A part of her was convinced that there was someone lurking in shadows, weighing options to attack her, while another part of her was meekly desiring this to be a whim. She wanted to run, but her feet were rooted to the spot, stuck between which part of her mind to believe. Her heart was drumming in her ears loudly and her forehead was soaked with sweat.
“Alicia!” Someone took her name and she came back to senses. She wiped sweat from her forehead and searched for the caller. Harry was dashing towards her from the other side of the park.
“Harry.” On any other occasion, she would have annoyed looking at him, but tonight, it was pleasant to see she knew.
“Kripke told me you went alone. It’s not safe out here at night these days.” He told her getting nearer.
“I am fine.” She tried not to sound scared and resumed her walk.
“I know you don’t want to talk to me.” He walked with her matching her pace. “I am doing what Kripke asked me to do. Anyways, I also don’t want to accelerate this situation.”
Alicia walked without replying.
“You know what? I came back thinking that you would have moved on by now. You were such a flagbearer of independent women in college. I used to think that oh, she would get a guy like this.” He snapped his fingers. “But, it has been four years you know and Flora said …”
Alicia stopped walking with a red face. She turned towards him and pushed him backwards.
“I don’t care what Flora said to you. You listen to me. I don’t want anything to do with you. I am helping Kripke. You …” Her voice was as cold as the night around them, “… don’t exist for me. If you follow me, I will file a complaint of stalking against you.”
She turned away and walked without noticing his shocked face. She was so angry that she no longer cared about her fear of the killer who was probably hiding nearby.
She did not remember how much time she took in reaching Stone Manor. She went into the shower directly without bothering to eat anything. The water on her face was supposed to be cold, but it was hot—burning hot. After crying her heart out, she felt calmer and better. She came down to the kitchen to search for something to eat.
Lucy and Steve were retired to their bedroom and Flora was on the roof gazing stars. The whole Stone Manor was silent and motionless. A sleepy and busy house was a peaceful house. She got her hands on a half-sandwich which was a leftover by someone. She put kettle on stove and set to think.
Things were getting out of hands, all thanks to Flora. Alicia liked her job and she liked to help Kripke as well, but Flora’s etiquettes of treating her like a child were frustrating her. When she had told her she didn’t want to go back with Harry, she should listen to her but Flora went behind her back and talked to Harry which was not fair.
Now two can play at this game, Flora!
She kept thinking while she ate. The aroma of hot cardamom tea helped her in thinking straight without getting emotional about the situation. She wanted to take part in investigation but she also didn’t want to face Harry. He was a little douche when he had left town, now he had come back fully trained. Flora was definitely on Harry’s side and she would keep pressing her to spend time with him.
A sudden idea came into Alicia’s mind. If she had to ditch Harry, then, no matter how much she loved her, she had to ditch Flora. The only way, she could ditch Flora from involving in the investigation, was by getting a buddy of her own to solve the crime and she had a perfect person in her mind for this job.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Handcuffs and Keys
The next morning, she found Flora in the kitchen with her head in her hands.
“We need to talk.” She informed her sitting in front of her without paying attention. “I am thinking about this whole Harry situation. We cannot keep fighting because of him. We really need to achieve a consensus.”
She paused and waiting for some kind of response, but Flora just looked at her with drowsy eyes.
“So if you want me to, somehow, manage to impress Harry then I think we need a little bit of independence from them. If we keep running to them for every fallen leaf and broken branch, they would think that we cannot do something big on our own. So what I am saying is that we need to run our own investigation and once we reach a definite conclusion then we can share our findings with them and that would also look impressive.”
She spoke with conviction because that was the only way out of looking at Harry’s smug face every now and then.
Oh look, I am engaged and you are not.
Flora still didn’t reply. It took Alicia few seconds to realize that Flora was half asleep.
“Ahem. Ahem.” She cleared her throat loudly. “I heard you.” Flora said in a thick voice.
“So what do you think?”
“I think you are right.” She still looked sluggish. “What are you thinking?” Alicia asked in annoyance.
“Stars.” Flora whispered. “Never seen a worse planetary arrangement before. It was a mess last night, and it is going to be messier.”
“You were up all night?”
“It was dark, really dark, imagine soul-crushingly dark. I kept hoping that it was temporary.”
“Did you discuss this with Kripke?” She asked curiously.
“Puff.” Flora made a face. “Let me tell you a little secret about men. Never tell them your intuitions. They will most likely not trust it.”
“What happened? Did you two fight?” Alicia smiled.
“Nah. Just called him last night to discuss my findings.”
“And?” Alicia felt a ‘but’ coming in.
“He didn’t pick my call.” Flora made a face.
“He must be busy with the fingerprints I gave to him.” Alicia said thoughtfully.
“You got fingerprints?” Flora didn’t get what she was saying when Alicia realized that she had not told her anything about yesterday. She told her everything from getting the book to giving it to Kripke, but she skipped what happened at the park.
“You could have given it in the morning.” Flora looked at her in reproach.
“I didn’t want to ruin my morning,” by seeing Harry. She finished the sentence in her mind. “Tell me what was different about last night?”
“I cannot explain it in few words, but there is danger coming this way—towards us.”
Alicia told her about what she felt last night in the park.
“I was coming back last night through the park when I felt that someone was following me.”
Flora looked at her in horror. “You should not be going anywhere alone. I wanted you to work with Harry for the same reason. You need a partner who can vouch for you.”
“Seriously, Flora! Harry is not the only man in this town.”
————
Sam was busy with yesterday’s checkout log when Alicia entered the bookstore. It was the perfect time to talk to him as the other employees came a bit late.
“Do you read detective novels, by chance?” Alicia asked him hoping for a yes.
“You mean Sherlock Holmes type?” Sam balanced her spectacles.
She nodded.
“I don’t get time to read novels, but I watch the series. It is damn cool.”
“You like what Sherlock does?”
“Absolutely. He is a clever son of a gun.” He said in excitement.
“Would you like doing some similar stuff?” Alicia asked.
“I have never done anything like that before.”
“Its fine. I will guide you. You only have to do what I tell you.” She said happily.
“Means I will be Watson and you will be Holmes?” The way he sounded Alicia felt that he didn’t like the arrangement.
“You will be Holmes in training and I will be Lestrade. Once you get fully trained, you will be handling cases on your own, and anyways you will need a law person to bring new cases to you.” Alicia felt a bit evil doing this to him.
“That would be cool.” Sam’s excitement was difficult to ig
nore.
“But we will not tell this to anyone. It will be our secret.” Alicia told him.
“Sure so what type of detection we are going to do?”
“We need to break into a house.” She whispered to him.
“Are you sure?” Sam looked bewildered.
“My client had asked me to get some information on that person so we will break into the house, and that’s it. It’s not like we are going to steal something.” She explained before he suspected some monkey business.
“Whose house is this?”
“Ken’s house.” She said looking around.
Whatever Sam expected in the name of detective work, it was not that.
“But … but why? Your client has something to do with him?” He looked even more displeased.
“We need to search his house to get some information.”
“How?” Sam scratched his nose.
“We will get his address from his landline number and we will sneak in.”
“All right, but I can take you to his house. I have been there once to deliver a parcel.”
“Really?”
“He was sick that day and he asked me to deliver it at his home.”
“We need to set a time when he would be at the bookstore so we will get plenty of time to make the search.” Alicia said thoughtfully.
“We can go at lunch time.”
“How far is his home from here?”
“His house is near the museum.”
“Really? It is quite far.” Alicia murmured. The museum was at the farthest edge of the town near the highway. “We will not be able to go and come back and also make the search in an hour.”
“We can take a sick leave.” Sam suggested.
“Really? Both getting sick at the same day? That would raise suspicion.” Alicia rejected the idea.
“We can just go for lunch leaving someone else in charge and then call that we have had an accident.”
“Ken wouldn’t like it.”
“We are going to break into his house. I think he would dislike that more.” Sam had a point, but Alicia was still not sure.
“Look, I just have a suspicion that he is involved in the case of my client. I have no solid evidence against him and I don’t want to lose my job, and your job as well, just over a suspicion.” Alicia shivered with the idea of getting caught.
“You are right but we cannot search the whole house in an hour even if we take out the traveling time. It is that big.” Sam stretched his hands to emphasize the size of Ken’s house.
“You are sure he lives alone?”
“Of course, if there was someone, he wouldn’t be alone in sickness.”
“Not even a girlfriend.” Alicia tried to looked sympathetic.
“I have never seen one here for him, but Edgar said there was something between him and Miss Robinson.”
“Miss Robinson? You don’t mean Melanie Robinson?” She looked puzzled.
“Yes, that one. She used to come here to meet him some time ago, but I have never seen her. This is all Edgar’s story.” Sam slightly leaned back to give attention to the customer coming for checkout, leaving Alicia with her thoughts for a while.
It all made sense. Harry told her that Ken was raised by Robinsons so it was natural for Melanie to be a friend of Ken, or may be more than a friend. Melanie Robinson was a legend of law college. She had taken a gold medal in her last year and had immediately picked by a law firm in London, but, after that, she never came back. The last news about her was that she was assisting a Crown Advocate in London.
What do they say about successful parents breeding successful children? She had read it in one of those awful leadership books which usually conveyed the idea that if you are not born to the successful parents, start reading spiritual books and learn to be happy in your mediocrity.
She chuckled on her own thought which startled a silent Sam.
“Nothing. I was just getting ahead of myself. You know I wanted to be like her, like Melanie. She was my idol in law college.”
“Why did you leave it?” Sam looked concerned.
Alicia smiled and changed the topic.
————
“Miss Stone! My office.”
As soon as Ken entered the bookstore, he told Alicia and jumped the stairs two at once, waving his hair behind. She followed the suit.
“Here.” Inside his office, he gave her a key. He was looking in a hurry, his eyes were blood shot and he was definitely sleep deprived. He was so worked up that he had not raised the blinds of his office. “I am confiding this to you. Can you keep it until I come back?”
“Where are you going?” She asked taking the black key from him.
“You understand the meaning of confidence?” He ignored his question as he always did. “You shall not tell this to anyone, not your friends, not your family, not your colleagues. Understand?”
“Yes, I can keep it confidential.” She reassured him, still wondering where he was going. For the first time, she saw him expressing some human emotions in his otherwise detached behavior. Whatever it was, it had to be something important which stirred him from his normal stupor.
She heard loud footsteps from outside as if many people were marching towards them. She looked at Ken in confusion who was looking at her.
“Relax.” He consoled her.
The door opened and Harry jolted his way inside the room, followed by two officers and a disgruntled Edgar who was mumbling something meekly.
“Mr Kenneth Williams! I arrest you for the murder of two unidentified victims. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?” Harry said in his matter-of-fact voice.
Ken nodded and stretched his hands for handcuffs. The other police officers dragged him out while she looked in horror as they left the room. She exchanged a nervous glance with Edgar, as none of them had any idea about what to do. Alicia looked at the key she was holding in her hand, not knowing what to do with it either.
The arrest meant only one thing, that the fingerprints were a match, but she pushed the idea away from her mind. She held the key gently, it was long, slender, and metallic key which looked horribly like Ken’s finger. Can those fingers strangle someone?
Edgar opened the door to leave when one of the officers came back and asked them to evacuate. “We are sealing the entire premises. Take out your belongings and leave immediately.”
It was chaos on the ground floor as the police had started to seal the bookstore and Sam was trying to make as many checkouts as possible in the given time. She talked to one of the officers who were ordering Sam to shut down the checkout process. It was already bad that all of Ken’s employees and customers saw him getting taken away by police in handcuffs. She begged the officer in charge to give them enough time to finish checkout of the customers already in the store which he granted with a grunt.
It took them thirty minutes to clear everything and left the bookstore without knowing when would they come back to their jobs. Coming out in open air, she had no mood of going back to Stone Manor. A small part of her mind was yelling at her that it was her fault. The police cars were still outside and Harry was leaning against one of them talking to other officers. For some reason, he looked worried. Some passerby had also stopped and chattering on the side of the road about the presence of police in the area.
On the back seat of one of the cars, she saw Ken sitting totally at ease as if he was going somewhere he went every day. He saw her staring at him and smiled kindly. For a split second, their eyes met and she felt terribly guilty for bringing this upon him. Unable to look into his eyes, she blinked. From which angle does he look like a killer? Did killer have such a kind smile? She knew that her law books had ample examples of kind and affectionate people who turned out to be the ruthless killers, but she didn’t want to believe that Ken belonged to the sam
e category.
She compared Harry with Ken as a woman knowing both of them. If she had to rate them on the scale of empathy, then Harry was going to lose with heavy margin. Ken had not been as sociable as Harry as he lived in his own world which could raise questions, but Alicia never saw him talking arrogantly to anyone.
She looked at police sealing the bookstore with the yellow tape when a silver Volvo rushed on the street with speed of the bullet and stopped near the police cars screeching loudly. A tall blonde woman came out of the driving seat clad in a white dress who looked familiar. Alicia could have recognized her from any distance.
It was Melanie Robinson—the golden girl had finally come home.
CHAPTER NINE
Under the Red Maple
“Who is she?” asked Sam from behind.
“M-e-l-a-n-i-e R-o-b-i-n-s-o-n.”
She emphasized on every letter. It was the first time she was looking at her in person, and she admitted to herself that pictures didn’t do her justice. Melanie talked to Harry vigorously who was the highest ranked officer present. There was no way Harry had not recognized Melanie Robinson. Her pictures were posted all over their law college with inspirational quotes engraved on it. She also used to accompany her father, Mayor Robinson, in all of the social gatherings until she moved out of town.
Alicia was pleased to see that Harry was sweating bullets. Oh Harry! Show some machoism. Melanie vexed Harry in loud volume, and finally, she retreated back to her Volvo. Alicia watched as the Volvo left the scene with police cars tailing behind her.
“She is fine.” Sam commented.
“Indeed.” Alicia agreed. “She is one of the best lawyers in the country.”
“Err, I mean she is hot.”
She was hot as well as she had just roasted Harry. Alicia had no idea what Melanie was doing here. If she had come to rescue Ken, it was eye-blinking fast. On the bright side, Ken was not as lonely as she had assumed. She tried to reduce her guilt by thinking about a near impossible scenario where Melanie ended up saving Ken from the murder charges.
The Killing Scripture (Alicia Stone Series Book 1) Page 7
