[AT] Tuning Hammer... 

    

[After Transition]   

  

"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. 

  

"You are right, he did not kill himself. Looking closely at the spot where the body's feet were, we can see that there was nothing for Kyle Newman to step on and gain enough height so he can hang himself, normally a person would not be able to do such a thing without a step up of some kind. It is hard to believe that this is actually a suicide given all the evidence to the contrary, plus there was that suspicious person. There were two people in the grand hall with the piano and one of them broke through the window and fled while the other one is Michael Shaw; he was on the floor of the room when we entered and it looked like someone had struck him down though it doesn't seem like it was fatal as Doctor Nichols is examining him in the piano room right now and there does not seem to be any cause for concern." I finish stating what both myself and Harvey were thinking as it would be hard to disregard such a situation happening only down the corridor from the faked suicide, the simple fact of the matter is that the hanging and the incident in the piano room are somehow connected, we only have clues to what could have happened in the storage room Kyle Newman was found in but we could have a first-hand witness towards the incident in the other room and they might be able to give us insight into what else happened in this building last night.  

  

"That's right, we still have to question that guy. Let's go, he is bound to have some answers." Saying so Detective Harvey Bullock turns on his heel and runs off down the corridor towards the grand hall with the piano looking for answers and clearly expecting me to follow him as if I am his partner or sidekick or some shit but he does not realise it when I don't move to follow him and he runs off down the hallway without me, instead of following after him I instead turn to peer in through the doorway into the storage room where Kyle Newman was found hung and ask a question to the only inhabitant in the room at this moment. "Have you found those music sheet notes written by Aaron Kane yet, police officer? How long have you been searching; you must have found them by now." I ask the old police man who has been rifling around in this storage room since after the forensics team did their jobs and searched through the place and removed the body though I must say it was a surprise for all of us to know that the key we finally found to the storage room which was supposed to give us answers in the form of those music sheets only gave us more questions as another dead body was hidden behind the door, the old man has been searching this room for the music sheet notes for quite a while now but he does not seem to have found anything of relevance at all. "I haven't found anything yet, after all that horrible incident happened twelve years ago. I have no idea where I put it all those years ago and it has been so long, but I am sure it is in here somewhere and if it is I will definitely find it." 

  

I don't have much faith in this old police officer finding it since he is up there in his years and he doesn't sound so confident or reliable with how contradictory he is by saying 'it is definitely in the storage room' but then immediately covering his back and saying 'if it is here I will find it' implying that he is unsure of its whereabouts but there is nothing much I can do about this and so I leave the old man to it and run off down the corridor towards the grand hall with the grand piano to catch up with Harvey and gather more clues hoping that nothing relevant has been spilled yet, to my relief I enter the room to find Michael Shaw still unconscious on the ground which means that I have not missed anything crucial and surround his unconscious body is his fiancé Karina Tate, Doctor Alex Nichols, Detective Harvey Bullock as well as one of his subordinates and they are all standing and surrounding his unconscious form with the exception of Karina Tate who is kneeling down next to her fiancé and checking on him and when I get closer to them I notice that they had to remove the black beanie along with the black circular glasses he wore to treat his head injury and whereas before he looked creepy now without the accessories he looks like a pretty good looking dude which would explain how he is engaged to marry someone as beautiful as Karina Tate though I do not know why the man would decide to cover up his good features with his garish accessories. "I believe this man has a concussion but I can't say for certain unless I am able to take him back to my clinic to examine him properly, as far as I can tell he will be alright after some rest. I would like to do some more tests on him though, to make sure that he doesn't have any head trauma or hidden injuries." 

  

"I see, I will trust your judgement then doc. By the way Miss Tate, just what was Mr Shaw doing here last night at such a late hour?" Harvey says kneeling on one knee next to the panicked future spouse who is tearing up at the sight of her fiancé unconscious on the ground but Harvey goes ahead and questions her anyway uncaring of that or rather just not noticing it was a bad time to question her, Karina Tate had proved just how stubborn and harpy like she could be earlier when she was being interrogated at her interview and all she did was just shout for half an hour straight which is why I am so surprised by just how unsure her voice in when she inevitably turns around and starts screaming at Harvey for his insensitive and ill-timed question. "I don't know, how the hell am I supposed to know? I have no clue what he was doing her at such a time, I too would like to know the answer to that question!" Knowing that we would be getting no answers from this woman or anyone at all until Michael Shaw became conscious I made the executive decision of not bothering with her and left dealing with her to Harvey, instead I began to circle the unconscious form of Michael Shaw looking for any clues which could help me like maybe some blood on him or something that shouldn't be there but there was nothing of the sort but then I spotted something sticking out of his pocket on the opposite side of where everyone else was and so I knelt down and pulled it out and was greeted to the sight of some small tool and the best description I could think to give it was that of a miniature tire iron with a brown wooden handle but I only examined it for a second before it was snatched from my grasp. 

  

"Do not touch that, it belongs to Michael! Who said you could go rooting around his pockets, he is not dead you now so you can't search him as if he is!" Karina Tate shouts after  snatching the small tool or whatever it is out of my hands and while I could have reacted and dodged her attempt I thought better to just let her take it as I have no clue what it is and it is true that I searched the dude while he is unconscious which is probably highly illegal and so it was better to let her take it as she had already seen me with it in my hand than to dodge her grasp and make matters worse, of course another upside of this is that because of her shouting she alerts the others in the room who look towards her and she garners the attention of Harvey Bullock who just ignored my illegal search and skips right over it in favour of questioning Karina on just what it is that she is holding. "I do not know what it is, all I know is that it seemed important to him. If it is important to Michael, then it is important to me." She tell the detective showing him the tool in her hand and now that I get a better and clearer view of the thing instead of just a second glancing at it I can tell exactly what it is and it should be obvious to anyone who has a piano or ever played the piano on a regular basis because that tool is a tuning hammer which is used to tune pianos, I only see one such piano in this room which could only mean that Michael Shaw is the one who has been tuning his piano at least for the past three years since I remember the fact that no one had played this thing in nearly a decade and yet when I tested the piano on the day I arrived here it was perfectly tuned which meant that someone was doing upkeep on it and now it is pretty clear that that someone is Michael Shaw though I do not know why this man is doing such a thing on a supposedly cursed piano but never the less it is the reason he was here and why he got attacked by the murderer. 

  

"In any case, gather all the suspect at the village office. We are going to interview them again and this time we aren't going to be so nice, after all two murders have happened on our watch and I can only imagine what the commissioner is going to say about this one." Harvey tells his subordinate who immediately runs off out of the room to fulfil his orders as the rest of the people begin to follow Harvey as he leads them out of the room leaving me and the unconscious man alone in here, ignoring the knocked-out Michael Shaw I move towards the piano. This piano seems to be the centre of everything that is happening on this island, there is something wrong with it and so I am going to investigate it and find out just what kind of secrets it holds... 

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