Creative Choice

I Wonder Who?

Honestly being a detective can be rather boring, especially for a skilled one. I’m detective Smiles, I got the nickname Smiles after the amount of smiles I put on the faces of many when I would solve a mystery. Additionally because of my smile which is quite large. My actual name is unknown as I was found near the gas station out of the town in the middle of the night when I was 2 years old. Layla said I had a big smile on and seemed like I wasn’t even bothered about being abandoned. I have no recollection of any of it let alone how I ended up there in the first place, the only hint to my origins was this locket I had with a picture of me. It was engraved with the words “my precious boy”. That locket is long gone now, if I was so precious why would they leave me with the possibility of being raised by Layla. 

Layla was barely a mother figure for me, she felt like a roommate I had to take care of constantly. She was a heavy smoker with a heavy country accent, long black hair down to her waist and eyes so green they look like shiny emeralds. She could care less if I was doing ok but only cared if I was alive to keep up her image that she was a good mother. Why did she keep me? It was all out of selfish reasons as she let her son drown in the river near town as she passed out drunk so taking me in was to make up for it. At least that’s what she would tell me when her fits of rage would take over and she would become an even worse guardian. Cruel and unusual punishments were the sides to that rage. She said I looked just like him, and he looked like his deadbeat father. I had his black hair, big blue eyes and freckles all over. She didn’t even bother with giving me an actual name, she just called me smiles and everyone else in the neighborhood went along with it. Why didn’t I tell anyone about the abuse? She made sure that I wouldn’t say a single thing by always threatening to end my life. Each day I would live on the edge as the only person I was forced to trust had complete control over my life. I was kinda glad that the smoking caught up to her, yes she put a roof over my head but also the burden of being alive when her son wasn’t. Soon after I inherited her house and had the neighbors help to keep me going.

We live in a small town called Puzzle Town, it’s the perfect place to settle down if you care enough for the well being of your future family. It’s a nice and friendly community full of people who are constantly interacting with each other. You rarely ever see any one arguing, more like neighborhood cookouts, sleepovers and Sunday activities. It’s hard to believe Layla ended up here but she was always good at hiding the shitty parts about herself. If I were to guess why she ended up here was to get away from all the bad mother crap from her family. She moved to the perfect place as this town was barely known by anybody. When I became a detective, I found some things about the town that were intriguing. This whole town trusts me completely so they let me in on a secret that any documents of its existence have disappeared. The oldest people living here had already passed before anyone realized what happened. 

Being a detective for this town is rather easy as mentioned before, everyone gets along. I’m the best this town got when it comes to security and a protector. I could do what a group of policemen can do but in a shorter period of time. Kids in this town are always wandering into the forest and getting lost. I would find these kids in an hour or less. This might seem easy but the size of the forest is large. The cases were boring and barely had me using most of my skills as a professional detective. I wanted something more exciting or at least worth my time to come my way. With the constant saving of these kids or helping out neighbors with even smaller things, I had their complete trust. This can be very rewarding at times but I am also curious how far their trust can go. 

Something happened that caught the whole entire community off guard. A murder happened, it was about to be the beginning of my new excitement. The nature of this murder was absolutely brutal, as the victim was mutilated and stabbed multiple times from behind, at least 50 times. Her body was completely wiped clean, her clothes looked like the murderer had taken off her clothes and replaced it with a fresh new set. The stab wounds themselves looked cleaned up and no trace of blood was on her body. The most insane part about it all was what was carved on her stomach, the person carved the words “I Wonder Who?”. I was extremely impressed by the lengths this person took to make sure no evidence was left behind. It was hard not to smile as I witnessed the most fascinating case that this town could bring me. Not even the kitchen floor had any blood on it. The crime scene was in her own home in her kitchen while she was baking some banana bread and the smell of smoke alarmed Mr. Mawka. This happened on a Saturday and on Sundays this woman would give out her baked goods to the whole neighborhood. This woman was no other than Miss Hill. Miss Hill is a widow who lives alone as her husband died years ago and they had no children. Which made it seem like the perfect target for someone to murder. 

Ironically enough she was my neighbor who lived 2 houses down from me. I went around asking neighbors if anyone had seen her before she was murdered. Most said no but Mr. Mawka, he said he was with her and trying her new recipe for banana bread. After getting a phone call from his wife asking him to make her some soup as she was extremely sick he left Miss Hill for the night. His story was cleared as when I went to check on his wife, she was in bed ill with the flu. 

What they didn’t know was that I was actually the last one with Miss Hill. I saw life leave her small body after the 20th stab. Her screams couldn’t penetrate my hand as it was a barrier around her mouth when I murdered her. I had to wipe everything clean so it would never lead back to me. Puzzle Town has no idea about the plans I have in store for it, the murder spree I’m about to unleash, My curiosity is consuming me as I want to know how long it’ll take before their trusted protector was actually a cold blooded killer with no remorse. I want to know how long before I can eradicate everyone from town, who would even know any of them existed? The town itself isn’t even documented on anything.

 Miss Hill was such an easy candidate to choose from my entire neighborhood, but the one thing that makes me shiver is the one part of the murder I had no part in. The one thing that was stuck on my mind on repeat was the question “I Wonder Who?”. This detail stuck with me as I want to make this clear. I didn’t carve her stomach.