*◇*◇*◇
Alan quickly walked into Harrison's office where Harrison himself was. He didn't notice Alan walk until he had shut the door loudly. He looked up putting his full attention to the mad and frightened Alan.
"Yes?"
Alan told him about the incident like he had with the supervisor and those who had caught the full conversation.
"Someone tried to ram you?" Harrison asked raising an eye brow in curiosity. "As in like drive you off the road?"
"Yes, kind of like that. But, I felt like they were trying to make me crash sort of like at the same time." Alan replied.
Harrison pulled out a pen and pad. "Tell me, were you able to catch what the driver looked like?" He looked back up at him for an answer.
"Yes," Alan replied, "But, I didn't recognize him."
Harrison started writing down on the pad. "What did he look like?"
"He had gray hair, light skin, but with wrinkles"-"how old would you say he was?" Harrison interrupted.
"About 50s or 60s. I didn't get a good look, but when I had looked behind me to see who was trying to get me off the road that's what I saw." Alan replied a little irritated that he was interrupted but let it go.
His boss continued writing down the information as he told him all he had. He then was excused and reassured Alan before he left that he would make sure to do something about the situation.
"Okay, pick which one you want to do first-go visit the crime scene to find more clues leading to the real murderer or talk to Alan and get answers about the driver he encountered." The detective said to Stewart who was once again pacing his office floor.
"I think we should go to the crime scene first." Stewart replied and stopped pacing.
The two exited the office and left the building by going out the front door. Nobody stopped them to ask where they were going, they were free to go anywhere as they pleased.
By the time they arrived at the Hendrickson house, it was close to lunch time and nobody was around.
"Should we split up?" Stewart asked the detective.
"There really is no need." The detective's reply was. The two started scanning the room for any more clues that they may have missed.
"After this, we should go back to the station and talk with Alan." Stewart said and Detective Stiles nodded in agreement. "If he's not there, then we can go and ask Mr. Hendrickson where his father and mother-in law are staying." He added. They stayed in the crime scene room for twenty minutes not finding anything new that can tie them to the murderer. They then left the mansion locking it back before leaving the residence, so no one could break in and rob the place.
They headed their way back to the station hoping that Alan would answer their questions which they kept reciting so they wouldn't forget. By the time they got back it was already nearing 12:40 pm, meaning that lunch was going to be over and work was to be continued.
When Stewart and Detective Stiles walked in the door, they saw Alan rush past them, he didn't see them. He went down the hallway and disappeared out of their sight. They followed after him trying to catch up, but he was too fast and they lost him.
"He is quick." Stewart commented catching his breath.
"We can catch him later," Detective Stiles assured. "Right now, we should go see Mr. Hendrickson so we can ask where his wife's parents are staying since they are on the suspect list."
"Right." Stewart nodded. With that, they left the station once more.
In ten minutes time, they were at the Kelling's residence sitting with Karson asking about where his in-laws were currently staying. He told them where they were staying and their last name so they could know to tell the person behind the desk who they were looking for and with the information they needed, left in a hurry to interrogate the elderly couple.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Stewart asked looking at the fancy hotel in front of him and his partner had arrived at.
"Indeed!" The detective answered in a confident tone. "Let us go, we can't be late any longer." He added in and they walked towards the building.
With Stewart close behind him, the detective walked to the front desk with a man in a hotel uniform behind the desk.
"Hello, sir, how may I help you?" The man asked.
"I am just visiting a friend who is currently staying here." Detective Stiles started. "The name is Newman, can you tell me what room number it is?"
The man behind the desk started flipping through the sign in papers of those who had signed in to get a hotel room. "It is number 756, on floor 7."
"Thank you." The detective nodded. He walked to the elevators with Stewart still following behind. Detective Stiles pushed the button for the elevator to come down. The elevator came down and the doors opened letting a ton of people out. Eventually they got on with a few other people who were currently staying at the hotel as well.
"So, there are 12 floors in this hotel?" Stewart asked looking down at the buttons to see the elevator could go up to 12 floors.
"Yes," A woman answered his question. "I've stayed here before and it's such a lovely hotel. Unfortunately floor 13 was closed because someone accidentally fell off that floor, so it was closed off never to be opened again." The woman added.
"13 floors?" Detective Stiles asked. "I had no idea. Well, of course I've never stayed at this hotel before." He scratched his head. "It's such a tragedy that someone fell to their death because of an accident."
The woman nodded. "It is." She paused staring off into the void before continuing. "It was a young beautiful woman, who wanted to become an actress. She was here to audition for her first movie, but one day she was out sitting on the railing of the balcony reciting her lines and she fell back, falling down from the 13th floor. It really is a tragedy. It's one of the most visited places regarding to the paranormal. They say she haunts all of floor 13. Some hear her soft footsteps from below, she is also known for being heard by the guests. They said they heard her talking-as if she were reciting her lines to herself. And others have witnessed seeing her ghost figure while out on their balcony enjoying the air. They always look up to see if she's up there, so it's obviously going to the people that are looking for her."
The elevator came to a stop bringing Stewart and his partner back to reality.
"This is our stop." Detective Stiles announces. "What an interesting but tragic story, ma'm." He said before he and Stewart exited the elevator.
He and Stewart walked down looking side to side for the right number. They soon came upon the door and Stewart knocked on the door. The door opened to reveal a man in his late 60s.
"Hello, I'm Detective Stiles and this is Stewart Cuffman," The Detective introduced himself and his partner to the man standing at he door. "We're investigating Katelynn Hendrickson's murder. Would you mind if we asked you questions?"
"No, not at all," the man answered. "Please, come inside." He stepped aside to let them in.
They came inside and sat down on a sofa. Mrs. Newman-the woman who raised Claudia and Lesley alongside her husband was sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Welcome." She greeted. "Make yourselves at home." She gave a kindly gesture.
"Sorry to intrude," Stewart said hoping he didn't wake them up from their activities. "We just need to ask a few questions."
"We want to know where you were on the night of Katelynn's murder." Detective Stiles said getting straight to the interrogating.
"We were in one of the guest rooms in the Hendrickson household." The woman replied.
"And were just getting ready for bed. I think it was about 11:20 when we turned off the lights and went to sleep." Mr. Newman said adding in more of their alibi.
"We want to know why would Bryant want to this." Mrs. Newman said with sad eyes adding in. Both Stewart and Detective Stiltes weren't surprised that they also believed Bryant was the murderer.
It was obvious in their eyes with the evidence pointing to him, but something deep down to the two just didn't feel right. They had talked with Bryant and they knew instantly that he had nothing to do with it. Who would do this? Someone who was smart-someone who had resented Katelynn very much.
"Did you love Katelynn?" Deceive Stiles asked.
"Yes!" Mrs. Newman answered nodding. Her tears began coming down.
Well, this was enough proof, she nor her husband had any involvement of the crime.
Detective Stiles and Stewart felt they had asked enough questions and exited the room leaving the couple more heart broken than ever. It pained Stewart to see people feel like that. He wondered how Alan ever got through the death of his family. Maybe he didn't and was just hiding it so he could act tough on the outside, but sad in the inside.
Now, that the interrogation with Mr. and Mrs. Newman was done, they could scratch them off their list. The only name left on the list unmarked would be Karson's dad, Sherman.
"I want to head back to the station to hopefully get some answers from Alan about his run-in with that crazy driver he told us." Stewart said as they headed toward his vehicle.
"Yes, I do hope we will receive some, although, you know Alan-he doesn't like sharing info to people he doesn't like and I think we are those people." The detective replied in a sincere voice.
◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆ (the Kelling's residence)
Everyone had said something memorable that was about Katelynn. They knew Katelynn was in a better place, but they still wondered why Bryant would want her dead. Jude demanded that he speak with his brother-in-law, but the authorites wouldn't let him as they said he was still going under investigation and still being interrogated by police. How long was it going to take them to end this whole chaos? Would Bryant be put behind bars forever never to see his wife and children ever again?
For the rest of that day, the children played in the backyard while the grown ups discussed about what day of the funeral was going to be as they were conversing with each other. They all felt better talking about it after crying their tears away after the shocking news of the youngest Hendrickson member of the family passing away before their eyes. It seemed to take a while to get through with the news, but they seemed to feel much better after talking about the great memories of her.
They didn't do much but talk about her all afternoon and evening. As the sun was starting to disappear, they had dinner and tuck the children away before going outside to either have a smoke or just talk.
*◇*◇*◇
That same afternoon, Detective Stiles and Stewart went back to the station to hopefully get answers from Alan. They were surprised when Alan told them about his whole incident. He wasn't really much of a person to tell about people information like that. He was pretty open to them about it. Stewart asked the questions while his partner wrote down Alan told them about the driver. Alan didn't seem to mind that, either.
The interview with Alan was pleasant but short and the discriptions of the driver weren't clear. The description of the driver was male, late 50s or early 60s and a pair of spectacles, so it could be any man fitting those discriptions of the man. But, know he was male narrowed down the number of suspects to just males only.
Next time, they had to be careful and not trust anyone who wasn't working on the case as anyone outside of the crew could be targeting them. It wouldn't make sense that someone working with them would try to do something like that as 1) Alan is a good investigator and 2) It would be on their record permanently.
Days soon passed as they continued unveiling the real murderer and leading ties to them. Alan and Stewart were able to go back to the crime scene a couple more other times to find more clues, but everything looked the same and stayed the same. They also went back to visit Bryant and assured him that he will be free once more after everything was clear.
A week had already passed since they last interviewed Lesley and Claudia's parents in their hotel room. No threats of anyone trying to murder another investagtor nor no one coming clean to the action either. So, the man remained anonymous.
Everyone on the case were having a meeting and Harrison was running it. It was 12:15 pm on a Tuesday.
"It's been nearly two weeks, and we still don't have new clues." Alan admitted.
"We just have to look harder." Rickie said and an idea popped up into Stewart's mind.
"I've got an idea!" He exclaimed which received everyone's attention. "Remeber when we first arrived at the crime scene and the balcony doors were open? Well, it's obvious that the murderer climbed up on the second floor and managed to somehow get his way in through past the doors. We never have looked below the balcony to see if he left anything behind." He explained to everyone.
"That's good idea," Harrison complemented. "I'll send some of you back to the crime scene to investigate once more. Hopefully, we'll find something interesting and since Stewart was the one who came up with this excellent plan, he may also go and visit the crime scene. Meeting is over."
Everyone exited the room and Harrison randomly picked out a few people to go out while the rest stayed. Alan and Rickie were some of those people, but Detective Stiles had to stay.
"Tell me what you see." The detective said before Stewart left with the group.
"I will." He waved good bye. This was going to be his first time back to the crime scene without his partner with him. It was going to be a bit strange for him as they worked together fairly well.
They arrived back at the Hendrickson house and exited their vehicles. Some of them went inside the house to look at the balcony again and some went to find the balcony the murderer went up outside.
"I'm pretty sure the murderer had to have a vehicle." Stewart said to Rickie. "What do you think?"
"Could be possible, or, he went on foot to get here, unless he came from across town." Rickie replied.
The two investigating officers went under the balcony and began searching all over and underneath to find anything leading to the murder. Everyone began to search for anything that could be of help to them to get closer to this murderer. Bring it to court and put him behind bars for the rest of his life.
"Found nothing up here," One of the police officers confirmed after looking over the balcony.
Stewart scanned closely down at the grass that was right below where the balcony stood. Stewart was also having a hard time finding anything. It seemed as if the murderer knew what he was doing and covered every track and left nothing behind. It was as like he was used to this before. Though, the murder scene was a little messy, so maybe he knew what he was doing but was an armature at it. It would make sense that he was trying to frame Bryant as Bryant didn't have a good alibi and vanished around the time Katelynn was murdered.
Whoever did this knew the family, and had to have a reason for committing the murder. Of course there is no good reason for going out and killing someone and them involve someone else and frame them to it.
The search lasted for a few minutes before someone found something that looked out place. Rickie, the one who had found the first item, held it up for everyone to see. It was rope that looked long enough to reach from the floor up to the balcony.
"It doesn't look old," Rickie told Alan as he handed it to Alan to inspect. They were all wearing gloves, so it was alright to touch the rope without smudging their fingerprints on it. "It looks pretty new, but it does look like it has been used."
"Yes," Alan said as he carefully inspected the rope. "As if it was used to climb up to the balcony." He finished his sentence.
"We'll take it with us to see what the others think about it and what their ideas and theories are." He handed the rope back to Rickie to put in their evidence box.
The search was then continued and no one said anything about finding anything. As Stewart was crouched down carefully examining the grass for anything out of the ordianry, he found what looked like hook. He picked it up and scraped off the dirt. He went to find Rickie to see what he thought it was.
"It looks like one of those hooks used for pulley levers." Rickie said after giving the item a good inspection. He then added the item to the box and they went back to finding anything else related what the murderer could have used.
Nothing else was found and they started wrapping things so they could head back to the station and tell the rest of the crew about their trip to the mansion.
"I'm surprised that we were only able to find two things." Alan said.
"I do hope they lead to Bryant, our main suspect." Another said who also believed Bryant was the one behind all of this.
They showed Harrison the items they found. "I'm pretty sure the rope was tied to hook in order to climb up the balcony."
"Good theory," Alan clapped his hands. "Now, it's time to lay out how it all happened, I'll give out my theory first. I'm suspecting Bryant had a vehicle with him. First, he secretly abandoned his group that night and used one of the vehicles to head back to the Hendrickson mansion. Then, after he arrived, he tied the rope to the hook. It probably took him a few times to get the hook to the ledge of the railing. Once he did, he climbed up and used a knife to open the doors to get in the room."
"Question," Stewart said before Alan could continue his theories on what really happened that night. "What about the bottle? How did he have that with him?"
"How am I supposed to know?" Alan asked back rudely. "Anyways," He continued, "After succeding upon entering the room, he slowly crept over to the bed to not wake up Katelynn until he put a hand over her mouth so she wouldn't make any noise." By this time Stewart and Detective Stiles were shaking their heads. Their theories were much differnet than his, but let him continue. "She woke up after feeling a hand go quickly over her mouth. He dragged her out of bed and slit her thoat, then stabbed her. He is drunk of course, so he probably is drinking in between."
Detective Stiles raises a hand up to his hand grabbing Alan's attention and he pauses. "Can I ask a question?"
"You just did," Alan replied scoffed as he folded his arms together annoyed being interrupted for the second time.
"Anyways," The detective continued ignoring Alan's scoff. "I want to ask how did the knife stay in his hand after he passed out?"
"I don't know." Alan replied sounding annoyed. "Go ask the murderer himself. He's right down the hallway." Nobody said anything and Alan took this chance to continue his prediction.
"He fell over with the knife still in his hand and the bottle in the other and knocked out from there not realizing what he just did."
"Is that it?" Vasco asked.
"Yes." Alan replied with a nod.
"Well," Harrison started. "That is an interesting prediction, but I'm pretty sure that is not what happened." He said and Alan gave him a sort of a confusing and disappointed look to him.
"What do you mean?" He asked wanting to know how wrong his theory was.
"We don't know what really happened until Bryant confesses up." Harrison replied. "Meeting is over, back to work." He ordered and everyone walked back to their desks.
Two hours later...
A loud sound filled the silence outside the station. A few more shoots were rung. Stewart was shuffling through his papers and his partner was visiting with Bryant. Rickie was in his office talking with Harrison about the on leading case and how long it would take. Alan was in the break room having a late lunch. They were all doing this just when Vasco came running in barging in through the doors of the station with everyone who could see him were confused and a bit worried of how he was acting.
"Oh, my!" One of the investigators cried. "Vasco, calm down. Someone call the paramedics!"
This shocking commotion grabbed everyone from out of what they were doing and came to the front.
Harrison who was with Rickie pushed passed the crowd to seen what was going on and saw Vasco lying down on the floor being treated. He had been shot. The ammount of blood gushing out of his arm made him rush by his side.
"Vasco, what happened?" He asked in a very concerned voice.
Vasco was in so much pain he couldn't reply. "Step away." Alan said pulling his boss away to give Vasco his space. "The paramedics are on the way."
In about five minutes the paramedics arrived and rushed Vasco to the hospital. Harrison drove with Vasco to the hospital in the ambulance to make sure everything was alright and to get updates about him if he made it or not.
Everyone else stayed at the station and Jake Leighton was left in charge. They all started talking about the shooting and were guessing who the shooter was.
"It might've been the same guy who tried getting rid of Alan." Stewart said trying to let the news sink in that one of their policemen was just shot.
"I still don't get it," Detective Stiles said trying to think who it was still. "Why go after Vasco?" He asked.
"Because the shooter knew Vasco was also working on the case. He had just gotten back from updating the family about the case." Stewart answered refering that family as Katelynn's family. "Plus, he was outside, so he took his chance to make his move." He added.
"Then," Stiles started. "This means we're still in danger and that man or group if that is what they are is still at large."
They had to finish the case soon before somebody else got hurt. Everyone was concerned for Vasco, anxious if he would make it out alright. All they could do was wait till' they heard any news from Harrison about it.