No one could have thought that something so eerie could have happened in this small and lovely town. The hardest to solve and the saddest famous bloody murders.
But let’s start from the beginning.
John Montgomery was a policeman, not the best but a good one. He had solved many abduction cases, fraud cases and once, a murder. But it was in another city. Since he married his wife, Kelly, they’ve been living in this peaceful town.
After a long and boring day at the office, John came back home when he suddenly heard a rustling from his living-room. He instinctively drew his gun, ran along the wall, checked both sides, saw nothing suspect so he continued… The closer he went to the noise, the louder the noise got… Finally, he decided to open his bedroom’s door and…
“Are you kidding me? What are you doing Kelly?!”, he cried out relieved
“Why are you so mad? I’m just cleaning the room! Holster your gun ! And I thought you would come back home later !”, she told him
“Yes, but I’ve finished sooner than expected. By the way, do you know what’s important this weekend ?”, he asked
“Of course I know it, honey! Our anniversary !”, she answered
“What do you want to do to celebrate it ?”, he wanted to know
“I don’t know… I thought we could go to the restaurant and after maybe to the cinema ?”, she proposed
“Why not? But which restaurant? French restaurant? You’ll be able to eat this fish you love !”,he replied
“Hmm. I want to eat something new !”, she retorted
“What about the new restaurant that opened— last month. It is really famous for its cakes with real flowers in it. Or maybe Greek food? We’ve never tasted it !”, he asked
“Humm… Maybe, we’ll see later !”, she answered
The discussion finished, John and Kelly spent time together until John received a phone call.
“Oh, I’m sure that this is your boss. He’s the only one who calls you at this hour !”, she sighed.
His lovely wife was right, his boss called him and do you know what? This call was the beginning of a long and stressful brain teaser.
“What happened darling ?”, she wondered
“I don’t know, my boss wants me to come right now.”, he replied
John kissed his wife goodbye and left her to join his boss at the funerary house.
When he arrived he couldn’t believe his eyes…
His boss told him what happened 3 hours ago: A couple was having a walk in a park when they found a woman liying in a bush. The woman was all dressed up, the specialists who were on the crime scene said that they could see finger marks on her neck and she showed signs of having been beaten but she hadn’t been examined more precisely by a doctor yet.
But a few hours later, a man’s corpse was found in the street and this crime was pretty much more interesting. He was a simple street musician. He was found with difficulty, that is to say, his body was torn off in thousand pieces. There was a lot of blood all around the crime scene… We could notice that the killer was really meticulous in every action he made on the dead body. Maybe was he a doctor?
You will never guess what did the doctor find on his stomach… A little message that said:
In 36 hours another victim will be killed, it will be a more atrocious crime than this one.
In the first place, John was really confused: how was it possible that not just one murder, but two could happen in this town? He moved on there because he knew it was a quiet town without any problems. Was he wrong about it?
The second assassination was so horrific that the FBI came to work on it. Every single policeman was working on this case with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All the media were dealing with this crime. The inhabitants were frightened: no one wanted to go out in the streets anymore. Everyone was scared of everybody. This crime wreaked havoc on this town.
The FBI and the police department were helpless. Everything they knew was that the man was a Caucasian street performer in his mid thirties and that this man was killed 12 hours ago, so they just had twelve hours left to arrest the murderer before he could kill again.
They had to stop him fastly: no mistakes were conceivable.
John was exhausted, he needed a lot of caffeine to keep going so he decided to go to the cafeteria and to order a double espresso when he got an idea: what if the murderer didn’t know the victims? What if he was just a serial killer who liked to kill at random ?
John was just right about one point: the murderer didn’t know the street performer. He immediately alerted the FBI but they weren’t convinced at all.
“Listen, Montgomery… I think you should go and sleep a little bit. We will solve this case, don’t worry.”,his colleague Peter said. Back home, John explained everything to Kelly when a thought suddenly rang a bell:
Everybody is working on this case… But why this guy? Why 36 hours?
A diversion! Of course! Nobody takes care of the other murders!
John took his keys and went back to the funeral house. He asked the doctor to examine the body and give him the woman’s clothes and everything that could help him to find something.
A name tag was still on her shirt: “Hanna”… a convention! The last one in this town was a pharmaceutical convention! She was certainly a doctor! John made some research and found the list of the persons at this convention and found her name: “Hanna Di Lorentis, pharmacist”. He also found the security camera tapes. She had left the convention with someone else…a doctor, but he couldn’t see his face…
He tried everything but it was impossible to find the identity of this man… John was ready to give up when he received a phone call: it was the funerary house doctor. He had found some strange things in her stomach: flower petals… She had probably eaten them a few hours before being killed…
John could not believe what he had just heard until he remembered his discussion with his wife…
The restaurant which served cakes with real flowers in it! He immediately went to this restaurant and requested the security camera tapes. He saw the doctor wearing the same clothes as at the convention… He was with Hanna! A waitress remembered the name written on the name tag of the doctor: “Anthony”. John searched in the convention list and found him: “Anthony Kayl, Doctor”.
Everything was making sense… Anthony had met Hanna at the convention and had invited her to dinner with him. Something had gone wrong after that, nobody would know why, but he had killed her. The only thing that attached her murder to him was the restaurant. But after 36 hours, the flowers in her stomach would be digested: he had to make a diversion. He killed a street performer. Because he was a doctor, he knew how to make the evidence disappear. He knew that the police and the FBI wouldn’t take care of Hanna but would want to solve the bloody case with the 36 hours reprieve.
Maely KAOUAH – Emilie BLANCO