CHAPTER 2:
1332 Words
"Why asking me that stupid question?" I answered
"Just asking."
"Save it. I don't need 'Marites male version' in my life." I said with my annoyed tone
"Okay, but if you wanna cr--"
"Shut the f**k up Calderon!" I said as I throw death glares on him. I tried my very best to hide this uncontrollable feelings inside me but to no avail, I burst into tears.
All my life as a detective, this is the very first time I cried after seeing a man lying lifeless on the floor. Memories of the past suddenly flashes into my mind. It's so perfect, full of happiness. Yet those will just gonna be part of my past. Things do went wrong. I couldn't retrieve those memories and I don't have an ability to time travel.
With heavy heart, I took a deep sigh as I wipe my tears away. I then face Detective Calderon and force a little smile as an assurance for him not to meddle with my life.
"You said awhile ago that this crime was an ALMOST perfect one, how'd you say so?" I asked while remembering what he said earlier.
"Oh, I almost forgot! Maybe we can take a look at the thing that he was holding." He said while wearing his gloves, I then put mine too.
"I don't want to leave my fingerprints on this evidence. I must protect myself as well." He said after he got the thing that the victim was holding. Same thought, though.
'Periodic Table of Elements?' Well, what do you expect from a Science Professor? Of course, everything will be related to Science.
On the second thought, 'what's the connection of this thing to this tragic incident?'
Random thoughts are running through my curious mind. This case is getting more and more complicated yet of course, interesting.
I reminded myself that this is not a typical kind of crime, there's something on it which makes it unique from the other cases that we've solved.
A crime with twist, I guess.
Well whatever it is, I'm still hoping that we can find whoever the killer might be.
We then take a closer look at the Periodic Table of Elements. With my keen eyesight, I could easily spot something different.
I pointed out three elements which are Potassium, Francium and Gallium because I noticed that the three of it contains a check and was labeled as 'fn', 'sn' and 'ln' respectively.
"Do you have any idea about this three?" I asked him
"He's talking about the elements symbol. Potassium is K, Francium is Fr and Gallium is Ga. He was telling us that the culprit has first and second name which starts with letter K and Fr respectively. Also his last name starts with letter G followed by a or Ga. Fn stands for first name, Sn means Second name and Ln was the last name." He explained
"Meaning to say, from the list of suspects that we have, we can already eliminate Mr. Valdimorè and Mr. Zy. And only Mr. Gauss and Mr. Gallòn remains." I added
"Precisely!"
We hurriedly go to the room where the suspects was being interrogated.
"We already have an evidence that will tell us who the culprit is." Calderon's thunderous voice echoed through the whole room.
He began explaining the things that He said awhile ago.
"So now, we only have two suspects left which is you, Mr. Gauss and Mr. Gallòn." He concluded
"I didn't kill him! I was only passing my project that time!" Mr. Gallòn defended
"Said by the man who passed his project for 7 minutes. Take note, CCTV cameras inside the lab got ruined and was smiling like an i***t the moment he went outside the laboratory. Great! Just great! Prove your innocence, then!" I said sarcastically.
"I said I never did such thing!" He again defended
"As if I will believe you." I answered
"How about me?" Mr. Gauss asked
"How about you? Of course you're a suspect too. There's also a possibility that you're the one who murdered the victim." I said with a finality.
"Both of you are the main suspects for this crime. You both hold grudges against the victim and it might be your ulterior motive for committing such heinous crime." I added
"Sir, may we ask for your permission. We wanna take a look at the victim's belongings. Maybe we can find another clue that will lead us to the true murderer." Calderon said to the police
"Permission granted." Said by the police
"Thank you Sir."
We headed again to the crime scene to gather some possible evidence that the victim left before he died.
"Ms. Gavotte, look at this one." He said while pointing at some papers at the top of the victim's table.
It was Mr. Gallòn's project and the victim encircled a specific formula.
The formula was:
S sub n = n/2 [2a sub 1 + (n-1)d]
"It's as if he's telling us that Mr. Gallòn was his murderer because he was the one who passed this project. But why would he encircle this formula that will lead us to another suspect? It's just too complicated." It's too confusing for me.
"Let me elaborate this first, Mr. Gallòn came here to pass this project and without him noticing, his teacher encircled or wrote something on his project while they are busy talking to each other. If he isn't the culprit, then he's telling us that the true suspect was the man with the same name as the one who invented such kind of formula. It was none other than, Mr. Karl Friedrich Gauss." As clear as a glass. It made me speechless.
As much as I wanted to cry, I cannot. This isn't a right time and place to show my weakness. So I did composed myself.
"In Mathematics, Karl Friedrich Gauss was the one who was able to get the sum of 1+2+3+4...+50+...99+100 within seconds only by deriving his own formula. The encircled formula on Mr. Gallòn's project was the formula that was invented by this famous mathematician." He added
"But look, he wrote something!" I told him
"Si?" What does it mean?
"Does it mean Silicon? I don't think it's relat--- ah! What if He's telling us to solve it??" I asked again
"Maybe he's telling us to do what Karl Friedrich Gauss did. He was asking us to Solve it. Or can you just recall the answer that Gauss get for adding numbers from 1 to 100?" He asked
"Yes, the answer is 5050." What now? What's with that 5050? It doesn't make sense at all.
A piece of paper was taken by the cold wind. It's as if it was being thrown towards my direction, to where I am currently standing.
What surprise me the most is that, the piece of paper contains a letter and numbers in which, its purpose is still unfamiliar to me.
A0225
Does it still have to do something with this crime?
"Detective Calderon, look at this." I then gave him the paper.
"It's a code! Let me try this one. It simply means that the Alphabets from A to Z have their corresponding numbers from 0 to 25. Like this:
A = 0;
B = 1;
C = 2;
D = 3;
E = 4;
F = 5;
G = 6;
H = 7;
I = 8;
J = 9;
K = 10;
L = 11;
M = 12;
N = 13;
O = 14;
P = 15;
Q = 16;
R = 17;
S = 18;
T = 19;
U = 20;
V = 21;
W = 22;
X = 23;
Y = 24;
Z = 25
So, the answer 5050 will be decoded as FAFA?" His eyes grew bigger.
I heard a loud thump inside my chest when his gaze turned to me and eyed me suspiciously.
"What?" I asked surprisingly.
"All this time, it was You?!" He said
***** To be continue...*****
- Writer
