The Murder Scene

• Maddison Jones, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2022

The body was fresh, an expert like myself could tell this much. A man, aged between twenty to thirty was laying near a tree, an open wound stretched across his neck. “Another homicide, lovely”, I turn to see my partner Austin Andrews walking towards me, his nose scrunched up in disgust. “Yeah, this early in the morning as well”, I reply, examining the body inch by inch. “Who phoned it in”? Austin asks crouching down beside me and putting on a pair of gloves. I point behind me where I know the lady is still standing. Austin turns around and sighs, “Poor girl, she can’t be any older then sixteen”, I nod, “Yeah well it gets worse, she is now a possible suspect, they’ve been questioning her since they arrived”, I pick up something near the body as I say this and stand up holding the knife in my hand. “Good find Amara”, Officer Ford was walking towards me smiling as he sees the weapon I am holding in my hand. I smile as he comes closer and opens a secure bag to place the evidence in. I carefully place the knife in and turn my attention back to Austin who is examining the neck wound more closely, looking confused. “Found anything”? I ask as I step closer, “Nope, nothing and that’s the problem”, I look at him in confusion. “What do you mean”? I ask as he stands up and steps closer, leaning down until his mouth is inches from my ear. “It’s strange because all killers mess up, but they don’t mess up enough to leave only the murder weapon and nothing else”, he whispers so that only I can hear, I freeze up and he backs away, looking back at the body. “Maybe they forgot the murder weapon as they tried to clean up their evidence”, I suggest, but Austin responds with a shake of his head. “There is no sign of the killer frantically cleaning up the mess, meaning they knew they had enough time to get rid of everything, trust me they wouldn’t have forgotten their knife”.
Austin heads over to go and inform Officer Ford of his theory that the knife was not the murder weapon and instead was something the killer had left behind to frame someone else. Me on the other hand am trying to keep my cool. I should have known Officer Andrews being at the scene of this crime would be trouble. He has solved several murders before, why would this be any different. I check around me to make sure no one is watching and start heading deeper into the woods until I find it. The actual murder weapon used to kill that man. I grab hold of it and place it into the back of my pocket. It is time that I taught Officer Andrews a lesson. If he loved murder investigations so much, why don’t I make him part of one.