detailed explanation.
"Maybe so… plus there was also a paper bag from the hardware shop," Hermione said.
"Really? What does that mean?" Alin asked puzzled.
"Right, there were no lights when Hermione and I helped Amy, so she bought the light bulb to help in her search." Then Harry became in deep thought.
"Harry? What's wrong?" Hermione asked anxiously.
Then his face turned shock. He stood up and took his jacket. "I'm going out for awhile," he announced and grabbed his jacket.
Both girls were surprised. "Wait a minute, Harry!" but Hermione's cry was too late as Harry left already.
Harry arrived at the school gate, where a policeman on guard duty halted him. "I'm sorry, but you can't enter, a police investigation is currently running," the policeman told Harry.
"But I left my school bag in the locker," Harry lied.
Before the policeman can response, the inspector emerged from the school building, looking lost. "Just let him in, Mickey," ordered the inspector, who sounded tired. Both Harry and policeman stared at the middle aged man in surprise.
"This boy isn't any ordinary kid."
A white line was made to mark where Amy's body was. But Harry's attention was not focus on it. Instead he carefully examined the room without touching anything. The boxes, like he discerned, were not in a mess by cause of a scuffle but cause by searching. He then moved his attention to the small desk. A white line was also made to mark two evidence pieces, a torchlight and a paperbag.
"Did the paperbag was opened?" Harry inquired the inspector.
"Nope, the things inside were not touch at all," the inspector answered calmly.
"Was there a light bulb inside?" he asked another question that made the inspector surprised.
"How do you know that?" the middle aged man asked back.
Harry proceeded to switch on the lights. The light from the ceiling did not light up. Then he positioned the chair right below the light.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" the inspector asked anxiously.
"Just a moment," Harry told him. He stood up on the chair and took out the square glass cover and the bulb too. "So tight…" he muttered, and inspected the light bulb. It was unwired.
"Inspector, can I search another thing?" he asked sincerely.
"What? Go ahead… but don't go searching till this room in a mess," the inspector warned.
Harry went off the chair and searched under the table, for something or anything. Then he felt something, round and small. He pulled it out and felt it.
"This is it," he said reassuringly to himself. "With this I know who the killer is but the only problem left is the killer's alibi when Farah was murdered. It must be hidden somewhere."
Harry thanked the police thought the inspector shrugged him off quickly. They quickly left the school area. Harry smirked at this and as he was about to stepped out of the gate.
"Hey Harry!" called someone, and Harry saw a large boy with crew cut hair.
"Darren?" he said in surprised.
Darren brought Harry back to his house for some coffee. They hanged out in the boy's bedroom which reminiscence Harry of his old room at the Dursleys.
"Why did you go to that place?" Darren asked, handing Harry a cup.
"I was just about to ask you the same thing," Harry replied, taking the cup and resting his back against Darren's bed.
"Nah, I just saw you walked in, so I…" but Darren did not get to finish his sentence when Harry cut him off.
"Wow! Good coffee mate" claimed Harry.
Darren grinned proudly. "I read books till late night every single day, so I made coffee to give me perk up, before I even know it, I am a good maker," he explained.
"Really?" Harry asked skeptically.
"Yes, here in this town, no tuition class is good enough, so if I want to get into a great university, I have to study hard," Darren said impishly. "I really wanted to become a lawyer someday," he added.
"I thought you were into football and girls," Harry said jokingly.
Darren glared at Harry but shrugged it off the joking comment. "That was because it was Kevin, he was a star player, no matter how many times I practice, I will never be the best. I played because I want to see him succeed in his dream."
Harry was in awe hearing this.
"Hey it's getting late, how about you sleeping here tonight, my parents are out of town, we can talk till late night," said Darren with a sly look on his face.
"Don't you need to study?" Harry raised a brow.
"Sometimes we have to clear our mind," the large boy said with sarcastic spiritual voice.
"You all talk, alright, but I have to call Alin first to let her know."
"Oh… okay, I'll see you tomorrow morning then," Alin spoke as she put down the phone down. "He's so troublesome sometimes," she huffed.
Then Hermione came into the hallway. "Hey who called?" she asked coolly.
Alin made an irate noise. "It's Harry, he's staying at Darren's," Alin told Hermione, pursing her lips.
"Oh… and why are you mad about that? I see nothing wrong," said Hermione, raising her brows.
"I thought he went out doing some investigation, instead he does god knows what boys do," Alin scowled, raising her hand like she wanted to choke someone.
Hermione patted the wavy haired girl's back. "Calm down, Harry's fine, he always make it through to the end," she said reassuringly.
Alin did not understand. "What do you mean?" she faced the other girl inquiringly.
But before Hermione replied, Alin spoke again. "Wait… wait, let's talk this over hot chocolate in my room."
The two girls chatted endlessly in Alin's room, exchanging information about each other and some Harry too. Hermione was careful enough not to talk about the Wizarding World.
"Harry used to need someone to look after him? I find that a bit hard to believe," said Alin dubiously.
"You wouldn't believe how many times in a week we got into a mess in Chemistry, one time he created a blue smoke and turned the whole room into blue," Hermione said, telling her story, and both girls laughed.
"But he has been through so many hardships, one more burden than the last one…" she said with gloomy expression.
Alin listened closely.
"Problems seemed to find him or he find them blindly, at first I don't know he overcome them, so that's why I've been sticking with him the whole way," the bushy haired girl explained.
"Has Harry ever find the things he wanted the most?" Alin asked.
"That depends on him, he's still learning though…" Hermione suddenly yawned. Seeing this Alin decided to tuck in.
Harry woke up to the sound of Darren's annoying snoring. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. The room was in a mess. Tin cans everywhere, books strewn around. Apparently, he slept on the floor. They sure did have a boys' night.
He stood up and examined the room more. He noticed that he was using the room's carpet as a blanket along with Darren. Ha laughed to himself.
Then he stood up and walked to the window and opened it. He felt a slight breeze coming in after sliding the window up. That was when he noticed the infamous cherry blossom snow pouring down again.
"Suppose to be the second last day today, tomorrow will be the last of this miracle snow," he said to himself.
Then something caught his attention, the clean and sandy beach. He noticed that the snow did not pile up there.
Darren then suddenly sneezed, making Harry jumped. He closed the window and apologized.
Harry then went back to lying down, trying to continue some shut eyes. But before he could do that, a thought occurred to him.
He frantically stood back up, picked up his jacket and got out of the house without awakening Darren.
He walked along the beach, with only the sea creating waves as the noise. "There's really no snow here, why?" he asked himself.
Then he saw a man with his fishing kit gearing up for fishing. Harry quickly went to the man. "Excuse me, sir," he called the man. His call caught the man's attention.
"Why isn't there any snow piling on the beach?" he asked.
The old man huffed. "The question you're asking is a high school level science," he told Harry.
"Science?"
"Yes but however…" the man began to explain thoroughly and Harry understood the man's explanation.
"Yes those facts are really in the text books…" then something dawned in his mind. He knelt down and grabbed a handful of sand. "So that's the trick."
He stood back and thanked the man, but something else caught his eyes. There was a name on the box containing various fishing hooks. The name was 'La Porte'.
"Sir, are you Kevin's father?" Harry asked.
"What? No… you got it all wrong, I may have the same name but we're distant, very distant relatives," he explained politely and then asked. "Are you dear Elisabeth's friend?"
"You knew Elizabeth?" Harry asked back, raising his brows.
The man nodded and explained everything to Harry, a new revelation was found.
Snow turned to rain, a glum boy walking alone, bask in falling water.
"The colour of happiness, the unforgiving colour," he mumbled.
"I couldn't believe it was this…"
"Mystery has been solved!"
