Chereads / Detective Dan Year One / Chapter 2 - The Party

Chapter 2 - The Party

It wasn't until seven when the party started, it was about six fifty at the moment, and Daniel was driving his brother's car, Dan's brother was in the front, and Dan's sister in law was sitting in the back with her seven-year-old daughter.

Daniel was sensible and cunning, he never had alcohol, and only second hand smoked when he was in the street, and there was a cluster of first-hand smokers on the sidewalk. His brother Ben, however, was a party animal, he'd usually drink one drink, expect if the party was a rave, in which case he had two or three alcoholic beverages. But before they left the Smith house, Ben had made a promise to drink nothing, considering this was a pool party. By that time, the Smith residence was already kilometres behind.

The other two people that were in the car was Megan and her daughter Megan, the mother was Megan Smith, and her mother was Megan Marsh, Megan Marsh named Megan Smith Katlin Marsh, even though Megan Marsh liked the name, Megan. Katlin told her mother that she'd change her name to Megan after she married Ben, and yet, I could not explain how much happiness lit Megan Marsh's face. Megan Smith's daughter was Megan Smith II, on account that Megan Smith liked the name Megan as well, but was not sure that her daughter wanted the name her mother had given her.

I don't know how they managed it, with all the red lights they must have encountered, but they arrived at Xavier's house, seven on the dot.

Daniel, his Brother Ben, and the rest of Ben's family went to the door. Ben stopped at the fork looking to his left and saw the statue of Xavier in the porch light, and admired it while Daniel knocked the door, I forgot about Ben's admiration of art, and he would have looked at the statue all night if Daniel hadn't forced him through the front door.

When they got in, the party was slow paced and on the boring, but then Xavier saw Daniel, and Xavier sent a signal across the room, and the music changed. All of a sudden, the party was pumping, and Christen, along with the maid started serving drinks around to whoever would accept them.

Xavier tried to get through the crowd; it was like he was swimming through a powerful current that was not heading the way he was going. Of course, he eventually got to Daniel. "Daniel," Xavier said, he was loud enough for Daniel to hear, "I have some business to attend to, and I'll be out as soon as I can." Xavier finished, and then he walked into the office behind the library, sliding the door to and fro as he entered the room.

There was a lot of Cheer and rejoicing, people who knew Simon cheered "Congratulations Simon." However, the people who knew it was Daniel's birthday cheered "Happy 50th Daniel."

The party felt short as if it was fast, Simon had preferred it boring then fun and quick. Then Simon noticed Daniel in the library and decided to go to him; it was much easier for Simon to get through the crowd then Xavier did because Simon was smaller than Xavier.

"What are you doing over here?" Simon asked Daniel

"I borrowed an interesting mystery book from this library earlier," he replied showing Simon the book, and then Dan put it back in its rightful place. "It's about time we returned to the party." He finished when he faced me after putting the book back.

They walked back into the crowd, which felt like the depths of the sea. There were about 30 to 40 people at the party, but the party beat made them all cluster together, but then they all pulled apart because of a loud ding.

The maid and Christen took separate things, everyone could see the maid was holding a cake, and Christen was holding an English cottage pie. Christen took the cake over to another bench and started decorating the cake, while the maid sliced the pie, and when she finished slicing the pie, each slice was even and perfect, and the pie was spread out to people, and Daniel got the first slice.

But, while no one was noticing, an unknown guest crept through the door and dark areas where he would be unnoticed until the stranger reached the library, the stranger entered the office and closed the door behind him.

In the office, from the stranger's point of view, there were three filing cabinets, one on the left, and beside the left cabinet was a sack trolley, one on the right, and the last was behind Xavier. There was a glass window behind the middle filing cabinet, Xavier was sitting in an ordinary wooden chair, bent over doing his work on an oaken office desk. There was also two light switches on the right wall, one said 'pool' above it, and the other said 'office'.

The stranger slowly crept towards Xavier, looking slowly to the left then slowly to the right. It wasn't long until Xavier saw him.

"What are you doing here?" He said, "You were not invited." He finished as if he recognised the stranger.

The stranger then took out a gun with a silencer on it.

Meanwhile back at the party a lot of people were rejoicing and conversing over the pie; the noise was so loud, Daniel was sitting on the strange couch again looking out the pool window, even though people who were passing through were continually blocking his view. Then all of a sudden the poolside lights went out, and Daniels curiosity aroused. After that, even though the background noise was so loud, Daniel heard glass break and several seconds, if not a minute or two later there was a splash in the pool.

Daniel got up and searched through the crowd, and he dragged Ben out.

"Hey Dan, what's going on?" Ben asked; his ear was hurting under the stress of being pinched.

"Something just happened outside; can you come with me to have a look?" Daniel replied.

"Sure okay, but I going to tell my wife about this."

"I see you have not changed yet, all for the better," Daniel said, finishing their conversation, then they both went to the back passing through a few or more people, they reached the back door a minute or two later.

Ben opened the door and held it while Daniel went through, then Ben went through, closing the door behind him. Daniel moved to the right after getting into the pool area heading to the switch that operates the pool lights. Ben walked forward and stopped short of the pool and looked forward and stared at a shadow floating in the middle of the body of water. Then Daniel turned on the lights, and Ben saw who the silhouette was.

"Daniel, you're not going to like this," Ben said, still staring at the body big-eyed.

"What?" Daniel replied hurrying over to the side of ben looking at him. When Daniel reached Ben, Daniel looked out to the pool and saw Xavier's body, someone had shot him in his heart, and a shocked expressing appeared suddenly on Daniel's face.

Three or four minutes later Daniel was on the phone calling the police.

"Hello you've reached the police; can you please state your emergency." Said the voice on the other side, it was a female's voice.

"Hi this is Daniel Smith, and I discovered that someone had murdered my friend Xavier Lanchouse." Replied Daniel

"What's the address?"

"84 Simons street."

"We will send over our homicide investigator in the morning, in the meantime, you should find a way to relax, and I'm sorry about your friend's loss." She finished, and they both hanged up, Daniel was a bit slower than the girl.

"Common Ben," said Daniel, "we have to go home now."