El Rook

The scene of the crime took place in a beautiful wooden two-story building around the middle of winter. Four columns on the outside supported half of the upstairs building. The place was the only place those from wealth could ever imagine hosting a classy yet spontaneous bash. There was no real reason for this event, only to gather and show off to one another.

In the building; women with long elegant dresses held champagne glasses with their perfectly manicured hands, as they giggled at the senseless words they spoke to each other. They wore sparkling jewelry, owned lavishing items, envied by most. Men in tailored suits and expensive watches held cigars in their hands, their arms on the lower backs of their wives, as they chatted and laughed with other couples about how good it felt to be them. A big chandelier hung in the center of the two-story house, paintings of well-known artists on the walls, marble flooring decorated the rooms, and a pianist in the corner played a sweet melodic sound enchanting everyone. In the center, there was a pyramid made of small champagne glasses filled halfway with the bubbly liquid for decoration only, never for drinking.

Suddenly, there was a loud bang as the ballroom doors flew open, bringing in a gust of the cold winter wind inside. Taking the place from the doors, stood a beautiful woman, by the name of Nikki, holding her beautiful white wedding dress from the front, allowing her to walk more easily. It was a strapless dress, embroidered in the front, tight in her waist, and puffed out in the bottom. She wore white heels to match the dress, her black hair was styled in a bun with a tiara in the middle, a rainbow-colored diamond necklace hung from her neck, a clear cut diamond ring on her left ring finger. A sparkling silver mask that embellished her ocean blue eyes and her pink plum-colored lips, hiding any emotion rested on her face.

Next to her stood a handsome man, also known as Schmitty, with a smirk in a hand-tailored black suit that fit him to perfection. He straightened his bow-tie, showing off his gold watch that slid a little down his forearm. His black shoes sparkled from the shoeshine he had that morning, his auburn hair styled back, a gold band on his wedding ring finger that matched the gold mask he was wearing, covering his whole face except his dark green eyes.

Schmitty intertwines his hands with Nikki’s as they both lift their machine guns to the hoard of people in front of them, instantly causing an epidemic of panic. The smell of fear wafted through the air. Nikki releases her hold of Schmitty and aims at the pyramid of champagne glasses with a wicked smile.

There is a “Brrrr,” made from the machine gun as it strikes each glass, shattering it into millions of pieces, the liquid rushing to follow- not wanting to be left behind. The screams of everyone echo through the building as soon as the gun quiets down.

Schmitty holds his smirk as he turns around and locks the door, making sure no one would be able to go in or out. He sees someone on their phone and thinks, We officially have 15 minutes. The bullet is fast and merciless like him, as it passes through the guy in seconds. He turns his attention to his beloved only to smile at her joy at the endeavor they found themselves in.

“Be careful not to get any blood on your clothes,” he tells her as he starts walking one way.

“I’ll be careful,” she tells him, blowing a kiss, as she walks the other way. Both of them continuing their spree of killing, there were to be no survivors.

Within 15 minutes, the floor painted a new color of red, the walls filled with the screams of everyone, their attention was caught by the red and blue lights flickering around the house.

Schmitty turns to Nikki and speaks with alarm, “It’s time baby. You know what to do.”

“Okay,” she giggles as she gives him her gun and a light feather kiss.

“I love you,” he tells her as she lets go of his hand to go upstairs.

“I love you,” she responds, tossing him her mask. Schmitty catches it with ease and grins up at her. Nikki returns his smile as she climbs up the stairs, into a bedroom, and inside a closet. She hated that she didn’t have enough time to wrap herself in the duvet of the king-sized mattress, or look out the window and see the cherry blossom tree that stood near the building.

Although they would come only to research, she always found time to look at the tree. It made her feel better to see how the leaves fell, leaving the tree leafless. She pushes aside those thoughts with news ones, about doing what she loves to do. Playing an important piece of an unsolvable crime.

With that, she raises her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them, pulling them even closer. She wills her tears to come out and buries her face inside her knees, waiting.

But she wasn’t the only person with an important role, in fact, her partner Schmitty was the one that had an equally vital part in the plan, seeing as he was the one who planned it, and now it was time to make sure it was to go off without a hitch. He had already tied a bedsheet to the post outside the window, ruffled the duvet a little, and now all he needed was to get rid of the masks. He climbed up to the attic and in a safe box, placed the masks and everything that would give them away before his crucial plan. From the attic window; he sees the cops, a total of three, step out of the black and white vehicle fully armed with a bulletproof vest and a gun on their side, there was a guy he recognized as the leader in the centers of the two burly men, in his hand sat a radio on standby. Schmitty scoffs a little but carries on his way. He grabs his gun, a silencer, and grits his teeth as he pressed the trigger. He curses as the bullet passes through his stomach but shakes it off, placing the gun along with their belongings- things to be retrieved once this is all over.

He walks down the hidden staircase to the area behind the bullet infested window and lays down on the ground, staring at the blossom tree and marveling at its beauty, but nothing was as beautiful as the history that he was creating with Nikki.

He hears a scream and turns his head up toward the window where he can only imagine how the scene unfolds.

The closet door reveals a bright light as Nikki raises her hands in surrender, whimpering. “Please don’t kill me,” she pleads in her southern accent. Over the years, she had been able to perfect the accent, sounding as if she had been born and raised in the country.

“Don’t be alarmed, I’m officer Satormy with the police department and I’m here to help,” a deep voice answers back. Nikki hesitantly looks up to see a guy in his early 30’s with brown hair and matching kind brown eyes. He stretches a warm hand towards her and she shakily accepts it. As soon as he helps her up, she looks around the room with a worried expression. “What’s the matter?” the officer asks as he looks around too, trying to identify whatever it was she couldn’t.

“My husband- where is he,” Nikki says as she looks around the room. “We- we just got married, this is our party. Where is he?” Her tears started streaming down her face, at an unstoppable rate. The officer looked at her with pity, trying to find the right words to speak but alas failed.

“Umm- we’re not sure,” the officer tells her honestly. Nikki grasps her chest as if it was hard to breathe at that moment, and clutches onto the officer’s shirt with her free hand. Satormy places a ginger hand on hers and looks at the other officer near the doorway who shakes his head disapprovingly at Satormy’s lack of professionalism.

“Is there anything you can tell us about what happened?” Satormy, not wanting her to witness the scene just yet, guides her to the bed. Nikki’s face is pale beyond comparison as she looks emptily at the darkness of the building, outside those doors. “Mrs-” the words linger in the air as Nikki turns her attention towards him.

“Maltima,” she answers before returning her stare to the door, waiting for her husband to come bursting through the doors any minute now. “I heard gunshots and screaming, what was that? Did someone shoot him- or any of my family?” Nikki says as her eyes widen and she takes off running towards the door. The other officer manages to stop her by placing himself as a barrier.

Nikki falls on the floor before his feet in a fit of whimpers. “It was our wedding day-” she starts to explain, “we had grown tired of the hello’s, thank you, and goodbye’s so we decided to sneak away and find a nice quiet place for us when we found this room. But then all of a sudden,” her demeanor turns cold, “we heard screams coming from downstairs and I started worrying. Evan, my husband, went and locked the doors as we called 911. He told me to go into the closet and hide while he would see if he would find someone to help. I begged him not to go. Told him to stay with me, but he wanted to save me, by drawing attention away from the room if he had to.”

“How did he leave the room?”

“He climbed down the window, right over there,” she tells them and points to the window in question that’s opened just a crack with the bedsheet tied to the bedpost. Her eyes light up in hope again, “do you think he made it?”

Both the officers in the room give her an uneasy look. “You need to tell her Satormy.”

“Tell me what?” she looks up expectantly at the officers.

Satormy clears his throat, “I don’t know how to tell you this but-” his words are cut off by another fellow officer who is carrying a slim guy on his back who looks seriously injured.

“Sir, we found him semi-unconscious with a gunshot wound in his stomach,” the guy carefully places Schmitty on the bed.

“Where did you find him?” Satormy questions.

“He was laying on the snow right outside the windowsill,” he explains. “Seems like a bullet pierced through the windows and caught him before he hit the ground.”

Nikki pushes past the cops and runs to her husband. “This is my husband,” she cups her hands on his cheeks. “Officers, please save my husband,” she says in desperation as she hugs him, bringing him warmth. Satormy tears a piece of cloth from the bedsheet, lifts his shirt to expose the wound, and places it on the wound. She starts applying pressure to the wound as Schmitty turns his head towards Nikki, with fluttering eyes.

“Evan?” Nikki speaks in a worried tone.

“Chearlean-” Schmitty breathes out.

“Are you alright?” Nikki asks him.

“I’m fine Charlene. Are you alright?”

“Better now that I know you’re alive,” she tells him as she kisses him on his forehead. “Don’t strain yourself from talking.”

He reaches over and grabs her hand, “you need to know that outside these doors, it isn’t pretty.”

“What happened?” she presses him for information but gets another squeeze instead. The sound of the ambulance trespasses the heavy silence that had run across the room.

“The ambulance is here. We need to get him down there now before he losses any more blood,” Satormy tells them, flickering through the officers. They were trying to figure out who would deliver the horrible news to the newlywed.

Satormy stays with Nikki as the other two officers guide Schmitty to the ambulance. “Miss, Charlene”, he calls for Nikki’s attention. Nikki pries her eyes away from the officers taking away her husband and moves her gaze towards him. “We’d like to take your statement- if that’s alright with you?”

“Of course officer- anything to help catch the criminals who did this to my husband,” she says as she wipes away her tears. “Umm- officer. What exactly happened? Are my family members okay? Everyone keeps hiding away from something but I don’t know what.” She looks into the dark hallway as if trying to make out something. “What exactly lays behind this room?”

“Well-” Satormy scratched the back of his neck, hesitant to speak the next words. “I need to warn you before we go out- it’s not pretty and- I’m afraid only you and your husband made it out alive for the mere fact that you guys came up here.”

Nikki swallows the lump in her throat as the officer keeps delivering the news, already walking towards the main door. It was a massacre; blood splattered on every inch of the walls, the floor, tables, everywhere, bodies covered the floor. Nikki covers her eyes at the sight. “We counted 35 bodies throughout the building.”

Now, the next thing that happened wasn’t so easy. Nikki had trained months to learn how to faint on command but she managed to do so perfectly in this situation because before she knew it, she was laying on the floor as everything went black.

The first thing she woke up to was her husband’s voice a mere minute later. “Charlene. Are you okay,” Schmitty says with relief as he squeezes her hand. She had been practicing but Schmitty always worried that death would one day not allow her to escape anymore- considering how she held her breath to faint. “It’s safe,” he whispers to her and groans at the pain in his stomach. He lifts his shirt to reveal stitches. “Callum teaches well; I missed all my important arteries. They called it a miracle,” he tells her.

“Training is what it’s really called,” she responds, tracing the stitches gently as she bites down on her lip.

He looks outside and notices one of the officers headed their way and talks quickly. “We’re still not finished here so brace yourself for one of the best performances you’ve ever put on.”

Nikki nods her head as she begins crying and pulls Schmitty into a tight hug. Beginning to babble, “you’re my whole world, Evan- especially now with my whole family gone. I just don’t know who could have done such a monstrous act that I felt my heart stop. I just don’t know if I can keep going.”

“Baby, baby, we’ll get through this- together. I promise I won’t ever leave your side again.” Schmitty reassures her as he wipes away her tears.

“Excuse me,” someone clears their throat behind them. They both turn around with sad eyes to look at Satormy.

“I know it’s a difficult time right now but is it okay if we take your statements?”

“Now?” Nikki says as freshly new tears make their way to her eyes.

“I know this is a difficult time but-”

“It is a difficult time right now sir. My whole family has just been murdered in cold blood, my husband was shot and could have died as well, and I- I’m the only one that came out alive and unharmed out of this.” She crouches down on her knees, the wedding dress surrounding her in a puffy circle as she continues, “On my wedding day- a day that was supposed to be the happiest day of my life.”

“Ahhh-” Schmitty groans as he crouches down towards her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Baby- it will be okay. I’m fine.”

“You could have died just to protect me-” she says with anger.

“I would do anything for you. Now- we have to talk to the officers so they can find the people who did this atrocity and pay for what they did.”

Nikki sniffles at his words as she nods her head, “You’re right.”

“Officer- we will like to give our statement,” Schmitty tells him.

“Then please- come with us,” he signals towards the police car. They walk towards it in silence, Nikki leaning on Schmitty as he guides them toward the car. Satormy opens the backseat doors of the police car for them. Nikki steps in first, followed by Schmitty who wraps his arms around her in a protective hold. Nikki leans her head on his shoulder, sniffling on the outside but grinning on the inside. Their plan was unfolding nicely.

The metal tables were cold to the touch, the smell of freshly brewed coffee indicated a long night for everyone. Even for the young couple who had created the commotion to begin with, were growing tired at the wait. They had been split up and taken to opposite rooms where they would be questioned momentarily. Unlike Nikki who remained calm in any situation, Schmitty’s mind was always a wreck thinking about the instance everything could collapse. One wrong answer, one wrong move, and everything would tumble down like a stack of dominos, one after the other creating a collision.

Both parties knew the risk they ran, and they ran it anyway.

“I apologize for the wait, Mrs. Maltima. It’s not every day we have to deal with this kind of-” Satormy tries to find the right words to phrase the situation, trying to take into account her connection with the victims, “incident.” He finishes with a grit of teeth and places a warm cup of coffee in front of her. Nikki doesn’t make a move towards it. A cup, with her DNA, only spelled trouble.

Satormy looks at her confused for a second, “not a coffee fan?”

Nikki darts her eyes away from the black liquid to the brown eyes of the officer, “it’s been a late-night, all I’d like to do is go rest for a bit.”

He nods his head in understanding, “I know it’s not much but I’m sorry for your loss.”

Nikki lifts her legs on the chair and starts crying into them, her hands clutching on each other for support. “I still can’t believe it’s true. I don’t want to believe it’s true.”

“I know,” is all he says.

Nikki looks at him with a glare, “you know what it’s like to have your whole family taken away from you in a matter of minutes on the day that was supposed to be your happiest moment. Have it turn so bitter all you want to do is drown in a puddle of misery because nothing can nor will it ever make anything better, and the only person you can blame is yourself. For having the stupid celebration, to begin with.”

Unable to say anything else, he exits the room to give her time alone to process things as he goes to question Schmitty. Now more than ever, he was determined to solve this crime.

He enters to find Schmitty with his hand clutching his stomach and mumbling words under his breath with eyes closed. “Are you doing alright Mr. Maltima?”

Schmitty opens his eyes and stares at the officer, “as can be expected, sir.”

“Can I ask what you were mumbling to yourself about?” Satormy asks, with a hint of suspicion.

“I was asking myself if there could have been a way for me to have stopped them. Wondering what if I had ambushed them instead of climbing down the window. I could have done something, but instead, I was useless.” Schmitty clutches the side of his head as he shakes it in annoyance with himself.

“You did what you could. Trust me, most people who find themselves in these situations never know what to do.” Schmitty nods at the officer, not fully convinced. Stormy clears his throat at the lack of response and continues with his questions.

“Mr. Maltima, did you see the culprits?”

“Not their faces, but I know there were two guys. They carried machine guns?” he questions out loud, “I’m not much of a gun person but it was shooting so fast.”

“Was there something that covered their faces or why were you unable to see them?”

“They wore black ski masks and dressed in all black.”

“I see,” Satormy puts this down.

“I’m sorry if I’m not much of a help officer, it just happened so quickly. I just remember being in the room with Charlean one second and then a sharp pain passing through me before my eyes closed. I wanted to be strong for her. I really did.”

“You did the best you could-” Satormy assures him, “I just need to speak with your wife and I’ll bring her right out. Your welcome to wait for us in the front.”

“Thank you.” Schmitty follows the officer out of the room and goes to sit in the front chairs, waiting for Nikki.

The coffee had turned cold by the time Nikki lifted her head slowly at the sound of the door, all emotion was replaced by a vacant stare. “What do you need to know?”

“Is there anything you can tell us?”

“No. I just heard screams and I wanted to go see but Evan stopped me, told me to hide, so I did.”

“Mrs. Maltima, did your family have any enemies?”

She gives him an incredulous look, “we were rich, we have more enemies than one can count.”

“I see.” Satormy didn’t want to say anything more but felt the need to fill her in on the investigation, “Mrs. Maltima. These people didn’t seem to take anything and we have no footprints.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I wanted to let you know about my findings.”

“Do you have a theory on what happened to these people?”

“Yes, a thought. ”

“I want to know,” she says and stares at the wall.

“I think they planned to rob you all after enacting some sort of revenge but we arrived just in time. We also found some glove prints on the door to the room you were in, it covered your’s and your husbands, letting us know that they were on their way towards you but I’m guessing they saw the lights and ran off before they could enter. They saw Evan and shot him before making their way through the back. Since it was snowing, the footprints were covered up.”

“What does that mean?”

“That it might be hard to track them down.”

Nikki nods her head slowly as she stands up, “I’d like to go with my husband now- please.”

“Of course,” he said as he guided her towards Schmitty. Nikki quickly engulfs him in a hug with a sly smile hidden in his shoulder.

Satormy’s heart broke for the poor women who had lost everything in one night. All he could do was swear he would get justice for them.

“Once again, I’m sorry for your loss but Mr. and Mrs. Maltima I want to assure you that I will not rest until I find the people who did this,” Satormy promises.

I wouldn’t hold my breath, Schmitty thinks at his words.

Why officer, you already did, they’re standing right in front of you, Nikki thinks as she inwardly smiles.

“Thank you, officer- we appreciate knowing that someone as trustworthy as you is on the case,” Nikki says as her voice cracks at the end.

“Thank you,” Schmitty says as he extends his hand out. Officer Satormy takes it and shakes it with a firm hold, maintaining eye contact with Schmitty’s green eyes.

“Just doing my job,” he tells them.

Schmitty wraps his arms around Nikki as he guides her toward the exits. The cold air hits their faces instantly, sending shivers down their bodies. “This was a lot of work,” Nikki says, “Almost takes the fun out of killing people-” she says with a laugh as she wipes away her fake tears.

“Almost-” Schmitty says as he lights a cigarette. Nikki scrunches up her dress in both her hands and walks alongside Schmitty as they head to the black stretched limo waiting for them, just got married written in the back. Schmitty opens the door and Nikki enters, followed by Schmitty. He slams the door shut and they both look at each other in the mirror before laughing. They looked like older versions of themselves with the special effects Callum did. They grab wipes and start whipping away all the make-up and damage this whole act had caused.

“How did it go?” the buff African American driver with curly hair asked them with a smile, his light brown eyes locking with theirs.

“It went perfect Callum,” Nikki says as she hands him a champagne glass filled with the bubbly substance. “A toast?” she asks them.

“To us,” Schmitty says as he raises his glass.

“To us,” Nikki repeats, raising her glass.

“To you guys,” Callum says as he raises his glass and clinks it with theirs before taking a sip of the cold refreshment. “You know what I’m wondering,” Callum tells them, “why you guys couldn’t just leave the crime scene.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Schmitty asks him.

Nikki takes a sip of her champagne and looks at the substance as she swirls it around in the glass cup. Her electric blue eyes look out into the darkness where she can make out the cop walking outside and tightening his jacket, bracing himself for the cold. She could only imagine where he was going next, back to the scene to try and make out any new evidence he could, but they had already beaten him to it. With a glint in her eyes and a smile on her face, still swishing the bubbly substance in the clear cup, she responds, “There’s something special about knowing that you can make a mess and get away with it.”