The Aces
Vatshal K. Raval
Happy Paws Veterinary Hospital was in a state of alarm. It had lost 4 of its patient dogs. Cindy, who was the owner and head doctor of the clinic, had not been there since 4 days. But when she came back and went to check the condition of the dogs. She expected a healthy condition of all the dogs but she found something rather disturbing. There were the heads of the 4 dogs lying on the floor of the rooms. The dogs Oscar (Labrador), Figo (Pug), Pluto (Doberman) and Mars (Rottweiler) had been brutally killed and their heads, chopped off. She also discovered some playing cards. They were the Ace of Clubs, Ace of Hearts, Ace of Diamonds and the Ace of Spades. But the question is how did it start?
Cindy had got a sprain in her left ankle. She called their family doctor home. The doctor was standing out of the house, ringing the door bell. But Cindy’s brother, Ron was a useless guy who always played games but didn’t like to earn to buy them. Cindy usually called him ‘The IP’ only because he was as useless as an inkless pen. He didn’t open the door. After 5 minutes of the doctor constantly ringing the bell, Ron finally opened the door. The doctor examined Cindy and advised her not to go to work for some days but when she resumed going to her work. She saw something, something that you have already read.
It was a couple of days now since the incident took place and the cops were now searching for the murderer. Cindy’s leg now felt better. She had gone for a walk in the nearby park. But when she returned and couldn’t find her brother, she called him but Ron didn’t pick it up. Cindy went in her room and started searching for a charger. She couldn’t find it and went to Ron’s room. She found a can of insecticides whereas they had no garden, an antifreeze spray, and mice killing tablets while they had a pest control only some time ago. She also saw a knife with some blood spread on it. As she was a veterinary doctor she knew that these things could easily kill a dog and all these things convinced her into believing that Ron was the one who had murdered the dogs but she couldn’t just tell the cops as she wasn’t sure and this could be just a mere coincidence. She also saw a deck of playing cards and remembered her passion about cards. As soon as she picked them up, she felt that she had touched these cards someday before this.
She took up the cards, put them in the pocket, searched for the charger, went in her room and started shuffling the cards. She observed that the deck had only 48 cards instead of a regular 52 cards. She checked all the cards and found out that the 4 ACES were missing. She now was totally convinced that Ron was the killer. She moved towards her phone to call the cops but just then the door bell rang. Cindy thought it was Ron, she rushed down so that she could as soon as possible, confront him and tell him to confess his crime.
She opened the door and expected Ron but ‘we are the NYPD and we are here to arrest you’ the cops said. ‘Officer I think, I think you are mistaken. Why do you want to arrest me? What have I done?’ Cindy revolted. ‘Murdered the dogs at your own hospital miss’ the officer said, took a pair of handcuffs from his belt, put her on Cindy's wrists, arrested her and took her to the police station.
‘You don’t have any evidence against my sister, inspector!’ Ron said as he saw his sister in the lockup. ‘We surely do young man’ the inspector said and signalled him to take a look on the evidence they had got. They had a clear and audible video clip that was probably the CCTV clip from one of the rooms. It was clearly seen that a young lady, believed to be Cindy came in the room, Moved towards a tray which had all the surgical equipments in it, took one of the equipments and put a cut on the dog’s neck. The cops had 4 such clips in which the lady was always the same but the dog kept changing. Ron saw it and believed that his sister was the murderer. He walked up to his sister ‘sis, they have enough evidence to prove you the murderer. I’ll consult a lawyer and get the bail papers ready’ he said and left
It was 11PM when Cindy suddenly stood up and started walking towards the exit. The officer in charge quickly opened the door and calmed her down. The next morning they called a psychologist and told her that Cindy had started walking in the night. The doctor talked to her for half an hour and returned to the inspector, disappointed ‘she has somnambulism also called the sleepwalking disorder. I also took a look at the clips and I conclude that the murders were committed by her in a subconscious state of mind. This means that she didn’t know that she was killing someone. She used to wake up, walk out of the home, went to the nearest cab driver and as she was wearing the hospital uniform, the guy took him there, did all the killings but left the Aces there but I don’t know why and returned home’ she said and left.
The question that now arises is that did Cindy recover? She did not! But she improved a lot. Now coming to the dog killing things, Ron says it was just for self defence.
.
