It was Friday night, when Mrs. Hardwick came home. She took a deep breath and threw her black coat on the armchair in her living room. Liz looked around, her lips forming a thin line, when she stared at the mess in the room. She never had the time to clean up, the job as a detective was draining her energy.

As she was about to lie down on her old couch, her phone rang. Hardwick screamed in frustation and threw a little pillow across the room.

Before she answered the call, Liz cleared her throat.
“Good evening. Hardwick speaking.”
The woman did her regular greeting, but was confused when she heard sobs.

“Please, help me!” A woman ́s voice cried out, her voice already hoarse from crying a long time. Liz tried to calm the woman down and after a while the sobs got quieter and the whimpers stopped completely.

“Okay. Dead husband, probably murdered. Rich owner of a company. Got that. I ́ll arrive in ten minutes.”

She hung up, put on her black coat from the armchair and left, of course, after locking the door. Liz muttered a few incomprehensible curses, as she started the car. Well, she would ́ve been on her way, but her old vehicle just didn ́t work.

“Screw that thing!” She had started to punch the steering wheel, now screaming out swear words.

After a while the car finally started and after about ten minutes, Liz arrived. She stepped out of the old car and stared at the mansion in front of her. It was white and huge, a garden filled with flowers, bonsai trees and a big water fountain.
“Eat the Rich.”

——————–

Well, Mrs.Hardwick didn ́t expect this disgusting scene. A man lying dead on an expensive carpet, blood trailing out of the corners of his mouth. That sight was just-

“Nasty”, the detective muttered and pushed the victim ́s shoulder with the tip of her shoe. “And dead.”

After inspecting the corpse, she had the results. Poisoned. Must ́ve been the beer he was drinking. Hardwick turned on her heels and faced the dead man ́s wife.

“Did anyone have a bumpy relationship with the victim?”
“Wel,l the maid and butler, a few employees, his brother and that was it, I guess.” “Were there any witnesses?”

“No, we just heard a loud thump”, the woman started crying again. Hardwick started to look for any evidence, when she noticed a blood stain on the dress of the woman.

“Must ́ve touched him”, Liz thought and continued. There were bloody shoe prints near the corpse. Judging by looking at them, these had been here for a longer time.

“What ́s that?”, Hardwick pulled out divorce papers from under the table cloth. She read through them and stared at the woman behind her.

`Kind of suspicious ́, Liz thought and looked at the lines. `It ́s new… ́

Hardwick immediately stood up from her kneeling position and cleared her throat.

“Mind, if I search through the other rooms?”

“Of couse you can”, the woman wiped her tears away and sniffed a little.

“Oh, and Mrs.Clark. You have got blood on your dress.”

—————–

The kitchen was the first place Hardwick went to. She had searched through everything: Like shelves, cupboards, drawers and the fridge. Finally she found a little glass bottle in the trash bin.

Liz opened it and immediately a bad smell started to fill the room. Hardwick gagged and covered her nose instantly. She stared at the invisible liquid that was left.

“Hmm…”, she furrowed her eyebrows and thought a while, before gasping. “Poison.”
—————–

“Mrs. Clark has a lover”, Liz whispered, as she stared at the pictures she had found in the bedroom. It was a young man, maybe younger than Mrs. Clark herself. There were a lot of pictures, every time with someone else, younger than the previous one.

“She has a fetish for young men.” ————————

“Who was the murderer?”, Clark asked, dressed in another dress.`That woman and her dresses.` “I have a suspicion”, Liz answered and took a glance at her silver watch that she had bought from a dealer. At least that was what she thought.

Liz leaned back on the leather armchair she was sitting on and smirked. “For a murderer, you sure are pretty dumb, Mrs. Clark.”

Chiahui Wong 4M // November 2020 // Unterstufe //Fiction // Crime story