Murder at the Dario Mansion
It was a dark, foggy night as I drove on a windy road. My wife, Willow, was sitting next to me with a bright smile on her face. The reason why we were out at such an hour, was because we had received an invitation from one of Willow’s closest friends, Lilith Dario, to come over to her husband’s estate for a get together. She hadn’t seen Lilith in forever, and was excited to finally see her again. After a half an hour of driving, the lights of a magnificent mansion came into view, piercing through the fog of the night. Willow adjusted her outfit in anticipation, wanting to look her best for her dear friend. She turned to me and smiled, and said, “Sebastian, aren’t you excited? You finally get to meet Lilith and her husband, Damian. I’m sure you’ll get along with everyone there!” She gave me a warm grin as I pulled up to the front of the mansion; two servants walked up and opened our doors for us, and another got our bags.
We went inside, being greeted by a magnificent hall as well as a young woman. The woman grinned and tackled Willow to the ground with a hug. I assumed that this woman was Lilith, since Willow was just rambling on and on about her. The woman got off of Willow and looked at me, her appearance giving me a slight ghostly feeling to it. She then held out her hand and stated, “Welcome, I’m so glad you could make it. My name is Lilith Dario.  You must be Sebastian Porcelli right?”
“Yes, I am Sebastian. It’s very nice to meet you Lilith.” I replied, shaking her hand and giving her a warm smile. Lilith then proceeded to take us to the dining hall, where a woman and three men were already seated. Lilith looked to everyone and proclaimed, “Everyone, this is Sebastian and Willow Porcelli. Sebastian and Willow, this is Roman Moscow,” She pointed to a man with orange hair,
“Eden Olivieri,” She pointed to the woman, who was on a phone call, but waved when she heard her name,
“Luca Soyinka,” She pointed to a well groomed man with light brown hair and piercing blue eyes,
“And finally, Carson Safford,” She pointed to a man who had a disheveled look to him, and was looking to the ceiling. Lilith clapped her hands together and took a seat, food soon streaming out of the kitchen. Lilith thanked the staff for the food and told everyone to dig in. After a while, I realized that there was a lone, empty chair next to the wall, as well as no sign of Lilith’s husband.
“Hey Lilith, mind me asking… But where is your husband? Is he not going to join us?” I questioned, setting my utensils down as I waited for an answer. The lights began to flicker a bit before the sound of raindrops was heard, and Lilith’s lip began to quiver. Tears began to roll down her face as she sputtered, “W-well…. The reason I called you all here… was because… D-Damian was in an accident earlier this week, and was announced brain dead yesterday… And I just really needed time with my friends to help me feel better…” She began to sob as the rain beat against the mansion, with everyone glaring at me for making her cry. I gulped slightly, feeling their gazes pierce my soul before I turned to Lilith, apologizing and whispering, “I’m sorry for your loss… I didn’t know that he just passed.”
“I-It’s fine, you didn’t know… No one did… Anyway, how about we get off the topic and have some fun?” Lilith replied, wiping her tears away.
The night went on, with the sounds of drunken laughter resonating through the empty corridors. Almost everyone had too much to drink, except me; I sat against the wall and watched as everyone had a blast of a time. Little did I know, one of them had other motives than to be there for fun and games. Around midnight everyone was about to pass out, but we still had to figure out room assignments for the night. Willow decided to room with the other Woman, Eden, for the night. Which left me in my own room. Roman and Carson had as well decided to room together too, leaving Lilith, Luca, and myself with our own rooms. Everyone’s rooms were also in different parts of the house, With guest rooms by the kitchen, living area, dining room, and study. Everyone chose their respective rooms and went to wind down as Lilith sent the servants home for the night, which left the mansion eerily empty and quiet. As I settled into my room, I was able to look outside, seeing lightening in the grey clouds above. “I hope everyone can sleep tonight, even with this rain…” I yawned, the need for sleep overcoming my body. I laid down on the bed, my eyes shutting nearly instantly.
I could feel the soft rays of light hit my eyes as I woke up, looking around as I held my head. Even though the room itself felt bright, it was anything but outside; rain was pouring so hard it sounded like a bunch of snare drums being played. It became so bad I just had to get out of bed and get out of the room, but after getting dressed. I left the room and walked to the dining hall, where Luca, Eden and Carson were waiting. All of them looked tired and out of it since they partied much more the night before. I sat down in a chair, looking at everyone. The rain was much more quieter due to the high ceilings, but wasn’t high enough for someone hungover. ”Can’t this rain just stop already? It was like this all night I had issues sleeping” groaned Eden, who had bags under her eyes.
“Well maybe next time don’t drink so much, maybe then every noise won’t annoy you.”
“Oh shut up Luca, I saw you roaming the halls early in the morning, you had the same issues as me.”
“I did not.” Luca growled, his eyebrows furrowed a bit before seeing that Roman walked in, with Willow right behind him. Soon everyone sat at the table, waiting for Lilith to join. After about an hour of waiting Eden soon stood up, sighing slightly as she said, “I think I’m going to check on her, last night was a lot and maybe she doesn’t feel well…” She walked off, leaving us all to only hear the sounds of the rain, but that sound was a gift compared to what came next. A scream that echoed like nails on a chalkboard rang throughout the house. Everyone stood up and began to run to where the scream came from. Right outside the master bedroom, Eden was sitting, curled up in a ball and sobbing, “She’s dead! She’s dead!” I looked at her before going into the room, and saw what she meant. Inside, the heat was cranked up, and there in bed was Lilith. Her body covered in blood from stab wounds, and her neck bruised and burned. I held my breath from the stench and walked out to tell everyone, muttering under my breath, “it’s true…. She’s dead. But it wasn’t natural. She was murdered…” Everyone gasped and looked at each other, trying to comprehend the situation. “How could this have happened?? Why would anyone do this??” Willow whimpered, shaking and on the verge of tears.
“Maybe because one of you guys is a psycho, who murders people!” Carson exclaimed, being to the point of a panic attack.
“Well, the only one who wasn’t close to Lilith was Sebastian. Maybe he did it, I mean why would any of us do it?” Roman spat out, causing everyone to look at me with suspicion. Before anyone could do anything Willow jumped in front of me, blocking them from getting to me as she whimpered, “Everyone…. We can’t just jump to conclusions… Lilith was our friend, but we need the evidence to show that someone has done it. It has to be one of us, since we’re the only ones here….” The tension began to build a bit, making the air heavy before I spoke up, “How about we conduct an investigation, that way… we can figure out the murderer.” Everyone agreed to it. And thus, the investigation began.
With the help of Eden I began to investigate the crime scene, the master bedroom. We walked in and were met with a putrid stench that made your eyes burn, and the undying heat of before. I looked over to where the thermostat for the room was, and saw that it was set to go to 90 degrees at 3:00 in the morning. “That’s odd,” I said. “It’s as if the killer planned this in advance. Keeping the body overheated can make sure you can’t tell what time they died by autopsy.”
“But it seems as well that it was rushed, the furniture is all moved around as if someone scrambled to get out of the room. Also, what’s that on the floor?” Eden stated, pointing at this mass on the floor. I walked over and picked it up, finding out that it was a blanket covered in dried blood. I stared at the blanket, realizing that it was used to clean the murder weapon.
“Interesting… I’m going to go check everyone else’s investigations, keep searching.” I remarked, looking at Eden before walking out of the room. Willow was out in the hall, just hanging up the phone before running up to me and saying, “I called the police. They won’t be able to make it up here for a while because of bad road conditions coming up here.” I looked outside to see if it was true. Entire trees were down all around the property, completely snapped in half from the wind. I didn’t think it would be that bad. I then looked to Willow and said, “Dear, could I interview you to make sure you aren’t the killer?”
“Of course dear, what do you want to know?”
“Let’s go sit down to discuss it, I have a list of questions.” I explained, bringing her to the study nearby. Inside I realized it was the same temperature as the master bedroom, scalding hot. It was quite odd that this room was overheated as well, but I shrugged it off and sat with Willow. “So,” I said. “Which guest room did you and Eden stay in? I stayed in the one by the dining hall.”
“We stayed in the room by the Living Room.” She remarked
“Do you remember anything from last night? Anything at all?”
“I was drunk for the most part, but I do remember waking up to the noise of moving furniture. It sounded really heavy. But I went straight back to sleep after that. That’s all I can remember.” She sighed a bit, rubbing her temples in frustration. I began to write down her accounts before smiling and patting her head, smiling and whispering, “It’s ok honey, you told me what you know.” I got up and walked out of the room, not getting far before being stopped by Carson. “Hey buddy! I think we found something!” He exclaimed, giving me no time to react as he dragged me to the master bedroom. His grip was too strong for me to escape. Once we got inside Carson let go and smiled, everyone except Willow and Luca were there.
“Roman was examining Lilith’s body, and found that metal pokey sticky thing for a fireplace under the bed! And this room doesn’t have a fireplace! Only the room near the study and the study have fireplaces.” Carson exclaimed, picking up the thing he was talking about.
“Uh… Carson,” I muttered. “That’s a fire iron.”
“Oh…” He whispered, looking down before perking back up and running into the bathroom, coming out with a bloody bathrobe. He held it so close to my face I could smell the metallicness of the bloodstains.  He then exclaimed, “The murderer must’ve worn this! Why else would it be in here??”
“I get it I get it, just…. Get it away from my face.”
“Oh, sorry. But these are clues are they not??”
“Yes they are, now I’m going to start asking the others about what they have found. Ok?”
“Ok!” He nodded and walked back into the bathroom, while I went over to Roman, who was examining the body. I stand next to him and start asking, “So, where were you last night?”
Roman looked up, not pleased that he was interrupted before muttering, “In my room, which was near the kitchen, with Carson.”
“Were you there all night?”
“Yes, ask him yourself.”
“So you’re a doctor, I assume, any news on how she died?”
“She died of being strangled, but someone went overboard and stabbed her with the fire iron.”
“Anything else you have found?”
“No, nothing.” He groaned, looking back at the body and examining it. His reaction was a little off for someone whose friend just died. But, so far, a lot of the clues pointed to Luca. Luca has yet to be seen too. I start to get a bad feeling in my gut before going to the room that was supposedly his, and sure enough, a fire iron was missing and a bathrobe was gone from the guest bathroom. We solved the murder.
As I went on to get Luca, I found a piece of rope I could use to restrain him, and went back to looking for him. After a while of searching, I found him in the kitchen, his back facing me. I get ready to tackle him before he turned around, looking at me with his stone cold, blue eyes. He had something in his hand, a bloody knife. “I found this while investigating the kitchen,” He said. “I assume it must be the murder weapon…” Before he could finish I snatched the knife away from it, examining the blood. “How could this be? The blood’s old enough to be from the murder. Then… why were the wounds from a fire iron?” I question, looking up at Luca, who shrugged a bit before looking at a pantry door. “Aren’t there usually paths in these older mansions that let servants get around without being seen? I read about them in some old architectural books while designing new houses.” he said, now looking in every door. He finally found one that had a dark hallway on the other sides, it being blacker than death. Luca smirked at me, happy that he was right, before walking inside, using his phone’s flashlight to light the way. It seemed like an eternity of walking before I heard something squish under my shoe, sending chills up my spine. I looked down to find a soaked towel, which was soaked in blood. I screamed and stepped back instantly, while Luca picked it up and examined it, “Interesting,” He stated. “It’s still very wet, meaning that it’s fresh. Well that’s a good clue.” He held the towel as we made it to the other end of the hall, which looked like a dead end. “Great,” I grumbled. “Now we have to go back to where we started…” I was about to turn to leave before noticing a small bit of light by the floor, out of curiosity I leaned on the wall to look at it, only for the wall to move, like a push door. I gasp as Luca looked shocked, neither of us knowing. “Call for a meeting Luca, we’re going to solve this with the information we have.” I exclaim, looking back at him.
Once everyone was in the dining hall once more, as well as seated, I stood up. I looked to everyone before announcing, “We’re here to solve the murder of Lilith Dario, owner of this house. From what information I have she died during the night, was strangled, and stabbed. We have a few possible weapons and some testimonies we need to hear. Carson, Luca, I need to hear yours.” Luca stood up first, clearing his throat before he began to speak, “As you know from an earlier statement this morning, Eden said she saw me roaming the halls late at night, which is very suspicious now to you all. But, I am not the murderer. I was up last night because I could not sleep a wink, and needed to burn off some energy.”
“Oh please Luca, we all know it was you. All evidence points to you.” Roman snapped, getting out of his chair. “If you all don’t remember, I was from Luca’s room in which the fire iron was missing, as well as the bathrobe Carson found. Besides, we all know you had the most personal relationship with Lilith. You were her ex boyfriend for christ’s sake!” Luca stopped, looking at Roman before beginning to laugh, which sounded like one you heard a psycho do in movies. Luca’s eyes bore into Roman as he chuckled, “Why yes, it’s true that I’m her ex, and that I had all the reasons to do it, and that all the evidence points to me. I actually did plan a murder, but I was beaten to it. I’m wearing the bathrobe right now from my room and the fire iron was never moved from where I hid it originally. It was under the bed if I’m correct?”
“Why yes but, you just said you tried to kill her! How do we know it wasn’t you?!?!” I shouted, trying to comprehend Luca’s thinking before he shushed me. “Now, my real testimony can be told, and it might shed some light onto the true killer.” He cleared his throat, before starting to speak, “It was 1:30 am, unlike the others, I drank significantly less than it was made out to be. So then I could get up and put my plan into action. When I first came to the mansion I was the first one here beside Lilith and her servants, who were waiting for everyone else to arrive. I went to the room I had chosen and took a fire iron, hiding it under her bed. Then, I went to the wall and set a timer on the thermostat for 2:00am. Which would give enough time for me to strike. But, that didn’t go to plan. I woke up at 1:30am instead of 1:00am due to the amount of alcohol I had, and when I got to her room, she was already dead. Her blankets were on the floor, covered in fresh blood, while my instruments to kill her with were still in place. I panicked, and ran as fast as I could out there before walking back to my room. I went the wrong way and ended up near the living room, where Eden saw me walking. I instantly turned around and went back. Besides, my original motive? I wanted her to suffer for leaving me and just making me a friend. If I were to kill her, I would’ve been a lot more brutal to the body. Now,what other information do we have Sebastian?” Her turned to me, his gaze worse than before. I gulped a bit before reading off the rest of the clues, “So… from that and the clues we found. The bathrobe is not Luca’s, the murder weapon was indeed the knife found in the kitchen, and there was bloody towels in a secret hall, which connected the kitchen to the study, in which the study is right next to the master…. Also Roman? You told me the wounds on the body were from a fire iron, when in fact now that it was from a knife, care to explain? Also you were in the room by the kitchen with Carson, and apparently you both slept the whole night. Care to explain?” Roman looked at everyone before trying to bolt out, but Carson grabbed him tightly and sat him back down. The pressure on Roman making him crack, “It was me alright?? I murdered her!!!” Everyone gasped, Willow quietly asking, “How could you? You two were close friends, you met at the same internship while you were trying to get your pHD for medical school…”
“It’s because of her that Damian is gone! That’s why!” He screamed, infuriated. “She didn’t stop him from leaving to go to work that day, and because of that, he died! I loved him more than she did, she never deserved him. So, after finding out that Damian died, I made the decision to kill her. I’ve been to this house many times and knew of the different routes of servant halls. I chose a room with Mr Buff to have an alibi, and struck. I went to the kitchen, got a knife, and went into the hall to the study, the hidden door making more noise than expected. I used my bathrobe and strangled her before stabbing her out of frustration. I threw the blankets off of her and went into her bathroom, ditching the bathrobe. I also began cleaning off the blood on myself with a wet towel, leaving it in the hall since no one knew it was there. I could’ve framed it all on the psycho here, but you just had to keep looking into the case.” After he was done with his confession we tied him, and Luca to their chairs. Not long after, the cops came, as well as an ambulance. The cops took Roman away while the ambulance took both Luca and Lilith, in order to treat his mental instability. It was finally over, and we were able to finally rest.