Chapter 35: _We choose peace
Rune
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The idea wasn't the fairest one but it was a factor that would work for sure. They weren't expecting for the police to find the hidden camera right on the damn doorbell.
They hadn't even noticed it at all.
Worst, it carried all the tape on them sneaking at night while peeping behind the gate waiting for Gizem to go scare information out of the old woman. The only thing that eased their stress was that it did not stretch past the view of pivoting the house gate.
If not, Gizem and also them would be exposed for breaching privacy and sneaking up on people in their homes at night.
The police did question them for acting all sneaky and suspicious that night while watching the tape though but Calliope was fast enough to come up with a lie. It was a good and solid lie at that.
All hail Calliope!
The tape wasn't the only thing the police took from their house. They took the left over of the poisoned chicken to be sampled and searched further the rest of their house.
Ferris protested for why they would want to search the house at first but they had no skeletons hidden in their closets so, they finally allowed the search.
At least, no visible skeletons, not the one that could be found by a mere police search.
Now that the tape from both the CCTV cameras and the one from the doorbell has been played and watched, the cops were less suspicious of them and the blame was falling on the poor next door boy.
It pained her to see him get in deeper trouble than he already was all because of them. All because of Vidal's careless mistake.
The fact that the chameleon turned her face and changed her appearance just right into the hidden camera made her wonder if it was her who actually planted it there but later when they arrive back at home, she would discuss it with the others.
It would be a long, argument filled debate but they needed to do all they could to catch the original Chameleon before more harm gets done.
She knew and the others too that the face in the camera now wasn't the face that came to their doorstep but they could not afford to play a fair game now.
They needed to apply wisdom and luckily, they have lots of those.
" I don't know who this new old woman is but I can swear it was Old Mrs. John who came to deliver the chicken!" Asher, whom she could see was already getting tensed began to let out.
Again, more than earlier, her heart ached the more.
" LSR boy, tell me who the one who came to deliver the poisoned chicken is and I might just go easy on you" the sheriff told Asher sternly.
She wished he wouldn't raise his voice on him that way. The boy was innocent!
Luna probably couldn't watch any longer or allow the innocent boy get all the blame as she cuts in. " You see Sheriff, it might be the night that made him mistake the appearance and thought the culprit was Old Mrs.John because of all the wrinkles and all. He might be saying the truth" she said while grinning sheepishly.
" Yes, we are dropping the case" Amadio supported her words.
Someone from the old woman's family snapped. " Well, we aren't. His silly mistake costs us so much trouble. We went through the stress of arguing with your family while we feared for our innocent mother!"
" I almost had high blood pressure because I thought my poor old mother will be punished for what she knew nothing about!" another chided angrily.
" Someone needs to pay! We cannot just sweep this down the carpet and act like nothing happened!"
" Your brother is dying because of the ploy, are you not going to get justice for him at least?!" were the screams from Old Mrs. John's family.
That's it, Rune has had enough!
" First and foremost, any damage caused to you and your family is our fault not Asher's. We will take full accountability for it. Also, Asher merely called out a name, I guess we were impatient for acting out without gathering full facts and lastly, it is not Asher who poisoned our dying brother. Justice? We will definitely get justice for him but with the right culprit not the poor boy!" she almost screamed her lungs out.
She was sick and advised to be gentle with almost everything she does but this, she couldn't stand the way those damned humans were hollering upon Asher when he was nothing but innocent.
But why?
All of the old woman's family went still and motionless. Even her own family members were amazed to see and hear her lash out in such a way.
It's been a while she did that.
Her annoyance was really perked up.
" Do you want to charge us to court or settle this with a little token from us as compensation?" August presented to the Old woman's family.
" Ahem!" Sheriff Blair coughed. " You shouldn't be speaking of bribe in front of an officer of the law" he drew the two shooting strands of his mustache as though it was a movable object that he was arranging.
Amadio turned to the man. " It is not bribe, it is merely a sorry token." he provided then indistinctly, " If there is anything like that" he added.
Instantaneously, the Old woman's family encircled one another and began to murmur a debate on which option to take.
Rune prayed silently that they chose the money instead of violence.
From the corner of her eyes, she saw Asher's shoulders relax. The little movement caused her stress to be at ease.
She was happy he felt less devastated now. At first, he thought they were going to dump the whole blame on him and she saw the look of betrayal in his dark eyeballs when he looked at her.
After two minutes of what Rune considered their nonsensical debate, the Old woman's family finally separated from one another and turned to them.
" We have come to a conclusion" the eldest who should be about 50-57 years old in human age range announced.
Swiftly, all the heads present in the Sheriff's Office turned to them.
" You don't need to halt, speak," Farris told the man impatiently.
Oh, Farris. He needed to be nicer to humans.
Maybe none of them were in no mood to be nice at the moment.
The man, after a blazing gaze directed at Farris, cleared his throat and continued. " I and my family all have our own personal families. We only came here to spend a day with our mother and return to our lives, and our jobs but unfortunately, this mishap happened. We left a lot unattended to back at home and my little brother Donald's boss called him just this morning to return immediately if he doesn't want to be fired...." the man was saying but Calliope sharply cuts him off.
" Can you just tell us what you decided upon and not stories?" she even slammed the Sheriff's table.
May the blood of perished originals bless Calliope!
" Ahem!" The Sheriff gave his uncomfortable false cough again.
Maybe to tell Calliope he wasn't so pleased she banged his desk.
" We will settle with the token because we can see this was all just a misunderstanding and also because we need to leave for our homes and jobs. We do not have the time for a lawsuit. We hope your brother survives though" the man took no offense in Calliope's words and finished.
Humans!
They could sell out their kin for money. There was no need to justify the fact that they preferred money over justice still.
Anyway, all the evidence pointed to the fact that no one amongst them was at fault so, a lawsuit was really an unnecessary element.
" Then, I guess you all can take this away from here and leave us to make our investigation on finding the culprit" the sheriff announced to them dismissively and laid both of his legs on his table and his hands over his head that was resting on the chair.
Yeah, good luck with finding the culprit, Rune scoffed inwardly.
" Thank you, Sheriff Blair, we will take our leave now," the old woman's family told the Sheriff and walked out.
" One person, come for the compensation token later!" the sheriff yelled behind them.
A woman yelled back. " Will do!"
And on a whim, the old woman's family was out of the door leaving them with Sheriff Blair and Asher.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone