Sequestered with the Murderers by Dr. Tanner (books for 8th graders TXT) 📕

giving me directions to your house?” After Carolyn finished with the directions, I decided to call Gwen. I wouldn’t have time to meet with her today, but perhaps we could make other arrangements. I dialed her number, and the phone went to voice mail. I hung up, intending to telephone her again later.

I walked over to the large whiteboard Gam had installed last year on the wall to the left of the one piece of family heirloom I owned—my grandmother’s marble top sideboard. I had already written Duffy’s name, date of death, and the words murdered at Jefferson Springtop rest area on the board. I grabbed the crime scene photo folder from my desk, took out the photo, and posted it on the board. The photo was a close-up of Duffy lying on the floor with plastic covering his body, the left side of his upper body covered in blood. Since it was a close-up, the items surrounding his body weren’t shown, except for what looked like the bottom portion of a dark mop bucket on wheels. Staring at the photo, I walked backward four steps.

“Hmmm, the gun was not left at the scene. The murderer was smart enough to take it with him,” I surmised out loud.

The autopsy report listed the weapon that murdered Duffy as a .22 caliber handgun. This was not surprising since I knew handguns are far more commonly used in murder cases than other firearms. I knew too that the murderer was organized. My work in prior cases taught me to distinguish between offenders who are organized, disorganized, or a combination of the two. Another thing that came to mind as I stood there staring at the photo is this: the autopsy found a subtle trace of nitrous oxide, which possibly meant it had been used to render Duffy unconscious. This could be the reason Duffy looked like he had fallen asleep.

“I wonder if this means the murderer was trained in the use of nitrous oxide,” I said out loud. I knew that nitrous oxide could be fatal if too much is ingested.

“Or perhaps, the murderer didn’t know how much was too much and didn’t care. He was more interested in rendering Duffy unconscious,” I continued out loud with my hypothesis.

I walked back to the photo and ran my hand across it. Then it hit me.

“Why would the murderer want to render Duffy unconscious?” I immediately surmised that the murderer, if a man and I am assuming the murderer was, could have quickly pulled Duffy into the maintenance room, put the nitrous oxide on his face, shot him seven times, and been done with the matter. This approach sounds easy to me. The murderer then could have covertly left the maintenance room without being seen. Because of the bad weather and crowd of people, no one would have noticed him, which is the case anyway. All this sounds so easy. In reality, I knew it wasn’t.

“Why did the murderer need nitrous oxide in the first place,” I shouted out. A big strong man could have pulled Duffy into the maintenance room and immediately shot him seven times without the use of nitrous oxide. So why use it?

I had swayed myself on the murderer being a man because I just couldn’t believe a woman would have the strength to pull 180 pounds Duffy into the maintenance room without a fight and then commit the murder. A fight would mean the possibility of people taking notice, or people hearing a scuffle, or Duffy wrestling himself away from his attacker.

A silencer is another reason I’ve persuaded myself the murderer is a man. I don’t know any woman, except for me, that owns a gun, let alone know how to select a silencer that renders the shot soundless and know how to use a silencer. Wouldn’t there be a record of anyone purchasing a gun or a silencer? I know my grouping of women I surround myself with is a tiny sampling and not scientific, but they are enough to sway me. And I am not naïve enough to think that a woman can’t learn how to do these things if she chooses to. Women can do anything they set their minds to accomplish. I just think a silencer would be far down the list of a chosen weapon.

“A silencer had to be used. No one on the bus heard the seven shots,” I shouted out. My mind focused in on the silencer. I don’t know anything about silencers, but I know who probably does—Joe, Holt Junior, and of course, Gam. Below the Need Info column, I wrote on the board need info on silencers.

My eyes monetarily moved from Duffy’s photo and landed on the framed picture on the sideboard of Dimma, her husband Simon, Gam, and I. It was the four of us at Gam and my wedding. I smiled, not at the memory of the wedding but of Dimma trying to talk me into buying a laptop and me trying to talk her into buying a gun. Her business, operating a real estate company, requires that she meets alone with so many people she doesn’t know in homes, for the most part, that are empty. I believe a gun would be good protection for her, but she refused to buy one. I began giggling at the antics we had both implored to get the other to succumb. My little short orations on gun safety had caused Dimma to finally say, “Vett, give it a break. I’m not buying a gun.” We then both burst out laughing. Remembering more of our antics, I giggled some more. When all giggled out, I swallowed, then returned my focus to Duffy’s photo.

I again ran my hand across the photo and scrutinized the area around the body. No information came to me. I waited fifteen minutes. I then gave up waiting for something around the body to garnish my attention.

Below the heading of Suspects, I wrote the names of Jackson, Marjorie, and