Midgame

Guest room A3, Tryismo Chess Club, 9:20 A.M

Officers of the Tryismo Police Department were now gathering at the scene. The two detectives assigned to this case were Gregory Husher, a man around the same height as Daniel Smith and he had some grey hairs. He was around 54 earth years old. His hair was blond and a tad long, his eyes were silver. He had a child called Arnold Husher, but we will meet him in a later tale. He wore his TPD uniform proudly and his FORMAL badge was so clean that it looked new. The digital screen on the badge showed him as a senior detective with the TPD and his number was 8003.

The lady accompanying Gregory was Fiona Kredit, she was only 15cm shorter than Greg and was from earth, she had no ability, she dyed her long hair a vivid red some time ago. She had some coffee stains on her uniform as a barista was tripped by a bully earlier today and some of the coffee, he was holding splashed on to her. Her badge had some coffee stains on it too. The screen displayed her name with the TPD letters, and she was a detective first class, her number was 9898.

Neither of them knew that Daniel Smith was also in the building, but it would not be long until he showed his curious face.

Greg and Fi entered the room with the body on the floor.

"Ubric, give us the skinny." Greg announced.

The forensics officer, Colin Ubric, went to face Greg and Fi. He was taller than Greg by over 25cm, he had short pink hair with a deep pink heart pattern on top. If he did not keep his hair neat, then the image would be ruined. Why he dyed it that way was anyone's guess. He had a short black beard and a smaller black moustache. His eyebrows were sharp and slightly thick, and his eyes were amber.

"Hello Greg and Fi. There is a hole in the victim's back, looks like the weapon penetrated straight into his heart, but it does not look like he died instantaneously." Colin relayed.

"Who left his parting message?" Fiona inquired.

"What do you mean, Fi?"

"Can you touch your back in the same area as the victim did?"

"I can, but with great difficulty, that is why if I ever get itchy there I ask for assistance."

"But this man was dying as you established, he would not have had enough strength to remotely attempt to reach the area his blood was coming from."

Colin nodded. "Ah. Yet another brilliant deduction from the great detective Fi Kredit."

Fi shrugged. "Was not much."

Greg laughed. "Always the modest one, she is. Yes, I too was going to ask about the dying message, but as usual, Fi beat me to the punch."

Daniel now arrived and knocked on the door. "Hello, what is going on here?"

"Oh dear, did the EPD send their lapdog to solve this one for us?" Greg inquired.

"Daniel?" Fi noted. "Are you not supposed to be on a day off today? I mean all the photos in the papers show you in a suit and tie and today you are wearing a souvenir shirt from the chess club shop and those light blue trousers also look out of your usual style."

"I am here today with my grandson Alex Prode, he is just one of my grandchildren." Daniel explained with his hands in his pants pockets. He was not adorning his badge, but it was on him in his back pocket, still recording audio. The camera in the badge was always turned off because, as established in a previous story, Daniel has a FORMAL camera in his ties. Today he was not wearing an external camera, so if he recorded anything today it would be audio alone.

"But he is not with you?" Fi noted.

"No, Fiona, he is not. You have coffee on your badge." Daniel replied.

Fi looked at her badge and noted that there was indeed coffee on her badge. She clicked toward Colin, and he handed her a wipe. She cleaned her badge and noticed the coffee stains on her sharp sky-blue uniform. "Greg! Why did you not tell me about these stains?" She huffed.

"You look better in brown than blue, besides, I thought you would have given yourself a look after the person spilt coffee on you." Greg replied.

"It must have slipped my mind, we had to take statements and arrest the bully for disturbing the peace, and the coffee place's female bathroom had no mirrors, it just had a message that said: 'we do not need mirrors in here, you are beautiful the way you are.'" Fi explained.

Greg nodded. "So, I take it you are curious about this scene?" He asked, facing Dan.

"I guess you can say that. My grandson wanted to meet the victim and badly." Dan replied.

"Really, so you actually know this fellow?" Greg noted.

"His name was announced, and the chess tournament is on pause to let the members of the club mourn. He was Liam Blake; Alex is a huge fan of his. He even made some clay statues of the man, but now that I have seen what he looks like, I can now say that those statues have remarkably little resemblance to him. May I come in?" Dan inquired.

Colin passed Daniel some little blue bags to put on his shoes. "All detectives are welcome here my friend. We are all under the same umbrella." Colin explained.

Daniel placed the bags on his shoes and entered the room. "Zugzwang? What does that mean?" Daniel noted immediately.

Fi shrugged. "I am not sure."

"Well, I believe it may have something to do with chess." Greg added.

"Because the victim was a chess grandmaster." Dan added.

"That is right. Did Alex tell you that?" Fi inquired.

"Him and Simon George." Dan added.

"Oh, I remember him, decent job getting him into that mental hospital." Greg added.

"Well, he still has to pay for the murders he committed under his own power." Dan added. "But he promised me that when he gets out, he will not be doing crimes anymore and I believe him."

Greg nodded.

Daniel gave the room a good look over. "Our killer did not leave many clues." Daniel noted.

"Our eyes work as well as yours Dan." Greg added. "We noticed that there isn't much pointing to our killer."

Daniel got down and gave the body a closer look. "I think he was in a struggle."

"Good eye." Fi noted. "That pass around his neck has a knot as if it were swinging about when he was fighting his assailant."

"So, it was not premeditated." Daniel added.

"That was what we were thinking. I mean, stabbing the guy instead of strangling him with the pass he had on him already points to that fact." Greg noted.

"The killer used something in this room, and it is still here."

"What is it?" Fi inquired with some curiosity.

"See that glass king, it is white's king, and it was broken and used to stab him in the back, I think." Dan replied.

Fi and Greg looked at each other in confusion.

Colin was flabbergasted. "Yes, we ran some tests on that when we spotted blood on it, it looks fixed, but it is broken. You can pull the king apart, look." Colin picked up the perfectly intact king by its head and the top came off and the bottom stayed. It was broken diagonally, and the bottom looked very sharp. It may have matched the wound on the victim's back.

"How on Rhombodian did you notice that?" Fi inquired.

"I could see the clear crack on the piece, obviously it had been dropped and it broke, during the killer's fight with the victim, the killer took him out with something less obvious. So, it could still be premeditated, but that is not likely." Dan added.

"Maybe I should get glasses." Greg chuckled. "Not even I noticed that."

"I did not notice that either, you are good. Strange how you can outmatch someone with a higher badge number then you." Fi noted.

Daniel shook Greg's hand. "Do not worry, I am quite sure you would have noticed that eventually, the forensics were quick to spot it so it would not have taken you long to see the chess piece."

"But I have to wonder why the killer would break a chess piece." Fi pondered loudly.

Daniel shrugged. "That is a good question. As Greg noticed a bit ago, the killer's only option was not the chess piece. Plus, this chess piece is odd." Daniel put the king back together. "Look at it, it looks like it isn't really made from glass."

Fi nodded. She jotted things down on her pad. "Yeah, you are right. That is how we did not notice it was broken and that the killer, after extracting the piece from the victim's back, put it back together so we would think that he took the weapon with him."

Daniel nodded. "I believe the victim had a rival."

"That is right. The Baron of the Zugzwang. We were going to speak to him. He is one of the two suspects we have on our lists." Greg added.

"His title is 'The Baron of the Zugzwang?' Interesting, the message on the floor does point to him it seems. Who is the other suspect?" Dan asked.

"His brother." Fi added. "Once we heard who the victim was, I looked it up on the computer in Greg's car. Oscar is to gain a huge sum of money from inheritance."

"How about the Baron? He had a motive too, right?" Daniel added.

"He has no mention in the will, they were rivals, and the Baron was supposed to meet with the victim at 8:30. He might have had an access card to this room."

Daniel put his hand to his chin. "The Baron does not sound suspicious currently."

"How so Dan?"

"The way I see it Fiona, is that the Baron and Liam were rivals in the game of chess because of the message on the floor. The Baron is the name of one of the chess tournament's contenders. Thus, the reason they are rivals is because of chess." Dan concluded.

"But how does that make him less suspicious?" Greg asked.

"Tell me, Colin, right?" Dan spoke toward Colin.

Colin nodded. "That is my name."

"Tell me, how was the chess piece broken?" Daniel inquired.

"It was dropped."

"How does that make him less suspicious?" Greg requestioned.

"The Baron of the Zugzwang did not get that title by happenstance, he must have been playing chess for a while. So, he and the victim have known each other for quite some time." Dan explained. "He would have known that these pieces were made from glass, so if he broke it in the middle of a fight then the cause of the break would not be because he dropped it."

Greg patted Dan's shoulder. "So, what? It may have fallen onto the floor during the struggle."

Dan looked to the doorway. "I did not think about that."

Greg stood back and looked around for any hidden clues.

"I will speak to Oscar." Dan stated.

"Should you not be taking care of Alex Prode?" Fi inquired.

"The host and his wife are looking after him. He is announcing the events in such a cute manor. He has no stage fright at all." Dan chuckled and made his way to guest room H8, the last one at the end of H hall. There were only 64 guest rooms in the club. They were below the main gaming area; they were laid out as if they were squares on a chess board. H8 had a brown door. H7 had a white door.

Daniel knocked on the door and Oscar opened the door with a sad look on his face. "Hello, D.S Smith." Oscar spoke with tears in his eyes. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"You speak eloquently for a swimmer." Dan said as he entered. Oscar sat on the seat in the corner.

"Yeah, I suppose my brother rubbed off on me, I just never realised that such a thing could happen to him. Killed with his own broken king." Oscar noted.

"You messed with the crime scene?" Daniel asked.

"Maybe I did, it is all a blur. I knew he loved those pieces, whenever I played him, with obvious results, he always said to be careful with those pieces. I guess when I discovered him dead at 9:00, I must have put the broken chess piece back together. It would have been what he wanted." Oscar replied.

"How long do you think he had been dead up to that point?"

Oscar shook his head. "I am not sure. It might have happened at 8:30, when he met with his rival."

"You knew about the appointment between him and the Baron?"

Oscar nodded. "That is right. The chess battle between him and the Baron must have gotten intense."

"Maybe I will speak to the Baron." Daniel stated and he went to the door. "I am sorry for your loss, and I will be sure to help clear up the matter as best as I can."

Dan paid a visit back to Fi and Greg. "Hi Fiona." Dan spoke.

"That was fast, what did you think about our first suspect?" Fi inquired.

"He said he fixed the king because his brother would have wanted it that way." Daniel relayed.

"Poor guy. Finding his brother like that must have clouded his judgement."

"You are not going to charge him, are you?"

"Only if he is not guilty." Greg added. "He could be faking his sadness because he is the killer."

"He is feeling guilty about something, but it could simply be because he was aware of the chess battle that the Baron and Liam were going to have at 8:30, he thinks that the Baron killed Liam when the Baron lost, at least that is what I believe. He said that the chess battle must have become intense." Daniel relayed.

"Well, we should not be hasty. We cannot eliminate every Tom, Dick, and Harry after they say such things to point us in other directions." Greg added.

Daniel took his hat off and scratched his head and then nodded. He felt that the picture was somehow incomplete. Something about the crime scene was nagging at the back of his head. But he did not know yet what it was. "Can I get a copy of the report when you are done?" Dan asked.

"I mean, why not, you are an officer of the law same as us, and Tryismo is a city under the authority of the Rhombodian government. So, there is no problem with cluing you in." Greg said with a smile.

"I would also like a copy of the coroner's report when they are done with the body." Dan added.

"Of course. The paramedics will take the body soon. We also put that chess piece in evidence, we are going to check to see if it really did kill him." Fi added.

"But Oscar said it was the murder weapon." Daniel added.

"Oscar found the victim with it in his back. But that does not eliminate the possibility that the weapon was something else and then the chess piece was used to throw us off." Greg added.

"I never considered that." Dan noted.

Greg smiled again. "See, that is why I am a senior detective, I consider possibilities until they are disproved one by one."

Daniel nodded. "I should give that a try some time."

Daniel now left the two TPD officers at the scene to do what they do best and headed to the main hall. Daniel believed that something was off about the scene. Something he saw was unnatural, but he could not think of what it was.