Peachville

Melanie's body cold as ice, found inside a freezer at a bar. Four suspects; The bar-man, the bar owner, the unfaithful man and Melanie's best friend. Questioning of four suspects, at first no one seem to have any motive to kill Melanie except Melanie's best friend “Gabby”.

Gabby and Melanie had been best of friends since high school all the way to college and they ended working together at the same company for organic edibles. Gabby had thought of a great marketing idea to pitch to the CEO of the company on how better to advertise a fresco product that had been giving the company sales problems. She told her best friend Melanie about the idea, and Melanie did what all best friends do which is help point out some lagging points in her ideas and tried to make it better but Gabby after noting some unanswered questions in her pitch decided not to go along with it and told Melanie to forget it. Melanie liked Gabby's pitch, so she modified it a little and found answers so some of the questions Gabby's pitch couldn't answer and during the usual meeting, she pitched Gabby's Idea. The CEO liking the idea decided to endorse it and he congratulated Melanie and decided to give her a promotion. Gabby infuriated by this threatened Melanie in the walkway, saying in her words “You're dead to me, Mel, you're dead!”. Melanie struck with guilt and felt the need to apologize invited Gabby over to a bar to talk and though the talk didn't yield anything positive for their friendship, Gabby and Melanie got into another argument which prompted Gabby to leave furiously for the bathroom and after being there for minutes, came out, took her bag and left. At least that was what she she said in the police report.

William's alibi checks out, indeed he had a phone call from his wife about their kid being in the hospital after hurting himself when playing but he lied about not having a conversation with Melanie, claiming he just saw her at the bar when he went for a drink and said hi. According to a witness who was present at the bar that night, he said he saw William having a conversation with Melanie. He also saw Melanie refusing to give in to William's wooing that night and when he proceeded to use “the touch” technique by placing his hands on Melanie's lap, she slapped it off and told him she wasn't in the mood. Few moments later he received a call, answered it for minutes then hurriedly left. But why did he lie about not talking to her? What was the reason? Is he the killer or was he just trying to cover the fact that he was being unfaithful to his wife?. Though this doesn't scream motive, but it's a crazy world so he likely could be the killer.

The bar-man said Melanie had been drinking throughout the night, till it got to his shift's end, then He told her she had had enough. He claimed Melanie took his advice, paid for her drink even gave him tips, then he walked Melanie to her car, which she entered and drove off. Though Melanie's car was found at her home but why was her body found in the freezer at the same bar?. There's no motive, which got the humble detective thinking this could be the case of a serial killer.

Leading him to the final suspect, the bar owner. The bar owner doesn't seem to have any connection to the victim, to which the bar owner, Ezekiel confirmed after being questioned by the humble detective. Still he made the list of suspects because it is his bar after all.
“So who'd done it? Who killed Melanie?” the detective cogitated, burning with questions.

The now very disturbed detective decided to go to Melanie's home again after being there before, in search of clues to somehow connect Melanie to all four suspects or in his head any clue at all. After constant searching he found a year book photo dating back to Melanie's grade school, there he saw a photo of the bar owner, Ezekiel with a different name Robert and the nickname “crying Rob” in bracket. Which perturbs the detective further, why is the bar-owner who claims to not have known our victim present in her yearbook photo with a different name?. Still not satisfied with his recent finding, the persistent detective searched more for more clues. And after much ransacking, he found Melanie's cell under her fridge, the cell appear to have been tossed under hence the cracks on the screen, fortunately the cell was not damaged, just switched off due to its low battery. The detective immediately took the cell phone back to the precinct to charge it. After which he did he went through our victim's cell.
Apparently, Melanie and Robert or Ezekiel had recently started texting. He claims to have had feelings for Melanie since grade school and was acting on them by wooing her but Melanie seemingly had been rejecting him and never returning his feelings. The detective somehow knew in his gut that Ezekiel was the killer but he needed evidence to back him up, so he called Ezekiel to the precinct.
The detective cleverly pretended to have every evidence pointing him as Melanie's killer. He went further to show him the year book photo and Melanie's cell phone. Ezekiel now realizing he's been caught, explained that it was true he and Melanie attended the same grade school and that he changed his name after a while due to his “crying Rob” incidence in school many years ago. He claims he didn't say anything earlier because he felt it wasn't of necessity. The detective went further to falsely narrate to Ezekiel how he got to Melanie's home and killed her. Ezekiel now backed against the wall, revealed that on the night of Melanie's death he was present in Melanie's home and that her death was an accident, he was just talking to her before he tried to kiss her which she refused and shoved him, but he came back and pressed forward, this time more aggressive, and he unintentionally pushed Melanie and she fell, hitting her head on the floor. Seeing her in a pool of blood, he realized what he had done, he leaned forward to check her breath and she wasn't breathing. He panicked, then he took her body back to his bar and dumped her carcass in the freezer then returned to erase every trace of him ever being there.

The detective's tactics had worked this time as he has successfully brought Melanie's killer to justice. Solving his first murder case as a detective. But in a town like Peachville murder is always lurking around...