Sergeant Kiera found the letter an envelope torn up and crammed into the bottom of a wastebasket. Reassembling it while wearing plastic gloves proved difficult.
“It’s from Maryam’s lawyer,” she finally said, looking up from the jigsaw-like puzzle. “It outlines Ms. Maryam’s proposed new will, disinheriting her three nieces and leaving everything to charity.”
Corporal Amirah stood behind the sergeant, peering over her shoulder. “What do you think?” Sergeant Kiera asked her.
“Hmmm. It doesn’t take an intelligent person,” said Corporal Amirah, “to suspect that Ms. Maryam’s suicide wasn’t really a suicide.”
“My thoughts exactly,” the officer agreed.
Corporal Amirah and the sergeant were in Ms. Maryam’s library, just yards from where the elderly millionaire lay slumped in her chair with a gun in her hand and a hole in her head.
“Our first job, my dear Corporal Amirah, will be determining which devoted niece opened Maryam’s mail and discovered the threat to her inheritance.” With that, Sergeant Kiera led the way into the front hall where the nervous nieces stood waiting.
All three nieces lived in the house of their elderly aunt; all three had been at home at the time of the shot. None, or so they swore, had the least idea Aunt Maryam had been about to cut them out of her will.
“Aunt Maryam had been depressed,” said Laiqah, the eldest, in mournful tones. She was sipping Coke and Corporal Amirah suspected it was not her first of the day. “I spent all afternoon at home. About three p.m. I walked into the front hall. I was checking the mail on that side table when I heard the gunshot.”
Corporal Amirah observed a few pieces of mail on the table. “When did the mail arrive, my good ladies?”
Qhadeeja, the youngest niece, raised her hand. “When I got home around 2.30, the mail was already on the hall floor. I walked right across and accidentally stepped on it before noticing. I picked it up and put it on the hall table.”
“Did you check through it?” Sergeant Kiera asked.
Qhadeeja nodded. “Yes, but there was nothing for me. I went straight out to the garden and sat by the pool. I, too, heard the gunshot. Around three, as Laiqah said.”
“I looked through the mail,” volunteered the middle niece, Batrisyia. “I’d just got home from a trip. I put my bags down in the hall, sorted through, and found a letter for me. I put it in my pocket, then went up to my room.”
“What time was this?”
“When I reached home, it was around ten minutes to three. I was unpacking when I heard the shot.”
“Is the letter still in your pocket?”
With some hesitation, Batrisyia reached into her jacket and produced the unopened envelope. Corporal Amirah noticed a faint shoe print, a water ring, and a curious return address. “It’s from a bill collector,” Batrisyia confessed. “I’ve got a cash flow problem.”
“Can anyone verify your arrival at the house at 2.50?”
“I can,” said Qhadeeja. “You can see the driveway from the poolside. Batrisyia’s car pulled in about ten minutes before our poor Aunt killed herself.”
“Yes,” said Sergeant Kiera. “We’ll talk about suicide in a minute. Did any of you notice a letter addressed to your aunt from her lawyer?”
The nieces all shook their heads.
“Then that settles it,” said Sergeant Kiera. “One of you is lying. One of you knew about your aunt’s plans to change her will and killed her before she could do it.
“If it wasn’t a suicide,” said Laiqah, “then any one of us could have killed her. No one has a good alibi.”
WHO KILLED MARYAM?
WHAT PROOF DOES BOTH SERGEANT KIERA AND CORPORAL AMIRAH HAVE?
“Only one of you lied about when you checked the mail.” Corporal Amirah pointed her finger at Laiqah. “You, Laiqah, actually entered the front hall between 2.30 and 2.50. you steamed open the letter and read its frightening contents. You got rid of the letter – a bad job, I must say – then loaded your aunt’s gun and tracked her down.”
“Bravo,” Laiqah said with a sneer. “But you could make up a similar story about either one of my sisters.”
Corporal Amirah smiled. “Let’s see Batrisyia’s letter from that bill collector.” Batrisyia pulled it from her pocket and handed it over. “Notice the shoe print?”
“That’s mine,” said Qhadeeja,” from when I came in and stepped on the mail.”
“And the water ring? Where did that come from?”
“Not from me,” said Batrisyia. “My hands were full of luggage. I went right upstairs and unpacked.”
Corporal Amirah turned to face Laiqah and her incriminating Coke. “When you checked the mail, you put your glass on top of Batrisyia’s letter. That means you didn’t check it at three p.m., but earlier – between the time of Qhadeeja’s shoe print and Batrisyia’s removal of the bill collector’s letter.”
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