Murder at the Heritage city

Chapter 6

                                                                         ~~~ Quinn's POV~~~

           "Time to go," said a very rude officer. He was hovering over the four of us sitting on the verandah. "Come on, we don't have all night,"

          He yanked Nicolas by the arm and tugged at Sayed's collar forcing them both to stand up. Bianca and I diffidently followed. 

          We made our way down the stairs and out unto the gardens where all the guests along with Mr. and Mrs.Das had assembled. We were separated into groups of four in which each group had to get into a police car. 

        My heart started pounding and I started sweating. I was beginning to get a little panic-stricken. I held Bianca's hand and whispered into her ear. "What's going to happen to us now?" I tried my best to keep my face nonchalant. Unfortunately, Bianca was good at reading people. 

    "Don't worry Quinn. There's no way that they can prove it's us," She said. "And besides, I told you, they're probably going to pin this murder on Vijaya. Which is not a good thing. That is why we must be constantly vigilant."

       "Do you remember that series we read about those two characters? Daisy and Hazel? I like to think that you're Hazel. You're emphatic. You feel what you need to feel when you need to feel it, and even then you don't let that stop you from grasping every detail. Your empathy makes you look at situations differently."

       I stared at her. A pit formed in my stomach. My heart seemed to do an entire gymnastic routine inside my chest. A horrible thought entered my mind.

  "Even now," Bianca said, " You know what's going to happen next."

I did. I wished it wasn't so. 

   "You're going to be one of the leading suspects," I breathed, "Tell me if I'm wrong."

   "You're right. I was the only one who left the verandah." Bianca said while not even looking a bit scared. She seemed to be a different person at times. Most of the time she was a boy-crazed girl with pink hair and a fantastical personality. Now she was an adult who knew how to handle herself in the face of adversity. 

    We stayed silent for the rest of the drive.

                                                 ~~~Mysuru District Police Office~~~

    Just like how I had sunk into the incredibly uncomfortable chair in the head officer's office, my heart too sunk when I found out that I and Bianca had to be questioned separately.

 "Pssst... Quinn," Bianca hissed. 

 "What?" I whispered back.

  "We need to listen in on the others while they're being questioned," she said. 

     Honestly, I didn't really think that we'd be actually trying to solve this murder. We're just a bunch of kids. And, she had even brought Sayed and Nicolas into this. Like, could we even trust them? We had only met them today.

    I looked over my shoulder to see Nicolas who was incredibly composed. I wished I could be more like him and Bianca. Sayed on the other hand was a little bit like me. When I looked at him I noticed his eye twitch. 

     How in the world could a bunch of sixteen-year-olds be crazy enough to get involved with a murder investigation, but that's exactly what Bianca was. CRAZY. She shot up out of her chair and walked straight to the head officer. 

"Hello!!" She said, "I'm Bianca. I just want to thank you for how well you've managed this whole situation."

The officer blinked. "N-No English," he stammered, "Only Kannada."

Bianca didn't seem to be even slightly fazed. "Really? Okay then, could someone translate for me?"

I got up and made my way over to them. Unfortunately, I knew a bit of Kannada. All those lessons with my dad were finally going to pay off.

 "I can," I said.

Bianca looked at me in a funny way. "I didn't know you could speak Kannada."

"Well, I can. What do you want to say?"

Bianca went on and on about how she'd always wanted to be a detective and solve murders and other crimes. She said that her dream was to work with the police and bring justice to those who needed it. 

Well, she was not wrong. She definitely wanted to help Vijaya. The only bad thing was that she wanted me to help out too. And in NO universe would I have wanted to solve murders with the police. I'd probably faint within the first three seconds.

Bianca then asked the officer if she and I could listen in when they were questioning the people so that she could see how everything worked. I mentally rolled my eyes. No way was the officer going to agree. 

As I had predicted, he simply shook his head and told us to go back and sit down. He turned to the rest of the people and told them to keep quiet until the other officers arrived for questioning. He then left the room.

Remember when I said that Bianca was CRAZY? Yeah, that wasn't entirely true. No, she wasn't crazy. She was completely INSANE.

Bianca wailed and cried until the Head Officer was forced to come back in. Kelly Shatara rolled her eyes and Mr. Das cursed.

Nicolas and Sayed looked at me for some answer. I just shook my head.

"Officer, you can't just crush my dreams like this." She went on and on as I kept translating.

Finally, the Head Officer was forced to make Bianca leave the room. He told me to accompany her.

"But Sir!" A tall scrawny man said in Kannada. "We can't let them go without being questioned."

"I know, I know." He said also in Kannada. "But these are minor girls. What could they have done? I know that's bad detective work but I'll make sure to question these girls at the end."

He sent us with one of the attendees to the entrance and we were made to sit in the lobby.

"Bianca! What the heck is up with you???" I whispered heatedly.

"Just wait. Everything will be fine."

Here's the thing with Indian Police offices. The state or central ones were tip-top, with quite advanced infrastructure. Luckily we were in a district office. They kind of looked like a house and lacked proper facilities. Hence the questioning was done in a room with windows. Anyone could listen in if they were in the right place at the right time.

While the attendees were busy with all the other people, I mean it's not like a murder happens every day, Bianca grabbed my hand and we ran right out of the building.

My heart throbbed in excitement. We made our way to the back of the building and conveniently a window was cracked open. We peeped through it and saw that Violet Vy Truong was quietly entering the room.

"We made it!" Bianca avidly whispered. "The questioning room!!"

I moved around a bit to get into a comfortable spot.

Let me tell you something. I love my life. This life has treated me well and I'm thankful for it. It's just that life gives you obstacles. Today seemed to have a million of those. Technically this was the next day as it had already crossed 12. In the past few hours, I had sat through an uncomfortable dinner, then I threw up said dinner, saw a dead person and now I was crouching in the dark with my best friend listening to people avidly trying to prove that they had nothing to do with the murder. Those things were bad enough, right? Then why does life need to throw a cockroach right at my face when I've done nothing wrong? That's right. A COCKROACH. Smack on my face. I knew that the day had just started, but I honestly had no energy to even scream.