Episode #9: The Mayor’s Secret
The ambulance arrived with a wail of sirens, the paramedics rushing in to attend to the unconscious Lagrow. As they worked, I couldn’t help but stare at the man lying on the floor. The former mayor, the CEO of the Jewel Lake Mining Collective, a key player in our unfolding mystery. His sudden appearance and his whispered utterance of Charla’s name only deepened the enigma.
Normandy arrived just as the paramedics were loading Lagrow onto the stretcher. Her eyes widened at the sight, but she quickly composed herself. “What happened?” she asked, her gaze flicking from me to the retreating paramedics.
I quickly filled her in, watching as her expression hardened. “This is no coincidence, Bard,” she said, her voice grim. “Lagrow showing up here, in this state, right after we discovered his connection to the mine… We’re getting closer to the truth.”
As the ambulance sped away, Normandy and I returned to the office. The room felt eerily quiet after the chaos, the only sound the steady tick of the clock. I sat down at my desk, my mind whirling. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, but the picture they were forming was still in a fog.
“Charla,” I murmured, the name echoing in the silence. “Lagrow knew her. He must have. But what was their connection? And why did he whisper her name?”
Normandy was silent, her gaze distant. “We need to find out more about Lagrow,” she finally said. “His past, his connection to Charla, his involvement in the mine… Everything.”
I nodded, a sense of determination settling over me. “Then let’s get to work, Inspector. We have a mystery to solve.”
The rest of the day was a blur of activity. We dug into Lagrow’s past, uncovering a web of connections and secrets that only deepened our intrigue. His ties to the mining collective, his tenure as mayor during the mine’s closure, his suspiciously rapid rise to wealth… It all pointed to a man with much to hide.
But it was the discovery of an old photograph that truly sent chills down my spine. A young Lagrow, standing beside a beaming Charla. They looked happy, carefree. Contrasting to the grim reality we were uncovering with a sinister echo.
As the sun set, painting the sky with hues of orange and purple, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of foreboding. We were peeling back layers of deceit, delving into a world of shadows and secrets deeper than the city might be able to handle. And at the heart of it all was a man whose past was as murky as the mine we had ventured into.
Still, we were on the right track the truth within our grasp, and I was determined to bring it to light, no matter what. Because in the end, the truth always finds a way to shine through the darkness.
The next morning, Normandy walked into the office, her face pale but determined. “Bard,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, “Lagrow is a ghost.”
I looked up from my desk, my heart pounding in my chest. “What do you mean?”
She tossed a file onto my desk. “I mean, Stanton Lagrow didn’t exist until a year before he became mayor. No birth records, no school records, nothing. It’s like he appeared out of thin air.”
I opened the file, my eyes scanning the documents inside. It was all there, just as Normandy had said. Stanton Lagrow, the man we had believed to be at the center of our mystery, was nothing more than a fabrication.
“But how is that possible?” I asked, my mind racing. “And why go through all the trouble of creating a fake identity?”
Normandy shrugged, her gaze distant. “That’s what we need to find out. Bard..”
As we delved into the mystery of Stanton Lagrow, the town buzzed with rumors and speculation. The news of the former mayor’s hospitalization had spread like wildfire, and with it, whispers of the secret diamond mine and the skeletal remains we had discovered.
Maybe we were on the right track, the truth was within our grasp but here was always one more thing to keep tripping us up.. Because in the end, the truth always finds a way to shine through the darkness.
And as we dug deeper into Lagrow’s story I was getting the feeling someone was playing us like a pair of puppets and they were trying to churn the whole thing back into the cold case file, but that wasn’t going to happen.
The night closed in. I was absorbed in tomorrow’s edition. They say you never hear the shot that kills you. I heard the glass of my store front window crash and rip as the bullet hit my shoulder and the thud as it went into the wall all at once. Then I heard the crack. I didn’t feel a thing and the grazing bullet didn’t jar me. What got to me instantly was someone had just tried to kill me. “But how could the have missed. Maybe the window deflected the bullet. Maybe it was just a warning.” Then the pain hit.
