Bab 221: Chapter 212: Not an ordinary murder
Amber was wiping clean one of her students' faces after they had their mid-morning snack time when one of the teachers from her daycare, where she worked, rushed over to her classroom.
"Amber! Did you hear?" the teacher shouted, startling some of the students.
Amber and the student in front of her turned their heads in surprise to look at the approaching teacher.
The former was on her knees since she needs to be on an eye-level with her students to clean their faces.
Once the teacher arrived by her side, Amber gently urged her students to get back to their tables and do some coloring. She then stood up and placed the dirty tissue inside the pocket of her apron. "What's wrong?" she asked as she turned to look at the teacher.
The other woman grabbed Amber's sleeves, seemingly excited to share her story. Ms. Lizzie was one of the teachers at the daycare, who had worked there longer than Amber. She was also a couple of years older than Amber with shoulder length curly brown hair. Despite her age, there were still a bit of freckles splashed on her nose, making her look younger than she really was.
"Have you heard?" Ms. Lizzie asked her excitedly.
"Heard what?" Amber asked back, looking confused, sliding her hands in her jeans pockets.
Ms. Lizzie leaned closer to Amber and whispered in her ear, "There's a new owner for this daycare."
Amber's eyes widened in surprise as she pulled back and stared at the other woman. From what she knows about the daycare was that it was a family business that has been in the trade for nearly five years. Although it was short, the company was quite well-known in town. Amber had never heard of any rumours of the daycare being bankrupt or any financial problems. So why was there suddenly a new owner?
Noticing the confused and surprised expression on Amber's face, Ms. Lizzie finally realized why as she quickly corrected her words. "Not really new. But more like, the owner has decided to hand the business to her adopted son," she reassured.
Amber blinked her eyes furiously. After all these years, she did not know that the owner has an adopted son. She always thought that the latter was alone, hence why she started a daycare to relieve her loneliness.
She wanted to ask more about the adopted son and whether it would affect them when her students were becoming restless and kept calling her name, "Ms. Amber! Ms. Amber!"
Amber let out a sigh in resignation.
Ms. Lizzie giggled and said softly to her, "Alright. We'll talk later. I'm disturbing your class, after all. But I just can't wait to tell someone!"
After saying goodbye to each other, Ms. Lizzie rushed out of the room, looking for another 'victim' to gossip with while Amber continued her work.
Currently, she was cleaning the tables and chairs after the children's snacktime, sanitizing every furniture while they went to play. Although her hands were moving, her mind wandered off as she got distracted. 'Hmmm… I wonder who that person is...." she thought to herself.
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"What the--!"
Hamish looked over at the surprised Erick and cocked an eyebrow. "What's with you?" he asked curiously.
Erick looked down at the corpse with a grim look on his face. Even though the corpse was all wrinkly and looked as if it had aged, he recognized the facial features of it.
It was the same caucasian guy that Murray had told him to investigate on!
Was there something going on? Was Murray involved in something that he shouldn't have?
Even if Murray was his superior, he was also someone that he has great respect for and care about. He did not want anything bad to happen to him!
He was lost in thoughts that he did not notice Hamish trying to get his attention. After the latter had shook his shoulder gently, only then Erick went back to reality. He turned to Hamish with a 'hmmm?'.
"What's wrong?" Hamish asked again, this time, looking concerned.
Erick shook his head and said softly, "I'll tell you everything later."
Hamish nodded.
Erick then went down, crouching in front of the corpse. He turned his head towards the evidence recorder and said, "May I?"
The man nodded. He stood up and took a step back, giving Erick some space.
Erick swiftly put on latex gloves to ensure that he wouldn't mess anything up and began to touch the corpse, testing for any bumps or wounds on his body. Using his senses, he felt that there was something suspicious about the body. It was as if his soul was being sucked out of his body.
He gingerly opened the corpse's mouth out wide, looking deep inside, checking whether there was any evidence before pushing the body to its stomach. He then started to check the back of the corpse, where to the naked eye, there weren't any wounds. But it did not escape his sight where he noticed that there was some strange dusting on the back. He wiped the dust and he could see silvery glitter on his finger.
His eyes narrowed in suspicion. The heated sensation from the dust felt strangely familiar. It looks like… wolfsbane!
The question was… how did a wolfsbane appear in this town and out in the open? From what he had remembered about this "herb" was that it was a rare plant that can't be found in town and can only be brought here.
Hamish squatted next to Erick and asked softly, "Where did you find that?"
"The corpse's back. I believed that you didn't detect it earlier because there was something added that hid its presence."
Hamish turned his head to Erick and asked again, "What was it?"
Erick shook his head. "I'm not quite sure myself," he admitted. "The thing that baffled me was, what was this man's involvement in all this."
"What do you mean?" Hamish questioned, looking confused.
"Dad told me about this 'murder' and earlier before I came here, Murray asked me to investigate this man," Erick said. "I think there's a connection in all of this but I'm not sure what. I need to research and investigate more."
"That is weird," Hamish agreed.
"But from what I deduced from this man's killing was that… it is not an ordinary murder," Erick said, pointing at the corpse.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone