I paced my
steps in this dingy chalet room that I have turned so eloquently into my
makeshift office, interrogation room, and sleeping quarters as the storm raged
on outside the window. In my heart I cursed whatever Rain God that lived in the
sky for daring to spoil the investigations of the great detective Lim. I rushed
over quickly when I got the call only to get stuck on this dingy island because
of this storm. The case at hand would be much simpler if the rain didn’t
destroy all traces of physical evidence at the scene, footprints, fingerprints,
hairs, blood, all except the ring. The ring. Suspicion crept like a thief into
my genius intellect. It is evidence so clear, so blatantly obvious that I couldn’t
believe it. Never in my seven years in the Homicide Division have I ever come
across evidence this clear.
I threw the
pictures of the suspects on the desk, there were only three pictures, the only
three living guest in this resort minus the victim, the two bumbling officers I
brought with me and myself. There were no other guest in this small resort at
this time of the year and all the workers had alibis as they were in the staff
room at the time of the murder. I had already interrogated the suspects. Upin,
my prime suspect spent most of the interrogation mumbling and crying out the
victim’s name, he did however admit that the ring was his. Again my deductive
sonar acted up, if he really was the culprit, why would he admit such a thing
unless he was a bigger idiot than I thought. He currently is in one of the resort rooms under constant
watch by Officer Abu and Officer Ah Gun. The second suspect Sofia spent her
interrogation in tears and I barely got a straight sentence from her, she was
apparently good friends with the victim so I guess I can’t blame her. Finally
there was Ipin, the suspect’s brother. He acted legitimately surprised and
heartbroken that his brother was a murderer. However, when I showed him the ring
he was quick to point out it was his brother’s. I was wary of this, so I tried
every trick question in the book to get something out of him but it was all
for nought. He was either very innocent or very tricky.
Realizing I need a breather, I took my
packet of half-eaten nasi lemak and
left the room searching for the nearest trash can. I entered the empty
cafeteria down the hallway; the lights were off so I couldn’t see a thing.
Blind as a bat I began caressing the walls looking for a switch. After a few
moments I found and flipped it and light danced back into the room. “Detective...,”
I heard a sudden voice behind me. The thoughts raced inside my head, the
murderer has taken this opening to remove me from the picture, for he knows my
genius intellect and admirable cunning would trap him in the end. I turned
around as graceful as a fox and stepped into my Five Animal Style Kung-fu
stance to pulverize the culprit. Instead of attacking killer I saw only a
frightened girl, it was Sofia. “You sca...I mean you nearly got yourself hurt
sneaking up on me” I said.
“I’m very
sorry” she uttered with fright “I didn’t mean to.”
“I need to
tell you something,” she said. She gestured towards the nearest chair and we
sat across each other; all the while I eyed her suspiciously. She could look
quite pretty and cheerful but currently the only thing she looked like was fear. She
began “I...I saw a...a...coconut.”
“...What?”
“He...he smashed the coconut,”
she continued.
“You mean the murderer
used a coconut as the murder weapon?” I answered in shock.
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