Secret and Scandal

Chapter Three

“I won’t take s**t from you, Fred!” Alexia snapped, drifting aggressively towards the cop to square up with him toe-to-toe. “I put my goddamn life on the line to get the job done, and here you are with your coward ass teaching me my job.”

“But not like this,” said the cop, standing still to Alexia’s confrontation, “not like stabbing him ruthlessly beyond recognition.”

“This calls for a long investigation and post-mortem, don’t you get it?” The cop continued.

Alexia, not yielding her ground, she fixed her eyes on the cop’s belligerently, “what would you have me do, officer? What would you have me do to a dude who got all hostile and fighty?”

“Okay, that’s enough, guys,” one of the men cut in attempting to pull the two parties away from each other, “we have our result, but somehow, we botched it.”

“It is not the right time to point fingers,” the man continued, “but we only need to clear this s**t and erased all tracks.”

“But are you sure you finished him off yourself, Lexi?” The cop asked once again spitefully.

“It’s enough, Fred!” Snapped the man who had attempted to pull the two parties apart. “It’s all tensed up already. We don’t need to raise anyone’s ire.”

“Cause this doesn’t look like a woman’s job.” Fred chipped in again stubbornly, “It’s clearly a man’s. It takes a male’s strength to cut in that deep.”

Now the situation became even more tensed as Fred’s last comment seemed to command everyone’s silence and willingness to listen to him. Alexia, on one hand, seethed with a mix of fear for what Fred what attempting to dig out and resentment at Fred’s constant confrontation. Against any scrutiny, Alexia was not ready to divulge the truth surrounding Jimmy’s death to her cohorts. For Alexia, divulging the truth would only lead to a reprisal against Robert. That would disrupt her personal plans and cause a domino effect which would put her at a disadvantage in this game. She was the pawn in this game already and, somehow, she must hold all the aces. She was dead willing to take this secret to her grave at the moment. For some secret reasons, Robert’s existence was still the only reason her cohorts had not taken her out of the game. For the love and new-found hate of her boyfriend, she would keep this secret close to her chest.

“Are you suggesting Jimmy killed himself or what?” the female medic among the four men cut into the tension. “Make it make sense Fred. How could Jim stab himself from the back?”

“That’s because another man was here to do the job,” snapped Fred, “and you all aren’t seeing that Lexi is holding back!”

“For someone who was literally between life and death after fighting Jim to death?” Asked the female medic. “Cut the crap, Fred. Stop this bullshit now and let’s move on.”

Fred, frustrated by the refusal of his cohorts to make a sense of his logic, lashed out.

“’Cause that’s what you all want to see,” snapped Fred. “Will you just let me do my job or not?”

“Okay, Fred. That’s all right,” cut in the man who had been calming tension all night, “at least for the night. Look, time’s ticking and we just need to clear this mess now.”

“Exactly right, Fred,” cut in another one of the men, “we need to get the f**k out of here before it’s too late.”

“And Fred,” called out another one of the men, drawing Fred’s attention, “Lexi is capable of pulling off jobs like this. Don’t underestimate her.”

“Now you’re outnumbered, officer.” The last one of the men commented. “We need to lay this to rest now.

Fred felt defeated. For the first time on this job, his logic was rubbished. He had been made to look like a fool. He was a smart captain with four gold stars. It was rare for anyone in his position to have had such rank in the force. Trained in one of the best academies in crime analysis, he was not accustomed to keeping mum on crime possibilities, but tonight was different. He had no choice than to dance to the tune of this gang. He had been made to work with them strictly on instructions from his leaders above for a few years now, cleaning their mess and erasing any tracks behind them. The gang had always listened to his tips on eliminating possibilities of troubles, but it seemed they were not buying his logic this time, as they preferred to throw caution to wind. He felt nothing but strong certainty that someone had been in the room to execute this crime – and it was a man.

Fred stood in his lone voice of reason. He threw one unpleasant look at Alexia, suggesting bad blood.

“Okay, then,” Fred said reluctantly, “as you please. Be my guest.”

“I need everyone to vacate the scene now,” Fred continued authoritatively, “for my team to make an appearance.”

“Excuse me, officer,” Alexia cut in spitefully, throwing a bad look at Fred, “I will need to change for a decent dress. You certainly wouldn’t want me to leave this place with your clues, would you?”

Alexia dashed into a different bedroom within the mansion before Fred could even breathe a response. She still had the bloody white towel around her body as she snowballed her dresses and carried them along with her to another room. Getting to the other room, Alexia unwrapped her clothes and pulled out the dagger which Robert had used to stab Jimmy. Somehow, she had managed to pick the dagger from the scene and hidden it in her clothes. She knew too well that the dagger would have been a crucial clue for Fred. The smart-ass Fred would have presented the dagger for forensics and DNA test, and the result was sure to give Robert away as his blood was still very much on the dagger. But for Alexia, all clues belonged to her. By her cunning display, she had bossed the scene and got the gang speaking for her.

Without wasting any time, she placed the dagger in a collectible zip nylon pack. The dagger still had blood al over it. She instantly hid it in a pocket on the wall behind the wardrobe. The wall pocket was a secret place none of the cops could ever attempt to discover. She dashed into the bathroom to change her dress and she hurriedly returned to the scene holding the bloody towel.