Lord, they’re all going to need your comfort. Be there for them.
William nodded. “This one definitely hurts. I watched her grow up.” He sighed. “Her family lives down the street from us.”
“What kind of a young woman was she?” I asked. There I went, story-writing again.
“Most of the time she was great. When she was in high school, she babysat for our kids. At college she went a little wild for a time—a couple of DUIs, a bust for pot—but she straightened herself out.”
“Did she still live at home?”
“No.” He and Jolene said it together.
“She had her own place,” William said.
“Over in those new condos off Chestnut Street,” Jolene said.
I knew the condos she meant. They were nice, moderately priced units, built about four years ago. They didn’t begin to compare with the luxury condo that Jolene shared with Reilly, but then, not many did. Not many people had an income like Jolene’s. Twenty-five thousand dollars a month for twenty years. She and her late husband, Arnie, had hit it big in the state lottery.
“Did she live alone?”
Jo shook her head. “Her latest boyfriend is Ken Mackey. They share.”
“Mackey?” William cast an unhappy eye in her direction.
Jo nodded but for once kept her mouth shut. Hmm. Definitely something to be learned there. Between Jo’s silence and the way William said Ken Mackey’s name, we had an issue with a capital I. When Jo and I were in the office, I’d nail her for the scoop on old Ken.
“You two can go home and get ready for work,” William said. “Just stop at the station today and give a formal statement. If I’m not there, ask for Officer Schumann.”
We nodded and turned to leave. I paused and took a few shots of the men and women working the scene. William saw me and gave me an unhappy look, but he didn’t forbid me. I appreciated his trust.
Poor Martha appeared to have trusted the wrong person.
THREE
As William suggested, I went home and showered. I ran my mousse-globbed hands through my hair, trying to make it look stylishly spiked instead of like I hadn’t bothered to brush it today. I put on navy slacks, a pink wide-strapped camisole top and a white sheer blouse covered with pink flowers. I liked the way the pink in the cami made the pink flowers in the sheer blouse so vivid. And I immediately felt guilty for thinking about something so frivolous with Martha lying dead.
With a sigh I snuggled Whiskers, my much-pampered cat, for a moment, then went to the kitchen. I kept one eye on the clock as I toasted a couple of slices of Jewish rye nice and crisp. I slathered them lavishly with real butter and ate them with a Diet Coke as I drove to the office, all too aware that deadline was looming. I needed to do my piece on Martha.
This wasn’t the first time I’d written about a crime with which I was intimately connected and I disliked it this time just as much as the first time I’d inadvertently found death. My heart bled for the lost life, for the lost opportunities, the lost joys and sorrows, and most deeply for the lost chances to know God intimately. My soul shriveled at the audacity of someone who thought that the right to decide life and death was his. How heinous, how prideful, how offensive. How evil. It was Cain and Abel wearing modern garb, man killing man for power and greed, love and hate. It was proof positive that mankind had not changed though we dressed better and enjoyed luxuries those biblical brothers could not even imagine.
And there were those left behind who through no choice of their own were forced to share Eve’s sorrow and loss, compelled to forfeit part of their lives, too. I’d seen their faces and their pain. I’d written about it, attempted to comprehend their great bereavement and make readers feel it and understand that as the victim had been robbed of so many possibilities, so had those who loved that person.
I wanted to be a voice for the dead and for those they left behind, to articulate their horror, their despair. If in this way I could make some contribution to the apprehension of the person responsible for all this pain, I would feel I had offered some small compensation to those who remained.
Chin up, shoulders back, I marched into the news-room, Joan of Arc to my own fields of Orléans.
“How many inches?” I called to Mac, the can of Coke still in my hand. I swallowed the dregs as he called back, “As much as you need. We’ll adapt.”
I stared. I wasn’t used to such freedom and it felt strange.
Mac scowled at me. “Just write, Kramer. Fast.”
I blinked. “Right.”
I wrote a straight news piece, not too long since the incident was only an hour or so old and neither I nor the police had had time to gather much information. Then I wrote the personal piece, adding quotes from Jolene to flesh it out, trying my best to communicate the horror without titillating. I dragged the icon for the pieces and dropped them into Mac’s in-box, then sat back in my chair and thought about the morning. I got up abruptly. I wanted to go to the crime scene and see firsthand if anything new and interesting had developed.
I parked in the Bushay lot, now full of cars. Most were those of employees, but several had flashing lights and crackling radios. I followed the jogging path to the yellow crime-scene tape. Sergeant Poole looked up from his blue study of the matted grass where Martha had lain. He stood alone, but clever sleuth that I am, I knew there were other cops somewhere because of the cars in the lot.
William’s craggy face grew ever more furrowed as he frowned at me. “Merry.”
I decided to ignore the lack of enthusiasm in his voice. “Hi, William. Anything new happening?”
He extended his arm to indicate the empty space around him. “As you can see, not a thing.”
“Any comment for the paper? What have the crime-scene guys found?”
“The investigation is continuing apace.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him. He was the only person I knew who said apace.
“Sorry, kid,” he said, not sorry at all. “That’s it.”
“No weapon? No motive? No suspect?”
“Merry, the woman’s been dead mere hours.”
“Hey, William! Come ’ere quick!”
He and I turned to the woman who burst out of the woods, ducking under the graceful branches of a dogwood. She wore a uniform like William’s without the stripes of rank. Her face was alight with excitement.
“Oops.” Officer Natalie Schumann skidded to a halt as she saw me. “Uh, Sergeant Poole, may I see you for a moment, please?”
“If you’ll excuse me, Merry,” William said. “I’m sure you need to leave and get about your reporting business somewhere else. Maybe there’s a fire in West Chester or a drug bust in Downingtown.” He nodded and turned to follow Natalie into the woods.
As
