Death of a Prince | ✓

EP 15: IN REFERENCE TO A MURDER NOVEL

EPISODE FIFTEEN

' in reference to a murder novel '

    

      

MY PARENTS DIDN'T question my disappearance apart from a few cursory queries that felt as if they did realise the excuse was less about the job and more about doing a girls trip out of Little Hodge.

But I couldn't stay cooped up in the house, especially now that Estelle was too cold to go out and mingle with the townspeople - relating the most with housewives and new parents - and was bored enough to seek companionship with her stepdaughter.

Which would've been fine if my head wasn't so wrapped up with the case. And she's second to the last person I'd want to toggle back and forth with about dead bodies and getting kidnapped by a suspect in Brighton.

I stayed for that night I went home with my parents, then the very next morning I was off to a place of solace and nurturing.

"Well..." Elizabeth Bath took a sip of her warm tea, standing stiff and proper in the middle of her living room where Elizabeth Warren, her granddaughter and I have pushed back her coffee table full of books and mugs - pulled out a whiteboard from the back of her old chicken coup where it was now more storage for the overflow from her house - and was staring with her usual nonplussed expression at the murder board we've made from my stories and recollection.

Eliza, the granddaughter, had printed out photographs from the internet of most of the suspects - blurry photograph of the Moretti grandfather, but that was the best we could find - and have made a physical imitation of the mess of suspects, as well as the mess on Dominic's body, and the events of the past few days.

Elizabeth, the grandmother, then tilted her nose down where Eliza and I were both sitting, mostly just marveling at our work and was now thinking through what could happen after the small bit of free time we were given before the engagement party.

"I assume then, that at this engagement party of both these horrid people - " Elizabeth swung her finger between a photo of Aoi and Enzo, " - that you'll meet the last of the suspects. The grandfather, the engaged couple, and the doctor?"

I nodded. "Leon's sister assumes that since the day of the dinner, the Moretti family has pulled strings to tighten their forces, afraid of what was about to happen. She also configured that they'll soon realised that Leon and I have met up with most of the suspects now and will tighten their reins further, keeping the doctor within their grasp."

"If we're going with that, why not just kidnap the man entirely?" Eliza asked. She tilted her head up at the board again and shrugged. "Would be easier, don't you reckon?"

I shrugged. "Although that's dark, maybe they can't keep the man entirely out of the grid? Maybe they're afraid of who might notice his change of routine so they're just keeping a tight leash and eye on him? From what I got from Cordelia, they're still unsure of everything so they don't know how to proceed. It's just they're cautious."

Elizabeth hummed. It was well known that Elizabeth was a quiet person, though loud in how she moved in life, she kept mum on her lips and never make even an out of bounds sigh or squeak. If she made a noncommittal hum or grunt, it was more or less she was demanding to be noticed.

So Eliza and I turned our full attention to her. "Yes, Elizabeth?"

"Your victim. This Dominic Prince. If they knew that his death was going to result in the collapse of their small society, then why kill him?" Elizabeth shuffled closer to the board and traced each red thread we put around Dominic's picture, landing each finger to a suspect. "If you look at it like this - it certainly doesn't look like murder. This is a suicide of the cleverest intent. A self destruction with one trigger pointed to himself - then all the rest of his fingers pointed to each and everyone of these people. This was planned. Carefully. I doubt in just a year, but more. A revenge of the tallest order, made by a man who - if he's holding this much grudge and resentment, and he did, if his murder is this so cleverly intricate and detailed, pointing out to the fact that it's even planned to be linear - this man is psychologically pointed out to have grown an almost psychopathic one track mind of destroying each and everyone of these men and women."