The police took pictures and marked the scene of the crime with tape. " No one should have touched the murder weapon." Detective Norman said. " It could mess with the fingerprint evidence ".
" I used gloves while pulling it out,I just couldn't watch her with the dagger still intact in her body" Lord said, lifting his hand to his mouth.
" She lost a lot of blood, more like she was exsanguinated". Detective Norman said as he brushed a part of the lilies to check how much blood she had lost.
" I need you to find the culprit, I need to know who did this to her, she had no enemies, she was an angel, how could someone be so cruel???" Lord said angrily.
Detective Norman stared at him, almost as if searching for an expression. "We will begin our investigation immediately".
As expected, George was the first to be interrogated, he sat calmly on the chair trying not to allude to any suspicion that he was the one. He felt like he was floating midair and his knees downward were carrying his full body weight. He had not been able to change into something else or even washed himself up. He whiffed with the stench of blood mixed with sweat, mud and tulips. He felt his hands vibrating. In his mind he kept reminding himself "He didn't do it! He met her that way! He would never do such! He met her like that!
" When was the last time you saw The Heiress, Mrs. Nadia Archie?" Detective Norman asked, looking at him with an expression of accusation, like he knew he was the one that did it or maybe George imagined he did. He was just too tense but he tried to hold himself still.
"Yesterday, at night, she came to the garden while I was done watering the plants for the night. She ordered me to pick up tulips to replace the ones in sir's study in the morning . That was the last time I saw her, she left and then I left, that was it!" He answered,almost raising his voice like he was trying to prove his stained innocence.
Detective Norman was silent, stared at him in his eyes, George couldn't hold his gaze. Norman had a very unique way of trying to read people, through their faces,through their eyes, his gaze filled with undiluted and undetectable expressions. You could not tell what he was thinking, and yet it hunted you even if you knew nothing about the situation.
"You saw her leave?" he asked.
" Yes," George answered, unsure. He wasn't sure about anything anymore, he did not remember anything but her body lying frail on her cold pool of blood in that same yellow robe on her 'lilies'. He loved those lilies too, he loved them because she did, it was how he bonded with her-the lilies and so he could not have done such a wicked act or even dump her body on her lilies.
He raised his eyes up again and met Norman's gaze, his heart skipped.
"I didn't do it sir, ma was very good to me" he heard himself saying in a pleading teary voice.
"You can go, I'd love to talk to the head maid next".
He stood up almost immediately, he felt himself dragging his feet away, a little relieved. He knew the police weren't done with him yet, he was still the main suspect. He wished she didn't die in the garden, he wished she did not die at all but he sincerely wished her murderer did not dump the body in the garden, it could have been anywhere else not the garden, he didn't have an alibi because it was just him and her that entered the garden.
Olivia was calmer than expected. She was sorrowful, tearful but in a calm way. She was not a young woman, she had worked for the Archie dynasty longer than she can remember and so she had her fair share of grief and pain. This was different though but she still maintained her composure, For Nate's sake at least.Her robust body made the chair squeak as she sat down. The heaviness of her grief weighed on the chair too.
" Ma Nadia had asked me to change her sheets,and light up candles, she had dinner early with the family, everything was going on fine…" she said and then drifted into an awkward silence, as if trying to remember something.
" Sir Lord and her had a slight argument, they hardly ever did but that was all, she had gone out into her garden as usual, it was her evening routine."
" What was the argument about?" Norman asked.
"I do not know. I guess it was a normal couple fight".
" Do you think George did it?". Norman asked again, searching for an expression on her face with that same accusing gaze of his. "He doesn't have the balls,he's too soft for a man, besides he doesn't have a reason to. I feel whoever killed her and left her there did it to pin the blame on him." She answered boldly, not flinching at his intimidating gaze. Olivia had a good Alibi, Jovana had seen her retire to the staff quarters, Flora too and Antoine- they had seen each other at the same time.
Nate was called in next. His feelings and countenance had graduated from a state of grief and pain to a stone cold anger. He didn't let Norman ask many questions. He told him that he knew it was not an outsider, it had to be someone from the house. His mom married into a family she knew nothing about, she was not accepted, she never belonged and he never belonged too. Luca and Isla never accepted her all the years they stayed together pretending to be a family. His mom did not deserve to die, she loved them as her own children, she loved everyone and so he was sure that his mother was killed by an insider.
Norman listened with little interest. He just felt Nate was in so much pain. She was his only blood relative in the Archie dynasty, he was an Archie because of her and now she was gone.
Luca and Isla came in together. They were both in their rooms after dinner that night. Isla had to practice her violin lessons and Luca just preferred to stay in his room and read books. Isla was sobbing so hard you would feel she was still suckling from the Heiress's breasts which she never suckled. Luca seemed hurt, a kind of hurt shaded with indifference.
Lord was interrogated too. It was a known fact that he and his wife had separate chambers. He claimed to have retired to his chambers after dinner.
He told Norman that the argument with his wife was about the ball they were going to host. She had wanted Alex, Norman's estranged junkie brother to be in attendance. "He was still family" she had argued, he hated her guts to have requested for such, Mona would have never suggested such and that comparison heated their argument. He was not a man to have made such a statement and now it dawned on him that it was probably the last thing he said to her before she left. He wished he had been nicer with his words.
Noah and Theodore were both interrogated. Noah, the stable guy, in charge of the animals and their welfare. His height would not have given him the privilege to look the heiress in her eyes, talk more of slitting her throat, he would not have also been able to reach the spot she had been stabbed in her stomach except he climbed a chair to do it, his hands were also too small although very thick for the murder weapon. He struggled to climb and sit on the chair, his legs nowhere close to the floor. Norman wondered how he was able to take care of the animals and control them considering the fact that they were bigger than him. It must be a gift for his height and size. He claimed he was in the stables, and did not hear or see anything. The animals were his alibi. Norman looked at him with a dead expression.
Theodore was the driver, he had not even been in the estate when it happened. He did not make it back from his errands yesterday, he only came into the chaos that morning.