[WP] In a school for assassins and mercenaries, you're a beloved lunch lady. You ruefully realize that you're the only person nearly everyone trusts. Then you get framed for placing hemlock in an administrator's meal. The school board rushes to fire you, throwing the academy into turmoil.
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Nina's plan really bridged all the gaps in the investigation. Now, we could focus on two leads, and if we burned opposite ends of the rope, we were sure to get to the center of things pretty fast and achieve our aim: catching, capturing, and eliminating the culprits.
Viper spoke up. "Should we be worried about the interrogation process though? Does it matter if they know that this is what we're doing?"
The question was valid. If there was any need to conceal our intentions and we failed to do that, there was a possibility that we could get false, misleading answers. We were going to have to factor that in when asking the questions, or at least I thought it was right if we did so.
"It won't really matter or at least not as much as you all fear it would. It is actually quite impossible to ask all these questions without giving off even a slight hint of our true aims and objectives. You guys can do your best to ask the questions discreetly and in code, and make sure to look at body language..."
An idea hit me and I interrupted Amanda. "If we are going to be interrogating the sophomore class, then we will also have to ask those four who will notify them of our intentions and plans. We haven't yet given them the impression that we know the exact group that did the crime, and so, asking the entire sophomore class questions will tally with what I said earlier, and it will give them a false sense of security."
Nina nodded, "Yeah, that does make sense, but what else? We need a template for these questions that ensures that the students subconsciously give us the answers we need without them knowing the exact purpose of all the questions."
"I thought about something there. Why don't we ask the students if they saw any instructor leave the classroom?"
Amanda looked on at me quizzically, not seeing the point or basis of my idea. "What are you tryna achieve with that?"
"Simple. The students will believe that we're on to someone in the ICT unit and therefore, we just need to ask them about that to get an answer for them, which will obviously be trying to shift the spotlight away from them,"
"So they'll tell us what they know without knowing underground that there was another question which they answered? Genius."
Our four suspects were there, and only one of them was the person we were looking for at the moment. One of them was the serial killer moving amongst the students and clearing anyone who seems to have caught wind of their actions.
Venus, the silent sophomore girl who was rarely ever seen without a book in her hands. The person we were looking for was most likely male, but her broader than usual shoulders (for a woman) and her voice made me think she was manlier than I thought.
Conan was another sophomore who was known for being something of a loudmouth. We were fairly proficient students, but he always managed to go over the top with his arrogant lifestyle and noisemaking antics.
Virgil was the one who made it clear he didn't like anything about Spyder. It was obvious that he didn't want to be here, but then he had no other places to go so he just remained for the sake of it. He had above-average grades, but that was all about him.
Rook was the last one out of this bunch of oddball suspects. He was quiet, bit managed to score a couple of friends. He did well on his tests, getting scores that were among the best in his class. Essentially that students were all enjoyed- lowkey and still get the job done.
Our suspicions were already there as to who did the crime while we asked the questions, but we knew we had to kill those thoughts before they influenced our interrogation or gave the students a hint of what was going on.
After gathering our data, we came back to the office to discuss our results. Nina, Amanda, and I all took turns interrogating the students, and as we exchanged the information, we could easily sift through the accurate descriptions and those that were either from students who couldn't remember at all or those that were cleverly constructed by the culprit to throw us off the scent.
Amanda spoke. "According to the timeline we have here, Instructor Krane left the class fourteen minutes before those two were spotted at the shore by Insouke and Caprice's team. Rook also took permission about sic minutes after that, and no one else went out and entered during that period."
It was crystal clear to us now.
Krane Diesel, the instructor who was best at hacking and cybercrime activities. He had something for Karina from the Hunting Department, and it looked like she was reciprocating the feelings. The knife wound sustained by Inosuke was from a knife that could only have come from the Hunting Unit, so the story looked clean, but was Karina working with him?
"Krane and Rook are our culprits. Karina is also going to be treated as a suspect till further notice. We need to g=find a nice, flashy way of capturing them, don't you think?" Amanda said, smiling as the wheels in her head turned.
*****
To Be Continued
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I still have to wait for the next few chapters 😢😢😢