The Secrets of Confessions ✔️

Chapter 20: Groundhogs

It may probably be just a coincidence, but being a criminology major along with computer science has taught me that I should always take notice of the small details. They can be very helpful. I know that the tattoo is not the hugest indicator of something fishy, but I have to keep notice of that. It's all part of the process.

The diaries aren't the only thing that I should rely on. You never know what people can fudge in diaries. They're a subjective piece of information, and honestly, I don't know if my mom is completely honest in this either.

If you've ever read Gone Girl, then you will know that people aren't honest all the time. If my mom lied to me about Arjun and Mason, and the circumstances of the whole thing, then I don't know if I should trust everything that is in her diary. I may use it as a guide, but I can't trust every single word inside there. It's time to start digging on my own part.

I remember exactly where Mason put my mom's autopsy report. It's hidden in a box in the back, because when I was younger, I was helping him clean, and I stumbled upon it. I know that Mason's super systematic about where he keeps his files.

I just have to be careful as to where I keep it in my room, and as to when I take it out. Because if I take it out when he's home, then that's putting a lot of things at risk. That's the last thing that I need. To put everything at risk.

"Come on, come on. It's gotta be somewhere here. It can't be that hard to find." I remember almost crystal clearly where Mason kept the file. I know that the possibility of him putting it somewhere else is very low. If I keep on looking, it will definitely be here somewhere. I also have to work fast, because sometimes Mason comes home from work early. He may have betrayed my trust a bit, but I'm not going to do it to him as well.

Eventually, after looking through files, I find exactly what I need to find. I find the autopsy report. I take it out, and then brace myself. Not because the thought of blood, wounds, and guts makes me squeamish, but because I don't want to imagine what my mom must've gone through when she was lying there, dying. It makes me sick to my stomach, and honestly it also makes me want to cry.

Once I put the box away and put everything else so that it doesn't look like I meddled in there, and so that Mason doesn't notice it. I walk back to my room, and then place it on the desk for me to read. I push the door so that it's ajar, but not open enough for Mason to see what I'm doing.

Curious, I start to read, just to see what is there. When I start reading, I'm shocked, but also kind of suspicious as well. When I see the amount of stab wounds that were detailed on her body, it makes me really sad. I can't imagine how much pain she must've went through when she was being stabbed to death. And I can't imagine who could've done it to her. All the wounds that she had suffered and all that she could've gone through makes me really sick to the stomach.

However, I'm paying attention to details. I'm paying attention to any hairs that would've been collected, skin cells, or anything forensic wise that may be significant. I make my way to what was collected from the body, and immediately, I know something is wrong. I read it very closely to see if there were any hairs collected.

According to the mortician, there were no foreign hairs collected from her body. That's nearly impossible, considering the fact that in a struggle, hairs are usually pulled out from the perpetrator, whether it be arm hairs, hair from the head, or wherever the hands come in contact with the perpetrator's body. There were none.

I think back to my meeting with Arjun, and from what I remember, his arms were hairy. And I mean hairy. There was a large amount of arm hair, and even though he's close to Mason's age, he has a pretty full head of hair. There would've been a hair transfer at some point. Just to make sure that Arjun was just as hairy as he was 16 years ago, I pull out my phone and look up his mugshot.

Surely enough, the mugshot showed parts of his arms, and they were even hairier than when I had met him a few weeks ago. I know something is not right. I know that not only is the lack of hair suspicious, but also the timing and the basis of the case. According to the news outlets, they've all said that my mom died within 30 or 45 minutes before her body was discovered.

That would've given the killer almost no time to thoroughly inspect the body for hairs and clean up any blood that would be theirs. Considering how violent the scene was, it would be hard to distinguish whose blood was whose unless you were a blood spatter expert.

And on top of that, Arjun's confessions seem to be the only foundation to where the case was built off of. I don't know if that's a hundred percent true, but if that's true, then the case is highly circumstantial. I am no match to the detectives, but I can at least make an attempt.

I also realized something else at that moment. Arjun would've been the first person that they would've started to interrogate. The husband killing the wife is a classic scenario in most crime scenes. And I'd argue that the cops would suspect that he has a perfect motive for it.

He's mad at his wife, still hates her after she cheated on him, and got angry enough to stab her to death. No wonder the cops must've had something on him. However, some old animosity wouldn't be enough to decide whether or not Arjun is guilty or not. It's gonna take more biological evidence to convince me that Arjun killed my mother.

And finally, one more thing comes to mind. I need to write all my observations down. I need to write them all down so that I can refer back to them later. Because keeping track of your observations is key, and it helps to be organized. So that's what I do, and continue to do as I keep on looking at the autopsy report.

I continue to scan the report to see if there's anything else significant. So far, there's nothing super noteworthy, except for one thing. There was almost no hard internal bruising in the autopsy report.

Usually, in a stab victim, especially the way my mom was killed, they usually try to wrestle their victims to the ground or hold on to them tight enough to get a good wound. That sometimes causes a little bit of bruising. There was almost no sight of that. That meant one thing. The killer couldn't have been super strong.

Even though I haven't known Arjun for super long, I can tell that he's pretty strong. The way he held me as I was sobbing in my arms gave me a good impression that he has quite a bit of muscle. If he was stabbing my mom, he would've had to hold her down or wrestle her, because according to the evidence, she fought like a wildcat. To the point where all her fingernails were broken. They had all been broken or ripped off in some way. Some kind of force would've been necessary to hold her down and stab her to death. Nothing here points exactly to Arjun, but I can kind of see how Cole is connected to the crime.

For one, he's not strong at all. He wouldn't have much strength, who fought back like a wildcat, to tackle her, and he's the least hairy person that I know. Everything is slowly starting to point to him, but there's only one small problem.

The evidence is circumstantial.