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animals!"
    "Do you?"
    "Yes. Do you know, I've spent half the morning rescuing a squirrel from a drainpipe? And the other day, this cat got a splinter in its paw. Oh, sorry, I'm rambling on now!"
    "It's alright," I said, getting bored. "So, how long have you and John been friends?"
    "Oh, you're giving me an interview now, are you?" laughed Laura. I liked this woman, because she was rather cheerful and sociable.
    "No," I laughed. "I'm just trying to find out a bit more about John, that's all."
    "What's this about?" she asked again.
    "I can't say...yet," I said, knowing that sooner or later this whole case would be released to the press.
    "It's something serious, isn't it?" asked Laura, looking quite apprehensive.
    "What makes you say that?" I said.
    "John's always been a funny one," she said.
    "What do you mean?" I asked her.
    "I don't really know. He never seemed to fit in with the others."
    "I know that he's a schizophrenic."
    "Really? I didn't know that!"
    "You didn't?"
    "Well, I've never really thought about John like that."
    "Laura, do you remember Monica? She lives just around the corner."
    "Oh, Monica! Yes, I do. Me and her were really good friends at school."
    "Do you still see her now?"
    "Now and then," Laura replied with confidence. "I say hello to her, and that's it."
    "She hasn't been behaving strangely, has she?" I asked her, secretly hoping for an affirmative answer.
    "No. Like I said, I don't see her much. Monica is somebody who tends to keep to herself. Like me, she is unmarried, and she does not really do much, not like she used to, anyway."
    "She used to go out a lot?" I asked, feeling as though I was getting somewhere.
    "Oh, yes! I used to see her all the time," she said, "even at somebody's one hundredth birthday party. She went out at four o'clock that day, and stayed out until twelve, when the other party finished!"
    "Really?" I asked. It seemed to me that Monica had a rather strange behavior. Although she seemed perfectly normal when I talked to her, she seemed to have an unusual past.
    "Yes! And she used to flirt with everyone, in school. Shortly after Richard's death, she just forgot about him and moved on to somebody else."
    It was then that it struck me. Monica and Richard (the fourth victim) were an item? Then I thought even deeper –– John said that he wrote a love note to Richard, which lured him into the woods. Was it Monica who wrote that note?
    "I need to ask you one more question," I said. "And you might think this is a little bit stupid."
    "Not at all," said Laura. "Fire away!"
    "Well, do you remember years ago, when Richard Cold was killed?"
    "Yes, I do. It was a sad time, with the others dying, too."
    "Well, Richard received a note which lured him to his death. Do you remember if Monica wrote that note?"
    "Yes. She wrote the note and pushed it through into Richard's locker. Nobody was looking."
    "How do you know this?" I asked.
    "Well, she told me."
    "Did she?" I asked.
    "Didn't you know? Monica and Richard were an item!"
    "This is news to me!" I cried. "And thank you for your time! Also, I would appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about this –– not yet, anyway."
    "You have my word," said Laura, waving goodbye to me.
    Laura had helped a lot. I could not believe what I had heard. In the interview, John said that he was the one who pushed the note through the locker, but I had a witness who claimed otherwise.
    I returned to the station and made a few phone calls, just to verify that Monica and Richard were an item just before his murder. I made a few calls to people who were in the same classes as Monica and Richard, and also to Richard's parents, who confirmed that Monica and Richard were indeed dating at the time of his death. Now I suspected Monica more than John, and I strongly believed that Monica had something to do with the murders.
     

Chapter 7
     
    I did not doubt Laura at all. For whatever reason, she knew she’d gotten Monica into trouble. Perhaps she did not want to