Chapter 6. Mother and a Coroner

Ethan approached the woman and tried to calm her down, but she was inconsolable, writhing and screaming as she begged for her daughter to be brought back to life.

Jeremy rushed over to join Ethan, and the two of them worked together to try and calm the woman down.

“What happened?” Ethan asked, trying to keep his voice low and gentle. The woman looked up at him, her eyes red and puffy from crying.

“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “I don’t know what happened. I just know that my daughter was supposed to come home hours ago, and I’ve been waiting for her ever since.”

Jeremy and Ethan exchanged a worried glance. The victim’s mother could be an important witness, but it was clear that she was in no state to answer any questions.

“You need to calm down,” Jeremy tried to talk to the woman.

“How can I calm down when my daughter is lying dead over there?”

“I understand that this is an extremely difficult time for you,” Ethan said, his voice calm and reassuring. “But we need you to try and stay calm so that we can figure out what happened to your daughter. Do you have any idea where she was going or who she was with?”

The woman shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “I don’t know,” she said. “She didn’t tell me anything. She was just supposed to be home by eight o’clock, and now she’s gone.”

Jeremy turned to Ethan and whispered, “We need to find out who the victim is and notify her family. We also need to start looking for any potential witnesses.”

Ethan nodded in agreement. “I’ll notify the coroner and see if we can get any identification on the victim. You start canvassing the area and see if anyone saw or heard anything.”

As Jeremy started to walk away, Ethan turned back to the woman. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said softly. “We’ll do everything we can to find out what happened to your daughter.”

The woman nodded weakly, still too upset to speak. Ethan and Jeremy exchanged a grim look before walking back to where Maria was waiting for them.

“Any progress?” Maria asked, resting her elbow on the boot of her car.

“Not yet,” Jeremy said, shaking his head. “We need to find out why the victim was present in the scene in the first place. Ethan is going to contact the coroner, and I’m going to start canvassing the area for potential witnesses. Something just seems off about this whole thing.”

Maria nodded, her expression serious. “Okay, I’ll start looking for any security cameras in the area that might have captured something useful.”

As Maria walked away, Ethan turned to Jeremy. “Do you think she was killed here or brought here after she died?”

Jeremy frowned, thinking. “It’s hard to say at this point. We need to wait for the coroner’s report to get a better idea of when she died and how long she had been here.”

Ethan nodded. “I’ll make sure to get the coroner’s report as soon as possible.”

As Jeremy started to canvass the area, he noticed a group of teenagers standing around a nearby convenience store. They looked roughly the same age as the victim, and Jeremy wondered if they might have seen something.

He walked over to them, trying to look friendly and approachable. “Hey, have any of you seen anything unusual in the last hour or so?” he asked, trying not to sound too official.

The teenagers looked at him warily, clearly uncomfortable talking to a police officer. But after a moment, one of them spoke up. “We saw a guy hanging around here a little while ago,” he said. “He was acting weird like he was looking for someone.”

Jeremy’s heart raced as he asked, “Can you describe him?”

The teenager hesitated for a moment before giving a shaky description of a man in his late thirties with a scruffy beard and a black hoodie.

Jeremy thanked them before heading back to Maria and Ethan. “I think I might have a lead,” he said. “A group of teenagers saw a suspicious-looking man around here earlier. He was looking for someone.”

“Did they give you any description of him?” Ethan squeezed his brows.

“Yes,” Jeremy placed his hands on his waist. “One of them told me that the man was in his late thirties and that he had a scruffy beard.”

“Did this teenager tell you what the man was wearing?” Maria asked.

“Yes,” Jeremy replied immediately. “They said he was wearing a black hoodie.”

Ethan scratched his hair gently as he tried to make sense of what Jeremy was telling him. “According to the description of someone I met earlier on, he said the victim’s murderer was in his early twenties.”

“The teenager said he was in his late thirties,” Maria said.

“That is the problem here,” Ethan admitted immediately. “Someone is lying to us.”

Just then, Ethan’s phone rang. He answered it, his expression turning grave.

“What’s the update?” Jeremy asked, noticing the change in Ethan’s demeanor.

“It’s the coroner,” Ethan replied.

“What does he want from us?” Jeremy asked.

“He wants us to drop the case.”

Maria looked at the ground, her eyes clouded with sadness. “Did he give any reason?”

“Sadly, no,” Ethan said, moving a few inches away from them. “He said that the case has already been taken care of and that we don’t need to bother about it.”

“This is ridiculous,” Jeremy expressed his frustration immediately.

Maria nodded her head in agreement. “We can’t just drop the case like that. We owe it to the victim and her family to find out who did this to her.”

“I know,” Ethan replied, his jaw clenched. “But we need to be careful. There’s obviously someone in power trying to cover this up.”

“I agree,” Jeremy said. “But what do we do now?”

Ethan thought for a moment before answering. “I am sorry, but there is nothing we can do about it.”