The Locked Room Murder
Detective Sarah Pearson arrived at the crime scene, a luxurious penthouse suite on the top floor of the city's most exclusive hotel. The victim, a wealthy businessman named Robert Hartley, lay dead on the floor, a single gunshot wound to his head.
The room was locked from the inside, with no signs of forced entry. The only other person in the room was Hartley's wife, Evelyn, who claimed to have been in the bathroom when she heard the gunshot. She called the police immediately.
As Sarah examined the scene, she noticed that the gun, a .38 caliber revolver, was still in Hartley's hand. The window was closed and latched from the inside. It seemed like an open-and-shut case of suicide.
However, something didn't sit right with Sarah. She noticed that Hartley was left-handed, but the gun was in his right hand. Furthermore, there was no gunshot residue on his hand, suggesting that he hadn't fired the weapon.
Sarah turned her attention to Evelyn, who seemed surprisingly composed for a woman who had just lost her husband. Upon questioning, Evelyn revealed that she and Robert had been having marital problems and that he had recently discovered her affair with his business partner.
As Sarah dug deeper, she discovered that Evelyn had a background in mechanical engineering. A thorough search of the bathroom revealed a small, custom-made device hidden behind the toilet. It was a remote-controlled mechanism designed to fire a gun from a distance.
Confronted with the evidence, Evelyn confessed to the crime. She had planned the murder carefully, using her knowledge of mechanics to create a device that would allow her to shoot her husband from the bathroom. She then placed the gun in his hand and locked the door from the inside, making it appear to be a suicide.
Thanks to Detective Sarah Pearson's keen eye for detail and relentless pursuit of the truth, Evelyn was brought to justice for her calculated and cold-blooded crime.
