I laid out all the evidence on the desk before me, a jumbled mess of items that somehow painted a slight narrative of Cassandra Cottingham. Among them, a rusty key and a tarnished cross necklace stood out. The necklace had been resting on atop of my barely touched hard copy of Crime and Punishment (for a year and half).
The cross necklace, its surface dulled with age, felt like a quiet mockery of Cassandra's untarnished reputation. That necklace had been unearthed in her backyard—just like the others. Just like all her secrets buried beneath the ground. The thought struck me as both grotesque and absurdly ironic, and I found myself smirking despite the weight of the case. A dark humor that I quickly shoved aside.
I turned back to the report: the dead cat, its lifeless body left in the alley, and the strange liquid hourglass, its sand run out. At first, they seemed unrelated—one a brutal display of life extinguished, the other cold and unfeeling. But both whispered of death.
Time and finality. The cat's corpse spoke of cruelty, the red liquid hourglass of inevitability. Together, they felt like a message—one I wasn't able to comprehend. I was not good at finding poetic meaning and a woman like Cassandra seemed like she had no interest in anything symbolic. It was just conventional and literal.
Cassandra didn't leave messages. She left chaos. Whatever that was, it was deliberate. But why?
Across the room, Samuel leaned back in his chair, savoring his coffee like it was the best part of his day. His demeanor was lighter now, relieved, perhaps, that he finally had a solid lead on this twisted case.
"Don't look at me with such love, Sasha," Samuel quipped, his voice dripping with playful sarcasm. "I'm a married man, you know. Got an adorable wife waiting to beat me for staying late again."
Sasha rolled her eyes, the corners of her mouth twitching as she fought back a scowl. She didn't dignify the comment with a reply at first, instead sipping her coffee with deliberate patience, her irritation plain as day.
"Samuel," she said at last, her voice tight but steady, "I don't look at you with love. I look at you like someone debating whether to poison your coffee."
"Ouch," Samuel said with a laugh, clutching his chest dramatically. "Straight to the heart."
"And for the record," Sasha continued, ignoring his theatrics, "I have a type. Mature men. Which you, Samuel, are not."
The grin froze on Samuel's face for a beat, before he recovered with a sheepish chuckle. "Fair enough," he muttered, raising his mug in a mock toast.
I hid my smirk behind the stack of papers in my hand. Samuel's antics had a way of cutting through the tension, but it was Sasha's sharp wit that often stole the show. They were opposites in many ways, yet together they balanced the air in the room.
As for me, I had no time for jokes. Not with a killer like Cassandra Cottingham in the picture.
I noticed the unpeeled orange sitting on my desk, its skin beginning to show signs of age. It had been there for two days, and now it was starting to soften, the once bright surface giving way to a dull, almost decayed look. I picked it up, feeling the slight squish under my fingers, the weight of the fruit oddly heavy in my hand. It was almost as if the orange, like the case, was slowly slipping into rot.
Samuel's teasing of Sasha faded into the background as I walked out of the office, the orange now occupying my full attention. I couldn't help but think of it as a symbol—decay creeping in, unnoticed at first, but inevitable.
Interrogating Cassandra Cottingham was never easy, but today, I couldn't shake the gnawing sense of unease. Something about the orange, its slow decay, mirrored the state of my mind.
I stepped into the interrogation room, the door creaking open. Cassandra's turned back at me as she heard the sound of the door creak. When I sat down, she turned, her tired eyes briefly meeting mine. She looked more drained than usual, her face drawn, dark circles under her eyes betraying the toll this case had taken on her, even if she tried to hide it.
"Long time no see, Cassandra," I said, breaking the silence.
"Indeed, Lorr. What happened? Got bored of my case?" She teased, her voice light but edged with something dangerous.
I forced a smile, though inside, I felt anything but light. There was no room for pleasure in a case like this—not when lives were at stake, not when someone like her was involved.
I placed the orange on the table, watching her as she glanced at it. She studied it with a careful intensity, as if it were a specimen under a microscope.
"It's an orange from your garden," I said, keeping my tone steady.
"I know," she replied, her voice calm, almost indifferent. "It's from my trees. They've been doing quite well lately—better than last year."
Her careful inspection of the fruit started to annoy me. I could see it beginning to rot, the skin softening, turning a sickly hue where it had been neglected too long. I snapped.
"Don't worry, Dr. Cottingham," I said, my voice cutting through the air like a blade. "I'm not allowed to dip it in poison."
Cassandra didn't react immediately. She paused, fingers still holding the orange, and then slowly, almost deliberately, placed it back on the table.
She set the orange down gently, almost tenderly, as though it were something precious. "And poison? That's not my style. If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't be here to question me."
The calm way she said it sent a chill down my spine. She leaned back in her chair, clasping her hands in her lap, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten as her sharp, knowing gaze pierced through me.
"Why the orange, Detective? Surely not for my vitamin C intake," she said, her voice laced with mock curiosity.
I hesitated, just for a beat, before replying. "A reminder, Cassandra. Everything you've buried will come back to the surface—just like this orange from your garden."
Her lips quirked in a faint smirk, but her eyes narrowed. For a split second, I thought I saw a flicker of unease before she composed herself.
"Clever," she said softly. "But you'll need more than fruit to unravel my secrets