expression on his face, he said, “Nothing.’
“Give it to me,” I said, holding out my hand.
Coming to sit next to me on the bed, Luke handed me the envelope. “The guy I saw in the Inn last night was wearing a hoodie and he wore it in such a way so as to mask his face,” I told him.
“So if you didn’t see his face, how do you know it was him?” Luke asked.
“I’m getting to that,” I said. “The guy in the hoodie was sitting at a table in the corner. He was sitting away from the rest of the other people in the bar. The corner of the room was dark and I noticed that there was a candle on the table. He was holding a glass of whiskey in his left hand.”
“So?” Luke said.
“Well take a closer look at the envelope,” I told him, holding it up. “The writing on the front has been written by a man. See the way the writing leans to the right? That suggests it has been written by a left-handed person.”
“But that still doesn’t mean…” Luke started and leaned in closer to me.
“Now look here and here,” I said pointing to the top right-hand corner of the envelope. “See those spots of wax? He used the candle so he could see to write my name on the front, and in doing so, some of the wax spattered onto the envelope.”
“But…” Luke tried again.
“Then there’s this,” I said, lifting the flap of the envelope and running the seal against the tip of my nose. “The unmistakable smell of whiskey. The man probably took a swig to moisten his tongue so as to seal the envelope securely.”
“And the crucifix?” Luke asked, and he sounded somewhat in awe.
“Easy-peasy,” I smiled. “They sell them in the bar.”
“But…” Luke mumbled.
“I know, it’s all subjective, but I was convinced I was right after my tussle with the man on his bike this morning,” I said.
“But how?”
“As I gripped his handlebars, again I noticed several spots of white wax on the sleeve of his black-coloured hoodie. You would’ve had to been blind not to have seen them.” Then looking Luke straight in the eye, I added, “I know this town is somewhat remote but they do have such a thing as electricity. It seems doubtful then that he would have got the wax on his sleeve anywhere other than the bar downstairs.”
Luke sat in silence for a moment, then said, “That’s brilliant Kiera. That was bloody awesome!”
Blushing, I said, “See I told you it wasn’t magic. It’s just that I have this ability of seeing things that other people don’t.”
“Is that how you knew so much about what had happened at the crime scene in the woods last night?” Luke asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I still reckon you guessed some of it?”
“I never guess,” I told him.
“But how did you know how many killers there were? How did you know what sex they were, the fact that one had arrived before the others and had waited more than an hour for them? And that one of them dyed their hair?” Luke asked, never taking his eyes from mine.
Breaking his stare I explained. “Firstly there were three different sets of footprints around the body. Two sets were too big to have belonged to females. The third set was much smaller. Too big to be a child’s and too small to be a man’s. So that only left a female. By the size of the gait between each footstep, I could roughly work out each person’s height. One of the males, the one that was about five-foot-ten tall, was the smoker. His footprints were clearly visible by the tree next to the body of the dead boy. Several cigarette butts, Marlboro in brand, had been ground out by the base of the tree, by the same boot that had left the footprints, which meant they could have only been left by him and not by anyone else. The fact that there were several, suggests that he waited some time for the others, and while he did, he smoked to pass the time. Depending on how heavy a smoker he is depends on how long he waited there. Let’s say he smoked four to five in an hour, then he waited about an hour and a half, but no more than two.
“Wrapped around one of the boy’s fingers was a long blonde hair. It could have come from the head of a male,