(Chapter 6: https://saragawde.com/chapter-6/)
Asher
“Alright then, could you make your signature coffee though. I think I saw some coffee powder in one of the upper cabinets, and I’m not sure whether Miss Robins is a coffee person or a tea person today. Mostly because her choice of beverage depends on her mood.” Asher said, looking back at Liam as they went down the stairs. “Sure.” Liam said, watching his step. “You’ve got the tea covered though right? And the questions, because I sure as hell haven’t got a chance to look at those.”
“Yes, yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t get a chance to show them to you. We only just discussed an interview last night.” Asher said, stepping off of the last step. He was suddenly aware of the TV blaring and their driver on the couch. Avery was by the dining table, scrawling furiously at her notepad. Looks like she hadn’t left for the hotel. He couldn’t see what she was writing, but with the outlines of scratchy black figures he could make out, Asher didn’t want to look closer.
He understood why she might not approve of his methods, but he truly did trust himself, and that was all that mattered. She didn’t understand how important of a discovery he’d made to the case, that was her loss, and a loss to her work.
When he’d seen a new name on the list of journalists asking for a seat to his investigation, he had decided to check it out. Her profile had intrigued him. An education in England’s top university for journalism, and a proclaimed keen eye for detail as noted by her professors, she seemed like she could fit the frame. There was also the fact that this was her first scavenging, so he’d considered that she may be less annoying, and maybe more shy about mingling in his work. He couldn’t tell how wrong he had been. So she wasn’t a great journalist, but hey, at least she wasn’t a pain in his ass- one that his agent back home had forced he’d have to take up to work towards better relations with the press.
Asher sat down on the opposite end of the dining table to the one Avery was at. He pat his coat pockets in search of his notepad, and sighed with relief when he found it. Always, he’d found himself to be quite forgetful with his things, and usually had Liam or the housekeeper take care of the technical things (although getting enough double ply toilet paper was not a technical thing). unfortunately, this interview was making him nervous, enough that his fingers were ticking. Alex knew he didn’t really have anything to worry about, especially since he knew Rebecca’s sister as an aunt.
Asher tapped his fingers against the yellow paper, staring down at the writing in blue. He could hear Liam rumbling in the kitchen, causing his train of thought to be interrupted. “Hey! Don’t touch anything in the kitchen! Just the coffee powder, ok?” He yelled, noticing Avery scowl as she flinched at the sound of his voice. He waited for a reply before he could look at his questions again. “Ok!” Liam yelled back.
Asher felt his coat pockets again, no pen. “Hey.” He said, looking at Avery. When she didn’t respond, he hit his fist on the table to get her attention. “HEY.”
She looked up at him with a remorseless, veering on hateful expression.
He raised his eyebrows. “Got a pen?”
She slid her pen across the table and he caught it on the other end, clicking at it twice before he corrected his work.
In a few seconds, he heard a soft ring from his phone, leading him to take it out of his pocket. A notification read the words: ‘I’m here! Right outside, darling!’ under Raquel Robins.
Instinctively, Asher tripped off of his seat and away from the table, causing some eyes to raise up to see him stumble across the room clumsily towards the front door. He unlocked it with a grin.
Raquel Robins stood with her arms spread out and a paper white smile on her face that turned into a wide grin when she saw Asher, quickly engulfing him in a scent of pines and vanilla. He almost choked, either from the heavy scent or the pressure on his ribs, but he hugged her back, or atleast attempted to with how discomforted his arms were.
Raquel stepped back, squeezing his face with her hands as she squeeled, still smiling: “Oh look at how much my baby boy has grown!”
Asher tried for a smile, but now his cheeks ached. He pat at them tenderly. “Hello, aunt Robins. It’s a pleasure to see you again.” He said, extending his hand for a handshake, but Raquel had moved on. She had a designer leather hand bag slung over her shoulder, and a pinched smile as she reviewed the house, her eyes stopping on the dark staircase.
Raquel was an old friend of his mother’s, the two having met in college. He’d seen her at Christmas every year, until he’d turned 15, when they’d stopped celebrating Christmas- because his grumpy old grandfather had taken over the house, three years after his mother’s death. Raquel used to visit him sometimes, on the occasional drowsy Sunday, but when those uneventful days had left his calendar, replaced by investigations, she’d stopped her visits entirely- aiming to send in a card on birthdays and holidays instead.
She walked deeper into the house, Asher followed. She planted herself petitely on one end of the sofa, turning to their boatman who seemed terrified to look at her, with his chin tucked into his neck as he grumbled. In response, she smiled at him chirping a “Hello.”
He turned to her, trying for a smile that came out yellowed and missing a few teeth. She blinked, satisfied, before she got up and sat by the dining table, observing her surroundings again with her hands clasped infront of her and her elbows on the table. The boatman switched off the TV then, heading towards the front door, embarrassment evident on his face.
Asher smirked before turning around to look for Liam. He saw him emerge from the kitchen with a tray holding numerous coffees and teas in disposable cups. Asher took up one.
They went to the dining table, sitting parallel to Raquel. Asher glimpsed a petrified Avery, right before she raised her notepad infront of her face, grumpily going at her work again.
Liam extended his hand to Raquel with a pleasant smile. “Good morning. I’m Liam Jester, Asher’s assistant.” His voice caused her to lock her eyes, dark and brooding, onto his face. Asher watched him gulp nervously, before Raquel shook his hand firmly, radiating a smile that betrayed her previous intimidating demeanor.
Asher pat Liam hard on the back. “Liam’s also a talented investigator himself, infact, he’s training to become one. His talents have helped me out in a lot of tough spots in my cases before, so I must say, you can consider him my partner in this one. He’ll be here during our interview, as will,” Asher pointed his pen coyly at Avery, grimacing when he saw her look up from her notepad like a wild animal in bushes. “Avery Jones. She’s a journalist, working on a story that will be published as soon as the investigation comes to an end.” He wondered how someone so pretty could look so, well, he didn’t have the word for whatever Avery looked like when complimented- nonchalant but annoyed, like a child trying to ignore being coaxed. It was obviously working, and he had to resist the urge to smile.
Avery straightened, pulling at her shirt slightly to make it comfortable. She pat down the ends of her blonde curls, before giving a seemingly fake smile, a bit too forced. “Nice to meet you.” She said, not making an effort to move from her side of the table, to shake hands, which was a bit far from their conversation. Finally, Asher noticed that she hadn’t been writing at all, instead, there were monstrous shadows on her paper. He looked away with a sigh. “Shall we begin then?”
“Ooh, one minute.” Liam said, suddenly appearing on Raquel’s side of the table with a camera and a speaker.
It was another fifteen minutes before their interview commenced. Liam had set up the camera and the speaker to record Raquel, because it was easier to have the whole speech than just parts of it in notes, as he’d told Raquel. Asher knew he’d probably spend an hour reviewing her body language as she spoke, to look for any signs of a lie or a hidden truth.
For now, Raquel had taken up a remote expression, concealing any hint of a smile or nostalgia like the one she’d shown at the door. Asher could see her fists held tight on her lap. This interview about her dead sister couldn’t be easy on her, especially since it was just a few days after her death. She must be struggling to hold herself together right then, being in the house where they found the body, her sister’s house. Asher went into the interview slightly guilty for not having chosen a better location. It wasn’t about to get any easier.
“First of all, I’m sorry for your loss.” He said.
She nodded, like she hadn’t heard him as she stared into his eyes.
“How often did you and Rebecca talk?” Asher asked.
Raquel broke eye contact, looking at the table instead, her coffee giving out steam. “Every week, she’d call me. She never liked me calling, because it interrupted her writing. So, she’d call me every Sunday morning at 8. On holidays, we’d video call at the same time of the day. But, we never missed a week, atleast, she didn’t. I was never too far away to not pick up.”
Raquel kept her eyes on the table. Asher rubbed his chin. “So you two were close?”
Raquel shook her head. “Not, close. Not like sisters our age should be. Our calls usually only lasted 5 minutes, but I suppose they were satisfactory for her.”
Asher could hear the scratching of paper next to him. He saw Liam and Avery scrawling on their papers.
“What was Rebecca like on these calls? Her mood, and all.”
This time, Raquel looked up at him- and Asher saw the film of tears on her face. “She was happy. She never seemed to have complaints about her life, nothing at all. I know she had clinical depression though, diagnosed last month.”
Asher nodded, looking down at his lap, at the questions on his notepad. An overview of the house had found her pills for that. Her past health reports had diagnosed that as the only seemingly significant problem.
“What about the last time you two spoke? When was it, and how did she seem then?”
Raquel drunk her coffee, its contents going down her throat in one turn. She slammed the glass back onto the table, like she’d just taken a shot. Just like he’d thought, it wasn’t going to get any easier.
Silence followed them, interrupted by nothing but the continuous clicking of a pen, its rhythm matching Raquel’s blinking. Annoyed, Asher turned to the source, Avery, her head buried in her notepad.
“It was a bit less than 24 hours before they found the body. They found it on a Monday morning, and I’d spoken to her on that week’s Sunday morning. There were bags under her eyes, and she seemed tired, but she had that huge bright smile that she always did. She didn’t seem unhappy, or, depressed, if that’s what you’re trying to ask, just tired.” Raquel said, leaning back into her chair as she scratched at the skin on the side of her nail.
“Do you know of any friends or family, or anyone of the town who was acquainted with Rebecca?”
“No. Rebecca was never someone with a lot of friends. I’m pretty sure she would’ve told me about any acquaintances, I think. I think she trusted me enough for that.” Raquel nodded. Asher didn’t know if she was trying to convince him or herself of that.
“Did she like kids?” Asher asked.
“Oh,” Raquel laughed. “Oh she hated them. You’d think she’d have a soft spot, but, no. Not at-”
A loud metal thrum echoed through the room as a singular green ballpen rolled across the wooden floor. Avery had disappeared, and then her blonde head jutted up from the side of the table. The pen in her hand. “Sorry.” She smiled, retreating to her seat.
Raquel grumbled. “Not at all. Its unfortunate actually. At one point, she loved kids, or atleast the idea of having one of her own. Back when she was newly married, but, her and Justin never had kids. I’m not sure why, because, she never told me. I believe the topic was quite sensitive to her.”
Asher nodded. Hated kids? Could it be possible that Raquel didn’t know her sister as well as she thought she did? Something wasn’t fitting here, between Raquel’s opinion and that of the witnesses in the town who had seen her interactions with the people there.
“Raquel.” Asher said, leaning forward, trying to soften the hardness on his face. “The people at the town, they said the same thing you did about Rebecca. She wasn’t close to anyone there, no friend or such. The only person she ever spoke with was the grocery store owner and she died a few months ago. Besides her though, Rebecca also gave out candy to the kids in the town. The kids loved her for it.”
Raquel gaped at him, her eyes unwritten and still processing the things that had entered her mind. “W-what?” She shook her head. “She gave out candy? Rebecca?” Raquel scoffed. “You’re wrong, I think they lied to you Asher. Rebecca didn’t even celebrate Halloween. She’d always lock herself in her room and write all day. Sh-She would never, and to kids? I know I make her sound like a monster, but, she wasn’t like-that!”
“You’ve got horrible sources, I’m sorry, but it’s true.” Raquel raised her arms in the air in surrender.
“Hey, it’s alright. They might be wrong.” They couldn’t be wrong. 7 people, and all of them in contradiction to Raquel’s statement. He knew who he believed. The question was, how important was this to the case? “Uhh, did Rebecca have a medical condition or anything?”
He felt like he might’ve generalized too much, but he had to test how strong of a source Raquel was. Raquel’s lips sewed shut into a thin line, before she spoke again. “Yes, depression, but that’s about it. She’d been diagnosed with it a month before she died. It was from a doctor I know personally.”
Asher tried to hide his shaking fingers, his mind full of life tugging at them. He turned to Liam, and saw the same hard to conceal eagerness on his face- and Avery, even she was full of surprise. Asher looked closer at her, only just glimpsing something besides shock on her face, confusion.
Maybe it was the way her eyebrows twitched closer to the centre, or her her lips quivering. But he had seen it, he had seen something, and it was hard to ignore. Did she know something he didn’t?
Asher kept going with more questions after that, but none of them made his heart beat faster, not like the first few had. Somehow, the exchange only resulted in Raquel bursting into tears a few questions after. Asher didn’t want to keep going with the interview after that.
It was weird, because, he should’ve stopped a long while sooner. His questions had run out after the medical condition one, but instead, he’d framed new questions in his mind- only to see Avery’s reaction to them because he could’ve sworn he saw something there every-single-time.
As soon as Asher announced that the interview was over, Raquel had taken to drying her tears before she’d bolted out of the front door, excusing herself with the reason that her boatman would be waiting.
The room had gone quiet, the sunlight and chirping of birds the only welcome disruption. Asher cleared his throat, making his way to the kitchen. Asher saw a tea kettle not too far on the countertop. He reached for its handle and grabbed a styrofoam cup present in a plastic bag with twenty others. He poured himself some tea but found no more of the milk brown liquid he’d been expecting. Sighing, Asher had got down to making himself some tea.
He threw his styrofoam cup into the bin. He was sure Rebecca wouldn’t mind him using a glass cup, they were much better at not burning his fingers. Asher opened multiple cabinets, hearing Avery and Liam conversing outside loudly. Eventually he saw what looked like a range of cups in the lower cabinet. He didn’t think twice as he stuck his hand in, refusing to bend down to get a cup. He felt a mug and pulled it out. Royal blue and slightly iridescent. He placed it on the countertop under the sunlight. Now for the tea.
Just in time, a certain whir halted. He turned on his heels to the kettle and tea bags on the countertop on the opposite side of the kitchen. He poured some hot water into the mug. The tea bags jumped up and down in the hot water, an amber diffusing in the clear liquid. He looked around for some milk and found some sweetened milk in a mug with a saucer on it. Without thinking, he poured all of it into the amber liquid, watching it turn the lightest brown. He breathed in the smell, the steam dissipating in seconds.
Sweet, and warm. “Beautiful.” He said, his back leaning against the counter as he spoke, facing the door.
Liam appeared in the doorway, his previously relaxed eyes widening. “What the hell are you doing?” He stomped towards Asher.
“Drinki-” Asher was about to answer when Liam grabbed the mug, lifting it to his eye.
“Can you not read Asher?” He said, exclaiming. “You idiot! This could’ve been evidence!” And he turned the mug to face him.
Asher couldn’t believe what he saw. Right there, the words were written, overwritten and messy in black sharpie.
Happy mother’s day,
to the best mum
there ever was!
“As corny as mother’s day can get, my oh my.” Asher said, delicately extending a hand towards the mug, but Liam pushed him away.
“How could you be so reckless Asher! What if there were imprints on this? You don’t want to get forensics involved for every aspect, but that was never supposed to mean you don’t use their assistance at all, you idiot!” Liam spat.
“I-” He realized just how much of a huge mistake he’d made. Asher shook his head, staring at the letters on the mug instead. “Wait. The handwriting though, it’s so much like-“
“What’s going on?” A foreign voice said. They both turned to the doorway. Avery leaned a hand against the frame, confusion on her face.
Asher ran towards her.
He would do what he had to to get to the truth, because in the end, that was what would, and should, live forever in the minds of those alive and those that died.
Asher grabbed her by the shoulders, blocking her from the kitchen. “Will you go on a date with me?”