*I wrote this for English class. I want to share this as well as hear some feedback on it!*
The front door of the NYPD 19th precinct flew open. A woman, clearly in distress, entered the building. “Oh Lord, help me! My beloved husband is dead!” she exclaimed in hysterics. Officer Williams tried to calm her down, but she would not cooperate. I went around the desk to try to comfort her. I touched her arm and asked her to come back to my office so we could talk about what happened. She complied and followed me down the hallway. I sat her down in the chair opposite mine and handed her a paper cup of water.
As I watched her take a couple of deep breaths, I took note of her appearance. I noticed her black eye and the bruises on her neck before anything else. She wore a white fur coat, real as far as I could tell, and black pumps. After a few minutes, the woman was calm enough to form coherent sentences. She introduced herself as Martha Dunsmuir. I introduced myself as Arthur Jennings. “So tell me, Martha”, I began. “What was it that happened tonight?”
Martha sighed. “Well”, she started. “I was cooking dinner in the kitchen, and my husband, Clarence, was in the living room. I heard the front door creak open, but I figured that Clarence was just going to check the mail”.
“Was he?” I asked.
Martha shook her head. I could see tears forming in her eyes. “No”, she said, her voice cracking. “I heard him call my name from the couch, and that’s when I knew somebody else was in the apartment. I peeked my head out into the hallway towards the front door and was faced by a man wearing a black ski mask”.
I brought out my notepad and pen. “How else would you describe the man’s appearance?”
“He was about six feet tall, with a lean build”, she explained. “He wore black slacks and a long black coat. I couldn’t see his hair, nor did I note the colour of his eyes because the attack was too quick. When he saw my head poke out from around the corner, he immediately began to beat me. I was afraid that he was going to kill me”.
“And how did you escape the man?” I inquired.
She peered down into her lap, fiddling with her hands. “Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my boyfriend running towards us. Clarence tackled the man to the ground, which gave me time to escape into the dining room, but he was quick to stand back up. They began throwing punches at each other and ended up in the kitchen, where Clarence was in reach of the knife block. He pulled out a knife and stabbed the man in the side. The man held his wound, which gave Clarence the chance to reach for the phone in the living room”.
I jotted down everything Martha told me. “Did he ever make the call?” I asked.
Her breath started to shake. She shook her head. “His hand was on the phone. That’s when the man pulled out a pistol and shot him twice”.
“Where on his body were the shots fired, Mrs. Dunsmuir?”
“One through his leg, and one through his waist, just slightly to the right. I couldn’t take it anymore, Mr. Jennings. I ran out of the apartment as fast as I could”, she said through tears.
I handed Martha a tissue. “Who do you think could have done this, Mrs. Dunsmuir?”
Without skipping a beat, Martha answers, “Stanley. He is the only person I know that could have done this”.
“And who is Stanley?”
“Stanley is Clarence’s younger brother. He got involved in the mob a few years ago, and not too long after that did Clarence stop talking to him. I never trusted him, and was always wary of living with Clarence because of him. I lived in constant fear that something like this might happen”.
“Can you give me a physical description of Stanley please, Mrs. Dunsmuir?” I was ready with my notepad.
“Six feet tall with a lean build,'' she answered. “Just like the man who killed my Clarence”.
“Is there anybody else you know that could have possibly done this?” I asked.
Martha paused for a moment. “No, not at all, Mr. Jennings. Both Clarence and I are well-liked by our coworkers, friends, everyone”.
I finished up my notes and got some of her personal information. “Thank you, Martha. That’s all I will be needing from you today. I’ll write a report and keep you updated as the case progresses”.
She shook my hand, and I noticed the lack of a wedding ring. She gave me a quick thank you and I showed her the way out.
A few hours later, I arrived at the crime scene. Martha and Clarence resided in an apartment on the upper east side, just a few blocks away from Park Avenue. As I entered the lobby of their building, I noticed a concierge. The couple was certainly well-off.
Once I entered the doors of their seventh-floor apartment, I made some notes of the surroundings before I looked at the body. I noticed that they kept their apartment very neat and tidy, not a single thing was out of place. I took a walk through the hallway, into the kitchen, through the dining room, and in to the living room. I asked one of the policemen at the scene if any evidence was found. “None”, he answered. There was no man writhing on the floor with a stomach bleeding out, either. How odd, I thought. How odd that one could experience a knife to the stomach, leave the apartment without a trace, and be so considerate as to bring the bloody knife with him. I concluded after a few moments that it was the fear of one of us finding his blood on the knife. I headed over to the body. Clarence Dunsmuir’s corpse was face down with two bullet holes in it; one in the leg, another in the waist, slightly to the right. Just as Martha had said. No signs of a struggle. However, there was a patch of dried blood on a corner of the dining table and a gash on his forehead. Probably from the bullet to the leg, I thought.
I pondered for a moment how I could possibly solve this case with the little evidence I had. I stepped out of the apartment for a second to think and stumbled across a woman’s ring a few feet outside of the front door, consulted my notes, and at that moment I realized I had everything I needed to solve this crime.
SOLUTION
Martha killed her husband as self-defence after suffering from domestic abuse.
Let’s start off with the crime scene. The apartment was tidy, which is unexpected after a violent attack and murder. No knife was found, nor was the man who killed Clarence Dunsmuir. It is unlikely that someone who just suffered a knife through the stomach would be able to walk out of a building without leaving the knife, cleaning up the blood, and being completely unnoticed, especially when leaving a building with a concierge. As well, Clarence’s body was found in the dining room, but Martha told the detective that he had just reached the phone in the living room when the man shot him. Martha also said that Clarence and the man threw punches at each other, but Clarence’s body was free of any sign of struggle. Martha’s appearance when she arrived at the police station was key to the investigation. Although she left the apartment quickly, she still had time to put on a fancy fur coat and pumps. She also knew exactly where the bullets were on Clarence’s body, which is something that a person who fled a scene directly after shots were fired would probably not observe. As well, she introduced Clarence as her husband to Arthur. However, halfway through Arthur and Martha’s meeting, she fiddled with her fingers, realized she had no ring on, and referred to him as her boyfriend. Arthur also observed no wedding ring as he shook her hand. She left the ring at the scene. Martha’s bruises are from the domestic abuse she experienced while living with Clarence. She eventually had enough of it and took Clarence’s pistol he keeps in his closet and shot him. Although Martha lied about a lot, she was telling the truth about Stanley. He is in the mob, and she is afraid of him. She saw this situation as a double whammy; she could kill Clarence and blame it on Stanley to take him off of the streets.
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