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Prompt: Your character is old, humble and unassuming. The story begins in a remote cottage. A 30-year old murder case is resurrected. The theme is: justice.
Genre: Mystery
Source: Plot Generator
Time Spent: 60 minutes
Word Count: 1971
Prompt: Your character is old, humble and unassuming. The story begins in a remote cottage. A 30-year old murder case is resurrected. The theme is: justice.
Jane Lyda got out off the bus with more care than was probably needed, but it didn’t hurt to be careful, after all her knees were not what they were. If anyone in the small village gave her any notice at all, they likely would not have thought much of her, which is how she liked it. Jane had a tweed hat over iron-grey hair drawn up into a tight bun. A muted floral blouse was tucked into a pair of brown trousers, secured with a brown belt, which were tucked into wellington boots of a slight out of place bright red. She was of average height and build, held a can in slightly gnarled but still strong looking hands, and wore a heavy blue coat the came nearly to the ground. A thin face, well wrinkled with age, wore an unreadable expression accompanied by a thin smile. Green eyes, keen and penetrating, surveyed the village around her.
Getting her bearing, she saw the lane that she had been instructed to take, and she set off at a brisk pace. It had all begun two months previously when she had received a box in the mail, with no return address, that contained a number of newspaper clippings and random scribbled notes. She recognized what it was almost immediately, information regarding the death of Granger Mandel some thirty years previously.
Granger had been the scion of a wealthy country family, who was found dead from an apparent stab wound in one of his family’s storehouses. A flurry of reports, speculation, and a small army of detectives and private investigators had all weighted in on this, but despite a hefty award from the family, nothing had been turned up and the case had gone cold.
The murder of Granger Mandel was what had gotten Jane interested in murder. She had always been fascinated by documentaries and stories she saw on TV, in books, and online, and she had followed the investigation intently from afar. She did not often admit it, but her fascination with the case had gotten her through the contentious divorce from her husband and living on her own again. After that case had gone cold. she had found an emptiness, so she started following the case of a young woman in her own city that had disappeared suddenly. She had meticulously gathered evidence, avoided some of the mistakes she felt were made in her research of the Granger Murder, and after a week’s work, she took her thick file of research down to her local police station. It took the better part of a day to get the detectives to see her and believe her, but the young woman was found alive and her kidnapper arrested.
Jane had declined any reward or publicity from this, the enjoyment of researching the case and the young woman being rescued were all the reward she needed, but word of her started going around. Another case led to another, which led to another, and thirty years later she was perhaps the most celebrated ‘unknown’ detective in the country. She never advertised her services, nor charged for them, although that did not stop some grateful people from donating money to her cause. She never kept track of how many people had been saved or given justice in the last thirty years, and her quiet, unassuming manner at least allowed her to give support and resolution to the family and friends of those she was not able to help, without harm to her reputation. She had always meant to go back and look into the Granger Mandel case again, but there had always been a new case or something more pressing to work on.
The box was a surprise as it had not only all of the publicly available clues and information, but things that had never been released or reported. It took her several months to piece it all together. Whoever had sent it to her had deliberately sent her something of a puzzle. She figured that whoever had sent it to her already knew the answer and was leading her to it as well. At last, it all came together that the final clue was at a remote cottage outside a small village in the area where the Mandel family still had a lot of power.
The walk to the cottage took about half an hour, but it was a pleasant spring day and despite being well into her sixties, Jane had kept herself in good shape. At last, the lane turned a gentle corner and there it was on the hill. A bright blue and well maintained cottage, surrounded by trees, stood on a small hill. Jane came to the meticulously put together and painted wooden fence, opened the latched gate, and walked briskly up the hill. Taking a moment to catch her breath, the hill was steeper than it appeared from a distance, she dusted herself off a little and knocked on the door.
A man around her age, with well-groomed white-grey hair and goatee, wearing a simple button down shirt of a checked pattern and black pants. He wore a pair of house slippers and peered at her with one brown eye, his left eye was missing with a massive scar where it would have been. He beamed at her and grinned even wider when told her name, and invited her inside. He went through a typical song and dance of offering her tea, which she cheerfully accepted, and when they were both sitting down in comfortable armchairs across from each other.
He smiled politely at her and said in his deep and graveled voice, “how can I help you, Jane Lyda?”
Jane smiled at him, “I think you know why I am here. You are Samson Mandel unless I am much mistaken, and I think it was you who sent me the box of information about your brother’s murder. Based on your enthusiastic response when I reached out to meet, and your smile when I opened the door, I think you were hoping I would piece everything together and come find you.”
Samson chuckled, “yes, I am Samson Mandel and I did send you the box. I have followed your career for some time and been impressed by your ability to collect information and make such creative and effective deductions. I also knew from the rare occasion you submitted to an interview that my brother’s case is what got you into your profession. I am indeed excited that you have put it all together.”
Jane sighed, and took a sip of her tea, it was coming to the difficult point. “Mr. Mandel. Samson. The reason you were able to send me information, even partly complete, means that either you are the one who killed your brother, or you know exactly who did. I think you have a story to tell me.”
The man opposite her became solemn and nodded grimly as he took another drink of his tea, “yes, I do. My brother and I were hardly friendly with each other, I think that is well recorded. What is not well recorded was the way which he terrorized my entire family with his temper. Much of that was kept out of the press by our parents, but I imagine you heard the rumors. He would fly off the handle at the smallest provocation, punching, kicking, throwing, and whatever else he felt like it. My parents outwardly supported him and kept him out of trouble, but privately they increasingly stayed away from him as we got older. One day, drunk and in a particularly foul mood, he decided to terrorize our family’s lawyer who was visiting our compound to have our parent’s sign some documents. Thinking to appease him, the lawyer let it slip that our parents were passing him over for control of their holdings when they passed in favor of our sister. The lawyer escaped, but he flew into a blind range and stormed around the outbuildings of our compound destroying things, until Xenia came back from a long horse ride and attacked her. I had overheard what happened and intervened. I don’t remember what all happened during our scuffle, or where the knife even came from, but it cost me my eye and left my brother dead. Xenia had fled so saw nothing and I had staggered back to the house and then she drove me to a private clinic we used to have my eye patched. I hadn’t even realized Granger was dead.”
Jane took all of this in, and it fit in with everything she had guessed from the clues she had been given, which had included the doctor’s office report about his eye on the same date, and the change in will that had occurred a few weeks previously. “Why come forward now?”
Samson sighed, “Please don’t judge me when I say, I hate Granger. I know it is a horrible thought, but I really, really hated my brother. He made my childhood and young adulthood a living hell. A large part of me is glad that he is dead, but there is a small part of me that has been gnawing at me over the last thirties years that is guilty that I killed him. I kept it all to myself once I realized what had happened. Xenia suspected, but never said anything and we never talked about it, and my parents never even guessed. They sponsored the hunt for his killer, but never realized their natural instinct to hide information harmful to our family covered up the very information that would have found the killer, found me.”
Jane leaned forward and put a comforting hand on the man’s knee, as she had seen tears slowly rolling down his face, “and you kept mostly to yourself ever since, and now that your sister passed away earlier this year, and your niece firmly in control and having no connection to anything, you feel like now is the time to ease your guilt by coming forward. But why send it to me as a mystery?”
Samson put an appreciative hand on hers and said, “I felt as time passed, sooner or later some podcaster or other amateur sleuth would come looking around and dig some of this up. I thought that, someone like yourself, compassionate and understanding, that it would be better if it was you. I won’t go anywhere if you want to report this to the police, and I will tell them the same.”
Jane leaned back in her chair again, and shook her head, “no, Mr Samson. That will not be necessary. My concern over the last thirty years has been helping victims, either returning them alive or finding justice for them, and as far as I am concerned, you and your sister were the victims. Killing is a horrible thing, but from what you told me, you were not trying to kill your brother, you were trying to save your sister’s life, and that is a noble thing. Nothing would be gained by your spending what is left of your life in jail, and I have no hunger or need for the credit or the solve. Bury what is left of the evidence, and let the past lie.”
Samson nodded at this and we silent for a time with tears streaming from him eyes. After a few more words of comfort, Jane finished her tea and saw herself out. She had suspected all of what she had heard, and she had gotten the only satisfaction she sought in this case, the long buried truth, and she was perfectly fine with leaving it at that. With a nod to herself, she walked slowly back to the village to catch the bus back home.
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I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day; you get the chance to do or experience something creative, and I’ll catch you all on the next one!
– Jon
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