Tread cautiously. You are walking on a thin line. You don’t want to join Mrs Smith. Anna received an email, another threat? It always meant that the culprit was scared, very scared.
She called Rob and asked him to call Mr Alex Brown to Rob’s home.
She reached Rob’s place. Alex was waiting for her.
“Hello, Ms Roy. I guess I’m here as you guys must be seeing me as one of the prime suspects. But believe me I didn’t do anything”, Alex started before Anna could ask anything.
“Mr Brown, please have a seat. You do not need to worry if you haven’t done anything. So, calm down. And let’s talk slow”, Anna tried to put him at ease, “You care for tea/coffee?”.
“Yes please. Tea would be great”, Alex replied.
Anna waited for Robert to leave to make some tea.
Then she asked, “How did you become homeless?”.
Alex answered, “She was a royal heiress. I was a businessman. I dealt in carpet import. We imported beautiful carpets from around the world. It was going great till our largest client defaulted after a fire in their showroom. A month later, I discovered a financial fraud by my accountant. I fired him and hired a new, expensive replacement. This was followed by a dramatic decline in the price and the demand as new machine woven cheaper carpets became more popular. In no time, I was neck deep in loan. I asked Susanne for help, as we had a joint account. Instead of any help, I learnt that she had cleaned out our joint account. I had to pay last penny from my account to pay off all the debts”, he stopped for the tea served by Rob.
He continued after a sip, “Our marriage was not going well but it was not broken either. One day she served me a divorce notice, unexpectedly. She threw me out of her life, almost like a vestigial organ that has no use anymore. She didn’t think twice.”
Anna interrogated, “Was that the reason you attacked her?”
“I don’t remember attacking her. I was under the influence of alcohol. I don’t remember anything at all. She only told me later about that incident”, he explained.
“Did you love her?”, Anna asked.
“Yes, I loved her. I was shocked. It took me a little while to let go of her, and the idea of her. A part of me still loves her. I guess, a part of me will always love her”, he looked down and said softly.
“Why did you gate-crash the party?”, she asked
“I gate-crashed because I wanted to talk to her. I had to warn her about someone”, he answered.
“Who did you want to warn her about?”, Anna investigated.
“David Clark. I knew she wanted to divorce Tom and marry David. However, I had to warn her that he was not the right man for her”, he looked dazed.
“And you chose the day of party to warn her”, Anna asked.
He interrupted, “I didn’t know she had a party. I learnt about the it only when I reached the palace that evening, and she asked me to stay for the party. Then she got busy with the guests, and I with my drinks.”
“What do you know about David?”, she probed.
“That behind his charming demeanor, David had a perilous side too. His art business was a cover-up for his illicit money dealings with the mafia. I learnt it from horse’s mouth- one of David’s customers, whom I met at a bar. He was not to be trusted. He may be well behind the killing”, Alex revealed.
She needed time to process all the information. Her mind was linking the new pieces of information with threats she received through the email and the note wrapped in stone.
to be continued…
*This is the chapter # 4 of the series Murder in a Palace
(c) 2018 PRIYA BAJPAI ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Read my previous posts for #BlogchatterA2Z
An Archaic world, Blueprint, Crush, Dazzled, Eyes, Falling Teardrop…, Geisha,
Horrific Holocaust, I’m II, Jigsaw Puzzle, Killer , Love, Mia of Maya, Neil’s Shoe , Oseye- Archaic world II, Parallel Universe, The Quiet Room, Rain starts to Pour…, Shh.. Sleuth is Hunting, Twists and Turns, Unicorn Friends
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[…] Vestigial Organ […]
Wow. This is getting trickier. Question: why did his ex let him into the party?
Stu
Tale Spinning
https://stuartnager.wordpress.com/
A good question. she allowed him out of pity and guilt(may be) so that he gets yummy free food for a change.
Hmmm! Getting really murky now. Maybe tomorrow I’ll pick one as my favorite as a suspect and hopefully will stick with him/her. Nicely done, Priya.
Thanks Varad. It’s the last suspect, you have been very patient indeed.
You aren’t revealing much Priya!! Well done. I hope by tomorrow I am able to guess who could be the murderer. However it seems unlikely given the story for far.
It’s the last suspect tomorrow. Now the stage is almost set. You been patient, alright. Thanks.
Wow the Mafia! This is getting really good. But why do I get the feeling that David wasn’t the murderer? Or are you going to really surprise us by making the suspect with everything stacked against him the actual murderer? 4 days to go.
makes me think of the mysterious affair at styles, Poirot’s first mystery, where the guy everybody thought was the murderer was kept from the stand by Poirot before all evidence could be collected so he did not get away with double jeopardy.
I’m enjoying writing this. This has changed my perspective towards murder mysteries. thanks for stopping by
Thanks Kanika. that’s a thought. Keep guessing 🙂
It’s getting murkier I don’t see how Anna will find the killer. Will this end with z?
Hey Akshata, yes Z is where we would find out who the killer is.
It pays to talk with people. You never know which important piece of information they give out which might help you. BTW, too many fingers pointing at David, but I wouldn’t choose him to be my prime suspect as he is too obvious. I will wait for all the suspects to reveal their stories before I come to the conclusion. It’s fun playing the sleuth yourself. 🙂
Let’s see what in store. Tonight the last suspect gets interrogated. hopefully Anna will get some clues.
I am waiting!! I want to see if my little grey cells work or not! 😉
I’m crossing off Alex from the list of potential murderers, he seems too down on his luck! She had a lot of enemies though!
https://iainkellywriting.com/2018/04/25/v-is-for-vienna-austria/
She did. Didn’t she? thanks for stopping by Iain
I love murder mysteries. ….really I liked the way u explain the whole story. ….yes suspense is there. …let me guess who is the murderer. …how Ann will find
thank you:)
Seems innocent…hmm…looks like will have to wait till z to find out the murderer’s name. 3 more posts!!!
yup.. just 3 more to go. gonna miss A2Z. thanks Ashwini
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