“You shouldn’t be driving so fast, you’re a bit tipsy as it is.”
“Oh, live a little, Georgia! There’s no one on the road. Besides we’re just a few minutes away.”
“I still think it would be better if you slowed down. Please? For Joanna at least?”
“Jo, I know you’re pretending to be asleep there. You want me to carry you out again don’t ya?”
“How did you know, Daddy?”
“I’ve seen you do this so many times I just know now.”
“Why have you neve-“
“Shit, the brake’s gone! I’m losing control!”
“We’re going to crash into that pole!”
“JOANNNAAAAA”
**
“Joanna!”, Cynthia is banging at the door. Joanna woke up as the car crashed in her head. She was sweating all over and her heart was racing.
“Jo, get up!”, Cynthia continued pounding the door.
Joanna opened the door in haste, “Jesus, what is it Cynthia so early in the morning?”
“The mayor is dead, Jo! His neighbour found him in his room, throat slit.”
“Wait. Wha…?”, Joanna could not comprehend at first as her mind was still in the dream.
“I just heard a few minutes ago from the paper boy. You should get down there quick!”, Cynthia said.
“I don’t understand. How could he… Who could have… Why in the world…”, Joanna was as lost as ever.
“Get dressed, we’ll learn more as we go there.”
“Give me five minutes, I’ll be right out.”
Joanna tried to collect herself as she closed the door but was unable to. The dream that had been haunting her since the day it happened took shape again. It hadn’t for a while now, so she was left wondering why it had to come up now. Her parents screaming her name reverberates in her ear in a loop like a broken record. Why did they have to go? Why not me too? What did I do to deserve a parentless youth? It has been thirteen years since her parents died but Joanna still has no answer to the questions that came up in her head. She was miraculously saved by an onlooker when the accident occurred and she has always been grateful to him ever since. Perhaps it made the decision to work for him as an assistant slightly easier.
‘Now, he’s…. dead? I don’t believe it.’
She quickly washed her face, wet her hands and legs, changed clothes and went out running.
This was something that had never happened before in Mauville, so it was no surprise that almost the entire town came up in front of the mayor’s house. The murmurs floated in the air as Joanna reached there. It went in through one ear and out the next as she moved through them up to the detective who was frantically trying to preserve his crime scene.
“Don’t come in here! You’re ruining the evidence! For crying out loud…”
“John, what in hell has happened?”, Joanna asks spiritedly.
“Joanna, Jack has been murdered. I am as shocked as you are.”, John Anderson replied as he held her shoulder.
She sees the body through the front door, lying on the chair as if he were taking his usual afternoon nap at the office. Now it strikes her and it strikes her hard. She starts sobbing uncontrollably.
“Neighbour found him in. But here’s the kicker, Jo. He had to kick the door down. Every single door was locked from the inside. It’s like one of those murder mysteries you read about in novels. To think it could happen in a place like Mauville…”
Joanna moves away from the scene and sits on the porch. John continues.
“When did you last see him, Jo? Did he say anything out of the ordinary?”
“Yesterday, as I left office. Which was around five or six. I don’t think he said anything out of….”, Joanna paused. “Come to think of it, he did say something odd yesterday. He said he was being watched by someone and that something bad is going to happen to him. I totally forgot about it as I left office and it only came back to me now.”
“That’s something to follow up on then. I’ll ask around Jo, see if anyone noticed anything unusual in the past couple of days. For now, let me clean this up and start all the processes. I’ll let you know the details. Boy, this is going to be new…”
Joanna obliged and took off from the mayor’s house and politely asked the locals there to do the same as well.
John Anderson was the local policeman/detective at Mauville. A calm fellow, always pleasant, stuck to his farming more often than not. After all, he did not have much to do in the station and he felt his time would be better used in contributing something to the town from the land that he had.
John was called in early this morning by one of the locals and even he thought it was a prank by one of the kids. A murder in Mauville? Rubbish. One look to the eye of the local and he knew immediately.
Now as he went into the house, he noticed immediately that there was no struggle at all, which suggested that the mayor knew the killer and invited him into his house. He inspected the body, there were no bruises anywhere. Just the finish on his neck.
‘But how in the world did the culprit make this into a completely locked room? It seems impossible.’, thought John.
John looked around the house some more and could not find anything in particular that could have helped the case. It all seemed quite normal. Until he saw someone peering in through the window.
“Oi! Who’s there?”, John said as he rushed out.
There was no one there, the person simply vanished into thin air.
‘I seem to be getting old…’
John came back in and just as he thought he would start with shifting the body and bureaucratic work he noticed a peculiar strand of piano wire next to the body. There were no pianos in this house nor were there any stock of piano wires…