One+by+One

One by One “ Parker!” Was what broke the peaceful silence in my head and crackled through my small two way radio. “Parker, come in!” I slowly reached for the source of the noise and pressed in a large red button on the side, and held it in as I began to speak in to the small communication device. “What do you want deputy, I thought I still had the week off.” I said slightly annoyed removing my finger from the button “I’m s-sorry sheriff I know your still suppose to be in recovery, B-but we’ve got a p-pretty big si-situation on our hands” the deputy replied shakily “Sorry spinner, but I’m suppose ta’ stay in bed, as much as I want to go back to work I can’t, doctors orders, I mean //come on// Spinner I just got out of a coma from a pretty bad concussion, and I still often get a headache that now just comes and goes, can’t you just handle this one yourself, you’re the deputy.” I said in defense removing my finger again from the button ignoring the shakiness in my best friend’s voice “And you’re the sheriff.” Spinner retorted “ Ya, but in case you’ve forgotten we live on a small quiet god forsaken, population less than 80 island, in the middle of the ocean called paradis which is the French word for paradise,” I replied,“And I’ve already heard all the rumors bout the storm comin’ in, so honestly how bad of a situation can it possibly be Charlie?” “Honestly… it’s bad, I think… I think you’d better just come and see this one for yourself Mattie” Deputy Charlie Spinner replied shakily This time I didn’t ignore the solemn shakiness in his voice, but did ignore that retched nickname I hated so much as I gave in and replied, “fine” After a short car ride from my house to the destination from the directions spinner gave me, I arrived at the family run 5 story hotel where I took the elevator up to the third floor and found spinner standing outside a red door with the number 322 in a gold metal numbers bolted to the door. Spinner has always been just an average kind of guy, even when we were kids he was average height, average weight, average looks, and even got around average grades he’s just always been the average Joe with dirty blond hair and chocolate eyes that everyone always got along with. We’ve just known each other since kindergarten and always wanted to be big city cops catching the bad guys. The big city part never happened since we are still on this small “everyone knows everyone” type island where nothing big ever happens, but that was just about to change. I walked up to spinner as he noded and said hey along with the dozen other cops and paramedics that kept busily rushing in and out of the hotel room. “What’s going on spinner?” I asked while smilling and nodding at the working locals going in and out of room 322 “I told you, you should just go and see for yourself” he replied I walked into the room squeezing passed others who were getting out “I got a call this morning from that host that’s comin’ with all those people today saying she hasn’t answered her phone for a few weeks” Spinner said as we reached the source of all the commotion. In the middle of the small hotel room was a dark blue tarp masking the shape of a woman looking to be about 5’1 “Do we know who she is or what happened, and what host and people?” I asked feeling a bit confused as my headache started to come back “There was some sort of contest that a lot of people that are comin’ over on a ship today won, and there prize was to spend three weeks here and at this hotel. This lady is the assistant to the contest host.” Spinner replied leaning back against the wall,“ She was murdered, Stabbed right in the chest and from the front which means she probably got a good look at the killer, yet the weird thing is that there is no sign of a struggle which means…” “She knew who the killer was before she was killed” I interrupted “Wow… This is the first murder we have had on the island in over 30 years” I slowly walked toward the shape under the blue tarp and slowly lifted the end to see her face “Oh my god!” I said in surprise “What!” spinner said pushing back from the wall and walking toward me and the body “ I met this woman about a week ago” I said still a bit in shock “wow well that takes about four days off the estimated time since she was killed” spinner said “What?, so no one’s seen or heard from her in 11 days, what about that host why didn’t he call for someone to check on her earlier if she wasn’t answering her phone for a few weeks? I asked “ I don’t know but I think we might just have to have a talk with him when he gets here” spinner replied “wait you said that this is the first time in 30 years that someone was murdered on this island, so what happened 30 years ago?” spinner asked

“Well about 30 years ago more than 18 tourists and one local was killed by a man named Carlson Wakefield, People say before he became Psycho he was a good kind honest man, he even had a wife, but one day he saw about 4 tourists smoking outside his house and one didn’t put out there cigarette all the way and it just caught his house on fire,” I said remembering the picture I had seen of him in and old newspaper, ”they say it took hours for them to get him out and by the time they did he had already watched his own wife burn to death right before his eyes. He was in some sort of state of shock after and stayed at a hospital for about a month then shortly after he was released all tourists that were said to have resembled the four tourists he saw smoking outside his window started popping up, dead. It took Police about six week to figure out it was him, because during the time of all the killings everyone said he got up every morning and went to work and then every night he just came home and the whole time he acted completely normal, like nothing was wrong.” “Huh, Someone hated tourists more than we do, what about the local, you said there was also a local he killed” spinner asked “ Oh, after the police figured out it was him they came to his house to find someone had purposely lit it on fire, the fire fighters said that it seemed like he had tried to commit suicide and tried to torch his own house with him still in it, yet some say no body was found they even tried searching the whole island, but why would someone torch their own house if they weren’t looking to die, besides no more body’s showed up after that and they made sure that there was no way he could have gotten off the island so he must have died.”I replied while taking another look at the body “Wait, why is there not much blood around the body?” I asked “There should be blood; she was stabbed in the chest where there are many main arteries there should be a lot of blood especially around her on the floor.” “Does that mean…?” spinner asked “ Ya, she must have been moved” I said interrupting spinner again “Someone must have seen someone coming in carrying a body, right?” “you!” I said pointing to a young officer who was obviously listening in as he was standing in a corner leaning up against the wall. “Go and get some people who will be willing to help you ask around to see if we can find a witness or just anyone who saw anything!” I demanded as he nodded backing away from the wall and already running out the door.