[AT] Back to the Centre...
[After Transition]
"Huh, that is odd? I know I put it around here somewhere, I just can't seem to find it." The old police officer said as he rifled through yet another door as I sat on a chair and simply watched him because he told me not to help him search as this was his substation and he had everything set up in a specific order and didn't need me messing it up but now it is an hour later and he is still looking and I am still sat here watching him rifle through the countless draws and file cabinets, if only I could help out yet this stubborn old man has his pride I suppose even if it is misplaced but this old man has just become more determined after the last hour and he isn't giving up which is pissing me off and he isn't even answering my questions since he is focusing on finding the key. "Ah, here it is. This is it; this is the key!" Suddenly the old police officer shouts out loud and holds aloft the key into the air with both hands as if he just got a game reward or he was showing Simba to all the animals though it is just me his is showing it to, seeing that we are finally finished here I get up out of my chair and move towards him hoping to rush him back to the village office where everyone was gathered so we can solve this mystery once and for all. "You finally found it, huh? Then let's hurry on back to the village office, back to Detective Bullock so we can sort out this curse business once and for all."
"You are too late, everyone got tired of waiting and left. I tried to keep them there but there was nothing I could do; I can't actually hold one of them without evidence or suspicion let alone all of them. Plus, since the culprit's final message said 'The Hellfire's Grudge Is Settled' we did not think there would be anymore murders so I saw no reason to keep them there, honestly they were getting on my nerves and I was happy when they left." Detective Bullock walks through the entrance while puffing on his cigar and looking at us with some disappointment since we took too long finding this goddamn key but what really catches my attention is the fact that the police let all the suspects leave too and they even though that the murders had reached there end but there is still a third movement of Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' which means the murderer isn't done yet and so I need to get to the community centre as fast as possible since everything seems to be culminating there, I quickly sprint off out of the room and out of the building startling the old man and Bullock who stumbles back and nearly falls down in surprise when I burst past him but I don't listen to his complaints and run off and it I hear Bullock shouting for me to wait up and slow down behind me but I don't as I just keep running and I can hear Bullock running after me as well as hear him force the old police officer to start running as well but they are going a lot slower than me considering that one of them is overweight and the other one is old.
Reaching the community centre I realise that the place is locked down tight and I can't just break in to it but I also have the feeling that something is happening inside right now and so before getting too hasty and breaking in I strain my hearing and spread my sense through the building but I hear nary a sound inside except for the buzz and pitter patter of insects and spiders so nothing unusual and I think that I may have overreacted a little when I rushed here and nothing is actually happening and so I take a seat on the stairs and wait for Detective Bullock and the old man to show up since I know they were following me to the best of their ability and since we are here we may as well go inside and find that sheet music locked inside which the old man has the key to and so I sit and wait, eventually Harvey and the old man finally arrive and he questions why I sprinted off like that but I just gave him the excuse that I got a little excited about solving this murder case and ran off here since I wanted to find that sheet music but in my excitement I forgot that I needed the key which Bullock just shook his head at but then laughed it off comparing me to Barbara and saying we were made for each other which I just ignored as the old man finished opening the door and we all entered into the community centre and I was about to ask the old man where the sheet music is when I heard a thud coming from the room behind me which just coincidently happened to be the hall with the cursed grand piano. "Hey, did any of you just hear a strange noise coming from the room with the piano? Or am I just crazy?"
They both look at me confused but I strain my hearing and focus it instead of supressing it like I usually do and I hear movement inside the room and so I quickly break into a sprint to the cursed room with Bullock quickly following behind me thinking something is wrong and I quickly slam open the door only to see someone in the darkness totally dressed in black from head to toe and with so many layers that I can't tell their gender and they were doing something with the grand piano when I slammed the door open but they looked up and saw me before they turned on their heel and ran away jumping through a window and shattering it as they made their escape and so I ran after them but I noticed something big on the floor in front of me in my way and so I jumped it and tried to continue on my way towards the culprit but what I didn't account for was the fact that Harvey was following me and chasing the culprit alongside me and while I jumped whatever it was on the floor Bullock seemed to have missed it and tripped on it falling forwards but instead of taking his fall gracefully like a man he reaches out for something as he falls and grabs on to me pulling me to the ground with him and we fall to the ground with a clatter but before I can berate him we notice what the obstruction on the floor actually was and it turned out to be Karina Tate's fiancé Mathew Shaw laying on the ground with his condition unknown and Bullock goes to check on him, thinking I can still catch up with the killer I move to my feet but before I can continue the chase I hear the old police man let out a girly scream of terror and so I have to forego my chase in order to check on him and run back in to the hallway leaving Bullock with Shaw and I enter the hallway to the sight of the old police man stumbling out of a room and falling on his ass in terror.
I run towards him skidding to a stop next to him and staring into the room in front of me that seems to be a storage room and holds whatever is terrifying the old man so much and staring into it I realise what has the old man so frightened as hanging from the ceiling by a noose is the dead body of Kyle Newman who seems to have been hung and so I go in to get a closer look and I hear a click which attracts my attention to a little red tape recorder in the room and it seems the click was the sound of the tape recorder stopping and looking at the LED display on it I can tell that the tape recorder contains a sixty minute tape which just finished now and since each side is 30 minutes as the recording is split in half Kyle Newman most likely probably died withing the last thirty minutes which makes sense since I only got here less than ten minutes ago which is why I heard silence and the tape was silent as well which means there must be another reason for its presence but the killer must have still been here when I arrived which means for that brief period where I stretched my hearing out into the building before supressing it again the culprit must have coincidently been silent and not moving so if I had just kept my senses up instead oof supressing them I would have heard the killer inside and it didn't help that I started to talk and focus on my conversation with Bullock and the old man when they finally caught up with me, leaving the tape recorder alone for a minute I focused back on the main attraction which is the dead body of Kyle Newman and I give it a cursory glance over but before I can get really in depth I notice a neat stack of sheet music underneath his swaying corpse just sat there innocently and so I go over and take a look at it and noticing the same pattern as in the other music sheets left behind I apply the code to it and it read 'Suicide Note' which would explain why this guy has been hung instead of being killed like the others. "Officer, can you please go and get Detective Bullock? He is over in the room with the piano, tell him it is urgent."
"He killed himself, huh? According to this note, he regretted killing Kevin Hale and Karl Tate so he killed himself. Seem like an open and shut case, Kyle Newman was the murderer and he hung himself with his motive for the murders being that he didn't want the mistake he committed with the previous Mayor Tate, Kevin Hale, Mayor Kingston who died two years ago and Aaron Kane who killed himself 12 years ago to be exposed. Surprisingly even that pianist was involved and the note says that Aaron Kane was the one who came up with the code so whatever mistake they committed must have involved this code somehow, I guess that Kyle Newman believed the sheet music that survived the fire described their old secret whatever it was and in order to destroy the sheet music he broke into the safe but he couldn't find the sheet music so he decided to kill himself. Or at least that is what we are supposed to think, given all the clues and evidence." He is right, maybe if we got here later, we would have believed the narrative or maybe just Detective Bullock would have but we both saw the dark clothed figure near the grand piano who ran and jumped out the window leading us to believe that not all was as it seemed and someone set this all up but who.
Who was that dark figure near the piano? Why was Mathew Shaw in the room as well? What sordid secret connects all five of these dead men together? So many mysteries in one little village, it is all getting really confusing...
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Currently 34+ Chapters.
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