About the Contest

This story is an entry to @tristancarax’s 31Sentence Contest. The contest is exclusively on Hive.

If you fancy participating, you can find the contest here.
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Prompt

Here is the expected sentence order:

11, 28, 7, 8, 2, 12, 27, 21, 5, 16, 22, 17, 9, 23, 18, 30, 4, 6, 25, 1, 13, 24, 15, 19, 26, 20, 31, 10, 14, 29, 3
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The Murdered Speaks

“Damn, first the lockdown and now the murder,” the Sheriff bellowed.

The quaint town, surrounded by lush green forest had a friendly population, which, in the last two decades of existence, had only witnessed a robbery by an outsider. So, a murder was a bizarre occurrence. The deadly coronavirus pandemic wasn’t helping investigations either.

“Silver lining.”

“Pardon me, sheriff?” the deputy was confused by the sheriff’s conflicting comments.

“It’s a lockdown, so there’s no outsider to suspect right now, and that narrows it down to these new helps that the Laurent’s hired,” the sheriff reasoned. “Lanny was a smart lady, and I would be surprised if she did not attempt warning Laurry in her last moments.”

“Laurent does not use mobiles.”

“Not calling but warning her husband through some message,” the sheriff walked around the crime scene.

Sherman, the deputy, could see sense in the sheriff’s logic because whatever or whoever killed Lanny could also kill her husband, eventually.

Mark, the sheriff, had gone through the profiles of the three new hires, Carol, Kelly and Gladis. Lanny’s progressive nature led to the three being hired. It was unlikely that anyone else would have hired Carol, an ex-convict, Kelly, a drug abuse recovered, and Gladis from the LGBT community.

“Lanny shouldn’t have hired those outsiders,” Sherman almost read Mark’s mind, “and now they are the main suspects.”

“Lanny prefers reading books in her library on the lower floor, but she was found dead on the stairs with a book, while Gladis was locked up in Lanny’s room.”

“Then, Carol or Kelly?” Sherman thought that’s what Mark meant.

Mark, however, was not the one to jump to conclusions and was still looking for some message that Lanny would have left about the culprit.

“Orlando?”

“Yes, sheriff, that’s what was in her hand and no message written inside.”

“I don’t think a dying person would be running in search of a pen to write, so it’ got to be a lot simpler.” Then it struck Mark, “Oh s**t, the book is the clue that Lanny left behind.”

“Sherman, the protagonist in that book, is a character who changes his sex from man to woman,” Mark said. “So, it was Gladis all the while who attacked Lanny in the room, and in the ensuing battle, Lanny somehow escaped and locked up Galdis there.”

“But that book could have come only from the library, so then Lanny should have been going up when attacked.”

“That doesn’t explain Gladis being locked in the room,” Mark countered Sherman, “unless Lanny ran down knowing that she didn’t have much time and had already figured her message for Laurent.”

“So, she got the book but went back to check.”

“Yes, but the wounds were fatal and Lanny lost consciousness midway on the staircase. The other two were truly in the barn, and Gladis took that as an opportunity to make it appear that she was locked by someone while cleaning the room.”

“Let’s get, Gladis.”

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Image Courtesy: @tristancarax