Midnight Murder

A who-dunnit. Written in 2005.

The rain was pelting down outside the windows of the old country police station. The three men inside playing cards were young and inexperienced, so they wiled away the night playing games and drinking. After a while, Bill got up and stretched, while Bob and Jeffrey kept playing.

Bill was a smart, athletic sort of character, the sort to make girls swoon. You know the one don’t you? He was also a very good leader, and he was very quick at putting two and two together. He was also very good at making people and things do something they didn’t really want to, like getting a little old lady to go home and not worry about her lost cats, or getting a computer to give them access to a top secret file that only the president could access.

Jeffrey was a little slow, and not very quick at anything. Often in a conversation Jeffrey would answer your question about two minutes after you had moved on.

Now Bob, what can I say about Bob? He was a hell raiser, a real little trouble maker, when he was a kid, always getting in trouble with the police. His parents had the bright idea to make him a police man, to keep him out of mischief, and it worked, to a certain degree. He didn’t make trouble any more, he just acted silly and clumsy, and kept the whole force on its toes. He became the ‘comic relief’ for the little town, and everyone opened their hearts, houses, and especially kitchens to him. Yum! When it came to the crunch though, he turned serious, and worked hard, but it was rarely needed.

Bob tipped his chair onto its back legs, covered a yawn, stretched, and promptly fell over backwards when there was a peal of thunder. The door crashed open and a bundle of wet rags fell in the door. The rags started to shake and then unroll, whereupon Bill crowed in surprise, “It’s Paul Miller!”  “Why so it is”, exclaimed Bob. Paul, just then having got his breath back yelled, “They killed him, they killed my poor sad, little George.  You have to help me find them.”

Jeffrey inquired who ‘they’ were in an interrogative sort of tone, at which point, Paul snapped back, that if he knew who they were, he wouldn’t need the police because he would deal with them himself.

 

Bill then calmed him down and questioned him about the murderers.  All they found out was that there were two men, no one he knew, with a black BMW, license plate LJZ 093; which he knew because it had dropped off in his yard.  He had found George outside in the paddock shot through the head with a rifle shell next to him.  He had originally gone downstairs to get a cup of tea. He had then heard a shot so he had run outside.  He was just in time to see them shoot George through the head but he was too far away to do anything.  He ran after them but slipped on the license plate that had fallen off the car and knocked himself out.  When he came to, they were long gone and he went slowly inside, washed off the mud , made and drank a large cup of tea, then bundled himself in lots of layers and made his way to the police station. 

 

The phone rang and broke the spell on the four of them, no, make that three of them, because Bob seemed to have curled up under the table and gone to sleep. 

The inspector was on the phone, checking if everything was okay. When he was told about the murder, he said that Paul should go back to bed, and he would come in, in the morning and sort everything out. Bill then soothed Paul and told him that they would call him back in the morning to fix it all, but in the meantime he should go home to sleep.

 

In the morning the inspector came and told them that this would be good training. He sent a team to clean up Paul's home, and called in a squad car for the boys. They took the rifle shell to Jeffrey's home to study it. Jeffrey’s dad was an expert on guns, rifles, and their ammunition, so they took the shell to him. He told them that it was very rare to see a shell like this in this day and age. He also told them that the only shop that sold it was Hunting’s Hunting Store on the corner of Jikka and Ford streets. The checked the other stores anyway, just to make sure that the bullets hadn’t been recently ordered. They finally agreed that Hunting’s must have been the only place that had the shells.

 

As they stepped into the store, they felt like they were stepping back in time, to the good old days. In those days, hunting was simple, and you didn’t have these super-easy-sniper-weapon-guns that practically shot for you. They made a whole lot of mess and you couldn’t fix them if they broke. But this store had it all! The first guns ever built, the gun that killed J. F. Kennedy, guns from both the world wars decorated the walls and lots more! After they got over the whole time travel/stepping back in time thing, they made their way to the front counter. They rang the little bell, and waited.

 

A little man came out of the back room, with a large rifle in his hands. The boys stepped back, until he saw their convulsive movements and reassured them that he was just polishing it. They asked if he had sold any of the rifle shells that week, so he got his big black book out. He told them that if anybody wanted to buy something from him, they had to put their name, telephone number, and address in his book or they got nothing. He came up with three people who had bought the shells in the last week, and for two of them, their reasons. He said that Abbie May bought them because they were the only shells that went into her rifle, and she would use no other rifle because it was her late husbands. Tom Porter bought them because they worked best to keep the rabbits away from his crops. The other man had only just moved in, and he wasn’t very friendly, so he didn’t share his reasons. They thanked the store owner and left. It was disorienting to leave the store, because of the ‘time (and era) differences’.

 

They went back to the police station, and checked on all the people in the area. It was a tradition of the town to have a photo of each and every person who came to the town, and a little bit about them, along with all contact details. The name of the man matched up with noone in the town, and they were beginning to give up hope that they would find them, until they came to the end, and found a short note basically saying that two people had just moved into the Veelin house, but had not given their names, or any personal details.

 

They went to the house, and found a black BMW with only 1 licence plate, reading LJZ 093. They knocked on the front door, and rang the bell a few times, but noone answered. They decided they would come back later, and walked back to the car, when a voice called “Can I help you?” They turned as one and looked at the man who had called. He had a pleasant face, but his eyes seemed unbearably sad. They asked him to come back to the police station for questioning, after he admitted that yes, his name was Lance Gelts, and yes, he had bought the bullets.

 

At the police station however, he denied any connection to the murder. He told them that he had moved here to escape his old life, and his ex-best-friend. Last night, two men in black had broken in and stolen his rifle, the ammunition, and his car. He was going to put in a report in the morning, but his car and rifle were returned to him, so he just left it. He thought that he had recognized one of the men as his ex-friend the night before, but he couldn’t believe his own eyes. Jeffrey suddenly asked who his ex-best-friend was, and gasped when he replied. Jeffrey immediately left, and returned ten minutes later with Mr Whitly, who took one look at them all, and confessed. His plan had been to set Mr. Gelts up, and have him jailed, because he wanted revenge, and how dare he invade his life again, just when he had almost forgotten. He also said that he knew that George’s death would be greatly avenged by Mr.Miller, and he wanted Lance to pay.

 

As Mr. Whitly was taken away, Jeffrey stood with a puzzled look on his face, “Now that we have found the murderer and solved the case, we have one last thing to figure out.  Why on earth would someone want to kill George? He was just a cow!”  In unison they groaned “JEFFREY!!!!”

Author's Note

Unedited.