Back at the station.
I´m buried in paperwork, but I can only think about Mr. Scott and his death.
"Brown, here are the pictures you requested,"Pierce appeared next to my desk," have fun."
I was given a stack of photos. While looking at the bloody walls and floor, all I could think about was Mrs. Marshalls and how all of this has effected her. There are photos of his bookshelf, windows, his diploma hanging on the wall next to the door and his desk.
His desk.
I take a closer look just to be sure. Maybe I was right about all of this, or am I going crazy.
"Jenkins, can you come over here for a second?"
"What´s up?"
" Do you remember what Susan said about our victim? In which hand did he hold the gun?"
"He held it in his right hand, I´m positive."
"That´s what I thought. Look closer at his desk. Do you see what I´m seeing?"
"Holy crap, Brown."
I started looking for my wallet in my purse. Mrs. Marshall´s number should be here somewhere.
"Where is the damn card."
Found it.
I start typing in her number as fast as I can.
The bell rings once. Twice. Three times.
"Come on, pick up the phone, woman."
"What´s going on guys?", Pierce appears out of nowhere.
"She found a clue in the suicide case."
"Mrs. Marshalls, hello. Yes, this is detective Brown. I am so sorry to bother you at home but I have to ask you something."
I look up, seeing the two detectives in front of me waiting.
"Tell me, was Mr. Scott left handed or right handed? That´s what I thought, thank you very much, Mrs. Marshalls. Goodbye."
I end the call.
"Our famous court judge was left handed, gentlemen. I don´t sound crazy anymore, do I?"
I stand up, taking the photos of his desk with me, my boss has to see this.
I knock two times, waiting to be invited in.
"Come on in."
Walking in, I felt kind of nervous.
"What do you need, Brown?"
"Sir, this is about Scott´s case. I have to show you something."
"Well show it to me, I don´t have all day."
I can´t wait for you to be transferred out of here.
"Well, our pathologist Susan said that when she first saw the victim, he was holding the gun in his right hand. But if you take a look at this photo of his desk, all of his pens and pencils are on the left side of his desk, which indicates that he was left handed. Mrs. Marshalls, his secretary, just confirmed it on the phone. Why would he kill himself with his right hand if he was left handed?"
" You may be right, Brown. Open up the investigetion, and go to his office again. Start from the bottom and tell Pierce and Jenkins to join you. Also, take the new kid with you,"
Where is the new kid anyway?
"Jenkins, call Susan, and tell her to meet us at the office. Has anyone seen Hart?"
Jenkins answeres while typing in the number, "He was here a minute ago, I don´t know where he is now."
I start walking to the kitchen, maybe he´s there.
Nope.
Maybe he´s in the bathroom.
I start walking down a long hallway, not expecting to pump into him.
"Hart, we need to go back to Scott´s office."
"Why, what happened?"
"I was right, he didn´t kill himself. He was murdered and the person who did it didn´t stage the scene correctly."
At the scene of the crime
"I´m going to need camera footage, his phone records, bills. And try to find out who his next case was, maybe that´s why he was killed.", I tell the policemen standing next me.
"How could I have missed this, I mean it was right there.", Susan said, frustrated.
"Maybe because you were flirting with one of my detectives the whole time?" I start laughing after seeing her starting to blush.
"Oh my god, you saw that? Does anybody else know?"
"Girl, everybody knowns, you are not really quiet while talking to him, you know."
"How unprofessional and .... embarassing."
"Don´t think about it, you two go well together."
"What´s embarassing?", Pierce asked out of nowhere.
"Oh, um, nothing,", I say as I start to laugh, "Nothing important."
He looked at us suspiciously, "Right, okay. Here is the camera footage you asked for. A woman was seen walking out of his office around 8 PM last night. I talked to his secretary again, turns out that woman is his wife, also known as Isabell Scott. Mrs. Marshalls mentioned that she heard them yelling in his office. Isabell was crying when she walked past the secretaries desk, but Mrs. Marshalls claims she didn´t hear what they were arguing about.", he closed his notebook again.
"It looks like we have to visit our widow. Did you find anything else?"
"Nobody else was seen entering or exiting the building around this time, except Mrs. Marshalls. She left the building around 9:35 I believe."
"Thank you, Pierce. Good job."
I look around, everyone already packing up and leaving. Talking to Isabell Scott won´t be easy. She must be crushed. If she´s innocent, of course.
"Hart, we´re leaving. We´re going to the Scott´s mansion."
I start the car and as I´m driving off, I look at my new partner.
"You´re awfuly quiet for someone who has that much experience."
"I know, I´m sorry. I´m just getting to know everyone, everything is still very much new to me here. I will be of help in no time. You can trust me."
You can trust me.
Hm.
It will take a long time before I can trust this person.
"I understand you completely, but try to be a little more present. It looks like you´re on a school field trip and not a part of a important murder case."
"You´re right, boss."
I park the car in front of a biggest garden I have ever seen in my life.
We get out of the car and I ring the doorbell.
"Who is it?"
"This is NYPD. We have a few questions for Mrs. Isabell Scott."
The big gate door opens and we start walking to the house.
Someone opens the door before I get the chance to knock. In front of me was standing a smaller lady, dressed in a white dress. She must be the maid.
"Hi, I´m Margeret. You´re the police?"
"Yes, hello. I´m detective Brown and this is detective Hart. I´m affraid we have some bad news regarding Mr. Scott´s death. May we please come in?"
"Yes of course," Margeret said as she´s leading us to the living room," We are all very affected after Mr. Scott´s death. We were working for him for years. Such a tragedy. Isabell is right in this room waiting for you. And please, try to be as gentle as possible. She has been affected the most, and she is not holding up very well."
We enter a beautifully decorated living room. Everything looks expensive and new, surely someone professional has decorated it.
And there, on the big white sofa, sat a beautiful blonde woman.
"Mrs. Scott?"
She lifted her head, her eyes red from crying.
"I´m Rosalie Brown, the leading detective on your husbands case. I don´t know how to tell you this, but there have been some changes in the investigation."
"What kind of changes?", she asked with a shaky voice.
"After taking a closer look at the evidence we have collected and comparing them with the pictures of your husbands office, we have came to a conclusion that your husband has been murdered."
"Wait, what? I´m sorry, I don´t understand anything you´re telling me."
"Mrs. Scott, the gun which killed your husband has been found in his right hand, but Mr. Scott is left handed. He couldn´t have done it."
"Oh my god. I can´t believe it.", she stood up and started walking to the nearby window."Who would do something like this?"
"We are doing everything we can to find that out.", I look around for my notebook,"But I am affraid I have a few questions for you."
"What kind of questions?", she was now sitting in front of me.
"Mrs. Marshalls, your husbands secretary, heard you two yelling and screaming yesterday evening. Is that true, Mrs. Scott?"
"Yes, it is. He had just told me has was staying late yet again, after he promised he would come home early. I got angry because I was tired of sleeping and waking up alone. I guess he didn´t like me having an opinion of my own, so he started to yell at me. Of course, I left the office before things got too heated."
"And when has this incident occurred exactly?"
"Around 8 PM. I know because I was rushing to get to the pastry shop before it closed at 8:30. You met Margeret? Well, it was her birthday yesterday so I had decided to surprise her with a cake."
Tears started rushing from her eyes.
"I just can´t believe he is gone. I left his office angry without saying goodbye, or telling him that I love him. And now he is gone. I will never forgive myself."
What a sad situation indeed. Hart started nodding his head at me.
"Mrs. Scott," Hart asked," isn´t it a little bit weird for a woman of your status to be celebrating the birthday of her cleaning staff?"
"The people who help me around the house are like my family, detective. They were always here, even though Nate wasn´t. They cheared me up everytime I was sad, and I always had someone I could talk to. So why would it be weird if I wanted to celebrate the birthday of a dear friend in the comfort of my own home?"
"Interesting. When did this party of your end?", Hart asked with a bit harsher tone than needed.
"I don´t know exactly. We drank wine out on the balcony and think it was around 12:30 AM when we started cleaning everything up."
"Can someone confirm your story?"
Isabell gave Hart a dirty look before answering," Yes, you can ask anyone who works in this house."
I stepped in quickly before Hart made a fool out of himself," You said that Mr. Scott got angry when you gave your opinion. What did you mean by that exactly?"
"The last few years of our marriage have been rough. I wasn´t the love of his life anymore because I got too "boring". He started going on more bussines trips and staying latet at the office than usual. I became the person who would go to bussines releated dinners and meetings with him, I can´t remember when was the last time we were alone for more than 30 minutes. So everytime we saw each other, we would just start arguing and it always ended in him storming out of the house. Of course I knew he was cheating, but he thought he was so smart trying to hide it from me."
"Why stay with a man who clearly didn´t love you anymore?", Hart asked.
I´m going to beat the crap out of him when we get in the car later.
"I know you must think it was because of his money, but I fell in love with him way before he had any of this. Before his father died and he got the company. The money was never important to me. I stayed because he married me even though I´m not perfect. He gave me the best marriage he could, so I stayed more out of respect for him than love."
She wasn´t crying anymore. I guess Hart´s questions worked. Not bad, Hart, not bad at all.
"They can take everything they want from me, I don´t care. I just want my husband back.", she turned to me before saying," Detective, promise me one thing. You are going to catch the person who did this, and you´re going to make them pay."
"As I said, ma´am, I will do everything I can to close this investigation. I´m affraid we must leave you now, Mrs. Scott. I will inform you if I find anything interesting."
She started standing up.
"It´s alright. We can walk ourself´s out. Please, take care of yourself."
I start driving away from the mension. Sex on Fire by the Kings of Leon started playing on the car stereo.
"Look who knows how to talk. You did a great job out there, Hart. I underestimated you."
He looks at me, smiling," I figured it would work. Just ask them to talk about nice memories, and they will forget about the horrible thing that had just happened to them. Even if it makes them forget for a moment or two."
Geez, what a nice smile. He should smile more often.
Wait, what?
No, no, no.
I am NOT thinking about this right now.
God help me.
"Well, I´ll admit, it was very smart of you."
"Thank you, partner."
Oh wow.
Why did my lower back tingle from the word "Partner"?
I´m acting like a teenager, this is unbelievable.
Other POV:
Later that same day.
"How could you be this stupid?? You only had one job and you didn´t do it right. You moron."
"Well I am very sorry, your majesty, but I was kind of in the middle of killing someone. I panicked because I thought someone was coming, and I put the gun in the wrong hand."
"I planned everything perfectly. You, out of all people should know if he was left or right handed, for god´s sake."
"Yeah, well next time you do it if you´re so smart."
"Oh trust me, I will. But the next time you will be the victim, you idiot."
"Just chill out for a moment. This isn´t such a tragedy. I will make this case a living hell for that little detective Brown. You just have to trust me, alright?"
"Trust you, are you kidding me? You do realise what´s at stake here, do you? After this we could have gotten millions of dollars, but we can kiss that money goodbye now."
"But.."
"There are not buts. Fix this problem however you can. And leave before I kill you myself."
End of chapter 2.