The Bride Beneath the Roses Chapter 2

After completing the questioning and taking his statement, I let Derek go.

Harris examined the fingerprints and other evidence and found nothing unusual. There were no signs of a third party entering the death scene. The fingerprints on the gas stove switch belonged only to Derek and Lily. Harris also extracted fingerprints from Lily's phone—besides Lily's prints, there were also Derek's.

This was normal. After all, they were a couple who cooked and ate together, or played with phones together. Besides, Lily had sent Derek a suicide note before dying. The deceased's suicide seemed certain.

However, when the autopsy results came out the next day, our certainty began to waver, because Lily had multiple bruises on her body, and large amounts of drug residue were extracted from her digestive tract.

The drug residue was Alprazolam, whose main function is sleep aid and treatment of mental illnesses like anxiety and depression.

Lily had consumed a large amount—the residue alone was over 5mg. According to Harris, this dosage could put a normal person to sleep for three days and nights.

In other words, after taking Alprazolam, the deceased couldn't have turned on the gas stove to commit suicide herself.

Therefore, this was murder.

After it was determined to be murder, I was incredibly excited and reported to Captain Shaw as quickly as possible.

Shaw immediately ordered Derek Miller's summons.

Yesterday, Derek was a family member of the deceased, so when brought to the station for questioning, we'd placed him in the interview room.

Today, Derek was a criminal suspect. After being summoned, I brought him directly to the interrogation room and specifically arranged for two detectives to stand behind him to prevent any rash actions. After all, he was only suspected; without a definitive conclusion, we couldn't handcuff him arbitrarily.

Since Wendy and I had handled this case from the beginning, we also conducted the interrogation. The captain and others monitored from outside. Wendy opened the record book, and I began questioning.

"Derek, tell us about your crime. Lily Chen didn't commit suicide—she was murdered by your design, correct?"

My questioning tone was quite authoritative. After all, in my view, Derek was just a refined scumbag. With two detectives backing me up, as long as I was stern enough, Derek would surely be afraid and guilty, and might confess out of fear.

However, I was wrong. My words instantly made Derek's eyes redden. He looked at me incredulously, his voice trembling as he asked: "Detective Woods, what do you mean? You suspect I killed Lily?"

Seeing Derek could play this role so well, I said bluntly: "How do you explain the bruises on Lily Chen's body and her excessive consumption of Alprazolam?"

Derek's eyes flashed with sadness at these words, then he said despondently: "I didn't take good care of her. I let her roll down the stairs a few days ago. It was me, all my fault. If I didn't have to work, she wouldn't have gotten depression because of her disabled legs. Because of depression, she couldn't sleep every night, so she often took that medication."

Derek's expression while speaking was extremely pained, with tears even welling in his eyes.

I watched, stunned, almost developing Stockholm syndrome from sympathy.

To steady my emotions, I took a deep breath and probed: "Even with insomnia, she couldn't have taken such a large amount. As far as I know, the dosage she took before dying could make a cow sleep for a day. So how could she turn on the gas stove to commit suicide after falling asleep?"

At these words, Derek slowly raised his eyelids to look at me.