The Death of Cornelius Goldwin

Cornelius Goldwin was dead. He was proclaimed dead a week after he disappeared. His body was never found. Why was he declared dead? It was simple, the amount of his blood that was discovered. Where was the blood found? Why in the woodshed of course, right next to the old rusted axe with a broken handle. Now, naturally, it wasn’t his woodshed the blood was found in. It was Harry Alderman’s woodshed.

          Harry Alderman was once a good friend of Cornelius. Though to the rest of the world it was a mystery as to why they fell apart. One day they were as close as brothers, the next it was as if they never knew each other. They ran a business together, albeit a rather small one. It was just a simple general store; they lived in a rather small town. Harry ended up losing the business to Cornelius, he was rather bitter about the whole thing.

          The store was quite a success in the small town, gaining even better profits after Harry and Cornelius split. It was evident that it bugged Harry that Cornelius ran the store better without him, not that he ever admitted that particular fact aloud. It was one of those things everyone knew without being told. So it wasn’t surprising when Harry was arrested for the suspected murder of Cornelius Goldwin one week after he disappeared, three months after their partnership fell apart.

          He was the obvious suspect of the crime. Cornelius was missing and his blood was found in large quantities in Harry’s woodshed. Anyone with a mind could put two and two together with the conclusion that Harry killed Cornelius. After all he had a motive, an opportunity, and a flimsy alibi that fell apart after a few questions. So if Harry clearly murdered his former friend and business partner, where was Cornelius’s body?

          Harry didn’t know. In fact what he did know was that he did not kill Cornelius Goldwin. In fact he went as far as to say Cornelius set him up. No one believed him. Why would they? The evidence was there, the bloody axe with his fingerprints on it, missing body, a sudden rift between friends, and the disappearance of Cornelius just a few months after Harry was removed from the business. It was no wonder he was convicted for murder and sent to prison.

          Then the mystery began to unravel, or at least part of it. What caused the sudden rift between the once close-as-brothers friends? With a little more digging, and the searches of Cornelius’s and Harry’s homes, a few things were found. There was a picture, some letters, and a tape recorder with a name not belonging to either of the men.

          First, there is the picture. Before Cornelius and Harry moved to this small town and started their business, they lived in a rather large city, and grew up there in fact. Here they had a third friend, one Abigale Castle. She and the two boys were inseparable. In the picture Abigale and Cornelius had their arms wrapped around each other while Harry stood to the side. From the ring on Abigale’s finger it would appear that Cornelius had proposed to her.

          Next was the letters. Now there were two sets of letters found. One set was addressed to Cornelius from Abigale and the other was to Harry from Abigale. The ones to Cornelius painted the picture of a happily engaged, in love, couple who couldn’t wait for their wedding day. It was clear to anyone who read the letters from Abigale that she well and truly loved Cornelius. Then there were the ones to Harry. They started off as sweet letters from a girl who thought herself like a little sister writing to her older brother.

          Then the letters began to change. It was unclear as to what was being sent to Abigale from Harry but it was apparent that, whatever it was, it clearly upset Abigale. Then in the final letter from Abigale to Harry there was only one paragraph and that paragraph read:

          “I don’t know when you ever thought I was leading you on. I have always thought of you as my older brother. I hold no romantic interest in you and will not break my engagement to my dearest Cornelius, the man who thinks of you as his brother. Please Harry, I beg of you, stop this at once. If you continue to press for me to marry you instead, I will have no choice but to bring this up to Cornelius. Your threats mean nothing to me. I would rather die than give up my love for my beloved fiancé, Cornelius.”

          Finally, there was the tape recorder with the name Abigale Castle written on the side. There was a single recording on the tape. It wasn’t very long, just a few minutes but it was just a few minutes that revealed a new answer to something no one thought was a mystery. The death of Abigale Castle, age twenty.

          It was after some digging, done of course by the investigators, that Abigale Castle died, in what was thought to be a robbery gone wrong, the day before she was to marry Cornelius Goldwin. Abigale was a journalist for a small newspaper company so she always had her tape recorder with her everywhere she went, ready to capture stories as they happened. She also happened to catch her own murder via audio recording.

          Harry was brought out of prison for the new sentencing. He was convicted for murder again, only this time it was a decade old case. While on trial for Abigale’s murder, it was discovered that Cornelius had found out the Harry had been making threats to Abigale to try and dissuade her from marrying him. Thus the mystery of why their friendship suddenly fell apart was unraveled. Harry had even more of a motive to kill Cornelius. After all, who was to say Cornelius found out that Abigale, the love of his life, was murdered by his close friend

          There were a few questions left but those were soon forgotten. People moved on, justice was served. Cornelius Goldwin was buried, or so people thought. The coffin was empty; they never did find his body. They placed the grave next to Abigale who had been dead for fourteen years. There is just one thing, one mystery, left to uncover. Where was Cornelius’s body? This is the truth no one else knows.

          Cornelius Goldwin never died. He is very much alive. I should know, after all, it was I who staged the entire thing.