Doofus Detectives Ch 4 : Only Rich People Get Murdered.

How tough life would be without Chinese takeout.

“I could’ve made pancakes you know, if someone hadn’t messed things up.” Ham said, slurping his noodles, “We need to break this habit we have of starving ourselves. It’s not good for our health.”

Matt rolled his eyes, “Go ahead and blame me all you want, it doesn’t change the truth, there was no flour on the grocery list. I wouldn’t have missed it if there had been.”

Mel waved her chopsticks, her red hair in a messy bun, her pyjamas already stained with soy sauce, “We need to pack lunch, that’s what we need to do. I want to interrogate all the staff tomorrow so we’re probably going to stay late again.”

Matt nodded stuffing a dumpling, “Sounds good, I’m going to do a sweep all the rooms, particularly Camilla’s, ask the staff about the frequency of the cleaning will you? I would rather keep away; Ms connoisseur gives me headache. ” he shuddered.

“Oof she’s really something isn’t she? Already hates me too.” Mel sighed, “Not that she was ever gonna be useful in an interrogation, but still.”

Matt groaned, “She’s awful and that room of hers, gah all those things randomly jammed in no symmetry, no order or method it makes me want to cry.”

Ham twirled his fork thoughtfully, “I’m going to head out I think, go over check up on the autopsy, make sure nothing was damaged during transport.”

Mel nodded, “Sounds good, what about you Adi?...... Adi?”

The three of them turned to Adi, who was sitting in the corner of the table - three jars of colour pens in hand, four colour coded notebooks spread out on the table – and scribbling furiously, his tongue stuck out in concentration.

“ADI!!” Ham yelled. Adi started nearly dropping the seven pens he was juggling in his hands, “What – what?!”

Matt peered over his shoulder, eyes widening in disbelief, “Are you listing all the items in the study in colour code in separate also colour coded notebooks?”

Adi blushed, Ham blinked in shock, “Seriously?! You haven’t even eaten your dinner! Adi, come on, we’ve talked about this.”

Mel shook her head, amused, “You do realise we barely have anything to document right? We’ve barely scratched the surface.”

Adi opened his mouth – and was met with a dumpling, Ham was leaning across the table shoving speared dumplings into his mouth, “You. Need. To. Eat.” Matt was still frowning at Adi’s notebooks, “God your handwriting is awful, and it’s not even straight! All you lines are crooked!” he sounded scandalised. Adi swallowed the dumpling, looking offended, he opened his mouth again to argue, and was interrupted by the doorbell.

All four of them paused, Mel frowned, and got up to open the door. She walked over in her pjs, unbolted the locks and opened the door to reveal a little boy of about 10 years with a dirty face.

“James?! What are you doing here this late?” the boy leaned over and whispered, Mel’s eyes widened, “Oh okay, thank you buddy.” She ruffled his hair, unbothered by the grime and took the packet he handed her. She closed the door.

Ham raised his eyebrows “Well?”

She held up the packet, “The Lawrence’s financial documents.”

A thick anticipatory silence filled the air. The packet rustled as Mel moved to open it.

“Woah, whoa wait!! You’re not actually opening that without washing your hands are you?! I’m not having you guys getting soy sauce all over those!” Matt protested.

Mel groaned, rolling her eyes, but they all did as he told, put away the dishes (except Adi who was banned from the docs by Ham till he finished his dinner), washed their hands and sat down at the table to go through the packet while Adi watched on sulkily slurping his noodles, bereft of colour pens and books.

They opened the packet, passed out the documents. Started to go through them carefully.

“Shit.”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, fuck no!”

Adi started, “What?! What happened?!” he abandoned his pad thai and pulled the documents towards himself.

Matt leaned back, disbelief etched on his face, “This doesn’t make sense, it just doesn’t!”

Ham chewed his lip, “It changes things that’s for sure.”

“Changes things?!” Mel scoffed, “It changes nearly everything! We have to restructure everything, all the psychology all the possible motives – everything.”

Adi gaped at the documents, “These can’t be right.” he muttered.

Mel threw the file down in frustration, “But it is, Camilla wasn’t rich, she didn’t have any money and there nobody who would gain financially from her death.” She blew out a breath, “Pethic is the one with all the money.”

Adi sat forward, “Guys wait there’s a conditional clause here, “It says that Pethic’s father was the primary holder of money and when he died he left everything to his son, but, there was condition, he would only get the money as long as he looked after his mother.”

Mett's eyes glinted, “Does it say anything about what would happen at the event of her death?”

Adi shook his head, “No, not really, it only says that he must take care of her until she dies, presumably her death should do nothing to interfere with his enjoyment of the money.”

“Is it possible that her death could be because she was too much of a financial burden?” Ham asked.

“Hmm, that’s unlikely, according to these she didn’t really spend much, I mean, the last time she bought something was a couple months ago and those were just socks. Also, if anybody was going to be murdered for spending too much it would be Elizabeth, I mean just look at this, she's guzzling money. Woman spends enough to run a whole country.” Mel harrumphed.

Matt grimaced, “Yeah I don’t think anybody would need much of a motive to try and kill her.”

Adi sighed, running a hand through his hair, “We need to look deeper then, money isn’t a motive anymore. It’s feelings now.”

Ham groaned.