Artistic Assassination. Chapt - 3

CHAPTER THREE – THE REVELATION  

“A gruesome memory, has furnished him the criminal intent. What could it be? All these artists being killed in a sequence, a pattern. The 3rd day has something to tell us. We have to figure it out”
“Well you may need to check the crime scene for that LX” says Rupert”
Yes I know but before that I need to see the things in common. There must be something that was common in all these murders.
“Well then you know that all of them are artists, that’s what is common in them”
“No, I don’t think so, the fact that they are all artists is too clear and obvious. And the murderer, he doesn’t work this way he won’t let us see the common things. There must be something else, something in the past. Ahh what can it be what can it be! Come-on think!”
LX wanders cross the room, as Rupert and the agent still stares at his awkwardness. Meanwhile the agent says, “well I think I’ll have hurry towards the crime scene or else I’ll get fired from my work”
“wait! what did you say?”  LX gave a startled look to the agent.
“well I said, I’ll have to leave”
“No no no no, tell me your exact words that you said just! 
“I said, I’ll have hurry towards the crime scene or else I’ll get fired from my work”
There was a moment of complete silence as Rupert and the agent stood completely blurred of what was happening when suddenly LX exclaims..
“brilliant! How obvious was that. Oh how can I miss that on the first look at the case!”
“Umn.. LX please throw some light here and be more specific to what you want to say”
“the work! It’s their work! As per my theory, just born theory, they must be all working at the same place before they became independent artists. Rupert I want you to take a visit to the state library right now and see if what I am thinking is correct. Meanwhile I’ll go with the officer to the crime scene”
The room gets empty as Rupert leaves for the state library and LX and the agent goes to the crime scene.
It’s a 30 mins ride towards the end of the country side. large deciduous trees cover the road. It was a lake this time. 
“what a perfect place to kill, poor Mr. Morrow must have not even known about this day”
Mr. Morrow being a famous personality, the news was broadcasted all over the state. There was a rush of media. The scene was crowded, attracting all the news reporters, the race of publishing the story of the of the day on their respective channels. As LX and the officer drift through the crowd to enter the prohibited area, LX becomes aware of his surroundings observing each and every bit of the data that he can get.
The body of Mr. Morrow laid in the car with his head resting on the steering wheel. There was a bottle of paint in the glove compartment. The floor of the car was wet on both the sides, driver as well the passenger side. LX investigates him, he starts with his shoes and ends up to his top pocket where he finds a handkerchief.
“is there a restaurant anywhere close to this place?”
Asked LX to the officer.
“wait let me check… oh yes there is one. Newly opened I presume. Its 20 mins away.”
“oh we should be probably get going then”
“wait why the restaurant?”
“look at Mr. Morrows handkerchief its stained. A decent man never likes to keep his hanky dirty, denotes this was a recent one, probably of the time before he was killed, that is probably yesterday night. Now can we just move!”
As they head towards the restaurant LX notices some drift marks left on the road. He keenly watches them fade as they reach towards the restaurant, forester.
LX enters the brightly lit place, looking at all the decorations he makes a sigh, “agh light pollution”
As they enter the restaurant they are greeted by two men standing at the door, “welcome sir how would you like a table”
“sorry, we aren’t here for dinner. It’s an investigation. We are from the police. We would like to have a meet with all the staff here” the officer makes the statement showing his ID to the waiter.
“oh ah yes sir. Wait a minute” the waiter makes his way to the manager in a hurry and comes with all the staff after a few seconds.
“that was quick!” LX exclaims. He continuous, 
“ok everyone I need you to see this picture and tell me. Had this men arrived here last evening?”
There was it again. A moment of complete silence as everyone lock their eyes analyzing the men in the picture, when suddenly a waiter exclaims, “I have seen him, he his Mr. Jonathan Morrow, the famous artist. He came here last night. He even gave me a tip of 5 dollars”
“ok now I want you to tell me if you remember, was anyone there with him, anyone you saw suspicious?”
“no, there was no one with him. But there is one thing that was suspicious that day”
“ohh I love this part. Tell me what was it”
“Feedback sir, it’s the feedback. This restaurant is newly opened and we are taking feedbacks from customers so that we can improve their comfort. But this, one person wrote something very unusual. Surely can’t be a feedback”
“Quick show me” revenge
He hands over the paper to LX. It read,
wisjd wrigk nvhdl ldirt bfjhy jahyu ndhiq
“that doesn’t mean anything. Must be some child just trying to mess” 
Says the officer after looking at the illogical scribblings on the feedback.
“No, can’t be!”
LX exclaims quickly after listening to the officer’s point. He continues,
“do you know about graphology?”
“No never heard of it. What is that, and how is it helpful here?”
“graphology is the study of handwriting, where one can approximately tell one’s mood and his character by judging the handwriting. Now what do we see here? Take a look. The first thing that we see, the pressure applied, it’s way too much for the writer to be a child. Look at the bars of T’s and the terminating strokes, what do they say, they are heavy representing anger. And what do we see, yes the angles, and pressure denotes aggressiveness”
“Marvelous! You are right. It can’t be an ordinary person. But why are some of the letters in bold? Any theories on that?”
“No, not until now. But I am sure it’s some kind of a message. Has to be something!”
LX and the officer move towards the car as LX keeps the note in his coat. The officer reaches LX to his apartment. As he sits on his chair just about to start thinking, Rupert comes in and shouts, “LX you were correct!”
Showing all the data that he had gathered he continues, “there was this old art gallery which went by the name ‘world of art’ they all worked here”
“and what happened to the gallery now? Did it get closed?”
“yes, it was this tragedy that happened that lead to the closer of the gallery. There was this man named Sherman Watkins. I have investigated to find out what exactly happened, when I found this article. The story goes like this, Sherman was a famous painter of his time. He had done several paintings in his life time. He had this one painting that raised millions of dollars in an auction as he presented it and guess what! he was killed after exactly 3 days after that. Rumors went that someone from the art gallery itself tried to steal the painting from him and when he refused to this idea he was murdered. And a more mysterious part of the story is that, on the day when he was killed in his office, his family was murdered in his house too. That counts his wife Diandra Watkins and a son, but the thing is he had two sons Petrik and Devon and there was no trace of his second son Devon in his house. Adding to this, the locals told, on the day he was murdered his son Devon who was 14 at the time, had gone to the gallery to give the lunch box to his father that Mr. Sherman had forgotten to take that day. People assumed Devon must have either escaped from the murderers or they took him with them”
“now that’s what I call gathering data! good job Rupert” 
-What happened to the crime scene that you visited, got anything?
- ya, about that. Mr. Morrow had visited a restaurant last night and after investigating I found that the murderer was there in the same restaurant, but not with him. He left a note on a feedback paper, here. LX hands over the paper to Rupert. 
-what? what is this, it doesn’t make any sense.
-ya but we shall come to that later. There has to be something Mr. Morrow left in the car that can take us to the murderer.
-but why do you think this way? Asked Rupert.
-I don’t know, he just had so many resources to do with, pen, so many papers in the car, pile of paint bottles, one even opened. but not a single clue in the car, not a bit. Wait a minute.. the paint bottles as I saw them, one of it was open.
Can it be that… ohh no noo, how can I miss such a thing, that is so obvious!
-umn LX can you throw some light please.
-the paint bottles Rupert, they were opened and there was no paint in the car. Remember he is a shadow artist so he paints mostly with luminescent colors which appear only when exposed to UV light in the dark. That’s it, we should go and check now!  
LX and Rupert go to the police station where the car was kept.They check the cabinet of the car for any message left by Mr. Morrow when they find on the dash board of the car. It read, D. WATKINS
-“what! that’s the surname of the artist right, but who is this ‘D’ can it be…”  there comes a pause in the room as the silence fades away with the papers flapping against the wind and LX and Rupert both stare at each other and complete the statement, “DEVON”.