CHAPTER 11: FINDINGS & SURPRISES
“Oh boy, we’re a little bit too late.”
The CSI team was in Nicholas’ home checking out the crime scene. Rachel had, for once, decided to come along to check out the crime scene. She had an envelope with the protective custody in it, prepared by Rebecca, ready to be signed by the consenting parents of both Lionel and Nicholas, but it seemed that Nicholas is rather out of the list literally now. Rachel silently thought that she’s d better get rid of the papers for Nicholas before the family gets upset that their plan to protect him was too late.
“Where were you when this happened?” Jonathan began to question Jasper, who was sitting in the living room looking pretty shook up. His hands were trembling when Rachel got him a tall glass of milk from the kitchen.
“My parents, well, they were outstation and all, so, I, uh, I went out for a movie,” Jasper replied, his voice quivering, still unable to get over the shock of seeing his brother dead early in the morning. “You know, that new anime movie, just in case you’re asking.”
Rachel rolled her eyes, a little afraid that mentioning ‘anime’ in front of this anime fanatic head of crime lab would switch his ‘anime fanatic mechanism’ on. Lucky for her, he continued his questioning.
“What time did you leave home, Jasper, and what time did you come home?”
“Well, I left at about 11.30 p.m. and then came home at about 2, maybe 2.30 in the morning,” Jasper replied. “I’m not in trouble, am I? I don’t wanna let my parents know I wasn’t home. They’ll surely blame me for his death. They always blame me for everything…”
“Calm down, boy,” Rachel laid a hand on his shoulder. “You won’t get into trouble. Why don’t you call up somebody who you can live with and move out of here for a few days?”
“My cousin Timothy could spare me a space.”
“Good. Go and call him. We’ll take it from here.”
After seeing Jasper to the telephone, she followed Jonathan upstairs to the crime scene. Justin,who also decided to join in the investigation outside the autopsy room, was there at the bed checking out on Nicholas’ body. She looked around and checked the place out. There was no sign of any footprints, no sign of forced entry on the window, no nothing. It was exactly the same kind as Judith described it on the other crime scenes she had seen—no trace that might lead to the suspect.
“I assumed that this is where the suspect came in. There is no sign of forced entry in here though, Jon. I don’t see any broken glass or a broken door knob or a broken door, to be exact,” Rachel said as she took a picture of the open window she was standing close to. “There’s not even a strand of hair in here. No murder weapon, no blood, no nothing. This suspect of yours is good. It’s as if he knew what he was doing, like some kind of homework memorized by heart.”
“Too good, perhaps,” Justin second the motion while he was checking on the body. “There practically aren’t any footprints around here, and he had left nothing on this body, not even half a fingerprint. Well, except this slit wound on his throat, that is.”
“What can you deduce from the slit, Justin?” Jonathan asked, leaning over to check out the fat chubby dead Nicholas.
“Well, I can say that there was a little struggle going on in here, but it’s quite brief. The killer did it swift and quick, and judging by the slit wound on his throat, I’d say it’s done with a penknife. And I think he meant to use that just to let him suffer ‘coz usually the smaller the sharp object cut through the skin, the more painful it feels, yet the less it cuts. I wouldn’t say no to bet that these words on the wall was written using his own blood, but I think while the murderer was writing these words, Nicholas was still alive.”
“Slow and painful death,” Jonathan stared at the words written in bold blood and rubbed his chin. “Typical case of revenge and payback.”
“Revenge?” Rachel turned to him.
“Payback?” Justin didn’t turn around, but his tone sounded surprised.
“Sorry, forgot to tell you about this case in detail,” Jonathan apologized and while he looked for clues, he told Rachel and Justin, the indoor members of the CSI team, about the case and his and Judith’s suspicions.
“So you’re saying that this murder is all connected to one certain incident—the prank on Jeremy during the PMR celebration?” Rachel tried to confirm his words.
“Yup, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Jonathan nodded his head.
“Looks like we’re having a really tough case,” Justin replied as he signaled one of the coroner juniors to bring in the body bag to put Nicholas in. “Like you said, it’s a chain murder case, where Cliff killed the Han siblings, then was killed by Gary which in turn could be killed by this poor fat fellow here. Whoever killed Nicholas could be the next target. How is this getting on? I mean, there is practically no head or tail for this.”
“We’re not sure yet,” Jonathan replied as he took a blood sample from the wall while Rachel took a picture of it. “We still need to find a motive for Cliff to kill the Han siblings. Jude and the rest are now at his home searching. They might come up with something sooner or later.”
“With two bad girls together and one fashion fanatic, I bet they can find something,” Rachel grinned.
“Found anything yet, guys?”
“Not yet!”
Judith, Elaine and Rebecca were at Cliff’s house trying to look for any clues that might lead to him killing the Han siblings. After Cliff’s death, his family didn’t think the place they were living was safe anymore and they have decided to move to Pulau Pinang to live with Cliff’s uncle (on his mother’s side), leaving the house pretty much empty and deserted, waiting to be sold by other people. Judith has informed the realtors of this housing estate beforehand that they are not to sell the house until they have finish raiding it. So far, they haven’t come up with anything yet.
“Hey, guys, look,” Rebecca called out of the blue, waving a thick book. “I found their school yearbook. I hope they don’t mind me taking it. There could be evidence in there.”
“Becka, we’re here in search of murder weapons, not in search of high school Prom Kings and Queens!” Elaine groaned exasperatedly at the ever jolly Rebecca who was flipping through the pages of the yearbook gleefully.
“Weird,” Judith scratched her chin. “I was sure that there has to be something in here that connects Cliff with the death of the Han siblings. Where can it be?”
“Maybe you’ve guessed it wrong,” Rebecca said as she put away the yearbook and rummaged through Cliff’s wardrobe, checking out his clothes and holding them out to the mirror attached to the wardrobe door to see. “I told you, this is a wild goose chase. If you have listened to me and give them protective custody in the first place, we could’ve avoided all this trouble.”
“Don’t push your luck, girlfriend,” Elaine called out from Cliff’s parents’ room. “Just keep searching. If Jude says there’s something here, then there’s definitely something here.”
“Thanks for the support, Elaine,” Judith sighed gratefully as she leaned against the wall, “but maybe Becka’s right. There’s nothing in here to pinpoint Cliff on anything. We’re checked everywhere, even the storeroom. There’s nothing here. Let’s go back to the crime lab and back to the drawing board.”
With that, the trio girls put away their gear and went out of the house. Judith turned around and took one last look at the house. It was a double-storey house with a small attic affixed on the middle of the roof (they’ve checked there—there was nothing). It looked pretty beautiful and quaint, almost like the houses Americans lived in which she seen in movies and in TV, and it had a garden to match. And right now, Rebecca was stopping to smell the roses planted at one side of the flower beds.
“This smells heavenly!” Rebecca complimented as she sniffed at one of the roses. “Too bad they had to go away in a hurry. These roses would look lovely in the garden of their new home in Pulau Pinang.”
“Yeah, they look pretty cool,” Elaine agreed half-heartedly (she didn’t have much interest in flowers). “And though I’m no flower expert, it doesn’t take a genius to tell that these flowers are either being fed with steroids or just plain too much manure.”
Rebecca and Judith looked carefully at the rose bush and realized that Elaine was right—the left side of the rose bush was growing much better than the right side. The flowers were bigger and the leaves were greener and they stood taller than the right side. The trio was surprised at this oddity.
“Now what could cause this kind of irregularity?” Judith asked, mostly to herself. “The family has moved out almost immediately after Cliff’s death and it’s obvious that they hadn’t even bothered to tend the garden, judging by the other drying flowers, but why is this one so fresh?”
“Beats me,” Elaine replied in a bored way as she lit a cigarette. “Let’s get out of this joint. I’m hungry and we haven’t found anything since we got here.”
Judith remained silent. She waited for a while for Elaine to take a whiff of her cigarette before taking it and took a whiff of it herself. Her eyes remained stock still on the fresh big roses and Rebecca, through experience, could see that Judith was on to something.
“I can see your thinking cap on your head, Jude,” Rebecca said as she made way for Judith. “Make your point already.”
Judith returned the cigarette back to Elaine and went down on her knees in front of the healthy rose bush. She looked real close at the soil that hid the roots and noticed a few small flies concentrating on that part of the soil. Using her plastic-gloved hands, she shooed the flies away and dug at the soil until she saw the roots. She dug a little deeper and noticed that the roots were slightly stuck onto something metallic. She then signaled her colleagues to help her root out the whole rose bush. As the three of them pulled, the roots pulled along something long and bulky. It was covered with dirt and slightly unrecognizable but when they plucked the roots off it and dusted off the dirt, they all grinned at what they have finally found.
“Looks like we’ve just found out who’s been doing a little ‘hacking’ on the Han siblings.”
“Nope. No fingerprints. Not a single one.”
Rachel and Rebecca were running fingerprint dusting on the axe they have found buried under the flower beds of Cliff’s garden and so far, they have found nothing. There was a blood reaction on the blade alright, but no fingerprints.
“It’s kinda creepy to know that those roses have been feeding a little off the blood on the axe,” Rebecca grimaced at the axe.
“It’s not uncommon,” Rachel, the ever knowing Human Library, replied. “I’ve read somewhere that a couple who was buried under their favourite apple tree actually made their apple tree grow bigger and healthier with juicier fruits because it has been feeding off the decaying body of the couple. They found out that the tree’s roots have pierced through their coffin and their bodies were nowhere to be found.”
“Eew! That is so gross!” Rebecca groaned in disgust. “Remind me not to bury myself under any kind of plants, favourite or not.”
“I kinda noticed though that this axe is abnormally smooth,” Rachel said as she ran her hands across the handle of the axe a little.
“Come to think of it, you’re right,” Rebecca agreed as she, too, ran her hand on the axe handle. “It’s as if the murderer was using…”
“Sandpaper,” Rachel said, “and I bet most of the sandpaper work was done,” she pointed at the end of the handle, “here. See this patch? If you look a little bit more closely, it’s slightly whiter than the rest of the handle.”
“You’re right! It’s like the murderer is trying to scrape of the brand of the axe!”
“If my speculations are correct,” Rachel said as she took the axe carefully to her office, “this axe came out somewhere in a catalog book on hardware from a certain hardware store. Let me see if I can find it.”
Rachel stood before her shelf of books and scanned through the books in there. One specialty of Rachel was that she can spot a book anywhere if she kept her mind on it. Even if you hid a thin magazine in the middle of a collection of thick Guinness Book of Records, she’ll find it almost instantly. So Rebecca didn’t have to wait long until Rachel took out a catalog book with the company name in bold fancy letters: JOTHAN LO’S FIXIT & CO.
“See, right here. The exact same model,” Rachel flipped the pages and pointed at one of the axes in display.
“Well then, let’s pay this Jothan Lo a visit,” Rebecca said as she carefully bagged the axe and went out with Rachel to her car. After driving about 15 minutes or so, they soon found themselves right in front of the hardware store bearing the sing like the one in the catalog.
“Yup, that’s our store’s axe alright,” a man with long bright brown hair—obviously dyed—said as he sared at the axe in the evidence plastic bag held out to him by Rebecca once they were inside the store.
“How do you know it’s yours?” Rebecca asked, just to make sure.
“Of course I know it’s mine,” the man said proudly. “My grandfather, Jothan Lo—God bless his soul—have been working on this business since he’s 16 and this business has been carried down from generation to genereation. Of course I know the ins and outs of my products and I can spot someone using my store’s nails even from 5 miles away! Besides, only our store sells these handmade axes.”
“He’s right,” Rachel replied. “These axes are handmade and made in Thailand, an records show that only your company has contacts with Thailand for these axes.”
“Smart lil’ miss detective you are,” the man complimented with a grin.
“I thought you’re Jothan Lo,” Rebecca was surprised.
“Well, yeah, I’m Jothan Lo the 3rd. My grandfather was the first Jothan Lo of the Jothan Lo’s Fixit & Co. What about it?”
“Never mind,” Rachel shoved Rebecca aside and got right down to business. “Do you remember who bought this axe? Have you kept any record of it, say about more than a week ago?”
“As a matter of fact, I have,” Jothan Lo the 3rd replied as he went to get his record book. “Not much people buy axes these days—there’s nothing here to chop anyway—so I remember quite clearly who buys my axes. Although I’m not sure why a nice lady like her would want a bulky axe like that.”
“Lady?” Both Rachel and Rebecca lit up. “Did you say a lady bought this axe?”
“Yeah,” Jothan Lo the 3rd began describing her. “She’s about my height and has long dyed burgundy hair. I couldn’t see her yes though—she was wearing sunglasses. Oh, and she was wearing a really sexy blue dress, the one used to be very famous in the Cleo magazines. She just picked the axe and paid for it without saying a word. I thought she was mute. Is there something wrong, lil’ miss detectives?”
Rachel and Rebecca have just found themselves further away from solving the case.
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