Mistress

It was my first year in the depths of the Shanghai FBI. I transferred to China from Wisconsin hoping to get more work down here, and that is indeed what I got. This crime scene was the first one I got called to. This scene had an amusement park worker commit suicide at the teapot's ride. His name was Matt Hemingway, and he was shot in the right side of his head. It was ruled a suicide due to the last text he received from his stepfather and Matts's history of mental problems. The last text from his stepfather read ”How are you feeling? You scared me this morning with that voicemail.” That text was sent at 8:25 pm, Matt was dead by 8:32 pm…

Background

Matt Hemingway is 32 years old, he was a straight-A high school student who later transferred to a business school in Shanghai. Soon after he transferred, he got involved with the wrong people and drugs and he dropped out of college. This all ensued after his mom committed suicide when he was 20 and in his second year at college. From this stemmed depression, addiction and loneliness. He stopped talking to everyone and became very isolated. His stepfather put him into rehab for his cocaine addiction and tried his best to separate him from his group of friends who took him down this path. But Matt wasn't changing and he was too deep in the hole. At the age of 25 he had his first suicide attempt. He took over 200 Tylenol and ended up in the hospital for weeks recovering. His stepfather was supposedly there to comfort him along the way to recovery. At 30 he had his second attempt after his girlfriend of three years broke up with him due to his addiction problems. This attempt was done by an overdose on cocaine that again left him in the hospital for weeks. All alone except for his stepfather.

With all this information our team concluded that this was an obvious suicide and that it was done in the middle of a populated area for attention. We almost closed the case until I figured out something that changed everyone's minds. Matt Hemingway was shot dead center on the right side of his head. Matt was in fact left-handed. His whole side of the family was left-handed. The chances of him using his right hand to shoot himself are very unlikely so my team and I went on to investigate everyone close to him. 

The first person I interviewed was his biological father. He was a deadbeat father and wanted nothing to do with the case of his son's murder. He said that he didn't want him in his life and this is karma for that. He was drunk as a bat but he had an alibi. He said that he was at the bar the same night and same time and did in fact check out. But this, unfortunately, left us with up to no one. That was at that point our main suspect. I went to Matt's ex-girlfriend, Shelby, who was very shaken up about the incident. She couldn't tell us much through the tears. Shelby exclaimed how she loved him but he was a wreck. He was an unstable addict who was good for nothing. This reaction had me and my colleague surprised and put back at the sheer anger for someone who had just died. We then left and thanked her for her cooperativeness and she told us if we needed anything to just call. When she led us out the door Shelby waved with her left hand. This might seem small but at that point, Shelby was put to the top of our list when we got back to the station. 

But, we still had one more person to interview. Matt's stepfather, Joseph. Joseph was very timid when we met him. But not in the shy kind of way. He looked confused and stressed, and was shocked when we talked to him. We only asked him the basic questions like, where were you, how was your relationship with your stepson, etc. But every question we asked was met with an answer of basically nothing of use. So I decided to cut the interview off short and right when I stood up Joseph got a call. 

When I looked down to the screen of Joseph's phone the name Shelby popped up. He quickly grabbed his phone. I looked at him and told him to answer the phone and put the phone on speaker. He obliged and the first thing that came out of Shelby's mouth has they just interviewed me and I think I'm in the clear. How about you? Joseph looked straight at me and I gave a thumbs up to signal that he should tell her all went well. In a shaky voice, he explained how we just asked him a few questions and he thought he was in the clear. Shelby then told Joseph how proud of him she was and how she loves him. But before she could finish her sentence he hung up the phone and ran to the door. I tackled him and brought him to the ground. Once he was in handcuffs my partner went for Shelby.

When we were back at the station we put them in a room together to see how they would interact. We put a recording device under the table and I walked in and told them that I would be in just a few minutes to speak to them. I walked out of the room and stood behind the mirrored window and listened in. They confessed to the murders without even knowing it. 

Why, though? Why did Matt's ex-girlfriend and stepfather kill him? Turns out they were having an affair with each other when Joseph was married to Matt's mother. They killed her when she found out and covered it up to look like a suicide. But little did they know they would find a thrill from this. So they did the same thing they did years ago and killed him just like his mother.