Either Way, a mystery

It's not an especially hard mystery, but I wrote it in my free time thinking it might eliminate writer's block for my PK. It didn't.

Harry Anderson, 34, was tall and slim. He stepped into the Bougarde Mansion appearing as he usually did in public. His brown hair was combed neatly, and he was wearing a black suit, white undershirt, and red tie; all looking as if they had just been pressed. The oddity of it? It was 2:10 in the morning, and the mansion was swarming with police. Harry was a detective and had been for close to six years. Those who had never seen him would gander to say he was too young for the job, but in truth, he was brilliant.

The detective looked about the main hall, taking it in, before an officer escorted him to the crime scene. "Guest room, sir." The badge said, showing him in.

The room was impressive, beautiful looking furniture and plush comforts lined the room. A large bed in the back of the room, across from the doorway. A couch lined the wall to Harry's right, and to his left was a wooden dresser, along with a mirror. However, none of these garnered the attention of the gruesome sight in the middle of the room. A woman in a night robe was dangling from a ceiling fan by a rope, with a noose around her neck. He wasn't unused to such sights, but he sighed heavily anyways, "What a waste of a life.." He said.

There was one person in the room who was standing much closer to the body than the other police in the room. Dr. Trey Austen. He was the city coroner, and was on sight examining the body already. He had graying hair, being 54 years of age, and a bushy moustache. "What a waste, indeed. She had many years ahead. Her name is Claudia Bougarde. The niece of the owner of the manor. She was only 32." He shook his head as he took scribbled something on a clipboard.

Harry made his way to the doctor, wanting to get a closer look himself. The man was very analytical, and looked up and down the body, the rope, and the chair on the floor that she used to hold her up before her final choice. His eyes darted as he made sense of it, or tried to. The woman's eyes were closed; the noose was tied very well for someone who was contemplating such unsavory business as suicide; and the chair had it's back facing the woman. Harry tilted his head, and made a note to himself. "Cause of death?" He asked. "Normally, I'd berate someone for asking such a silly question with such an obvious answer, but it's not as obvious as one would think." He flipped through sheets of paper on the clipboard as he spoke. "The cause of death actually wasn't straining or breaking of the neck or spine.. Rather, it was suffocation.. Which is odd for two reasons. Look at her neck, it's bruised, which is to be expected, but the bruising is inconsistent with where the noose bruises should be.. Which is my second point.. The noose left no bruising, despite the fact bruising should've formed a 'V' shapped pattern after she dropped into the noose. Instead there's more of a curve to it."

Harry nodded, it was odd, and he was starting to think it wasn't so close-and-shut as he had originally thought. "Was anyone else here at the time? And have they been interviewed?"

"They're all still being questioned. The owner of the manor, Francis Bougarde, along with the bulter, William Wadsworth. Also is the deceased's apparent stalker, Lucille Godfrey. The other two are Mary-Anne Bougarde, cousin, and the cook, Martha Houser." The doctor checked his watch, "Some of them should be due out any minute."

Harry nodded, "What about forensics?" He asked, noticing there were fingerprint kits out around the room, and the dust that was on the chair.

The doctor flipped a few more pages, reading one of them. "Hair samples from within the room itself, rope fibers as a precaution, and a few fingerprints. The results will be back in about an hour."

The detective took note of that, making sure to check back in. "I'm going to take another look about." He stepped away from the body and took a slow stroll around the room. The room, he noticed, was very neat. If you took away the body and the police officers, some would call it immaculate. The bed was made, and the couch was perfectly set up. The only thing seemingly out of place was on the dresser. A single comb was on it, which had been dusted for prints.
Harry was busy looking about when a disturbance came from the doorway. It was an older looking man, he was accompanied by an officer. He had made a loud noise, almost a gasp. "I'd heard about it.. I thought I'd be ready for it.. but.." The man looked away as he trailed off. Harry made his way over, "Hello, I'm Detective Anderson, with the police. Who are you?"

The man looked up, "Francis.. Francis Bougarde. Please tell me you'll arrest that freak! Look what he made my darling niece do!" He was distraught, and Harry placed a hand on his shoulder. "Listen, please, I know this is hard, and I know the other officers already asked you questions, but I want to ask a few more, okay?" The man nodded. "Is your niece not a regular? I was told this was the guest room, or one of them, anyways."
Francis looked at his niece as he explained, his face a mask of pain. "No, she's not. She was in the town for a week. I.." Harry nodded, "Thank you. Why was she in town?" Francis shook his head, "I'm afraid I don't know. She simply asked if she could stay for the week." Harry nodded once more, "Last question, who is this 'freak?'" Francis became enraged at this. "The stalker, the one who forced her into this! She must've been so ashamed when he confronted her!" Harry looked at the man a little strangely a moment, he wondered how he knew about the stalker so quickly after the 'suicide.'

Just then, another disruption came, "My darling! No! How could this happen?" Came from the entryway. This time it was a pale man, with deep set green eyes, younger than Harry himself. "How..?" He asked, and then Francis pointed at him. "You shamed her into it, you stalking scum!" The man, who Harry assumed was Lucille, shook his head. "We were in love, I swear!" Two officers stepped between the shouting pair as profanity came from Francis and pleas of innocence from Lucille. When it died down, Harry returned to the corner.

"I assume the stalker wasn't invited in, so how did he get in?" Harry asked, to which Trey responded. "The intruder got in In-tru-da window. Get it? No? Humor is wasted on you.. But, through the window nonetheless. You may have noticed quite a few in the main hall. One was left unlocked, unfortunately, and the man got in."

Harry noticed something about the rope he hadn't seen before, it seemed gilded. He kept it in mind, then headed toward the main hall. He did indeed notice the two men dusting the window for prints. He nodded to them both, "Any luck?" He asked. One of them responded, "We picked up two earlier, we've already sent them back to the lab, we're just making sure there are no more."

Harry took a good look around the window, and then something struck him. The curtains were quite large, and the ropes required to close and open them were thick, and he noticed that one of the ropes was indeed missing. His brow furrowed, and he connected the dots.

Harry made his way back to the room, and two new faces had appeared outside, anxious looking. He approached the pair. "I'm Detective Anderson, what are your names?" The two responded in turn. First was an elderly gentleman, with a bald head and wearing a suit. The butler, "William Wadsworth, sir." He nodded respectfully, then the woman spoke. "Mary-Anne Bougarde. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help." She was well-dressed for it being so late.

"I have a few questions. First, is there any reason you two can think of why she did this?" They both shifted a little uncomfortably. Mary-Anne spoke eventually, "Well.. My father was fighting with my cousin.. over money.. Something about an unclaimed inheritance. I'm afraid I don't know much more than that, other than it was tense while she was here." Harry nodded, "Then why was she here?" This time the butler answered, "Mister Bougarde invited her for the week."

Harry's brow furrowed even further than it already was. "I see.. and.. where were the two of you during the time of her death? Around midnight." They both looked at eachother. "We were sharing a late night cup of tea. The dishes are still in my room, down the hall, if you'd like to see." Mary-Anne pointed down the hall. "We didn't see her, though.. However, now that I think about it. There was this odd thumping noise I heard around that time. Came from the bathroom, there." She pointed down the hall once more, but this time the door was closer. "We went to go see if anyone was hurt, no one was there.. However, there was this.. I didn't think anything of it at the time.. I guess now it makes some sense." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a bottle of pills. "It was on the bathroom floor. I decided to hold onto it until tomorrow, see who's it was then." She handed them to Harry.

The detective promptly pulled out a cloth to make sure no fingerprints of his contaminated the bottle. He called over an officer, and handed the clothed bottle to him. "Get it to the lab, please." He nodded and hurried off. "So neither of you saw her a few hours ago?" They both shook their heads. "Thank you for your time, then." Harry returned to the room, where Trey was looking over the notes on his clipboard. "Something's not right here, doctor.. It's just strange. I don't think this is a suicide." The coroner nodded. "I was thinking the same thing."

The last person who was being interviewed had shown up out in the hall, and Harry excused himself to go speak with her. "I'm Detective Anderson, I'd like to ask you a few questions." The woman huffed, "Whatever you need, mister, but I'd like to get some rest tonight." She yawned. She was middle-aged, and wearing an apron. She seemed to have forgotten it was even there.

"Did you see the victim at any point in the night? Especially around midnight?" Harry asked, and the woman nodded. "I'm the cook, ya see, and I was going to get the kitchen ready for breakfast the next day. Well, I saw the little miss in there hurry past me in the hall toward the bathroom around that time. I passed by miss Mary-Anne's room and I said a quick hello to her and the butler, if'n you don't believe me."

Harry nodded, "Thank you." He returned to William and Mary-Anne. "Did you see Miss Houser during the night?" They both nodded, and William spoke. "Yes, she passed sometime around Midnight." Mary-Anne nodded. "Yes, but she came back by my room before the noise occurred, so she I don't think she was near when.. Well, you know." The detective nodded, and, as an after thought he asked, "Where was Francis Bougarde at this time?" Mary-Anne shrugged, but William spoke, "You know.. I could swear I saw him pass the room around 11:45.. I'm not sure, though.. Does it have to do with something?" Harry shook his head, and quickly made his way back to the room to seek out Trey. "Doctor, who discovered the body?" The coroner yawned a bit. "It was Mister Godfrey." Harry thanked him, and made his way to a rather distraught looking Lucille. "I'm Detective Anderson. I want to ask you a few questions." The man shrugged, "Go ahead, but it won't bring her back.."

Harry nodded, "First off, you did discover the body, yes?" The man nodded, "It was horrible.." He shook his head a few times. "I see. One more question, you got in through a window in the main hall.. Did you know that it would be open, or did you just guess?" Lucille looked up, "I guess it doesn't matter now.. I was... I was told that one would be open. I got a letter.. It said that the person who wrote it knew what I was doing, that I was following Claudia. The letter said that Claudia felt the same.. and that she was too shy to do anything. They told me that window would be open... I threw it away, sorry.. I wasn't thinking, I was too happy.. But I'll never be happy again.." Lucille broke down sobbing, and Harry rubbed his chin. Now he knew something strange was afoot, and he only needed two more pieces of information for that.

The detective found Francis, he was sitting on the sofa in the room, hunched over. "It's me again, I had one more question. I was told you actually invited her over.. and that you two were having money troubles. Any truth to that?" Harry looked him over, gauging the reaction. Francis sighed, "You got me.. I invited her into town.. I knew she was going to try something sneaky to get the inheritance money, so I wanted to keep an eye on her.. And she could never pass up something free.. Not after she changed.." He took a moment to shake his head, "I even went so far as to hire private investigators to keep an eye on her, make sure she didn't harass my lawyers.. " Harry raised a brow, and nodded, though more to himself than anyone else.

As they sat there Trey came up with a folder, and pulled Harry aside. "Here are the forensics, the results are quite interesting.. I think you'll know what to do with them.. Oh, and, the pills.. They were medication for one Claudia Bougarde, our victim.. for syphilis. Something she thought of as quite embarrassing, so much so she even hid it from her family.. I wonder if anyone knew.." Trey shrugged, and left the folder with Harry. After looking through it, he let himself smile a bit. "This was no suicide," He announced to the room, "But a murder.. and I know who did the deed."

If anyone likes it I'll write up an ending.