Phoenix, Arizona. For some reason, in this peaceful town, there's been a handful of crimes. I, Detective Vivi Zhang, am currently struggling with a serial killer case. The only evidence that even suggests a serial killer, is the fact that all of the connected victims are homeless residents, and nothing more. I just don't get it, how did they do it? How could someone murder all these people and not leave a single trace behind? There was no DNA evidence, so fingerprints, there wasn't even a consistent murder weapon. Each of the cases seemed unrelated, and my coworkers kept telling me that I was chasing a dead lead. But something is wrong, and I can feel it, I know these cases are related and committed by the same person. All I need is to prove so, which is why I'm sitting at my desk with bloodshot eyes and in the messiest office ever.
My head hurts, it's starting again, my daily breakdown. For whatever reason, I've been struggling with painful headaches and weird hallucinations. I went to every doctor, and they kept diagnosing me with some random mental illness. How could I ever be mentally ill? I feel perfectly fine, I can't be crazy.
There's a knock on my door, and it's one of my colleagues.
"Hey, Vivi. Still working?" He asked.
"What do you want?"
"Wow, you sound tired. Still working on that dead case?"
"It's not dead, as I have said before." I said, sounding more annoyed.
"Whatever you say." There it is again, the constant doubt. So aggravating to hear every time. "Anyway, I'm here to tell you good news. We found a witness to one of the murder cases."
"What?!" I couldn't believe my ears. There wasn't a single trace of evidence anywhere, and suddenly a witness just shows up out of nowhere.
But then a thought hit me, which made my blood boil.
"How come? how come you're the one telling me once in lifetime evidence about a case that I was the only one working on?! I spend the majority of my time slaving over it, and none of you even tried to support me! Why?! Why do I get the short end of the stick but you idiots get to have the best of everything and even steal the one thing I felt like I could ever contribute using my own hard work?! You-"
I stood up out of rage and launched myself at the colleague, but he quickly restrained me, due to my own weak physique.
"Woah- hold it, what's up with you? Are you actually trying to kill me? Why do you even have a kitchen knife in your office?" He said in a confused voice.
Wait, kitchen knife? I looked back at my hands, to see that I had picked up a kitchen knife in my fit of rage. But I don't remember ever having one in my office, how -
"AHHHHH-"
A scream emits from outside of my office, which prompted both of us to look in that direction. There was a woman there, she stood trembling right in front of us, and she seemed to be… looking at me?
“Ma’am, what’s wrong? Oh, Vivi, this is the witness I told you about, is something the matter-” He inquired to me about her, only to be cut off by a shocking statement from said lady.
“It’s her! She’s the one I saw! There’s no mistake, that woman right there killed the homeless victims!”
Is this lady insane? What is she even saying? Surely this overachiever knew better than to bring a nonsensical witness here.
“Ma’am, I think there’s a misunderstanding. This is my colleague, Vivi Zhang, and she’s the detective assigned to the serial murder cases. Please, calm down."
"B-but they look identical, I mean, down to the hair! I know my eyes did not deceive me!" The woman yelled, it's pretty clear now that suspicion is preying on me.
The witness was taken away to settle down, but that still didn't help my new reputation. I should introduce my dunce colleague now, his name is Erik Rodrigo, number one in everything. I hate his guts; he'd tease me for being short when he's only a couple inches taller than me. Right now, my priority is to clear my name and hear more from that witness, I'm sure there's something fishy going on here.
Her name was Vera Johnson, the most normal woman there could ever be, her life is as average as one can be. According to her, she was walking down a street unknown to her as a shortcut from her way to work. There, Mrs. Johnson spots my doppelgänger stabbing a homeless man to death, then promptly runs away. But I did not accept this, well, I can't just let a random person accuse me of murder.
"Mrs. Johnson, I need you to remember as best as you can, what the culprit looked like. I don't want to hear how she 'looked exactly like me', I want to hear every single detail you can recall." I pressed her.
"Um, well, she had dark long hair, like you... and she also wore glasses, with the oval lenses like yours..." Mrs. Johnson said in a slight nervous tone, as if she still adamantly believes I'm the killer.
"And? Go on." I start to get more frustrated.
"Uhhhh... how tall are you, miss?"
"Why are you asking? So you can say she was exactly as tall as me? Is this a joke?"
"No, I just, um, can't remember how exactly tall she was, but she was tall."
Finally, something different between us. For the record, I'm quite the average height for an adult woman, I don't wear heels because they hinder my work. It seems that whoever my impersonator was, they failed to realize our height difference. I went to town with this clue, revisited all the previous crime scenes, including the new one that our Mrs. Johnson had seen, which makes it 23 victims. Although her descriptions served as my greatest progress, it certainly was the bare minimum, because there wasn't any way I can just figure out the killer's height from a description, except there is a way. Presumably, the killer wore a brown jacket that... is exactly the one I wear regularly. Anyway, I bought the jacket at a local clothes store, and they only had 3 sizes, and I bought the medium size. If the killer is taller than me, the chances of them buying the medium is close to zero. Why? Because the medium size fits me perfectly, like, down to the millimeters, so if the killer was just a bit bigger, they would have trouble fitting in it and would've opted for the large size. I went to that clothes store, took the measurements of their large size jacket, and from that, I figured they were the roughly a couple inches taller than me. I also asked the clerk if anyone had bought that jacket in their large size in these past couple of months, and 3 people showed up, these are now my current suspects.
The first was a man in his twenties, the second was a stylish woman, and the third was a kid who bought it for his mom. I ruled out the kid because I found out his mom was actually deceased, and he bought it to honor her because she always wanted that jacket, brings a tear to my eyes. I investigate the woman first, as her descriptions was 'tall, young, dark long hair, and wore glasses', her name is Yvonne Diamond. For some reason, Erik wanted to tag along as well. We arrive at a fairly rich resident, how funny, seems like someone who would hate homeless people.
"Police, open up, I have a warrant." I said while ringing the doorbell, made a habit of saying that when people nowadays want to be smart and ask officers if they have a warrant or not.
"Hello, officers. What brings you here today?" A man answered the door, appears to be the Yvonne's butler or something.
"Where's Yvonne Diamond? We need to speak with her."
"The mistress is currently in her garden, would you like to meet her there?"
"Whatever works." Right now, I don't want to alert anyone, not especially some rich lady, that the homeless killing cases have suspects right now, and that it's her. We followed the butler to the garden, and there sits a woman in her thirties enjoying tea, I wish I was rich. She appeared mature, doesn't seem like the kind that would kill 23 people, but I'll take what I can get. "Mrs. Yvonne Diamond? We'd like to speak with you."
"Of course officers, please have a seat." Yvonne spoke with elegance. She dismissed her butler, now there's only me, her, and Erik.
"I liked to first ask you where you were on these days." I showed her a list of dates, they're the days of the murders.
"Officer, these dates appear to be the murders of the unfortunate homeless victims. Are you interrogating me right now?" She slightly glared.
"Technically, I haven't arrest you, so no. Think of this as a friendly cooperation, and besides, you're not the only suspect."
"Hmm... then I'll be frank, these past few months, I was away on a vacation trip. All the travel papers, I can fetch for you." She sets down her teacup.
"No need. Then I'll ask you this. A brown jacket bought from X store, what did you do with it?" I asked her the big question.
"I restyled it after I bought it. You can actually see it right now, it's my shirt." She pointed to her brown shirt, seems to be heavily modified. Well, that answered my question, she's no longer a suspect in my list. I left her resident, and just then I turned to Erik who did not speak a single word the entire time, it creeps me out.
"...What? You're staring daggers at my, Vivi." He finally said something.
"Are you going to tag along with me to find the last suspect too?" I asked him annoyingly.
"Yes, and I assume you'll let me?" He smirked, and I hated it.
We drove down to a resident familiar to both of us, Erik's house. But of course, this all comes as a surprise to him, but not to me. I barge in, against his continuous questions and demands to know why we're there. I looked through everything, drawers, cabinets, the attic. Then I stumbled into what I expected to see. In his basement, there lies a box, and in that box, was a black hair wig, oval lenses glasses, a brown jacket size large.
"Erik Rodrigo, you're under arrest."
My anger spiked really high. Erik was one of the first people in our precinct to know about my history with mental problems, even though I denied it over and over again, I knew something was wrong with me, I just didn't want to admit it. He took advantage of my hallucinations and planted a knife in my office, and I bet he provoked me back then to get a reaction out of me in front of the witness.
"But why?" I snapped. I just don't understand what his motive to do all of this for. "Why kill 23 innocent people? And to blame me for it? Answer me you psychopath!"
Silence. Then his filthy mouth opens to reveal a reason more outrages than I could ever expect.
"Because I like to see you fall to despair. Your constant failure and ending up second to me, I love it all." He said, he even laughed. "You worked so hard, didn't you? To be taken seriously despite your records of mental illness. It's just so funny, I mean... every time I finish a case flawlessly, your glaring eyes is just the best reward... Ah, those 23 homeless people? They were bound to die soon anyway, I just use them before they outlive their usefulness."
I couldn't listen anymore, this crazy bastard is just too much.
"Don't close your ears, you wanted to hear my motive, no? You know, whenever I killed another one, I pictured how you would look like, confused and desperate to solve my riddles."
Shut up.
"And it was so easy to plant that knife! You didn't even notice it was there for a whole week. I bet you overwork so much; your hallucinations covered that knife from your vision. I mean, what kind of idiot wouldn't notice a whole knife sitting in your office?"
Shut. Up.
"But oh how you have finally figured it out! Congrats, Vivi! Your efforts have pay off. It was still so enjoyable to see you frustrated, now that you've finally realized the killer was right in front of you. Don't you feel stupid? For not knowing faster? I didn't even do that much, to be honest, I'm sure other officers could've solve this way faster than a schizophrenic patient - "
Finally, he stopped talking.
But he's probably right. Our other colleagues could've solved this better than me. For one, they only let me work on it so I wouldn't be working on other cases, so I wouldn't hinder other investigations. But it's okay now. They won't have to worry about that anymore.
The sirens blaring so loudly, but at least I won't have to hear him anymore.
