Closed Door

by C. M. Okonkwo

  Part Seven: Private Eye

  I don’t think any of us was able to sleep when we got home that night, especially Mom. She started feeling sick, and I couldn’t blame her. It was certainly due to the endless investigation and regular visits to the station. It looked as though she was about to lose hope. I almost lost hope, too, but Agnes being my sister and my twin was my only motivation to keep going.

  I managed to close my eyes only briefly, because by seven in the morning, Dad woke us up, informing us that Mr. Louis French had agreed to come into the station in an hour to answer any questions the detectives had. It meant we had only one hour to get ready and be there. By the time we were ready, only ten minutes had passed, and it was time to go. Everyone met in the sitting room except Mom.

  “Where’s Mom?” I asked my dad, as he headed toward the main door.

  “She’s still in bed,” he replied.

  “She’s not coming?” Samuel asked, making his way to the front door too.

  Dad shook his head. “No.”

  “I’m going to talk to her,” I said.

  “Angie,” Dad whispered. I turned around. “Your mom isn’t up for it. She’s emotionally drained.”

  “Okay,” I said and shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t know what he meant by that.

  I went to their bedroom and knocked on the door, but Mom didn’t answer. I opened the door and entered anyway. Mom was still on the bed, covered from head to toe with the duvet.

  “Mom?”

  “I’m not going,” she replied.

  “C’mon, Mom,” I tugged at her feet.

  “I’m not going,” she repeated, and moved her feet away.

  “Please, Mom, let’s go. I strongly believe the case will be closed today.”

  “I know it will. But I haven’t slept at all, and I don’t feel too well, so I can’t. And I know...” she hesitated, “...I know that Aggie won’t understand.”

  “Aggie would understand, you mean. But if anything, at least you should be there for her.”

  “I should,” she managed to say. “But I know she won’t understand, so I can’t be there.”

  “She won’t understand what?” I asked, because her sentence sounded odd and not different from the last one.

  “I’m not going!” she said, harshly.

  “Do you think she would be angry because she felt you weren’t there for her, or that you could have saved her?”

  Mom didn’t answer.

  “Because I know Aggie wouldn’t have thought that. She knew we all loved her.”

  Mom still didn’t say anything. And while I was waiting for her to change her mind, I heard Dad honking his horn impatiently.

  “Hmm.” I sighed. “Okay, fine. See you later I guess.”

  Mom still didn’t reply. I left her room and closed the door behind me. I ran outside and went straight to the car. Dad didn’t even allow me close the door properly, he just drove off. I knew he was angry, so I decided not to say anything. While the car was still in motion, I opened the door again and slammed it properly.

  Dad looked at me through the rear view mirror. “What did your mom say?” He asked.

  “She wasn’t making any sense to me,” I replied, hoping I didn’t sound rude. “So I think she really needs to take a break.”

  Dad nodded and kept his eyes on the road. Samuel had already snoozed off in the front seat, snoring like he hadn’t slept in years. I sat there in silence, looking blankly out of the window, and yawning at intervals.

  We reached the police station twenty-five minutes early, and we were offered coffee. So we sat there and waited, drinking our coffee, each one of us lost in our thoughts.

  “Louis French is here now,” Detective Pruitt opened the door and announced. “Follow me.”

  I looked at the time and it was a quarter after nine. Mr. French had come in pretty late, and we didn’t even notice that we had been sitting there for an hour and forty minutes. We got up immediately, looking around in confusion.

  “Don’t worry yourselves about the coffee cups,” Detective Pruitt said, “You can drop them anywhere.” After noticing me trying to stifle a yawn, he said, “Or you can take them into the viewing room, if you are still drinking.”

  We all entered with our cups of coffee. I wasn’t prepared to put mine down, anyway. I think I was already on my third cup, and I was ready to have a hundred more if it was going to keep me awake until the end of the questioning.

  Detective Pruitt entered the interrogation room and nodded once, as he said, “French.”

  “Pruitt,” Mr. French reciprocated, also with a similar nod. “Good to see you again.”

  I looked at the two of them, wondering if the exchange of pleasantries meant something else, because it sounded forced. It sounded like they had some kind of history.

  “I see you are still a P.I.,” Detective Pruitt started. “Running around the city and doing more harm than good.”

  Mr. French smiled. “I see you are still a detective, Detective. Running around, looking for people to help you out, as always.”

  “At least I am very good at my job, and when I make a commitment, I fulfil it.”

  “And here you are.” Mr. French smirked. “Begging me for help.”

  “Don’t get it twisted, French. There’s no begging involved here. One way or the other, we are getting to the bottom of our case. And you are going to make sure that happens.”

  As they kept beating around the bush with their ridiculous catch-up session, Dad started to grumble, while Samuel was yawning as if he was bored out of his mind. Detective Slaughter, on the other hand sat there and watched them both. Dad was almost about to bang on the one-way mirror when Detective Slaughter cleared his throat, interrupting them.

  “It’s about time,” I said under my breath, and I could see Dad and Samuel nod in agreement from the corner of my eye.

  “Are you two done catching up or would you need some more time to make out?” Detective Slaughter asked. When he didn’t get an answer from either, he turned to Mr. French. “So care to tell us why your client, Vittoria Ammirati, killed Agnes Hunter?”

  “Wait, hold up,” Mr. French said, confused. “Vittoria Ammirati did what?”

  “Yes, you heard him,” Detective Pruitt replied. “Not only did you fish out the wrong person, you also got her killed. Like I said, more harm than good.”

  “Back off, Pruitt. My search wasn’t wrong! You know I never get anything wrong.”

  “So why don’t you clarify everything?” Detective Slaughter cut in. “Why Agnes Hunter?”

  Mr. French looked down and pondered briefly, then raised his head up and started talking: “Vittoria Ammirati came to me a few weeks back, distraught. She said she knew her husband was cheating on her and she wanted to prove it. She also told me about the constant spending, the perfumes, the love bites, and the scratches on his back. She said she wanted me to find out what all the money was spent on, prove that her husband was having an affair, and track down his lover.

  “It was a piece of cake for me, and the money she paid was an indication that I couldn’t go wrong with my findings. And since it was a high priority case, I didn’t use any of my staff. I followed the man throughout the week and noticed he had a pattern. He spent his lunch breaks in the same restaurant with his lover, and most evenings, they went shopping. I followed the woman one day to her office building, and after a thorough search, I got all her information. It was verified, and I was told that her name was Agnes Hunter,” he concluded.

  “I’m sorry, but I think you got it wrong this time,” Detective Pruitt said. “The Agnes Hunter you think you exposed was a timid, quiet, and antisocial girl. And unless she has an identical twin sister — which she actually does have — who works in the office building you claim to have followed her to, you got it all wrong.”

  “Inasmuch as you don’t want to believe that I am right, I am right. Besides, Agnes Hunter doesn’t have a twin. I would have known that. My researches are always t
horough.”

  “Hold your horses, French,” Detective Pruitt fired back. “The Agnes Hunter your client had someone kill, was an eighteen-year-old engineering student at the city university, and her twin sister, Angela, attends the same university as well.”

  Mr. French shook his head in disapproval.

  “Oh, what? You know Agnes Hunter better than her family and birth records?”

  “No. That’s not what my head-shaking is about,” Mr. French corrected. “I’m sorry to say, but you guys are the ones that got it wrong. I think everyone got it wrong.”

  “Everyone except you, right?” Detective Pruitt asked. “Care to explain how wrong we are?”

  “The Agnes Hunter I followed and investigated wasn’t a girl. She was a woman.”

  “What are you saying, French?”

  “I’m saying there might be another Agnes Hunter out there. And believe me, if I had known before now that there could have been a mix-up, I would have informed Vittoria right away.” Mr. French paused briefly. “But it’s all strange, because I didn’t think Vittoria would even want to kill Agnes Hunter.”

  “So what did you think? She would invite her husband’s lover over for coffee? For heaven’s sake, French, she’s a fucking Italian woman!”

  “Of course I didn’t think she would invite Agnes Hunter for coffee, and yes I know she’s a fucking Italian woman. I didn’t just think she would kill Agnes. Hell, I didn’t even think she would go after her. I say this with confidence because Vittoria never even knew what Agnes Hunter looked like in the first place.”

  “So much for a thorough research, French,” Detective Pruitt mocked. “So did your camera pack up on you or what?”

  “My research was thorough, mind you.” Mr. French raised a finger. “When I mentioned Agnes’s name to Vittoria, she just stormed out of my office. She didn’t even take a look at the photos I took. She left my hand hanging with the envelope. You know for a second, I thought she was even angry with me for confirming that her husband was indeed cheating on her. So, after she stormed out, I concluded that she might have only wanted to confirm whether her husband was having an affair or not, and leave it at that.”

  The detectives threw each other a worrying glance, as though they had reached a dead end. I looked at Dad and Samuel, and I had an idea of what they were thinking. I was also thinking the same thing. I was half-relieved because all that was said about Agnes being some mistress was false, and half-angry because she had just been a pawn in a messy love, betrayal, bribery, and revenge game.

  “This Agnes Hunter,” Detective Slaughter started. “Do you have her pictures with you?”

  Mr. French nodded. He reached for his briefcase and pulled out a brown envelope, then slid it across the table. “I guess it’s your lucky day.”

  “Was it just a lucky guess to put them in your briefcase today?” Detective Pruitt asked, as he took the envelope. “Or did you really know why we called you in today?”

  “I might be a talented, intelligent, one of the best... No, sorry, the best private investigator in this city, but I’m no seer. I can’t look into the future. So, no, I had no idea why you called me in today.”

  Detective Pruitt looked at Mr. French, then looked back at the envelope he was trying to open. “That’s my bad. I thought you had your ear to the ground, especially in this station.”

  “Not this time.” Mr. French laughed. “I was actually going to stop by at Vittoria’s house after this meeting with you fine detectives. That’s why I have the pictures.”

  “For what purpose?” Detective Slaughter asked, as he was watching Detective Pruitt fight with the sealed envelope.

  “Because I woke up late this morning, forgetting that I had to come in for questioning. And when I stepped out of my door, bam!” — he banged his fist on the table at the same time — “I saw none other than Mr. Mutinda meeting with his lover... Agnes Hunter!”

  “What?” the detectives exclaimed in unison.

  Mr. French started to explain. “Agnes Hunter’s car was parked in front of his, but she was in his own, speaking with him. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so I dashed back inside to get my files on the case and grab my camera. When I came down, they were already gone.”

  At the mention of that, I looked at Dad and Samuel, and they had the same confused look on their faces as I had. I turned back to look into the interrogation room, and Detective Pruitt had finally unsealed and opened the envelope, he held on to some of the pictures, then passed the rest to Detective Slaughter.

  They glanced over the images rapidly, as if they didn’t recognize the faces in them. But just then their speed started to decrease gradually. They started loosening the ties they had around their necks, their eyes started to bulge out, and they were gulping down their saliva with great difficulty. They then turned their gaze toward the one-way mirror, shaking their heads.

  It took Dad, Samuel, and I a few seconds to realize we indeed knew another Agnes Hunter. It was... Mom! Her full name was Helen Agnes Hunter. She had always gone by Agnes when she was much younger, but only immediate family and friends called her Helen.

  At that moment, I began to remember what Mom had been trying to say to me about Agnes not understanding. She was right, though. Agnes would surely never understand why she had to pay for Mom’s affair with her life! With that, we got to the end of the closed-door mystery.

  When we got home, Mom had packed her things and fled, leaving us with a note that read, “I’m sorry.” It was just that, nothing more, nothing less. Not even a short explanation for her actions, details of her regrets, or why she said nothing to us earlier. It could have saved us all the suspense, the time wasted, and the humiliation. I guess we should have just buried Agnes ever since, put Benjamin and Lexie behind bars, and called it a day. Digging deeper ended up doing more harm than good, because it broke up what was left of our family.

  Anyway, a few days later, we had Agnes’s funeral. She looked so peaceful. Everyone was there, except Mom, of course. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t make any effort to come. It was the least she could have done. It wasn’t her fault that Agnes got caught up in the mix, so she had no reason to run or hide because the police weren’t after her. After the funeral, we went home and called it day.

  *****