About the Contest

This story is an entry to @tristancarax’s 31Sentence Contest.

If you fancy participating, you can find the contest here.

Prompt

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The Mystery

“What do you think?”

Cara Smith’s death put the suspicion squarely on her partner, Ravi. A rich widow would attract the most sinister plotters.

“Quite disorganized?” Miguel, the newbie detective, said about her locker.

“Hmm..Hm.”

‘Why would an uber-rich Cara need such a locker?’ Santiago thought.

“It is an open and shut case,” Miguel announced, “Ravi wanted her wealth, befriended her, found an opportunity, killed her, but got caught. Lousy murderer.”

“A bad planner,” Santiago smiled. “But Cara has a secret locker when she could have an entire wardrobe.”

Santiago’s trained eyes were on to something that Miguel missed. A new understanding of Cara emerged.

“What’s the reason for Smith’s death?”

“Cyanide poisoning and Ravi was the main suspect.”

“Correct,” Santiago tapped Miguel’s shoulder. “Have you ever come across a case where the main suspect of Mr Smith’s death would use the same modus operandi to kill his wife too?”

“Yeah, that’s odd.”

“It isn’t if the real culprit is someone other than Ravi. And that someone tried the same method to kill Ravi too.”

“I am starting to follow. Madam Cara killed Mr Smith and tried to kill Ravi. That way, both her husband and the main suspect would be gone.”

“Which means Ravi and Cara killed Mr Smith. She then wanted to shut up Ravi for good.”

“That would make her the suspect, but she would feign ignorance and make it appear that Ravi’s attempt to kill her went wrong.”

“Not bad, Miguel. Her relationship with Ravi was well-publicized. Ravi became one of the beneficiaries of her wealth and would have motive to kill her than the other way.”

“But then everything went awry.”

“The plan misfired, and Cara ended up poisoning herself instead of her partner. Ravi survived by a whisker only to fall deeper into the suspect category.”

Miguel smiled. “Wouldn’t Ravi now use the same argument to prove why he was not the one who killed Mr Smith? He can claim that Cara tried to kill him.”

“How is Ravi going to prove that Cara dated him to kill him?”

“Although, that’s the truth, isn’t it?” Miguel looked at Santiago, confused.

“He can’t establish that Cara tried to kill him without accepting that they both killed Smith. Then there is a motive.”

“Ohhh..”

“He goes to jail if he and Cara killed Smith, else, for killing Cara.”

“Catch-22 for Ravi,” Miguel was ecstatic about the case. “But boss, you figured this by looking at the locker?”

“Yes, Ms Cara’s secret locker gave away her secret. That’s the cyanide bottle right there.”

Miguel was dumbfounded. The bottle was indeed filled with cyanide, and fingerprint analysis proved that it was, definitely, Cara’s locker and her items inside.

“Good, Miguel. Success in your first case.”

“Thank you, chief. What about the locker triggered you?”

“Ms Cara was the secretive kind. I expected unusual storage somewhere and the locker was just that. It answered everything. That’s it. Now, off to the next case.”

Image Courtesy: @tristancarax and Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay