The Murder of Kaitlyn Ball

My day starts off with a coffee at our local brewery. Most people make a big fuss about only drinking coffee from big-name brands, but most people in our quiet little village would not drink from these big corporations if their lives depended on it. At least, they would not admit it if they did.

I ordered my usual, a black coffee, grabbed a newspaper, and sat in a corner facing the door with the restrooms behind me. I merely scanned the headlines, never reading more than a few sentences into the articles. Instead, I focused my time on studying people, learning how they live, how they act, how they respond to certain situations. You see, I'm a detective, it's my job to know people. The paper only serves as a buffer between me and the outside world, preventing them from approaching me, and preventing them from realizing what I am really doing. After all, it would be weird if you found out that the guy in the corner was studying you.

My cell phone rang in my pocket, so I picked it up, work, I'm not a private detective, I work for the local police department. Though I have been known to hire my services out to the public if the price is right.

"Sir?" I said as I brought the phone to my ear.

"We need you for a case over on Wall Street. 1930 Wall Street." The Seargent barked at me with his gruff voice, likely acquired from years of smoking. Though it also could have been from the vocal chord paralysis that he doesn't admit to having.

"I'm on my way, sir," I responded.

With that, I picked myself up, set my newspaper back on the rack, and tipped the barista as I walked out. No looks, no stares, nothing to indicate that anyone was in the least way suspicious of my activities.

When I got to the house, I knew before I got out of the car that it was a murder. This was almost too obvious, you rarely see this many CSI workers on the set of any crime other than murder. More specifically, a woman, late thirties, blonde hair, she had a thin look but not overly so. How did I know the victim? She had asked me to tail her husband two weeks ago. Turns out, he was cheating on her, so she had me snap a couple of pictures and bring them to her.

"What are we looking at, Sarge? Other than the murder of Kaitlyn Ball?" I asked.

"How on earth did you know that!" He wondered in astonishment. I could practically hear his next question before it was asked.

"Were you here when it happened?"

"No, sir, it's a long story," I replied. It was technically against department policy to hire ourselves out to the public, and there was no way I was losing my job over a murder case.

I started to examine the body, no signs of a struggle, she didn't have any bruises, but the vase that stood on the small corner table had been knocked over and shattered, so something happened here.

"Where is her husband?" I questioned the officer who had arrived on the scene when the call was made, his name was Williams.

"We haven't seen him," he replied.

"No one else lives here," I remarked, "so who called in?"

"One of the neighbors said that she heard someone shouting and figured she had better call the police. But how did you know that no one else lived here?"

"That, sir, is my business."

So she didn't seem to have been struck, but the vase had been knocked over. She had to have been in pain when she was dying. She must have been writhing around on the ground, she must have been poisoned.

"Who is the head CSI agent on this case?" I questioned.

"Shetterly," The officer responded.

"I don't know her, do I?"

"I don't believe so, she's relatively new. Kind of pretty, I might try my luck if I wasn't married."

"That didn't seem to stop you last night." I quipped.

"How did you know about that!" He demanded. I could see his face flush with rage and might have thought that he would attack me if we weren't on a crime scene with four other officers.

"Relax, it's my job to know things about everyone, even the people that I work with. Make yourself useful and go get Shetterly for me, and try not to make her feel too uncomfortable on the way."

He rushed off in a flurry of indignation and something that smelled like bitter almonds. Did he have almonds that were going bad? But that didn't matter, I had to find out who the killer was.

"What can I do for you, detective?" A woman's voice interrupted my thoughts.

I turned around to see one of the prettiest women that I had ever met. She was by no means perfect, her nose was turned up just a tad, and it looked as though she might have the slightest hint of an overbite, one that was corrected in her early years by braces. But other than these minor imperfections, she was quite stunning.

I momentarily became flustered, which did not happen. I am not saying that it sometimes happened, but I don't admit it, I am saying that it doesn't happen, ever. But it did that day.

"Oh, um, right then. I was wondering if you had stopped to examine the lips or mouth of our victim?"

"No, why would we do that?" She asked. I then realized that what I was working with was nothing more than a pretty face, no brains to back her up.

"Well, it's obvious that she's been poisoned, and if we can get a sample of her saliva, we might be able to determine what type of poison was used. If we can do that, we are one step closer to finding our killer." I couldn't help but show off a little bit. She had no clue what she was doing, and any detective worth their salt could tell that this woman was not beaten to death and certainly didn't drop dead of her own accord. Strangulation was also out of the question given that her neck would show some signs, but it was perfectly normal for a corpse. "Oh and, please don't ask me how I know what I know, I assure you, I was not here when this woman died."

"Uh, right, I'll get someone on it in a few minutes." She replied, clearly flustered.

"No, I need it done now, and I need any results that you come up with on my desk as soon as possible."

"I will get someone to do it right now," she was getting annoyed now. Clearly, she didn't like me very much. Though not many people did.

After about fifteen minutes of walking around the house, I decided that I should head back to my office, I had some paperwork that needed to get done, and it wasn't going to do itself.

It didn't take long to get the test results back from the lab. Apparently, the victim had been murdered with potassium cyanide. I had been hoping that it would be something more exotic, if it was, we could narrow down how many people it possibly could have been. But in a small town, even a readily accessible poison isn't so readily accessed.

I decided that I had better go talk to officer Williams. I thought I might have a potential suspect, but I needed to clarify a few things with him first.

"Officer, might I ask you a few questions regarding the case?"

"Of course, what can I do for you?" He replied.

"Could you describe what you saw when you first walked in the house?"

"Sure, I drove over and knocked on the door. No one responded, so I knocked again and started looking through the window, that's when I saw the body. The door was unlocked, so I didn't have any trouble getting in..."

"Where were you when you got the call?" I interrupted "The report says that it took you two minutes to arrive on the scene, the average response time for police is five and a half minutes. How did you get to the house so quickly?"

"I was on patrol in the area, right place right time, I guess." He responded.

"Where was your partner? The report says that you answered the call alone."

"He called in sick today, so I was on my own," he replied.

"But you didn't have any hesitations about walking on to a live murder scene without any backup?" I asked.

"Well, that's what we do on this job, isn't it?"

"Fair point, thank you, officer, you have been very accommodating. You will be the first to know when I have got my man." I assured him as I left his office.

That was precisely what I needed, now I had a few questions for the lead CSI agent on the case.

"Shetterly!" She was just about to leave her office, but I caught her as she was about to leave.

"I have a quick question for you before you go," I started to ask, but she cut me off.

"Look, if you're going to ask me out, don't. You're a jerk, full of yourself, and if you think that there is any chance that I am going to go out with you, I'm not."

That seemed to be a little harsh, I wasn't all that full of myself. But that was irrelevant at the moment. I had business to tend to.

"To assume that I was going to ask you out is slightly conceited, but that's not why I'm here. I was going to ask you if the lab was missing any potassium cyanide that it couldn't account for?"

The look that came over her was pure shock.

"How on earth did you know that!"

"When we first met, I told you never to ask me that," I replied.

"Fine. We are missing some, but I don't know who did it, and we're still working on it. This was supposed to be under wraps." Her voice had turned cold, and her face became hard. She obviously wanted to know where I got my information.

That sealed it. I was pretty sure that I had my man, but I needed to revisit the scene just to make sure, I also knew that I should take one last look at the body to make sure that I hadn't missed anything.

I will spare you the details but suffice it to say that I was delighted with what I found. The only thing that remained was to make the arrest. Thus, I went off to confront my man.

I went back to Williams' office, but it turned out he had gone out on patrol. I knew that his shift ended soon, so I drove to his home and waited for him there. It didn't take long for him to arrive.

I saw him pull up, so I got out of my car and walked over to him.

"Williams, I told you that I would let you know when I had found my man, so I'm here to make good on that promise. You, sir, are under arrest for the murder of Kaitlyn Ball."

I had barely gotten the words out of my mouth before he ran back to his car and drove off. I knew that there was no way for me to chase him down. After all, he got paid to be good at high-speed chases. I called the department to let them know that they should be watching for Williams.

It was four days before I saw Williams again. The man was a cop, he knew how to evade the police. I knew that it was only a matter of time until we caught him. But when I did finally see him, it wasn't in the way that I expected. It was a Monday morning, and I was starting my day off the way that I usually do, coffee at the local brewery and a newspaper, but this time I got sidetracked from my usual "studying" of the locals by a particularly interesting article. Apparently, there was a somewhat strange case of theft a few towns West of us. What I failed to realize was the man that walked out of the bathroom just behind me. It wasn't until he sat down, and I felt the barrel of his 9-millimeter rest on my knee.

I was startled when I realized who was sitting across from me.

"Let's have a talk, shall we?" He said. I looked into his eyes and saw that he was angry beyond belief.

"You're a hard man to find Mr. Williams," I remarked.

"Well, I'm not here to talk about me, I'm here to talk about you and our little murder case."

"I would rather we continued this discussion with a panel of glass between us and phones in our hands. However, I can see how that would be less than desirable for you, so, by all means, proceed with whatever it is that you would like to say," I said.

"Gladly, I knew that I was innocent, but no one else did. So my work was cut out for me, so what was my next step? I had to figure out where you were coming from. Why was it that a detective that had a perfect track record could have gotten this case so wrong? Were you simply wrong this time, or was it something more?

I realized that you were the best in your field and that you had never been wrong before, as I said, you have a flawless track record. So what was it that made you accuse an innocent man?

Once I had figured this out, the question remained of why you would do this. Then it hit me, you were trying to cover up for someone, then I had to ask another question. Who was it that you were trying to cover for, was it yourself or someone else? Either way, it didn't matter because you were going to prison. I should just arrest you now and bring you in before the courts. But I couldn't do that, I had to make sure that my case against you was perfect, just as I knew yours would be against me.

The only other thing that I needed to know was whether or not you had anyone in your life that you were willing to risk your job for? That was an easy question to answer; of course, you didn't. So it made me realize something, you killed Kaitlyn Ball and wanted to frame me."

He leaned back with a smug look on his face, and I felt his gun lift from off of my knee, but I knew that it was still pointed at me.

"You are much smarter than I gave you credit for. I guess you were the wrong man to pick on for this particular crime," I remarked.

"Are you telling me that there were more crimes that you framed others for?" He questioned.

"Of course, there have! How do you think I know so much about the majority of crimes in this city? Do you think that I am some kind of Sherlock Holmes? If I didn't commit half of the crimes that you read about on my track record, I wouldn't have solved them! I wouldn't have built up such an amazing reputation. But your accusations won't hold up in court, I have my evidence against you, most of which I have not disclosed to anyone. You may drag me in, but when you are called to the witness stand, you will be tried and convicted. I will not spend a day in prison, but you will. You will spend many days in prison."

"Oh but that is where you are wrong," he continued, "I knew that you would be smart and I wouldn't be able to defeat you in the courtroom, so I knew that I would need to beat you in the field. So I bought a little recording device and turned it on before I even sat down."

He was smart; indeed, I had to admit that I was trapped. When on the witness stand, it would be my recorded word against my word spoken at the moment.

"I must admit that you have played very well," I couldn't help but chuckle as I said it, he really had played this game very well.

"There is only one thing that I don't understand. What was your motivation for this crime?" He asked, "I can't find a single reason as to why you would do this. As far as I can tell, you didn't even know her."

"My motivation, sir, is my business, punishing me for my crimes, is yours."