Who done it?

"Hey there folks, and welcome to this week's 'WHO DONE IT?' Here, we have a wonderful specimen; A body lie upon a chair on the balcony of this hote-"

"Jared, shut the fuck up," I snipped. "This is not the time for that."

Jared is the oldest detective in the department, yet he acts like a child. Why can't he just take this job seriously? Someone died and he's over here pretending to host a goddamn game show.

"Well, isn't that the question burning itself into our heads right now? Why take a sad moment and make it even sadder, when we can just..."

He broke out into that announcer voice again;

"solve the mystery!!!"

Seriously, I don't think he's capable of being professional. How he even passed the interview beats me. But, he is our Sherlock Holmes, and he's never dropped a case. He's built up such a reputation that almost no lawyer is willing to defend someone that Jared found evidence against. Some are eager to, though, because nothing would look better on a resume than "Won a case against Jared Steinrich".

I'm not even sure how he finds anything when he's goofing around most of the time. Julie told me that she once had to restrain him so he wouldn't try to get a selfie with a skeleton. But, the next day, the criminal responsible was behind bars, so... It's not like they're gonna fire him.

And he knows that, the cocky bastard. He knows he can get away with whatever the hell he wants.

"A-ha! I've found it!"

Oh, here we go.

"As you can see, there are no bruises on the neck; but he most certainly died by strangulation. But, look here! His tongue has been shoved deep into the back of his throat, and the lingual frenulum has been cut. His tongue has been covered in some kind of glue, as well, and adhered to the inside of his throat. Poor Geoffrey choked on his own tongue!"

What. The. Fuck.

"And I think I know who done it, this time! Well, I know how to find out,"

Back again into that announcer voice:

"EXHIBIT A! A dead body. EXHIBIT B! A chair. EXHIBIT C! A hotel. EXHIBIT D! A-"

"Jared! Where are you going with this?" Samantha nearly screamed at him. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one fed up with his shit.

Jared looked a bit shocked. I don't think he's ever been interrupted, yelled at, or even talked to sternly since he was hired. "W-well... We could start by checking who's got access to the room, but... Exhibit D here is the latch on the balcony door. It's been broken open from the outside,"

Shit, he was right. The latch had marks on it pointing to the outside balcony, where Geoffrey lay dead--It had been opened from the outside. "So... what does that even mean? Mr. Exhibit A here is outside, not inside. Did the killer escape through the building?" Samantha lost her annoyed demeanor and now looked more... Scared?

"Well, the body is sitting too comfortably. Noone sits like that when they can't breathe. And this chair comes from inside. I saw a few other open hotel rooms, and all of them had identical chairs--inside the room."

Samantha's face shifted as she slowly connected the dots, "So, someone broke in? Then dragged his body out here?"

"Precisely."

"And you think they left from the... Outside, then? Or in the building?"

"Why, I don't think they left at all. Not from the balcony, not through the building."

Samantha's face darkened and her voice became slow and pointed: "They're still here? Hiding?"

"In a manner of speaking," Jared said. Boasting. He knew and all he was doing now was drawing it out for his own entertainment. "Hiding their nature, not themselves... Hiding among us, captain..."

Samantha froze, staring right at Jared.

"Think about it, Sam, really think this time. Who's been everywhere I have? To monitor me, to keep me in check, or to keep me... In the dark. And ever since that certain somebody showed up, things got weirder. Any time I get close, they disrupt something. But this time, I've got it. You see," He continued (no longer look at Samantha but at the walls) "EVERY SINGLE TIME I've seen someone killed, killed in this odd, creative manner--Choking on their own tongue, sneezing so hard their ribs shatter, thirteen cigarettes shoved down the throat while lit, they're all killed ironically. Their own body, their own instinct, their own choices... Everything they've ever been is twisted into the murder weapon. And one person has always been there, every time. Not missing a beat."

Samantha was nervously looking between the four officers in the room, trying to gauge their reactions. One moved, she flinched.

"What's wrong, Samantha? Don't see it? You still can't tell who it is? Do you need me... To tell you, Samantha?"

Jared was breathing down Samantha's throat, and she looked horrified. Maybe he doesn't know, then.

Jared extended one finger, an annoying finger that had tapped relentlessly on tables during meetings, that found its way into fiddling with anything it could, that he wagged back and forth when someone said something stupid, that he held up to shush you when he wanted to think for a moment. He extended that sickly, wretched finger straight toward me.

"Rose has been here every single time I've investigated one of these murders. She has never helped, never said anything, just watched. Watched and criticized. During meetings, she glares at me, but it's not an angry glare--it's hateful. It's analytical. For three months, since she was hired, she has not spoken to me once. Yet, everyone I know says she has nothing but horrible things to say about me! Not only that, but... How did she get here before us? When we pulled up, her cruiser was nowhere to be seen. I bet you it's not even in the parking lot, not even here--I bet you it's at the station. She didn't come here in her cruiser. She came of her own personal accord--In her personal Accord, no less."

So he knew. All this just to taunt me! I thought I was in control, slowly nibbling away at his conscience until he would break and finally drop that facade. But no! He, once again, decided that his own ego was the most important thing. And he was right this time. He was right every time. Just once, I wanted him to be wrong. Just once. But no, he couldn't allow that to happen. Poor Geoffrey, Poor Michael, Poor Laura, Poor Vanessa. They died for this, for Jared to be wrong, and he didn't even have the decency to honor that by slipping up once. He couldn't handle a moment of humility, because his ego is more important than the lives of others. And now he's ruined mine. It's always been about him, hasn't it? A horror to work with, and all this effort still couldn't make him slip. This cocky asshole would only use this to reinforce his god complex, and there was really nothing I could do about it.

The last thing I heard before the door of the car I had just been shoved into closed was Jared's torturous announcer voice;

"Who done it? Rose done it!"