It was a very early morning for Mrs. Robinson to wake up and work. She is a very inert woman but the Christmas was only one week away and she had a lot of cleaning to be done. She unwillingly woke up early on weekend to do daily routine chores.
She walked outside her house to collect newspaper for the day and saw a strange sight. A girl of nearly 18 or 19 years of age wearing an overlong woolen coat was walking across the lane opposite to her house towards the Parker's residence. The sight was strange because the girl was acting weird. She held her head lower while walking and she was not wearing any shoes in the month of December. From what Mrs. Robinson noticed, the only thing keeping the girl warm was the coat she was wearing and that too looked too big and gawky on her. She couldn't see her face due to the frizzy hair covering most of her and the main focus was on her hands. It looked like she was hiding something from both her hands covered and wrapped by her overlong coat.
Mrs. Robinson thought she might be someone escaped from the nut house. It's not too far from there and may be one of the patient has been missing from there. But that's not something common, isn't it? It could be an issue for public safety. How can they let that happen? The irresponsibility like that can cause some great accidents but only if whatever she is thinking is true?
In her deep thoughts, she decided to ring to the police when she heard a cry from her son Jared and she rushed inside to look for him. Jared had spilled the whole milk on the kitchen floor and had made the mess while trying to clean it. Mrs. Robinson gave an angry look to her son and he knew he was in big trouble. When she tried to reach his hand, he jerked her away and ran towards the exit.
Mrs. Robinson shouted in anger for Jared to stop but he took his bicycle and rides away. Disturbed and irritated by the spill around the kitchen, she began cleaning.
When she was done with cleaning and wiping the floor, she heard a loud thud followed by sharp bang. For a second she though she heard a gunshot. She ran towards the door and was shocked to see the same girl running from the Parker's house but this time her hands were visible clearly enough. She was holding a knife covered with blood. Mrs. Robinson screamed out of fear and that made the girl startled too. She dropped the knife and ran away from there. Within few seconds, people started gathering in the lane. Police was called. Some women were calming Mrs. Robinson down. The crowd noticed that the main entrance of Parker's residence was wide open. Few men went forward to check inside the Parker's house only to find their only son lying on the floor wounded by a gunshot. They quickly called the ambulance and the police arrived. Detective Harry and Officer Samuel reached at the crime scene. Harry moved forward to check the pulse of the victim. He was alive vividly. The nerves were faintly slow. Harry signed Samuel for the same and Samuel instructed the crowd to stand at a distance.
Within a minute ambulance arrived to take the victim to the hospital. Samuel saw a red headed woman rushed towards the door which was blocked by police men. She was wailing badly and trying hard enough to make an entrance. A woman deputy tried to hold her away from the victim but her struggle ended when she collapsed in the middle of it may be due to the crying and exhaustion.
���Poor Mrs. Parker" said someone from the crowd.
"Seems like the mother of the victim" said Samuel.
"Hmm…" agreed Harry
"Let the medical team do their work unless you are willing to help them" said Samuel with a smile in a mocking manner.
"Don't smile on the crime scene. People will think we are not serious in doing our jobs"
"As if you care what people think?"
"Fair enough"
"Look at the fat lady there. She saw the attacker"
"Well, anybody can say she was the one who saw the attacker"
Samuel laughed on the Harry's statement as it was clear that Mrs. Robinson was over-hyped. It looked like she was attacked.
"Complete attention seeker" said Samuel with an annoying face.
When Mrs. Robinson saw the officer and the detective were approaching her. She began crying more loudly.
Samuel stopped in between. I don't think I can handle a lady's emotion. She is all yours.
"Traitor" Harry mouthed to the Samuel and Samuel just winked him away.
Samuel is not a person who can handle drama so well. Especially, the one with all the crying and weeping which specifically involve ladies with their need for attention. She hates such kind of woman. And the kind he likes, he has not found her yet. He goes on dates on regular basis but get bored very easily. Now, the idea of dating has sounded like boring to him. So, he thought it would be better if Harry handle such situation. He is more into the field work and he is good at it.
"Are you okay ma'am?" Harry asked politely and waited for the lady response.
"Yes" Mrs. Robinson replied weakly.
"I need to talk to you. Can we speak in private please?"
Mrs. Robinson showed Harry the way to her house and then they were seated in their living room.
"Can I get you something?" asked Mrs. Robinson.
"No need ma'am"
"Stella Robinson" the lady informed the detective about her name.
"Stella. Can you please tell me what happened from the beginning? Each minute detail is worthy so please try not to skip anything."
Mrs. Robinson narrates the whole morning to the Detective as clearly as she could. Although the story she told was mixed with panic and shock so detective decided to stick with facts. She told him about the girl which might be escaped from the mental hospital not too far from the place of attack. But it is very unlikely to happen and if anything like that would have happened then there should be some call or information about. But nothing like that happened. Harry gave his card to the Mrs. Robinson so that she could contact him if she recalled something later. He visited the place where according to Mrs. Robinson, the girl dropped the knife which was supposedly covered with blood but found none. Although some drops of dried blood were found. The forensic team collected the blood sample for further analysis and Harry decided to return to the Samuel.
"It doesn't look like that something is taken or stolen but we have to wait for the family to confirm" informed Samuel.
"Hmm… There was no forced entry on the door. May be the attacker or that girl showed up on the door, rang the bell and boy came to see the person and then she attacked. But why did she attack?" Harry said in wonder.
"Because, she is crazy. Everyone is saying"
"That's one explanation"
"Did you found the dropped knife?"
Harry looked him with the questioning eyes.
"The neighbors told me. Words spread like fire" said Samuel.
"No, I didn't. Some blood traces are founded but no knife" informed Harry.
"Firstly the attacker ran away and now the weapon is gone"
"It's not gone, just not found yet"
"You want to know something weirder"
"What?"
"I went through the whole house but not a single picture of the attacked boy and her mother was found"
"That's not weird. My house also doesn't have any picture of mine"
"That's because you get rid of them, the second your wife left it"
Samuel bit his tongue for speaking so fast and rude and tried to cover up by saying that "What I mean is that it might be okay to have no picture of the family but the house is filled with this little girl only. I asked the neighbor about that this little one but no one have any idea. As if no one actually have any idea about this family and family members"
"May be they are very conservative and secluded"
"It's just a hunch that this family might be as weird as the crazy girl we are searching"
"And how many members are there in this weird family?"
"No one knows"
"What does that mean?"
"No one knew that Mrs. Parker has a child. He just came nearly a month ago and was introduced as her son"
"What about the Mr. Parker?"
"Apparently he is long dead"
"Any other family?"
"Not known till now. We got a good case. A very good case."
Harry huffed and said "Indeed"