Sitting on the bed as she studied her surroundings, the curious Taylor's emerald eyes gleamed at the art hanging on the wall around the room.
Undoing her boot laces, she hears Paul in the background hanging up his messenger bag on the hook before taking off his long coat.
Carefully hanging it up, he joins her side as he undid his laces.
Stretching his toes after pulling off his socks, Paul yawns as he begins the process of undoing his vest, throwing it over the chair adjacent to the bed.
With ease he pulled off his white frilly shirt, as he relaxed, he saw Taylor looking through the book that led them to the village.
It was a relatively unknown book that had a cult following, the only reason the two knew about it was Taylor found it by chance at a bookstore that specialized in unknown books such as this one.
What compelled the purchase was Paul reading a few pages from it before becoming intrigued.
The owner was of an unusual quality, but he appreciated the couple's interest in odd books.
Ever since, the couple read from the book, and the more they did, the more they became interested in a case that the detective became interested in that led him to the village.
He'd been contacted by a prisoner dying of cancer, wanting to tell his story before untimely dying after the chapter ends, and his story spurs the detective into investigating the death of a boy in the village.
Detective Murphy learns from the prisoner that the boy's death was a coverup and he hadn't died the way the reports said he did, that the villagers knew what happened to him, and they used the prisoner as the scapegoat to placate the Crown.
The prisoner had priors for excessive drinking among other things, the villagers used him because he had an issue with the deceased coming onto his property without permission.
While he was guilty of the things he did, the prisoner wasn't guilty of killing the child.
From then on, Detective Murphy went out into the village to investigate the death and met quirky characters that either dodged his inquiries or tried helping him in their own way.
He was certain the key figures in his investigation held clues to the truth in the matter, but it was a daunting task, as the couple read through his book, and at the end of the book, the winded detective didn't find any evidence with definite proof that the child didn't die the way claimed or have enough to hold those he felt as responsible.
Unsurprisingly, the book not having a riveting ending would result in it disappearing from public view and obtaining a cult following in its place.
While that might've been true, Paul was quick to read between the lines as there was more to the case.
His mother called it obsessive to look for anything between the lines while his father mused it was like his own father, never the one to settle, had to piece everything together until he found something in between the lines or nothing at all.
During his excessive reading, the allusions the detective made bothered him.
Obviously, the detective's editor had their fingertips in the details, trying to make the book more enticing, yet Paul managed to piece together the allusions.
He hoped to learn the truth behind the case and perhaps give the proper closure that the detective wanted.
Rubbing the underside of his foot, Paul yawns as he internally made the plan of exploring the village in the morning with Taylor.
Upon getting comfortable, Paul pulls Taylor close to him.
Come morning, they're off exploring the village, the first thing Paul wanted to see was the house that the murder happened in but found that it had been torn down due to structural damage that was too costly to justify repairing.
It was only a plot of land slowly being overtaken by nature, nothing of the former house stood, and though it was disappointing, Paul wasn't deterred.
"Maybe the community centre might something?" Taylor wondered if anything about the house and so on would be there and Paul mused that it would be a big case for a small village such as this to forget.
Walking with her, Paul follows a path leading up to a small building with large window panels, the handful of people lingering outside were too focused on their conversations to notice the pair making their way past inside.
The age of the building hit their noses, so it was almost comforting to Taylor, reminding her of the museum.
With the building small, Paul and Taylor walked behind each other as they walked through it, their curious eyes gleaming at everything involving the history of the village.
Some old artifacts, paintings of important figures, name it, it was there.
Of course, the mentions of the murder weren't easily found, despite it being something considered asinine to a village this size, but Taylor managed to find something about it hidden away from prying eyes.
A framed newspaper article hidden in one of the drawers describing the blackmailed prisoner being arrested for the killing of George White.
Priors for excessive drinking, assaulting the constable, other crimes prior, and having threatened George White in the past for trespassing and playing pranks on him, Nigel Strait was dead to rights his killer.
It reports that he strangled George White after chasing him when he caught the boy on his property yet again and after a day of drinking flew into a fit of rage.
Reading quickly, Paul saw everything he needed before he helped Taylor cover their tracks, putting on their facade of wandering tourists.
Using every trick, they come to learn since adventuring together, Paul and Taylor managed to coerce an older woman into telling them more about George White.
She turned out to be his old neighbor and they were friends at the time prior to his death.
Being a few years younger than him, she couldn't remember everything that happened, only that after the dust settled her family moved from the village to one of the outlying cities for her father's work.
Distinctly she remembered Nigel Strait as loud and frightening that she wouldn't go outside at times when he was out and about out of fear of crossing his path.
"Georgie was always playing his pranks on the man. I tried telling him that he shouldn't do it, that he was scary, but you know how it is," Muriel frowns as she recalled her youth when she lived in the village.
George was insistent on his pranks that when she heard he was murdered by Nigel, she immediately jumped to the conclusion that Nigel had enough of the pranks and took matters into his own hands.
When asked about George's parents, Muriel explained that they were always busy with handling him and his siblings.
After George was killed, his brothers and sisters grew quiet, meek, and Muriel remembered how they wouldn't go outside much unless it was for school.
Shortly before she moved with her family, she attempted to visit his sisters, but they would only look out the window of their rooms and wouldn't come out.
Their mother claimed they were still jittery about the murder, before Muriel was sent home.
"When I came back, all his siblings were already gone, moved elsewhere, their parents dead," Muriel frowns as she recalled how she returned to her childhood home only to find everything changed.
Curious, Paul asks if she attempted to contact his siblings after she and her family moved, and Muriel affirmed that she tried, but they wouldn't talk to her.
It forced Taylor to broach the idea that it wasn't Nigel that killed him, that George's siblings knew the true culprit.
"We're a small village, Miss Taylor, everyone knows everyone," Muriel sums for her before stating that she didn't believe it was even his own family that killed him.
Excusing herself, she went to handle a phone call while leaving Paul and Taylor to look at each other.