Minot Hacker: Mystery Series (My Murder Mysteries #1) (4 page)

"You don't think I'm involved, do you?" said Monica, beginning to get rather excited or worried.

"Not at the moment, because there's no evidence against you," I said. "I'm just trying to establish what life was like for John, and what his character is like."

Monica said nothing. She sat back in her seat.

"Moving on now," I said, not wanting to go down that avenue. "What was your relationship like with the victims?"

"Well, it was a long time ago," said Monica, showing that she was thinking,
so I don't remember talking to them that much.

I had no reason to doubt her for now, but my intuition told me she was lying.

"There is one more thing," I said. "And it's very important. Do you remember if John was thrown in the river by anyone?"

"Oh, yes!" Monica cried. "How could I forget that?"

"Go on," I said, trying to get as much detail as I could from her.

"Well, I was at home one day, and because I only lived round the corner from John back then, I saw him run past my house, soaking wet. I then went round to his house with my mother, and we both saw him. He was absolutely drenched.”

'What happened?' I asked him.

“'They... They made me go into the river,'” John said to me.”

They threw him in, and that made me angry".””

This gave Monica a strong motive. I did not want to say anything yet, so I decided to release her.

"Is there anything else you would like to add? Because this is the time to do it," I told her, desperate for more information.

"Well..." said Monica.

I was excited now. We needed as much evidence as we could find.

"There is one thing," said Monica.

"Please, tell me in as much detail as you can," I said.

"There was this one time when John and I were walking by the river alone. This was a few days after that event, so a couple of days before the first murder. We were not far from the river, when we came across the front of a house. It was an old farmhouse in the distance. I don't even know if people lived there, because I never saw anyone coming in or out of the house. It was in the distance. Anyway, we came up to the path leading up to the house. The path ran in between the fields, and John started to get all nervous. He started shaking and everything.

'What's the matter?' I asked him.”

“'We did a really bad thing there,' John said to me. He was looking right at the house, so he must have been referring to that place.

To this day, I don't know what he meant by that".””

That was the most intriguing thing I’d heard all day.

"You must have known," I said to her.

"Known what?" an ignorant Monica said.

"That he was the killer," I replied.

"I just denied it. I didn't think he would be capable of doing something like that," Monica replied, getting up to leave.

That conversation was very interesting, for a number of reasons. We now had a lead, and I knew that the next place I would go to was that old farmhouse Monica had mentioned.

Putting my suspicions about Monica to one side, I set off for the house on my own. This was unusual, but since the others were too busy investigating yet another gang killing, I was the only one left who really took charge of this case. This case had clearly turned out to be more interesting than I had originally thought, even though I sensed I was about to find myself on an adventure.

I was driving through Minot, and I passed through the housing project where John Doe lived. I looked around briefly, and caught glimpses of the people who were there living their day-to-day lives. Strangely, when I drove past some of them, they stopped whatever they were doing and turned around, staring at me. I felt rather threatened by that at first, but then I knew they must have thought I was here because of the murders. They had obviously seen Graham and Miranda taking Monica away yesterday, so they must have been curious about what was going on. I looked in my mirror to see if they were still looking, but they had turned back to doing whatever they were doing.

I then came to Minot forest, on the edge of town. This place was out of the way, but some of it was up on a height, so when I drove the car through it I had a view of the whole town. It was spectacular. I thought about all of the romantic evenings the teenagers of the town would have had here, knowing fine well that bodies were dumped nearby. I drove around further, and looked around at the forest. It was quite moist in places, but that was because there were so many trees. I then approached a dead end – a drive-in car park. I saw I was the only person visiting the forest today. Before I left the building, I searched the internet to find out where I was going, because I knew that Minot forest was quite a big place. I knew where I was, having been here before as a child. I could remember bits and pieces, but never a strange house. I saw an old path, one that was barely visible, but it was still there, so I decided to follow that. I knew that John and Monica probably walked down that way, because that was the way that led to the river. I walked along for a few minutes, looking around. I thought to myself,
what an awful place to die!
Those young boys were just left here, waiting to be found by a dog walker. It was sad, very sad. I tried to think of other things to distract myself. I approached a modern-looking sign pointing to the river. If what Monica said was right, I must be getting closer. I then looked down at the river and saw that a new path had been put in. It was full of tarmac, and it was obvious that it was just recently put in. I then continued to walk along the old pathway.

Two minutes later, I came to another path, and looking down the path, I saw that it was the house Monica had mentioned. It was indeed in the distance, and from the way Monica had described it, nothing had changed over the last twenty years. Just as I was coming towards the house, I tripped over something on the ground. It was a circular piece of metal that was fixed in the ground, and I could not see it because it was covered up by grass. That was just typical. Now, I was covered in mud! I couldn't go up there looking like that now, so I decided to quickly drive back home, and back to the station, hoping that none of my colleagues would see me. Just this once, I would tell a lie to the boss, and say that there was no-one home. I then thought to interview John again, to see what I could get out of him about the house. After all, he had opened up to me in the first interview, so I was likely to get more information in the second interview.

Fortunately, I was able to go home, get changed as fast as I could, and return to work without any of my colleagues noticing.

"What did they say?" said Mitchell.

"Nobody was in, sir," I said, "but I'm going back at some point. For now, I'm going to talk to John Doe again about the house," I replied.

"You do that," replied Mitchell. "I hate to say it, but I'm more wrapped up in these gang killings in the city. It's getting out of hand now. I'm going to leave you in charge of the John Doe case."

"You won't regret it, sir," I said, trying to reassure him. I was confident I was going to get to the bottom of this case. Although it was the most challenging case I had come across in a while, it was not the most challenging ever, and unless something else came up to throw me off track, I knew I would be able to manage.

I walked into the interview room again, facing John Doe for a third time. This time, John looked more agitated than before.

"Hello, John," I said to him.

"Hello," he replied, shaking.

"You've had your medication, haven't you?" I asked him, checking to see if he had actually taken it.

"Yes," he replied.

"John, I'm here for one reason today. I want to ask you about a particular house."

"A house?" he said, immediately alert.

"Yes. I want to know something in particular."

I could see that John had no idea what I was talking about. He was not faking it, so I had to explain to him.

"Well, Monica, your cousin, has been to the station, and she told me that one time, a few days before the first murder, you said to her that you did something bad in this house," I said, showing a photograph of the house to him.

John remained silent.

"What was that bad thing?" I asked him.

"I can't remember," he replied, pushing the photograph away.

"Why are you so reluctant to speak, now?" I asked him, frustrated.

"I have nothing to say to you," he replied, looking me right in the eye, which was unusual for him.

"It's obvious that you're hiding something!" I said, becoming increasingly impatient.

"No," he said, putting his head down.

"Well, then..." I said, thinking of something else to say, "Is there anything else..."

"My mother is wondering where I am!" John cried, interrupting me.

"What?" I said, shocked by what John had just said. Monica told me that John's mother was dead.

"I said, my mother will be at home, worried."

"John, your mother is dead," I said, confused about where he was coming from.

"Why do you think that? My mother is at home right now. None of you people have told her, have you?"

"She died over twenty years ago, John," I said.

"She talks to me every day. She sits with me when Monica is not around. She is a very old lady now, but she does her best to see me every day," John said, his eyes almost shut with imagination.

I decided to leave things there, and stop the interview. Again, I had found another lead, and I knew I had to push the house business to one side, and focus on John's mother.

The first thing I had to do was make sure that John's mother was definitely dead. Although improbable, it was not impossible that John's mother was alive. She could have faked her death for a number of reasons. People had done it before, so it would have been no real surprise for me.

I looked on the internet for records of John Doe's birth. I had deduced from what Monica told me that in 1992, John was seventeen or eighteen, so he was born in either 1974 or 1975, so I searched for every birth record for a John Doe born in 1974 or 1975. Fortunately, there was only one record, for a John Doe born on March 1975. That made him thirty-seven years of age. I thought he was much older than that, but there we had it. I then found out his mother's name. Her first name was Francesca, but there was no mention of the father. Her maiden name, Dell, was on the birth certificate. This meant that Francesca was not married when she gave birth to John. After that, I looked for a death certificate for a Francesca Dell. There was one, but it was in 1999, and Monica told me that she had died before the killings, so I looked for a marriage record with Francesca Dell. One result came up, indicating that Francesca had married a couple of months after John was born, to an Eric Doe, so John's father had been in his life. However, I then discovered that Eric died six years later, so his mother had to bring him up. After that, I went on to discover that when John was fifteen, his mother was killed, just after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. On her death certificate it said she had died in a car accident. I searched for a newspaper article detailing events of her death, and I found some information. Francesca was the driver, and she was giving two friends a lift. She then crashed suddenly. She died, but the other two survived. Nothing could be done to save her. She was definitely dead.

After this revelation, I was glad to establish that John's mother was without a doubt dead. This made things more interesting, although I did not want to say this to the others. I was beginning to get excited, because I knew that this case was becoming more and more challenging by the minute. My next stop was John's house. I was looking forward to seeing John's house and his way of life, because it might provide more insights into his character.

I arrived, and I drove up to his house. No-one was around, or so it seemed. Monica had given me a key, so I was allowed to look inside. I knocked on the door, to make sure no-one was in. I should not have done that, because it would have given someone an opportunity to run away. I waited a few seconds, and then I looked in the window. There was no sign of life. It was possible that John was making things up, not imagining things, to throw me off track. However, I did not imagine John as the criminal mastermind, because he did not have to come in and confess today.

I stood around a moment before deciding to enter the house. Before I entered, however, I was stopped by a woman who stood outside the front gate and greeted me.

"Hello!" she said in a very friendly manner.

"Hello," I replied, not knowing what else to say.

"Has John done something?" she asked.

"That's official police business," I replied. "Who are you?"

"My name's Laura. I'm an old friend of John's."

That name rang a bell. John had mentioned Laura in the first interview, but I did not tell her that.

"Are you his friend now?" I asked her.

"Yes," she replied. "Me and John have been friends for years, but I haven't seen much of him recently."

"Really? Why's that?" I said, hoping for a little bit more information.

"I've been busy recently. I've volunteered for Dog's Trust. I love animals!"

"Do you?"

"Yes. Do you know, I've spent half the morning rescuing a squirrel from a drainpipe? And the other day, this cat got a splinter in its paw. Oh, sorry, I'm rambling on now!"

"It's alright," I said, getting bored. "So, how long have you and John been friends?"

"Oh, you're giving me an interview now, are you?" laughed Laura. I liked this woman, because she was rather cheerful and sociable.

"No," I laughed. "I'm just trying to find out a bit more about John, that's all."

"What's this about?" she asked again.

"I can't say...yet," I said, knowing that sooner or later this whole case would be released to the press.

"It's something serious, isn't it?" asked Laura, looking quite apprehensive.