A Short Novel I Made

Revelation of Empathy:
The Death of Kathy Holmes


A man who is in his late thirties looks solemnly up at the morning sky. He gazes at the translucent colors and wonders what he had to witness and endure last week. The facial expression is filled with worry and depression. He takes out a packet of cigarettes, and pops one out. With the flick of his lighter, he breaths in deeply and lets out puff of smoke. A sigh escapes his mouth. He begins to walk slowly down an empty trail and examines the buildings which covers the area around him.


Arsenal Tech… I say to himself. An old urban school that used to be a civil war arsenal for the union. Been around since the 1860s. I slowly approach my destination, a building located at the far back of the premises. It’s only been a week since I’ve last came here and it still baffles me that such a quiet place has to endure such a horrific tragedy. I come across the gate which is sealed by rusty chains and a padlock. I pull out the key and open the gate slowly. The stone which is surrounded by candles that are giving off a sweet fragrance isn’t too far off now. There are leis wrapped around the stone. I push them aside, squat down, and stare intently at the epitaph. “IN MEMORY OF KATHY HOLMES, 1970 -2009.” After a moment’s reflection, I pull a small box out of my suit pocket and open it. A pendant with the small picture of a little girl with her family is inside. After taking off my hat, I place the pendant on top of the stone. “You’re patents asked me to place this at the school’s memorial. You had so many years left in ya, this wasn’t your time to go. At least now you can rest in peace, we’ve brought justice to your restless soul.” With a smile, I get up and walk out of the building and go towards the entrance of the school grounds.

I reach my car and look back at the school one last time. With the start of the ignition I begin to drive home. Suddenly, my cell begins to ring. I slowly pick it up and answer.

“Yes, Henri Ooink speaking.”

A young male voice who can’t be no older than eighteen howls with laughter through the other end.

AHAHAHAHA! Man I just can’t get enough of that name! Who in the right mind could possibly bestow such an unfortunate moniker on their own child! I mean seriously, I have to wonder which of the two slipped and fell on their head first during your gestation!

Shut up! I told you that my name is foreign. I take great pride in my Dutch heritage. Grow up for once you impudent brat!

The young voice is pleading for forgiveness, too bad it doesn’t sound very convincing because he’s still laughing…

I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, it’s just that, that name, that name… AHAHAHAHA!

Listen here you little miscreant… the moment I get my hands on you, you’re going to wish you’ve never seen the light of day!

The young voice stops laughing completely, a cold, steely voice which sounds completely inhuman flows through the other line and into Henri‘s ear….

No way, are you seriously threatening me? I’m sorry, you obliviously have no idea what position you just put yourself into…

The voice disappears from the cell phone… I suddenly feel weary and my stomach starts to knot. I look into my visor and saw a Silver Aston Martini approaching from behind. The car window rolls down and I see a teenager with M9 in his hand pointing at me. He slowly looks over and smiles very happily. He cocks back the gun, and looks at me. His smile quickly turns into a dark wicked stare. Shocked, I try swerve around and get behind him but my efforts were futile.

The young man quickly swerves around and he begins to drive backwards, his gun now right on my head. Horrified, I quickly steer to the right and look ahead where I then see my life flash right through my eyes because in front me, is a telephone pole. Head first, I smash into it. I stagger out of the car, and stumble down to the ground. The Aston Martini stops and the kid gets out. He’s wearing a white shirt and light blue jeans. His long dark hair and pale face makes him look kind of emo. He walks up to me with an evil smile so sinister I almost pee my pants, he puts the gun to my head and says, “bang.”

“Bang?” I say to myself, “Is that all? BANG!?” I could have died you disgusting creature of the netherworld!”

The distorted human starts to laugh again.

“That was perfect! priceless! You should’ve seen your face! AHAHAHAHAHA!”

I quickly get to my feet and lunge at the boy with my fist. He pounces on top of my head and glides through the air. Now he’s making a fool of me too!? I won’t let him get away with this! Continuously, I keep swinging at him. All of my punches missed and the boy still just smiles with his eyes closed and dodges with barely any effort at all. After a moment, , he puts me into a arm lock and forces me to the ground.

“Calm down you old goat. Can’t I have a little fun while it’s still available? I’m a very important person who is always working night less hours. I haven’t been called upon for the past week, it’s been like a vacation to me.”

I reply while enduring the pain on my arm. “Yeah… errguuuh, about you’re last case. I did what I was told, make sure th - the widower knows.

The young man looks down at me, then he his facial expression grows dark again. He begins to talk with a strange tone.

“How about you call them right now and tell them that you did what they’ve requested? I have the number right here.”

Wait… Does he mean talk to them right now? While I’m in this embarrassing position!?

“Yes, yes I do mean right now while you’re looking like the fool you are…” He says while dialing the number.

He hands me the phone. I give him a menacing glare and take it with my free hand.

“He - hello? Arrrgh… Yes, this is he. I’ve done what you’ve requested. OW! Hey, stop that you little punk! Huh? No, I’m fiiinnnnne! No, it’s just my little nephew, he keeps tugging on my hair.”

Suddenly the phone is snatched out of my hand.

“Heeelllo Mr. Holmes! Oh, yes I’m doing fine. How are you doing, holding up alright? That’s good, that’s good. Nah, he just lied… I’m actually practicing some martial arts with him and I just got done putting him in a an arm lock. Yes, I made him call you, aren’t I a genius? Ahahaaha, ok I’ll let him go, but it was funny though right? AHAHAHA! Alright, good bye.”

He hangs up his cell phone and puts it back in his pocket. Then he drops my arm and gets off of my back.

“Well, looks like he’s getting along alright. It’s pretty amazing for a guy to take care of three kids all by himself.”

I get up and massage my shoulder and brush off the dirt from my pants. Which were brand new by the way!

“You know you’re going to have to pay for these pants, ah - aaah, and my medical bill.”

“Oh quit your wining you old goat. You’re trivial needs aren’t of any importance to me.” He spits out while getting back into his car.

Just then his cell phone rings. He swiftly pulls it out and answers it.

“Yes? What, Another one!? Where? Alright, I’m on my way.”

He turns to me and speaks sharply. “We have another case to solve, meet me back at my house in one hour otherwise I’m going on without you!”

He revs up his car and jumps into it. I look at my watch which read 7:30AM. Always on top alert aren’t ya. You always seem so fired up. I look back and see that he’s already driving off. The sound of the wheels from his car reminded me of something. I jerk to look back at my own car and found that it’s in ruins! “Damn you Edgar Allen!”

Lucky for me, I had another car at my house, and this little piece of crap here was about to die out anyway. I called for a tower and told him that I had an accident on the road because of a speed pump. He came by and picked up the wreckage. I signed my name as Edgar Allen precisely how the actual one does. “Heh, heh, heh pay back for what you’ve done you little runt,” I said to myself. From there, I began jogging back to my house, which was only ten minuets away actually.

When I got back to my house I found a little envelope under my door. The envelope was from Edgar Allen. I tore it open quickly to find a wad of money sticking inside it and a little letter as well.

“I may be a jerk sometimes, but I do care you know… Take this money as payment for your piece of crap car.”

Your Partner, Edgar Allen

I sigh to myself and call up the tower again. “Yes hello? I need you to come back so I can resign the form. I don’t think I signed my name onto it for I was a bit stunned when it all happened, I’m terribly sorry for this. Come to 386 Michigan Street. Yes, alright, bye.”

The tower soon arrived five minuets later he got out with a weird look on his face. Like he was trying to hold back a laugh.

He snickers. “Hello, you’re Mr. Ooink correct?”

I’m horrified as hell right now. How did he know my name? I try to keep my cool. “Yes, I am.”

“A young fellow who just so happens to be the name you’ve written here called me and said that he’s the real Edgar Allen and he proved it to me by showing me his drivers license. So either you tried to frame him, or he’s lying…”

I am completely and utterly filled with disgust, anger, and sorrow right now. I can never win against him! There was no point in trying to lie my way out of it so I decided to tell him the truth and bribed him with the money Edgar Allen, “gracefully gave me”.

He bids me a farewell and leaves howling with laughter. I figured it was because of my name. Why is my name so funny to everyone around here? Americans are so stupid…

After changing into another suit, I got into my other car, (which was a Gemballa GT I might add) and set off towards the runt’s house…

It was only five minuets before 8:30AM before I finally got to Edgar’s House. He was already waiting at his door step; tossing his car keys into the air while leaning against the door frame.

Edgar looks at me and says in a very low sharp tone. “I was just about to leave ya. You’re lucky…”

I’m starting to get a little agitated, my right arm balls up into a fist. A few of my knuckles crack in response. Then I remembered yet another slightly embarrassing incident when I first had to work with this little freak of nature. It was late in the evening when we got our first case together. He didn’t like me too much and decided it was best to… make me play doggy for a little while.

“Hey, let me go you punk kid!”

“No, you’re getting in my way, you’ll do me much good if you just stay put right here.”

“Wait… what are you doing? No, don’t, please!”

He took both of my arms and slammed them against a metal street light pole. Then he took out a pair of handcuffs, crossed my arms together, and locked them.

“This is crazy! You can’t do this to me! Monster, madman, demon! I’ll have your badge taken for this!

That smile he gave me back then made me realize that I was truly working with the devil himself. No words could come out of my mouth, I was literally speechless…

“Now, be a good little doggy and stay put, I’ll come back when I feel like it. Hopefully I don’t forget, it’s possibility you know…”

He patted my head and walked away, swinging the keys to the handcuffs with his finger while whistling an old tune.

Trying my best to break free from this unfortunate misconception, I started furiously kicking at the pole while pulling my arms back at the same time. Of course, my efforts proved worthless. A couple of kids came by and laughed at me, I felt miserable. For fours hours, I had to stand at there and wait until Edgar finally decided to come and pick me up…

Trying my best to hold my anger in, I let his comment slide and asked, “so where’s our next destination?”

Edgar grabs a piece of candy out of his pocket and pops it in his mouth, his reply is a little muffled and hard to understand. (Man it annoys the hell outta me when he talks while sucking on candy!) “Well… it’s not far from here actually… just down the street, no more than twenty minutes away.”

He all of the sudden runs to his car, turns on the ignition, and pulls out of his driveway. “I don’t want to waste too much time on this case because it doesn’t interest me too much, let’s get this over with…”

I quickly get into my own car and we both head south towards our destination.

Once we arrived, there were already about three cop cars in front of the house. Police officers were talking to each other Two paramedics were carrying an injured, possibly dead young lady with quite a significant amount of jewelry on her left fingers and wrist. Blood was all over her night gown. The blood was maroon, so it couldn‘t have been a fresh wound. The lady did look pale and had purple lips. Edgar quickly got out of his car and ran over to the police. Of course, I was right behind him.


“Aaah, officer Dinkins and Officer Mackenzie; what do you have for us?”

Bad news Inspector Allen, a middle aged woman was murdered. We believe it to be a robbery since the whole house was in ruins when we arrived.

I spoke in response to the comment. “The woman who was being carried to the ambulance had a lot of jewelry on her, how can you say it was a robbery? Wouldn’t they have stolen her jewelry as well as some other items in the house?”

My partner who was looking at a memo replied; “Don’t put your nose in something you know nothing about Henri, the robber could have been looking for something specific. Or maybe, the robber was smart enough to not take anything obvious…”

He looked at one of the officers. “Found any evidence officer Dinkins?”

“Well, there’s foot prints that leads to a window which was broken into. Glass is scattered all over the floor of the house. On top of that, the woman had a bullet wound in her stomach and, since nobody heard any gunshots, it must have been a silencer.”

“Time of death?”

“Probably yesterday night, around 10 PM.”

“Any name?”

“Shelby Davison.”

“Who found her dead?”

“Mrs. Hooks who is a coworker with Shelby. She noticed that her car was still at the house and decided to check on her. Since she was the only one who knew of her death, we took her in for further questioning…”

Officer Mackenzie speaks up. “I personally knew her, she’s was a good woman. A little snobbish at times, but that’s just because of the amount of money she has. Money can do that to people…”

Edgar begins to look over to Officer Mackenzie. “Aren’t you suppose to be on vacation?”

“That’s what I thought too, Officer Skyler couldn’t come in today…” The tone of officer Mackenzie becomes serious and worried. “Look, I have a very sick daughter waiting to see her daddy at the hospital, I can’t be here for too long. On top of that, I don’t have much money to support the payments on her medicine anymore.”


Edgar looks blankly at Officer Mackenzie. He studies him for a little while and then turns back to look at Officer Dinkins. then wanders off towards the broken window. I quickly follow behind.

“What are you looking for Edgar?”

“Evidence that will put Officer Mackenzie behind bars.”

“What!? Officer Mackenzie? What makes you think he did this?”

Edgar sighs deeply. “I’ll try to make this simple enough for you to understand. He wasn’t supposed to be on duty until next week. He has no money and has a very sick daughter, correct? He also knows the woman that was killed, and he knew that she was carrying a fat wallet. On top of that, he didn’t show any signs of emotion when he spoke. His face was just that of a person having a normal conversation. He didn’t looked fazed at all about Davison’s death in spite of his knowing her.”

Edgar picks up random pieces of glass and examines them closely. Then he looks at me and says, “go look inside the window and see if you can find any trace of blood on the broken glass. If you find anything that resembles it, tell me,”

I do as he says and learn over the broken window. To my surprise there actually was a pretty large shard of glass that had blood on it. There was almost a small trace of blood on the window sill. I tell Edgar my findings and he quickly comes over and grabs the glass shard.

“This should prove useful. Now, just to prove to you that Mackenzie murdered Mrs. Davison, I want you to Come with me for a second.”

He quickly goes to the front entrance and calls to for Officer Mackenzie. “Hey, Officer Mackenzie! I want you to take this glass shard and hand it to forensics, maybe we can find out who the murderer was with the blood on it.”

Officer Mackenzie… hobbles over to the door step!? I can’t believe it… My partner has that insidious look in his face again. He grabs Officer Mackenzie and pulls him to the ground.

“Officer Mackenzie; you are under arrest for the murder of Mrs. Shelby Davison. Anything you say will be used against you to the court of law. You have the right to an attorney, if you can’t afford one, then one will be provi - man screw this, you know the rest.”

Officer Mackenzie is at loss of words, but doesn’t resist Edgar’s forceful manner. We both pull him up and walk him over to Officer Dinkins.

Edgar asks officer Dinkins to pull up Officer Mackenzie’s left pant leg, there was a bandage and under it was a fresh cut with stitches in it.

“That was from a bike accident!” Shouted Officer Mackenzie, “Everyone on the force knows I practice for the triathlon!”

“All right”, my partner replies. “How about we go over to your house and see if we can find any muddy boots lying around shall we?”

It took no more than five minuets walk to get to his house. We opened the front door and right at the entrance, there were some muddy boots proximal to a bag of clothes.

Edgar takes one of the boots. “This is the last piece of the puzzle right here, but just to make sure…” My partner then runs towards the back door and comes back with a bag full of trash. “Open it… officer Mackenzie.”

Officer Mackenzie slowly opens the trash bag and right on top of the rubbish, was a silencer.

“This would have been almost the perfect crime if we’d haven’t found this in your trash bag. You knew the garbage truck was going to run today, so that’s why you committed the crime last night.” Without a premonition, my partner punches Officer Mackenzie which knocks him out cold. He turns to me, “help me with this guy will ya, he’s pretty dam heavy.“ We carry Officer Mackenzie back to the crime scene and tell Officer Dinkins everything that we’ve discovered. After about thirty minuets of verifying the evidence, both Edgar and I drive back to his house. It was only 9:45AM when we arrived at his house.

Edgar calmly speaks, “needing to stoop so low as robbery in order to get the money needed to but his sick daughter medicine… How disgusting.”

I look at him and reply, “fathers will do anything in order to save their child’s life. You’ll understand once you have a child of your own.”

“I’m not going to have kids, they’re too much of a hassle and besides… I wouldn’t be a good father, I already know that I would pay more attention to my work other than my child.”

He then looks at me. “What’s with all these dumbass cases anyways?” Edgar spits out. “They’re all so boring…”

“I’m still surprised you were able to solve it so quickly. You’re an amazing detective Edgar.”

“Yes, yes… Worship my greatness as if it were equivalent to a god’s. Edgar stands up and laughs while in his victory pose. “AHAHAHAHA!”

Without any notice, his laughter stops and he begins to sulk. “The only case that ever really interested me was the Death of Kathy Holmes… Why can’t there be more cases like that one?”

“Don‘t say such blasphemy! You have no idea how many people had to endure that incident! Two hundred kids exchanged schools along with three teachers when they found out she was murdered!”

“Who cares about that? I just want some excitement in my life for once. It’s hard to come across someone equal to my intellectual ability. I was in heaven while I was on that case.”

I do have to agree on Edgar’s statement… I never met anyone who is smarter than Edgar Allen up until that unfortunate case. It was so well planned out, my partner was actually having a hard time deciphering it. If you could even believe such a story.

“You’re self centered you know that? The only thing that ever gives you any pep are puzzles. You don’t care about anything else do you?”

My partner becomes quiet, he grits his teeth together and says, “I bring justice where justice is due, there will never be a time where human nature towers over my empirical moralities...”

The atmosphere around us becomes a little uneasy… I’ve decided that it was my time to head home. As I turn knob to the front door my partner calls me.

“Do you remember the journal I gave you a while back? The one that was titled ‘Interesting Mysteries With Edgar Allen?” Go ahead and write down in discrete detail the Murder of Mrs. Holmes.”

“I was wondering when you were going to ask me to…”

With a final farewell, I leave Edgar’s house and drive back to my own.

With a sigh, I hang up my suit along with my hat and go straight to my private study, I open the journal which contains ten previous cases we’ve solved in the past. There are no significant similarities that I can tell from these mysteries. The only common thing about them all is that they took more than one hour for my partner to solve. However, none of them took twelve hours like Mrs. Holmes’ case did. I pick up a pen and think of a title. An idea pops up in my head and I write it down on paper, ‘Revelation of Empathy’.

It was 7:35AM when my partner and I received a call about the possible murder of a teacher at Arsenal Tech.

The voice on the other line was that of a woman’s. She was speaking rather fast, it sounded quite frantic.

“Yes, hello!? Is this detective Allen!? I need you to come at Arsenal Technical High school. One of my fellow teachers have been murdered!”

My partner wasn’t too interested until he found out that this woman was murdered while inside a locked room.

“A closed room murder case!? Now you have my attention,” he said with a slight grin on his face.

“Please, I’m begging you, you’ve got to come over here as soon as possible! The kids, they’re all out of control!”

I could hear loud screams coming from the other line as well, they must be the children…

The woman‘s voice becomes distant for a moment but she was still loud enough to understand. “Please remain calm everyone! Everything will be alright. Aah! Please don’t push me, you’re going to hurt yourselves!” Her voice goes back to normal, “I can’t be here any longer, I’ve got to inform Sergeant Brunner.” Click, the phone goes off.

My partner closed his phone and headed straight towards Tech, he didn’t even bother taking his car. He must have been really burning up about this case. I had no choice but to follow him…

We arrived at Tech around 8:00AM. I was exhausted from the run but my partner on the other hand was still full of energy. There were police all over the school grounds, some were jogging towards a building, others were talking on their radios. I over heard one of them say “yes, she was found in Stewart Hall, repeat, Stewart Hall.” My partner ran after them. He must be very well known since everybody let him enter without any questions.

We soon found ourselves at the second floor of what I presumed was Stewart Hall. My partner ignored the yellow crime scene tape and went straight into the room. A woman in her mid thirties was lying on her back in a puddle of her own blood. The expression on her face was that of shock, her face pale and bruised. Her eyes were at the back of her head. She was foaming at the mouth and her body was still twitching slightly.

“What in the world!” I said in a harsh scream. “This goes beyond the qualities of a murder!”


Edgar Allen, who is usually not fazed by this sort of thing is also in a small shock. His eyes were wide and fixed on the body. A deep frown came to his face. I couldn’t help but study his expression, I’ve never seen him like this before. He slowly walks over to the body and squats down. He picks up the woman’s right wrist with his index and thumb finger, pulls it up and lets it go. The hand drops back on the floor. He gets up and looks back at me with a smile.

“She’s dead all right.”

His comment just now goes far beyond the standards of an intelligent detective. I knew this guy was nuts, but come on!

A couple of officers and I couldn’t help but looking at him with twisted faces. “Naaaw, what gave you that idea?”

“The way her hand fell back to the ground.” He replied in a triumphant voice. While still looking at it. he studied the victim’s face. Then he looked at both of the gashes which were located at her lower back.

My partner asked very bluntly, “time of death?”

“Probably around 6AM.”

“Oh wow, that wasn’t too long ago…”

After a moment of silence my partner spits out, “I want everyone out of this building because you’re all getting in my way… I can’t think straight when there’s a room of ignoramuses. Tell the teachers to stay inside the building as well, I don’t want anyone who isn’t a cop leave.”

A couple of voices irrupted in the room, but they did as were told anyway, since they were all under Edgar’s authority.

“Hmmm, this body’s twitching isn’t normal but it does lead me to conclude something rather interesting.”

He turns the victim’s head and noticed that there was a small puncture wound that had a bruise around it.

“What would that be I asked?”

He smiles and responds, “that the body is anemic.”

After a moment of silence, my partner abruptly became serious and his eyes scanned the room.

“Look at this”, he said in a serious tone. “There’s a word written on the back wall.”

He pointed at the wall, and sure enough there was a word carved into it. However, it wasn’t in English, in fact, I didn’t know what exactly it was in at the time.





My partner scrutinized the word then said, “this is in Japanese… ‘gomennasi,’ which means ‘I’m sorry’ if you didn’t know.”

Out of nowhere, sounds of pounding feet irrupted in the hallway. My partner and I both ran out of the room and concluded that the noise was coming from a locker. I was the first one to speak of the matter.

“We are the police, hold on a second we’ll get you out.”

Edgar pulls out a lock pick and jiggles it cautiously until it pops open.

A small girl, probably a student, was inside. She had a rag tightly covering her mouth and her legs were manacled together. She had dry blood on her face along with various cuts across both of her arms. A knife was shoved about a third of the way into her left leg. She looked absolutely horrified and under a lot of pain, you could tell she was crying until she had no tears left.

My partner took off the rag from her mouth. “Help her, please help her!” she yelled. “Help her before he kills her! Please!”

“Who is this he!” my partner demanded.

She sobbed. every breath she took, her body shivered. “I don’t know, I don’t know! All I know is… someone came and… and started tearing up Mrs. Holmes’ classroom. He was big, and had a harsh tone of voice. ‘Where is she! Where is she!’ That’s all he ever said. I didn’t know what to do, I was utterly speechless… Mrs. Holmes was in the bathroom at the time but when she came back, he lunged at her and started swinging wildly on her face. He turned her over and stabbed her in the back. It was horrendous. I couldn’t do anything to help her… He then dragged me out of the room yelling ‘where’s your locker!’ I told him and unlocked it. He then hit me really hard in the back of my head. I don’t remember what happened after that…”

“It looks like to me that he tired you up and slammed you in this locker… I bet it feels really uncomfortable in there doesn’t it?”

She looked blankly at him…

I quickly replied, “he makes those sort of comments all the time, I’m terribly sorry…”

My partner unlocks the manacles, takes out the knife from her leg and wraps the wound with a bandage. He then helps the girl back up to her feet.

“I’m going to have to keep you here because you’re the only lead we have about this case. Your leg should be fine, not much blood is escaping the wound. The only question I have for you is what was your reason for being at school so early?”

“My boyfriend and I were going to spend our last day together at Tech since he’s going to leave next year to go to a college.”

“A senior?”

“No, he’s a junior, our Valedictorian…”

“Oh… I went through the same thing actually with my girlfriend. I was sent to college because of my outstanding academic achievements as well. I used to live in Vermont just a little over a year ago. It was hard for the both of us, but we’ve decided that it was for the best.”

“Did you ever see her again?”

“No, but that’s not important… Please continue.”

“I saw that Mrs. Holmes was pulling up and I decided to talk to her for a little bit about the update on my boyfriend and help her carry a few things to her homeroom. The boxes are right there.”

She points to the boxes that are right next to Mrs. Holmes’ computer desk. They consisted of many mystery books made by Agatha Christie. The books looked like they were just thrown into the boxes, no signs of any care was present.

“The queen of crime huh?”

“Yes, she really knows how to make an interesting read.”

“Indeed she does.”

The little girl stumbles forward and yells in pain..
“I need to somehow find a way to forget this whole tragedy!”

“Can’t forget yet I’m afraid… I’m not done asking you questions yet.”

“Please, I need some rest.”

“Sorry.”

She sighed slightly and tried to pull herself together…

“Ok… what do you need to know?”

“First of all, can you think of anybody that fit’s the description you’ve given be earlier?”

“She has a husband…”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, but I don’t know where Mr. and Mrs. Holmes live or what Mr. Holmes does for a living.”

“That can easily be found, all I need is Mrs. Holmes’ cell phone.”

Edgar turned and looked at me, “go and see if you can find a cell phone lying around in that room somewhere, make sure you don’t screw this one up; it’s you’re big break, your time to shine.”

I endure the harsh comment and just did as I was told to do… The cell phone wasn’t hard to find, it was in Mrs. Holmes’ purse which was by the side of her computer chair. I quickly ran back to Edgar and handed him the cell.

He opens it and starts skimming through the her phone list. “Here we are, Mark Holmes, 601-5379.”

He quickly dials the number and gets an answer.

“Hey honey, what’s up?”

“Your ‘honey’ is dead, Mr. Holmes…”

“What!? Who is this!? I demand an answer!”

His voice was the same description the girl has given us.


“I’m detective Allen, I need you to come to Tech to answer a few questions for us. As of right now, you’re the prime suspect, based on an anonymous description.

“Now look here, don’t you EVER think that I would kill the love of my life! I would never do such a thing even if my life was at stake!”

“Well then prove that by coming to Tech and answering these questions…”

“I’m already here…”

Both my partner and I looked out the window. A red truck swerved into the parking lot and a big, rather husky guy got out. He ran towards the entrance but was stopped by three officers. He tried forcing his way through but in the end he was forced to the ground instead. My partner opens the window and yells at them to let him inside. They quickly got off and he ran through the entrance.

“We’re up here Mr. Holmes.”

Steps started echoing through the stairs an soon the hallway.

“I’m here, let me see my wife!”

“Right this way…”

Mr. Holmes rushed through the entrance of room 340 and looked at the corpse in horror. He dropped to his knees and crawled over to his dead wife. Tears welled in his eyes, his face turned into a beat red. He grabbed his wife’s hand and kissed it, kneeled his head on her hand and cried out.

“I’m sorry Mr. Holmes,” I said. “I wish there was some way to go back in time and undo this horrible event.”

My partner turns to me and says, “and screw with the natural order? You’ve gotta be out of your mind…”

I replied to his comment with utter disgust and anger. “You know, sometimes I wonder what part of you is actually human!”

“I’m all human my good friend, what else would I be?”

“A monster in disguise…”

“That could be.”


“Anyways, on another note, can you tell me, Mr. Holmes what you did early this morning?”

“I was off work today… So… I decided to loaf around the house and enjoy my day off. Of course I said good-bye to my wife before se left… It, it doesn’t make any sense. She was her usual self when she left. She didn’t show any sign that she was in pain, or worry whatsoever…”


“Sometimes there isn’t one to be spotted… Do you have anyone who can support your alibi?”

Mr. Holmes became infuriated at this question. He got up and grabbed Edgar by his shirt and raised him in the air.

“You’re suspecting that I killed my own wife aren’t you?”

My partner closed his eyes, smiled, and replied with is usual cool tone of voice. “It’s been know to happen. “However, the only person who can really verify whether or not you actually killed her is this girl right here.” He turned to looked at the girl who was found tied up. “Well? Is this the same voice that you heard earlier today?”

“My name is Elizabeth… and to be honest, I don’t really remember the voice too well. It did come from a bigger, more stocky type of person, so it could have been his.”

“Well, you heard Elizabeth… cuff him.”

My partner jabbed Mr. Holmes in the stomach with his right knee and I rush over and cuffed him.

“You can’t be serious! I didn’t do it, I swear!”

“Tell me Mark, did you enjoy killing your wife who loved you dearly? Did you enjoy torturing this little girl to the point where she almost lost all sanity? Huh!?”

“I didn’t do it, I didn’t do anything! Honest to god, please believe me!” He begins to struggle mercifully. “There has to be someone else, maybe something you guys over looked! I swear… I swear to god it wasn’t me!” “I swear, please.. Please believe me…”

“Alright then, if you’re so certain… Who could have done it?”

Mark thought hard for a couple of minuets…



“There’s, there’s a guy, name - named Mr. Blachly. Yeah.. Mr. Blachly. He, he always takes my wife out for lunch after school hours and is always calling my house looking for her. I was starting to get worried because this has been going on for a little over a month now but I just thought that Kathy found a work friend… You know?”

“Hmmm… this case is full of unsuspected turns isn’t it? Alright, just one last question…” “Do you know what this word means on the wall?”

My partner pointed to the wall which consisted of the Japanese characters that meant sorry.

“I have no idea to be honest with you.”

“Are you sure? We will put you on a lie detector, so you better look closely at it”

“I swear I don’t have any idea what that word means…”

My partner studied the man closely and then looked at Elizabeth.

“Do you know where I can find Mr. Blachly?”

“No idea, but his homeroom is just down the hall about two classes down.”

“Alright, thank you…”

My partner and I opened the door and saw a short stubby man slowly closing a classroom door which was, yes two class rooms away from 340. He whips around and looked at us, slammed the door he came out of and took off down the opposite direction. My partner and I quickly follow.

“No! Take the others and bring them down to one of the police cars! I’ll handle this guy.”

Once again, I just do as I am told… I take both Mark and Elizabeth to one of the stationary police cars and waited for my partner to get back. I gazed at my watch and to my surprise, it was almost 2:00 O’ clock in the afternoon already.

“If this case keeps it up, then maybe it might break the record of being the longest mystery ever solved by Edgar Allen…”

It was 3:00 O’ clock when my partner finally got back with the stubby little man. Both he and my partner were out of breath. Edgar had him in a sleeper hold and was dragging him across the parking lot.


“This guy can run!” My partner says while gasping for air. “He’s probably ran a few marathons in his day…”

The stubby man is struggling to break free, but his efforts with proven useless…

“Arrgh, aaah, aaah, Henri, come here and cuff this guy too will ya?”

I walk over and cuff the man. He didn’t struggle after that. His face was bright red and his eyes were wide open.

“Alright, so… now that we’ve caught you, mind telling us why you ran away from me?”

“… Just last week my spare keys have gone missing… Earlier this morning, around 7:00AM I found a bottle of cyanide in my room. The bottle was empty and I had no idea how it got in there or where it came from… When I found out that Mrs. Holmes was dead which was around 7:30, I felt sick to my stomach and… I don’t know, I just thought that maybe the cyanide had something to do with it; since she was twitching on the floor and was foaming at the mouth. I didn’t think you guys would believe such a story so I just thought that maybe pretending like nothing happened was the best option.”

“You’re quite right, that story is hard to believe… It matters not however. Tell me, what was your relationship with Mrs. Holmes anyway? It couldn’t have been that important if you rather ‘pretend like nothing happened’ other than actually trying to figure out some detail about it.”

“You got it all wrong, I was devastated when I found Mrs. Holmes dead. You can ask Mrs. Miller… I had tears in my eyes and was trying very hard to keep them from flowing out, but I just couldn’t help it.”

“Oh really? Well, do you still have this bottle of cyanide?”

“No I threw it out. Like I just said, I wanted to act like nothing happened and move on with my life. Of course I couldn’t do that, so I decided to leave the school and search for a different job. I would have went clinically insane if I hadn’t.”

“What about all of the calls you’ve made to Mr. Holmes’ house asking for Mrs. Holmes?”

Mr. Blachly began to twitch a little, his breath became raspy and rugged. His red face became redder. The veins on his forehead were starting to pop out of the sides. My partner was getting that look upon his face again.

“I think you’re hiding something Mr. Blachly. Please tell me exactly what relationship you had with Mrs. Holmes.”

“I.. I don’t know what you’re talking about, we were just, jest friends and that’s all.”


Come on, you’re a horrible liar… You know what I think? I think you were having a little affair with Mrs. Holmes, and when things were becoming out of hand, Mrs. Holmes called it off. You tried very desperately to get her back didn’t you? That’s why you began making those phone calls. The lust for Mrs. Holmes which was boiling inside you until you went completely insane! You finally decided, if I can’t have you.. Then no one will.”

“No, that’s not true… I didn’t kill her, I swear!”

“Aaah, but you’re not denying the fact that you were having an affair with her are you?”

“I… I… yes, I was having an affair with Mrs. Holmes. Please don’t tell Mark, I’m so sorry for letting my desires take over my rationality…”

Mr. Blachly begins to cry softly to himself…

Another teacher who is fairly older than the other two came toward us rather quickly. She looked a little shocked but also stern at the same time.

“Excuse me, my name is Mrs. Ransdell, I am a chemistry teacher who works at this school. Even though this may sound a little farfetched to you, but believe it or not, I am actually missing a cyanide bottle that had a little bit of cyanide left inside it. Mr. Blachly is a physics teacher and on top of that he is on the second floor while I’m on the first floor. We barely talk to each other, and when we do it’s usually in the teachers lounge. He has never asked me once for a bottle of cyanide and even if he did, I wouldn’t have given it to him.”

“Thank you Mrs. Ransdell, you have just given me valuable evidence that leads me to a different tangent.”

Edgar then ran over to the stationary police car, they briefly have a discussion about something and the driver of the car pulls out and heads towards the police station.

“I have a new theory about this case, the odds of it being true are very slim, it’s just my sixth sense kickin’ in.”

“What did you ask him to do?

“I asked him to bring a toxicologist, which is, of course, someone who has a high understanding of toxic gases. They can be the key item we need in solving this crime…”

It was almost 4:00 O’ clock when the toxicologist arrived. Edgar and I took him to the crime scene where he did an analysis on Mrs. Holmes’ body. He was an older man, probably in his late fifties or maybe even early sixties. He had a lab coat on and was carrying some kind of mechanism. Probably a device which could read the levels of gases in the room…



“There is defiantly a sign of cyanide in this body, the reading levels are off the charts, any higher and this place would have had to be blocked off my emergency specialists… In all of my years, I have never came in contact with such high readings in a body before in my life…”

“So, how fast can someone die from such a high injection?”

“Oh, no more than ten minuets I presume.”

“So, based on your analysis, do you think the injection killed her first? Or was it the stab wounds?”

“Well, you see, these gashes are not as bad as they appear to be. Sure they’re deep, but death could have been easily avoided with proper medical care of course. The fact that this much blood leaked out of this body means that the cuts we’re probably there for a while. Probably about an hour or so.”

“That makes sense because the puncture wound on her through looks like it was a forceful injection.”

“Absolutely, do you know what that purple bruising indicates? It means that that puncture wound has been there for quite a while also, probably a little longer than the stab wounds. It could even be possible that the stab wounds and the puncture wound to the throat was at the exact same time.”

“Which would explain the reason why she fell forward!”

“Exactly.”

“Thank you Mr. uhh…”

“Mr. Montgomery.”

“Right, Mr. Montgomery.”

“Any time.”

My partner hurries back down the stairs and towards the police car, and of course I’m tailing right behind him.




“So, did you figure everything out?”

“Yup…”

“Solved the murder?”

“Uhh-huh.”

“Who was it?”

“You’ll find out soon enough, just stand there and look pretty like you always do.”

When we arrived, we found that everyone was asleep, including the police officer.

“Well this actually makes everything easy for us, let’s go ahead and drive down to the police station, I’ll explain everything once we get there.”

The police drive took no more than ten minuets, but the sun was already starting to set. I stared at my watch and looked at the time. It was 6:10. Once there, we woke everyone up and escorted them into the police station. My partner was carrying Elizabeth however, perhaps he grew a liking to her. He’s finally growing up I see maybe he’ll have children after all…

“Alright, well… I know who the murderer is, and it’s amongst one of you three. I must say that you had me thrown through a loop for a while up until Mrs. Ransdell gave me that very valuable information.”

“Who was it then?”

“Do you seriously want to know?”

“Yes, damnit.”

“Why, it was the Queen of Crime, who else could it have been?”

“The Queen of Crime?”

“Yes… For you see, the Queen of Crime has always been within us all, humans have some sort of instinct to kill, no matter who they are or what the motive might be. It’s in our blood.”

“You’re talking nonsense, tell me who did it already!”

“Do I really have to? I don’t want to ruin the suspense quite yet…”

“Well, first let me tell you, Mark that Mr. Blachly was in fact having an affair with your wife. I’m surprised you couldn’t catch onto it sooner.”

Mark turned to look at Mr. Blachly.

“Is that true? Were you seriously having an affair with my wife!?”

“Yes… I’m sorry.”

“Why you worthless piece of shit! I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch! I swear to god I’ll send your ass straight to hell! I’ll kill you, do you hear me! I’ll kill you!”

“Guards, you know what to do…”

Two police officers haul Mr. Holmes out of the room.

“Sorry about that, but I knew that if he were to stay in this room and hear who killed his wife that he probably would have suffered some kind of brain damage…”

“Yeah, but I’m sort of happy you told him, now I don’t feel like there’s any weight on my chest anymore.”

“It’s a good feeling isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is…”

“Alright, now… back to the murder.”

“The murderer is obliviously still I this room, but which one of you could it have been? Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm… Which one, which one, which one?”

In my discovery, I have concluded that… the murderer was…

Edgar jumped on top of the table and yelled out the name of the murderer. “ELIZABETH!”

Mr. Blachly looks over to Elizabeth. “Elizabeth… why? You had such a strong, promising future ahead of you, why go off and do something like this!?”

“Because she ruined my life! All my hopes, all my dreams! Crushed by her! I hope you’re burning in hell Mrs. Holmes because that’s where you belong!”

“Is this the part where I have to start explaining how I knew it was you?”

“Oh, no… I’ll explain it myself, for I have no regrets of my doings. However, I’d rather explain why I did it first.”

“Ok, please, do tell…”

“It was because of Mrs. Holmes that I could no longer be with my boyfriend anymore. She was always introducing him to big time collage professors and directors of the national honors society. At first I was happy for him until he told me that we should break up because of the sudden tangent which progressed quickly and took over him. After a last kiss and a last farewell, he drove off but there was someone else inside his car, someone who wasn’t anyone I’ve ever seen before. It was a different girl other than myself. I couldn’t believe what I saw, I had mixed emotions of anger and sorrow… It was like having a period that was on steroids! I knew I had to get my revenge, but I loved Luke too much to take it out on him. So I decided to go after the person who started it all.

“And that was Mrs. Holmes correct?”

“Precisely…”

I shortly started gathering up materials I would need in order to pull off the perfect crime. I first started with the easier stuff which was the knife, the rag, and the manacles which I made myself. The hardest thing to get was the cyanide out of Mrs. Ransdell’s room and Mr. Blachly’s keys. The boxes which were filled with Agatha Christie books I told you about were already in Mrs. Holmes’ room, in fact they were the reason why I came up with this plan to begin with.

“The Queen of Crime?”

“Exactly…”

“Hmmm, Go on.”

“After I successfully got Mr. Blachly’s keys and the cyanide out of the chemistry storage located just behind Mrs. Ransdell’s class room, I began to come up with my actions and alibi. I waited everyday for Mrs. Holmes to come to school early so I could finally get my revenge, and today, was the day, I’ve been waiting for… I followed Mrs. Holmes into her class room and that’s where my revenge finally began to take it’s toll. I came up from behind, and covered her mouth. Rammed the syringe into her throat and injected the cyanide STRAIGHT into the main vein of the body. From there, everything else was a piece of cake. I stabbed her in the back a couple of times, carved the Japanese lettering on the wall, went to my locker, dug the knife into my own leg and waited until it was time to play the innocent victim act.”



“It almost worked too, you’re the first person who I’ve ever met to actually fool me like you did… I think if Mrs. Ransdell didn’t decide to randomly check her storage, the wrong person would have been thrown in jail right now…”

“Yes, bad luck was bestowed upon me… but I still stand by my having no regrets of what I did. If I have to go to hell for it, then let it be so…”

“There are two things I don’t quite understand still.”

“What might that be?”

“Why exactly did you carve the Japanese word which stands for sorry into the wall? Did you self consciously know that what you did was wrong and that you weren’t going to get away with it? Another thing, have you ever thought that Luke’s ‘progressive tangent’ was him meeting the other girl?”

Elizabeth was shocked by hearing these words. She didn’t even think of that… She was blinded by rage and the fact that Mrs. Holmes had something to do with Luke’s new change of life style that she forgot all about the new girlfriend. She began to smile and then started to laugh. There was a sense of sorrow in her laughter though, a weak plea for forgiveness is what I thought it to be.

“Hah, hahaha… hahahahaha HAHAHAHAHAHA! So I still screwed up in the end huh? Didn’t quite reach my goal did I? Oh well, what’s done is done and it can’t be helped now… I guess when I get out, I’ll have to kill yet another person before my conquest is finished.”

“I don’t think that will happen, because you’re not going to be leaving this place for a very, very long time…”

A couple of days after the murder was solved, there was a big school ceremony that took place. A small building which is located at the back entrance of the school was constructed specifically for this desolate occasion. Kids can come by any time during the day to put flowers, candles, or whatever they want inside this building, on top of the stone memorial of Mrs. Holmes… My partner and I decide to go visit the grave together one day.










“So that’s that huh?”

“Yeah… it’s a shame though, that girl had so much potential in becoming my graduate student…”

“Oh yeah, you’re planning on quitting the force once you’re out of college aren’t ya?

“That’s the plan.”

“There will probably be others you know.”

“Yeah… hopefully.”

“You’re probably just looking to hard.”

“If that were the truth…”

“There is someone you know that would be more than happy to take your job.”

Edgar looks over at me, I turn to face him too.

“What, do you mean you? Don’t be silly… you old goat.”