Party dinner for two; snacks in the bathroom; laundry in the kitchen cupboards; pot of coal in the bedroom. What were the connection between these out of place clues? Tonight, the answer would be revealed.
But first, Martial Kim faced a puzzling new lesson.
“T-Teacher. H-how am I able to view the crime scene – from the insides of your home no less!”
“This, is called a digital tablet. It’s essentially a computer shrunken down into the size of a small magazine. People can read books, watch videos, surf the internet, or in this case take pictures and view them instantly...”
“...”
“...You didn’t get a single word I just said right?”
“N-no. O-of course I did. It can...do all that.”
Professor Stone wanted to facepalm, but he really can’t blame the Martial Kim. The young master literally skipped - what - centuries worth of progress of communication technology. From telegram, radio walkie talkie, the first phone, the first cellular phone, the first Apple iPhone – now even computers and tablets can contact people through Skype, FaceTime, Zoom, or even Discord.
So trying to COMPRESS all that information for a clueless martial arts cultivator like this was a bit taxing. It’s not like there was this supreme manual that allowed Martial Kim to absorb all the modern knowledge to become a peak techno-immortal.
So, the food forensic chemist just hand waved it.
“We usually take pictures of the crime scene, in its fresh authenticity, before we start moving things around or shifting the body. That way we can review these pictures even when we clean up the site and remove the body.”
“I-incredible. This is far more accurate, and precise, than scribing the description onto a scroll!”
“Well as they say Kim, a picture can tell a thousand words.”
--- More like, this...tablet, is like a mystical window connected to a single point in the past. Why, everything looks exactly as how I saw it when I first arrived before the sun finished rising from the mountains. If only there is a way, I could reuse this back in Moon Tavern. This would surely make my future investigations more convenient!
The master and disciple discuss details of the case, all the while Keekee was quietly snoozing against the young master’s shoulder. Perhaps, she felt this warrior was a big and fuzzy teddy bear – she couldn’t resist curling her arms around his, to snuggle comfortably.
Boy, did Martial Kim had a DIFFICULT time focusing on his job!
“So,” Prof. Stone said as he focused on his tablet, shifting through different pictures. “Detective Fraulein found the suicide letter.”
“Th-there was a letter!?”
“Ssssh. Don’t wake up Keekee. Yes, there was. After being analyzed by specialists, the paper wasn’t forged and it was used with a pen we found in the house”
“Wh-where is this letter, in this window? Please show me.”
Martial Kim tried to lean in, but he had a maiden balanced on his person. Fortunately, the tablet was so convenient – not only did it show a scanned duplicate of the suicide note, Prof. Stone could ZOOM into the writing with a simple gesture of his fingers!
--- Th-this really is like a magical window!
The young master squinted at the writing, and blurted out, “This handwriting is far too messy to be normal. What if this woman was coerced? Perhaps threatened with her life and she wrote in fear?”
Prof. Stone answered, “I thought so too when the detective showed me. However, our graphologist—Er, someone who specializes in analyzing writing—mentioned: this writing is normal for the woman.”
“N-normal? How so?”
“It seems after we compared to her previous writing: journals, signatures, and whatnot – it seems she’s had this poor handwriting for a long time. In saying that, this isn’t a matter of terrible quality.”
“Th-then what do you suggest?”
“Medical influence.”
“You mean, she was drugged? By whom?”
Prof. Stone rubbed the top of his bald head to think it over, “My team found some pills near her bedside table. Some of them are sleeping pills – you know to make the suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning less painful. There were other types of pills that I am waiting a reply from toxicology.”
“Poison perhaps?” Martial Kim wondered.
Before they could continue the conversation, Prof. Stone’s home phone started to ring. He swiped it up as fast as he could before the second ring could snap awake the sleeping Keekee. The forensic chemist talked to the other person on the line, exchanged a few words...and there was a glow in his eyes. Click, end of that conversation.
“Teacher, it looks like you received good news.”
“Well technically good for us...but not good for the one of the victim.”
“Wh-what do you mean? Sounds rather ominous now that you put it like that.”
“The other medications I mentioned: it’s to treat Schizophrenia.”
“...Sky...Pardon?”
Prof. Stone rubbed his temples before balancing his elbows on his knees. A solemn look grew on his face, as if he was about to break the news to Martial Kim his dog died – if he had one that was.
“Schizophrenia is a mental disorder. Or sickness for your perspective.” Prof. Stone explained, “It affects how someone thinks, feel, or even experience the world. I’ll spare you the technicality, but essentially your brain isn’t working properly and it started to activate different signals when it shouldn’t. This would lead to creating hallucinations, hearing voices, and suddenly develop ideas and beliefs that don’t match with reality. Worse case scenario, it can also lead to severe delusion.”
“Delusion,” Martial Kim had that word rolling in his mouth as if it was a sickening candy he wanted to spit out. “I understand now. Snacks in the bathroom. Laundry in the kitchen. The Single Mother was not right in her mind to begin with.”
“Exactly. My friend from the hospital just called: the Single Mother had been suffering this disorder since she gave birth to her child. Most likely post-partum depression...You know what that means right?”
Stolen story; please report.
“I...believe so.”
--- This time I am not lying. I have seen severe mood swings prior and post a mother giving birth to a child. Granted, it is considered rare – that or the family usually keep it behind closed doors – but I do see the connection between these mood swings leading to this Sky...I really need to learn the calligraphy of these ‘mental disorders’. Or I will sound like a complete fool!
“So,” Prof. Stone hummed, “The Single Mother has been on medication and has been in and out of the hospital due to self harm, or neglect of self during her periods of delusion. Now granted, it seems she has been making a steady enough recovery in the past few weeks as her child grew older. My guess, her maternity instinct kicked in real good to give her some lucidity.”
“You say that, yet I find it terribly shocking how no one cared for her. It was mentioned, the victims never had much of visitors since they moved in that neighborhood. Is that not true, Teacher?”
“Social worker, mental care nurse, buuut then again ‘busy schedules’.”
“Then why suicide? If you said yourself, the Single Mother had been on the road of recovery, why end her life along with her precious child? I mean, what mother would want their child to suffer like that?”
“This...is where I had been stumped.” Prof. Stone suddenly switched to another picture on his tablet and showed it to Martial Kim. “Here, take a look at this one.”
Martial Kim didn’t know whether to hold this tablet like a book, or a baby.
For all intents and purposes, this ‘magical window’ could very well shatter in his finger tips the moment he would touch it. After some assurance he held it aloft and tried to hold it as if he would a rolled out scroll. The screen, however bullied him, as the auto-rotate function misunderstood the angle of how he held it and the image kept turning left and right like a wheel.
After a crash course in tablet handling – he conquered the bully.
“(1) Contact the school to call sick for Son; (2) Have a big meal with Son; (3) Lock all doors...and windows and stuff a cloth under the door crack; (4)... Feed take the sleeping pills with Son; (5) Burn...the coal...Teacher, is this a to-do list. It is oddly well thought out.”
“Hah! Even you think that. It’s been bugging me all day, not going to lie!” Prof. Stone snapped his fingers as if he found the answer to a great idea, “Think about it Kim. Mother calls the school to notify her child will not be attending class the next day, why: it’s to delay the discovery of their death as long as possible.”
“...Oh, you are right Teacher. If they died without warning, surely the school would be alert a lot sooner than planned.”
“In the end, a kind heart teacher’s assistant felt something was off. Thank goodness for her, or else the evidence would have been days old by the time anyone found the corpses. And don’t you think it’s odd, how someone who lived a life of confusion could make such a detailed list.”
Prof. Stone needed a short break and sipped at his wine, before adding, “Coroner said they’ve actually been malnourished for a while. I deduce, they’ve lived off on pure snacks and junk food – the very thing you found stuffed in the bathroom medicine cabinet. It just so happen, the night they commit suicide – was the best dinner they had. So why the sudden change in lifestyle?”
Martial Kim’s eyes widen, “Someone instructed them?”
“It seems likely.”
“Then, this would suggest whoever instructed them would benefit from their loss... Could it be—”
“The ‘father’ that has been missing from this picture the whole time?” Prof. Stone grinded his teeth while thinking, “We turned the entire house inside out, nothing to suggest a marriage partner of any kind. All the photos were just the Single Mother and Son. If our deduction is correct, this ‘father figure’ may have already left the family picture as both the Single Mother and Son had mental disorders – not every man can accept that.”
“Shameful, most shameful.”
“Most likely Detective Fraulein will check the victim’s married records in the morning. Then she will follow the lead from there. No doubt, this could be a clear cut case of insurance fraud.”
“Insurance fraud?”
“Yeah. It’s common to see cases when a spouse murders their marriage partner, feign innocence, in order to claim money from their death.”
“Th-that is despicable! Is nothing sacred in this world? Marriage is an oath, a bond of eternity between lovers! To kill your soul mate for the sake of gold ingots or even treasures of the world – completely unacceptable!”
“W-wait, Kim, where are you going? Calm down, or you’ll wake up Keekee!”
“To hunt down this missing father that abandoned his family! For out, out of convenience! So what if they had flaws, it is the husband’s sworn duty to protect them and support them!”
“Kim. Kim. Just, hear me out. It’s a possibility, we don’t know if the father is really involved. And besides,” Prof. Stone had to sit on the edge of his seat, ready to tackle Martial Kim the second he so much as gets up. “We’re Forensic Investigators. We’ve done all we can. I’ll text Detective Fraulein, about the medical report and toxicology. It would be her turn to carry on the torch in this investigation.”
“B-but Teacher! We have to capture this villain!”
“We are Forensics. We aren’t police. We don’t have authority to arrest anyone. And our priority is to find the truth, and let the police follow up. Clearly, you don’t like it one bit – but we still have many other cases to follow up.”
“.......”
“I hate to say it, Kim, but just today – there’s already cases of a skeleton flushed out of a sewer; determining if a hiker’s death was an accident or murder; and not to mention a bank being robbed in the afternoon with the culprits at large.”
--- Never have I felt this conflicted before. Is it not simple, to do the right thing? Knight-Errants should not fear the law or consequences, so long as they believe their actions brings justice to the people and the gods. Cutting down villains by the sword; capturing petty thieves from disrupting the peace; even hunting down cultivators who abuse others for their own gain.
“Kim.” Prof. Stone hummed, trying to ease the tension. “Police, forensics, coroners, almost everyone is working as a team to uphold the law. This isn’t the Wild West, where everyone takes the law into their own hands, not any more. We’ve moved away from those days that made the definition of ‘justice’ all grey and blurry. There are clear cut rules and regulations we need to follow. As much as I want to catch this villain, our real priority is:
... Is the evidence that they leave behind, that must be brought to light.”
“........Forgive me, Teacher. I meant no ill will with my temper.”
Prof. Stone gave a nod of understanding and patted his protege on the shoulder. “Not going to lie Kim, I love detective work, but my mother would freak out if I were to carry a gun with me. So, I dedicate myself in forensic investigation. We can solve mysteries by looking at the evidence. So let’s focus on that, finding the truth in the clues left behind.”
Martial Kim did the one thing he failed to try since he became a knight-errant: stop and think about it.
--- My experience. My beliefs. All of it are nothing but smoke and ashes at the mercy of this society’s breath. Teacher is right, I am no longer a Knight-Errant of the chaotic martial world. I am his disciple in forensic science. Why, were it any regular martial arts master – he would surely strike me with a cane for acting against his will and principles. Teacher has every right to be disappointed, yet he has been nothing but patience and consoling. This world, it is only now I truly come to appreciate how different life is.
Martial Kim took a moment to glance at Keekee, peacefully asleep.
--- Will I become as comfortable as you in this strange new world, Miss Keekee? Will I be able to keep up with someone like you, who was born and raised in this strange society? Just be comfortable in living a life here?
Prof. Stone is right. There were just too many cases to explore, to pursue and discover. Alas, if this story were to look at every single mystery – it would become as thick as an Encyclopedia Britannica.
Thus, the next case worth mentioning would have the truth – written in the sprays of blood!
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