We just want to hear the truth...

[coming_clean001]

Title: In Trust is Truth
Rating: PG
Genre: Crime
Summary: A short story written for the year 9 english Crime Fiction unit. Written in the realist style. Set in Australia, in the suburbs somewhere. 
Warnings: Sexual references and mature themes.
Words: 4, 124
Author's Note: I'm happy with this one. Please take a look at it if you can, because Crime isn't something I write often -- well, at all, really -- so I'd like to know if I pulled it off. =D

In Trust is Truth

The crime scene was in chaos when Detectives Vanessa Greene and Lucas Salvatore arrived on the case. A man’s body was lying face down on the pavement of the Fitness First building, a nasty head wound visible through his matted hair. The police were fending off several women in lycra bike shorts who were trying to get a closer look at the body.
Vanessa and Lucas approached a wary-looking woman leaning against a police car. “Excuse me? I’m Detective Vanessa Greene and this-” Vanessa indicated to Lucas - “is my partner, Detective Lucas Salvatore. We were told you were the one who found the body this morning?”
“That’s right,” the middle-aged women answered. “I wanted to get into the gym early before work and noticed the body as I was parking the car.”
“Can we have your name please, Ma’am?” Lucas asked, pen and paper in hand.
“Of course. I’m Ruth Cleary.”
“Thankyou, Ms Cleary. We may be in touch ask a few more questions, but for now you’re good to go.”
“Thankyou, Detective,” Ms. Cleary said as she walked towards her car.
“Well, that didn’t help us much,” Lucas said as they pushed their way through the growing crowd towards the body.
“Just be patient, Lucas. We only just got here.” They emerged from the crowd to be greeted by Constable Jane Jones, the officer supervising the crime scene until the detectives arrived.
“Who is he?” Vanessa asked, crouching to get a better look at the victim’s head wound.
“His name is Peter Fleming,” Jones answered, handing a wad of papers to Lucas. “He’s an employee at the gym. The manager, Amanda Lee, says he was the one to lock up last night. He was probably killed on his way out. The last person who saw him at the gym was Anna McLeod, another Fitness First employee.”
“We’ll bring her in for questioning,” Vanessa said as her eyes skimmed over the personnel records in Lucas’ hand. “Thanks, Constable. Do you think you could get someone to get rid of all these people? We’ll have to move the body.”
“Absolutely, I’ll get one of my people on it right now. See you later, Detectives.”
“Wonderful. Get on the phone to forensics to get an analysis of the head wound,” Vanessa instructed Lucas as they walked back to their car. “And when we get back to the station we’ll call in this Anna McLeod. There is something dodgy about being the last one to see Peter Fleming in a deserted car park after dark.”

Anna McLeod was not happy to be brought into the police station for questioning. “I’m supposed to be working right now.”
“Listen, Ms McLeod, your boss is happy for you to be here if it helps us work out who killed Peter Fleming. An unsolved murder is not a good thing to have looming over your company’s name. It’s bad for business.” Anna scowled. Vanessa laughed inwardly. Let Lucas have his fun, at least for now. She scrutinised Anna from across the desk. She would have been quite pretty, had she not had that unbecoming expression plastered across her face. A young woman of mid- to late-twenties, Anna was petite and pale with blonde hair and blue eyes. Her Fitness First employee badge identified her as a personal trainer.
“Fine, then. Talk.”
“When was the last time you saw Peter Fleming?” Vanessa asked easily.
“Last night,” Anna said unhelpfully. Vanessa waited. She wasn’t one to be intimidated by uncooperative suspects. After a moment, Anna continued, defeated: “We locked up together. We walked out of the building together. He walked off towards his car and I went to my car in the street.”
“Was there anyone else there with you?”
“At the gym? No, just us.”
“What about outside the gym? Did you see anyone around?”
Anna thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, I did. There was a guy hanging around the car park when I left.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Not really, I didn’t really get a good look at him. He look pretty tall though, and, y’know, big. Strong.”
Vanessa exchanged a glance with Lucas. Such a vague description wasn’t going to help them much. “All right. Just one more thing: do you know why anyone would want to hurt Peter Fleming?”
Anna hesitated only for a second. “No. He’s a nice guy. Well, he was. Everyone liked him.”
“Okay. Thankyou for your time, Ms McLeod.”
Anna left. Lucas sat down opposite Vanessa in the interview room.
“So?”  she asked. “What do you think?”
“She hesitated when you asked why anyone would want the guy dead. There was something she’s not telling us. I want to look into this Fleming, see if there’s anything we need to know.”
“Good idea. I’ll go see Maggie to see if the results of the post-mortem are through yet.”

Maggie Hilton was an intelligent anatomic pathologist, and, fortunately for Vanessa, an extremely efficient one at that.
“We can see from the head wound that he was hit repeatedly over the head from behind with a blunt object,” Maggie said, concluding her explanation of the autopsy report.
“Wonderful. Thanks so much, Maggie, you’re too good to me.”
“Oh, don’t worry, this isn’t charity,” Maggie called playfully after Vanessa. “You’ll be paying me back sometime.”
Upon arriving at the station, Vanessa was greeted with the news that Peter Fleming had a history of sexual harassment on his record.
“He sexually harassed a women he worked with in Adelaide two years ago,” Lucas explained. “He was found guilty and jailed.”
“Interesting. So, if he had come onto Anna, that gives her the motive we were looking for.”
“That’s what I was just thinking.”
“Good. We’ll get her back in here to question first thing in the morning.” She took her coat from the hook near the door and put it on. “I’ve got the morning off, but ring me if you need anything. Good work today, Lucas.”
“Thanks. ‘Night.”

*

The next morning, Vanessa was pulled from her blissful slumber by the insistent ringing of her mobile phone. She struggled to free herself from the tangle of bedclothes as she picked up to the sound of Lucas’ voice.

“Hey Vanessa, you might wanna come down to Anna McLeod’s place.”

“Why’s that?” Vanessa asked vaguely.

“She’s dead.”

Vanessa almost fell off the bed. “Dead?”

“Shot. A suicide note was found next to her, but we have reason to believe that her wounds weren’t self-inflicted.”

“Who found her?”

“Her boyfriend Derek Moore. We’ve got him here for questioning.”

“Good. I’ll be there in ten.” Vanessa flew around her apartment and was out the door in record time. Ten minutes later she was pulling into the driveway of Anna McLeod’s house. Lucas was there to greet her.

Anna's body was lying on the polished timber floorboards in full view of the front door. A handgun was lying about half a metre from her body. The suicide note written in small, neat handwriting was lying on the dining table:

Derek,
I’m sorry it had to come to this. You may recall me telling you once that I despise those who take their own lives because of what it must do to those who loved them. But I am afraid that was before I could understand how those people felt. Two nights ago, I discovered the anguish those people must have been feeling.
I killed a man two nights ago. There you go. They say the truth sets you free. I’m not feeling that right now, but perhaps in a minute when I depart from this place, I will understand.
Yes, Derek, you guessed it. I killed Peter Fleming. Before you go running to the police in disbelief, hear me out. I’d hate you to think of me as a murderer, even in death. It was manslaughter rather than murder, though that fact does nothing to lessen the guilt in my heart.
Peter was not the man I thought he was. He was convinced that he loved me, that he could show me how to love him back. All I could think of was you, Derek. There was a tyre lever on the ground and I beat him back with it. I threw the lever in a bin as I ran back to the car. You noticed I was quiet that night when I got home. I’m so sorry, Derek. I wanted to tell you, but I was scared. Scared that you’d hate me.
Don’t hate me, I beg you. Remember me as the girl you loved, the girl you wanted to marry someday. Love my memory.
I love you.
Anna

“Well, that backs up our idea that Anna’s motive was that Peter Fleming sexually harassed her.” Vanessa said after she had read the note.
“Only if it’s real,” Lucas answered. Vanessa raised an eyebrow. “Take a look at the body,” Lucas said by way of explanation.
Vanessa bent over the corpse. “I see no indication that the wounds weren’t self-inflicted.”
“Turn around and look at the rest of the room,” Lucas answered, a little smugly. He seemed to be enjoying telling Vanessa what to do for a change. As she turned her eyes swept the room. Nothing seemed unusual. Then a speck of red caught her eye, a splatter of blood on a cushion thrown on the couch. She stepped back; mentally calculating the distance the gun must have been when the trigger was pulled for the blood splatter to extend that far.
“It would have to have been back at least half a metre,” she murmured, half to herself. She looked up at Lucas. “So it couldn’t have been suicide because the gun was too far away for Anna to have pulled the trigger.”
“Exactly.”
“Nice work, Detective.”
Lucas looked extremely pleased with himself.
“Now, let’s look for some samples of Anna’s handwriting,” Vanessa said, snapping back into business mode. 
“Why?” Lucas said, following her up the stairs.
“Well, we know she didn’t kill herself, but we still have to determine whether or not she actually wrote the note. She may have been forced to fake her own suicide.”
“I didn’t think of that,” Lucas said, sounding rather dejected. They turned into the bedroom. Vanessa walked straight to the desk, flipping through papers looking for something Anna had written.
“But I did, so that’s okay. That’s why we’re a team, Lucas. So you pick up on what I miss and I do the same for you.”
Lucas grinned. “Look,” he said, pointing to what looked like a half-finished letter. The writing was similar to that of the suicide note.
“Perfect. I’ll pass these onto Matthew Huxtable when we get back to the station.”
“Matthew Huxtable?”
“A mate of Maggie’s. I’ve met him a few times. He’s an expert in handwriting.”
“Right. Is there anything else we need to search in here, d’you think?”
“Might be an idea to have a look around, just in case.”
Vanessa and Lucas spent ten minutes looking through Anna’s room, looking for anything that may be of use to them. Lucas was rummaging through box of shoes on the top shelf of the wardrobe when he from a steering wheel security lock. “Hey Vanessa,” he called to her in the hallway. “Could this have been used to kill Fleming?”
She poked her head around the door. “Could have been. Bag it, forensics can take a look at it later.”
“Done. That’s it in here. Found anything?”
“Nah, I’m done. Anna’s body is being moved for the autopsy. Let’s go talk to the neighbours to see if anyone noticed anything suspicious.”

The elderly women who came to the door in the neighbouring house introduced herself as Harriet Potter. “Heard anything strange? I don’t think so… When, did you say?”
“Last night, or maybe early this morning?”
“Come to think of it, I did hear something. Anna and her boyfriend - Derek, is it? - arguing last night.”
“Did you hear what they were arguing about?”
“I heard a little. Derek was yelling something about Anna ‘cheating on him’… I tell you, he has a nasty temper. I heard those two arguing before.”
“Thankyou, Mrs Potter. That information could be very helpful,” Lucas said as the detectives started but to the car.
“We may be back later today to ask some more questions. Will you be here?” Vanessa asked.
“Oh yes, dear. I don’t go out very often in my old age.”
Vanessa smiled at the helpful old lady. “Thankyou again. We may see you later.”
When confronted with Harriet Potter’s testimony, Derek admitted, “Sure, we argued. We do all the time. Nothin’ too serious, but. Like, I was angry ‘cause I though she was cheating and she wouldn’t admit it, but I didn’t kill her or nothin’. She was fine when I left.”
“What time was that?”
“’Bout… 8 o’clock.”
“Derek, you say Anna was cheating on you. What makes you think that?”
Derek hesitated. “Mate of mine saw her with some other guy.”
“Who?”
“Dunno.”
“Which mate?”
“Nup, said I wouldn’t say.”
Vanessa resisted a strong urge to roll her eyes. This guy was possibly the most unhelpful person she’d ever had to interview, in all her years of law enforcement. “All right. Thankyou, Derek.”
When Derek had gone, Vanessa turned to Lucas. “Let’s go check Derek’s story with Mrs Potter. She could verify it, or she could have remembered something more that could help us pin him.”
Mrs Potter was happy to answer the detectives’ questions when they returned to her house.
“Left at 8:00, you say? Yes, that sounds about right. I remember seeing him because I was watering my petunias. You know, that now with the drought and all, we have to water the garden after 4:00, of course.”
Lucas grinned. “Of course. So Derek definitely left at 8 o’clock.”
“Yes… but then he came back. He was only out for a moment then he went back in for a minute or so then left again. It was rather particular.”
Vanessa exchanged a glance with Lucas. Yes, it was very particular. “Thankyou, that’s very helpful, Mrs Potter.”
“Anytime, dearies.” Harriet waved them from her doorstep as they walked to their car.

“Tell me, Derek, why did you go back to Anna’s house half a minute after you’d just argued?” Lucas leaned over the desk in the interview room, looking Derek squarely in the face.
“I, er, forgot my keys.”
“Your keys?”
“Yeah. I told you, I was angry. Left ‘em on the table when I left. Couldn’t get into my car so I went back to get ‘em.”
“It took you a minute to get your keys from the table?”
A flicker of fear flittered across Derek’s face, then disappeared as fast as it had come. “She started yelling again. I left ‘cause I didn’t wanna take it.”
“Okay,” Vanessa said, speaking for the first time since Derek has been brought back in for questioning. “You can leave now.” Derek gave her the dirtiest look she had ever received and stalked out of the interview room. Lucas sat down where Derek had just been. “Well?”
“Well, obviously, Derek is our most likely suspect. He has opportunity and motive, but -”
“- that isn’t enough to go on,” Lucas finished for her. “What have we overlooked?”
Vanessa cupped her chin in her hands, thinking. “I don’t think it’s that we’ve overlooked anything… I think we just need more information. We need more witnesses.”
Something seemed to occur to Lucas. “I have a mate who’s a journalist. We could leak the story and ask anyone who knows anything to come forward.”
A grin broke out on Vanessa’s face. “Now that is a good idea.”

*

The next morning, the article on the front page of the local newspaper read: “Police Baffled by Murder of Young Woman” by Jonathan Duncan.
“Good old Johnny,” Lucas grinned when Vanessa showed him the paper. “Hopefully, someone will come through sometime today or tonight, so we can get this case over and done with.”
Vanessa laughed. Lucas had the shortest attention span of any police officer she’d ever known. Even so, she was relieved to hear that a call had come in from a taxi driver named Stephan Craft later that afternoon.
“So, Stephan Craft, how do you think you can help us?” Vanessa asked the round, friendly-looking man that had answered their plea.
“I think I was there the time that women got killed.”
“You were, were you?”
Craft nodded. “I dropped off a passenger a hundred metres down the road and was filling out the paperwork for a credit card payment at around 8pm.”
“All right, so what did you see?”
“I saw that man from the newspaper, Moore, was it? He left the girl’s house, went to his car, opened the door and took something out and then went back into the house.”
Lucas glanced at Vanessa. Got you, scumbag. “So,” Lucas asked, “he definitely opened the car?”
“Definitely. The interior lights came on.”
“Thankyou, Mr Craft. You’ve been more help than I think you realise.”
“Glad to hear it. Good day.”
“And to you,” Lucas answered, nodding in the taxi driver’s direction as Craft left. He turned to Vanessa. “This is great. We’ve got him for lying to police, so we just might be able to weasel a confession to murder out of him as well.”
Vanessa had to laugh at the animated expression on Lucas’ face. His enthusiasm betrayed his youth at times like these. Though a fine detective, he was comparatively inexperienced and occasionally reckless, which could sometimes interfere with his potential as an investigator. However, she found his eagerness to please refreshing, and had grown to enjoy his company.
There was a knock at the door. Constable Jones stuck her head around the door. “Vanessa? I’ve got that additional autopsy information for Peter Fleming you asked for. And that handwriting analysis too.”
“Wonderful. Thanks, Jane.” Vanessa’s eyes skimmed over the autopsy report. “You were right,” she told Lucas. “That steering wheel lock you found in Anna’s place was the murder weapon for the Fleming case. The indentations on his skull match the end of it.”  Vanessa passed the autopsy report to him while she read the handwriting analysis. “And look at this,” - she handed it to him - “the suicide note was forged. The writing was similar, like it was copied, but there are subtle differences.”
“So Derek faked his girlfriend’s suicide because he thought she was cheating on him?” Lucas asked.
“See, that doesn’t sit well with me. Derek’s mysterious mate said he saw them together. I want to know who Anna was supposably cheating on...”
Something seemed to occur to both detectives at the same time.
“Fleming,” Lucas said. Vanessa nodded slowly, piecing together the puzzle in her mind.
“Yes. Fleming. He has a history of sexual harassment. So Derek’s mate saw Peter coming onto Anna -”
“- at the gym? - “ Lucas interjected.
“- at the gym and assumed they were having an affair; he told Derek, who waited outside the gym to kill Peter -“
“ - the man Anna saw! There was a man in the bushes that she couldn’t identify.”
“Yes. So Derek waited outside the gym to beat Peter with the security lock that he then stashed in Anna’s stuff.”
“But why didn’t he just kill both of them at the same time? No-one was around and he’s a strong guy; he probably could have done it.”
 “That’s a good point. If Derek was going to go onto kill Anna anyway…”
“Well, by killing Anna, he was pinning Peter’s death on her and getting himself off the hook.”
“That doesn’t sound right though, because Derek wasn’t a suspect until Anna died. That’s what brought him into it. Why would he want to get himself involved?”  Vanessa stared intently at a crack in the ceiling. “Of course!” she exclaimed, answering her own question. Lucas raised his eyebrows. “He didn’t plan on killing her. Derek and Anna were arguing the evening she died, yes?” Lucas nodded, though it was obvious that Vanessa was speaking more to herself than to him. ”So, he brought it up for some reason, maybe just so he had something against her if they were already arguing. She got angry when she found out he’d killed Peter and he stormed out -“
“- went to his car to get the gun and shot her in anger - ” Lucas continued.
“- and then forged the suicide note to cover it up,” Vanessa concluded.
“One thing, though,” Lucas said. “Why did he have a gun in the first place?”
“Who knows? We need to get him in here. I have a feeling we’re going to nail this creep tonight.”

Derek Moore faced the two resolute detectives in front of him, filled with what he liked to call confidence and what the world liked to call stupidity.
“I didn’t do it,” he insisted.
“You did it, Derek,” Detective Greene said patiently. “We have the evidence. We just want to hear your side of the story.”
“I told you my side of the story. We fought, I went to my car to leave but I forgot my keys so I went back to get them. Then I left.”
Vanessa leaned forward. “Oh, no, you didn’t, Derek. Because this story started before Anna McLeod was killed.”
“It started,” Lucas continued Vanessa’s story, “with the murder of Peter Fleming.”
Derek looked slightly uncomfortable. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“I’ll tell you a story, all right, Derek?” Vanessa didn’t wait for an answer before continuing: “A few days ago, your mate saw Peter Fleming and Anna McLeod together and assumed they were having an affair. He told you, you got angry and waited outside Fitness First to beat up Peter. You ended up killing him, but there was no reason for us to suspect you at that point, so you thought you were safe. You were safe, until you killed Anna too.”
Lucas examined Derek’s expression. His jaw was working, as though he was trying his hardest not to get violent. Good work there, mate, Lucas thought. Bashing a copper is not a good thing to have on your record.
“You hadn’t planned on killing her, had you? But she got you angry. She found out about what you did to Peter, didn’t she, Derek?”
Derek finally snapped. He slammed his hands against the desk. “Fine! Fine, I did it. Is that what you want to hear?“
Vanessa leaned back into her chair, her head on one side, her expression impassive. “We just want to hear the truth. Please, continue.”
Derek shot her a disdainful look. ”So we were fighting right, ‘bout some stupid thing, and I told the stupid slut I knew she had been screwing the Fleming guy. She wouldn’t admit it, but. Even after she knew I killed him.”
She wasn’t screwing Fleming you stupid bastard, Lucas felt like yelling, but his better judgement overruled that particular impulse. They needed Derek’s confession first. “Then what?”
“I stormed out to my car but then I remember the gun in the back.” For the first time, a flicker of remorse flittered over Derek’s features. “I didn’t mean to kill her.”
“So you took the gun and shot her, then forged the note to cover it up.”
Derek nodded silently.
“One thing we don’t understand, Derek: how did you come to have a gun in your possession?”
“My mate, the one who told me she was cheating. He’s part of some gun club or something. I was at his place when he told me about Anna and Fleming.” His eyes flashed with anger. Stupid guy still think Anna was cheating on him, Lucas thought incredulously.  Derek continued, “I nicked the gun from him. He didn’t know, but. You can’t charge him.”
“We won’t,” Vanessa assured him. “But we’re going to have to charge you.”
Derek nodded. “I know.”
Lucas leaned over the table. “I don’t think you’re a bad guy, mate. I think you’re a jealous guy with a filthy temper, but not a bad person.” Something like gratitude shone in Derek’s eyes. Lucas continued, “But there’s something you should know: Anna wasn’t cheating on you.”
Derek stared. “But… but Mike said…”
“Peter Fleming had a history of sexual harassment. He came onto Anna - that’s what your mate saw. Did you know she had been sexually harassed when you forged the suicide note?”
Derek shook his head numbly, the guilt pulsing through him too painful to acknowledge. “I just made that up.” He looked up. “I want you to lock me up now.”
Lucas nodded. “That can be arranged.”