[AT] Theory and Speculation...

[After Transition]

With all of them all caught up in their own things with some of them being scared, a few of them being manipulative, a few of them thinking about other stuff and Alex still examining the body of the deceased Kevin Hale I decide to start travelling around the room while they are all distracted and start looking for clues which I missed earlier more focused on my audience but now it's time for me to start looking for clues and try to figure just what the hell is happening in this town and who exactly it was that sent that message to Batman since they clearly knew there was going to be another murder or maybe even worse that they are the murderer and they sent that message to Batman as some sick challenge or something which might be better for me actually as it would mean that they are confident and arrogant which will make it easier for them to make mistakes since they are so assured of themselves and allow me to catch them out, immediately I notice some liquid or something on the floor and when I bend down to get a closer look and test it with my finger (and tongue, yeah I know it's kind of disgusting but Batman taught me that sometimes your sense of taste can be a good weapon and with my enhanced tastes I should be able divine a lot from the things I taste) and discover that it is actually seawater and when I follow the trail of seawater across the ground I discover that it lead to a side door in the room but just when I am about to investigate further it seems that Doctor Alex Nichols has finished her quick examination of the body and had decided to inform me off it since I seem to have become the de-facto leader until the police arrive since I am the one that has taken charge and people seem to trust the Wayne name as well.

"Judging by the body's condition, the estimated time of death is 30 minutes to one hour ago. The cause of death is suffocation, all signs point to him being drowned. I can't tell for certain without performing an autopsy, but it is very likely that he was drowned." Having finished listening to her examination I once more pay attention to the body since she was done with it but I don't get too close and only take a cursory glance but that is enough for me to see that there is mud and sand all over the back of Kevin Hale's shirt (I'm almost certain that he was wearing a blazer over his shirt earlier, maybe he took it off at some point) and while he and his clothes might not be wet I can tell that it is at least damp since I can't touch the body but underneath the piano chair where the corpse sits is a small pool of seawater that leads into the trail that extends towards the side door, deciding to investigate that I follow the trail of seawater to the side door but when I get there I realise that the door is locked and I don't want to contaminate any evidence that might be there or put y one prints on it and become a suspect so I leave it alone and head to the singular window of the room that is next to the door and it also seems to be locked but thankfully the curtains are open and when I look out through it although it is dark due to my enhanced eyesight I can make out the blazer that Kevin Hale was once wearing floating in the ocean that is just outside.

"Drowning huh, I think you are right Doctor Nichols. If you look outside this window, you'll see something, it might be a little difficult to make out in the dark but out there floating on the surface of the sea is Kevin Hale's blazer. If you look at the door, you'll notice a trail of seawater underneath it, it looks like something was dragged from the door leading out to the sea to the piano. Most likely it was Kevin Hale who was dragged, if you look at his body, you'll notice mud and sand on his back which proves he was dragged. Also, the room's doors and windows are locked, which means someone must've locked it after drowning him and dragging him back inside as how else would his blazer get out there." I say all this as I walk away from the window and back to Alex pointing at each piece of evidence I've found along the way capturing everyone in the rooms attention as I do so and they all listen enraptured as I spout off my findings with no one else saying a word as I talk, of course I didn't have to tell anyone of what I've found and just wait till the police arrive but at this moment in time everyone else here was part of that memorial while I was alone outside which means I don't have an alibi and will be suspect number one even if I don't have a motive so my first objective is to gather evidence and form a theory which would allow any person that was at that memorial to be a suspect so that I am not the sole suspect in this case and with all of the evidence I've already gathered I've figured out how the culprit pulled off this murder without getting caught and if I'm right my next piece of evidence will prove it and so I arrive back next to Alex who is near the piano and I pick up my final piece of evidence which is actually the tape recorder that was playing Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata'.

"If I am correct then this tape that was playing Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata', there should be a clue. The first few minutes of this tape should be blank, only after a certain amount of time has passed will the song begin to play. According to my theory during the memorial service, the culprit probably brought Kevin Hale out to the ocean and drowned him there, then the murderer dragged his body back inside into this room and placed him on the piano chair and laid his head against the piano keys after which he locked the doors and windows. With the murder done all they needed was an alibi and to make it look like it was the work of the curse and so they turned on the tape recorder playing the tape that was blank at the beginning before placing it in the piano, after which they calmly left and re-entered the memorial service joining back in with people and cementing their alibi. After several minutes of silence during which the murderer was making his presence known in the memorial room, Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' began to start playing on the tape after the blank part of the tape. I was outside in the entryway of the community centre the whole time which means the culprit couldn't have escaped and since the other exit was in this room but it had to be locked for the culprit's plan to work, this can only mean one thing." With this I have established the fact that any of the people in this room could have been the murderer in this proposed theory of mine and have eliminated myself from being the only suspect and probably eliminated myself from being a suspect entirely since out of all the people here there are probably more suspicious people who have both the means and the motive as opposed to my missing alibi so I have effectively cleared myself in the eyes of the people and since all of this evidence is here and makes my theory possible then the police will have no choice but to take it into consideration and treat everyone as a suspect instead of just me, this also makes the job harder on myself as well because any of the people in this room could have been the murderer and I don't know any of the relationships between these people and mayoral candidate Kevin Hale so I couldn't possibly know everyone here's motive for killing him but what I do have at the moment is the two incidents that happened before with the most recent most likely being an unsolved murder and the knowledge that Kevin Hale was running for mayor of this town and was looking like he was going to win which makes his opponents the current mayor Karl Tate and mayoral candidate Shaun Masters the prime suspects in this murder case.

"W-Wait a minute, doesn't that. D-Doesn't that mean that the murderer is still in this building, IN THIS ROOM!?" The current mayor's daughter whose name I have learnt is Karina Tate screams in response to my unsaid words saying what everyone else in the room is thinking setting off a hubbub and riling them all up as they all begin to worriedly murmur to one another looking at each other with distrust clearly thinking that the person they are standing next to may be a murderer, this is honestly better for me since not a single one of them has doubted my theory which means it is being largely accepted as what has happened and so I myself will not be seen as a suspect since I revealed all this and I have no motive and they are all too busy mistrusting each other that they don't have any time to cast any shade on my theory which I don't think they'd be able to since my theory is pretty airtight and all the components for it are here. "Yes, they may very well be in this room. As long as they didn't use the confusion to escape, which I doubt since it would make all the effort, they put into this setup pointless and they clearly weren't expecting their trick to be found out any time soon and probably wanted to stick around to remove the tape-recorder after people fled because of their fear of this curse." I answer Karina Tate so as to hopefully quell any of the upset in the room since the culprit is most likely in here and if everyone panics and runs away then they may be able to escape with the crowd and since I haven't worked out who it is yet they may be able to escape the island before they are caught though if they did that then it would be obvious who the killer is but it wouldn't matter either since the murderer would long be gone, everyone continues to look at each other with suspicion but there are a few individuals who are looking at others with certainty in their eyes as if they know who the killer is which they probably don't and are allowing their biases to direct their thinking.

"Hey, Mr James. I wouldn't call it a motive, but the man probably happiest about Kevin Hale's death is probably the other mayoral candidate, Shaun Masters." Current mayor Karl Tate immediately starts to cast doubt at his now only opponent for re-election Shaun Masters and of course he doesn't take too kindly to this but I should have known that it would be the bigwigs who would immediately try and take advantage of this and get some benefits for themselves, I can tell already that I am going to have to sieve through a heap load of shit to uncover the truth...

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<AN> I now have a Pa treon up and running and when a chapter is ready it will go up on Pa treon first so please take a look. Some support from you guys would be appreciated and motivate me.

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