this I find it wonderful that my work provides me a legitimate excuse for my nosiness. No guilt for a change.
About a football field into the woods I saw a cluster of cops standing around what appeared to be a large thicket of raspberry brambles growing in a patch of sunlight. One of the men was picking ripe berries and popping them in his mouth as he and the others watched someone in the middle of the thicket intently.
That officer was taking pictures of something from all angles. He muttered words that I would never say as thorns tore at his uncovered arms and clung to his uniform pants. His particularly loud snarls seemed reserved for the ripe raspberries that insisted on bleeding all over him.
I snuck up behind Natalie and tried to peer around her. I needed to see what had attracted all this attention. When I couldn’t see as well as I wanted, I stepped forward and trod on a rock hidden under the natural refuse littering the ground. My ankle turned and with a squeak I pitched forward into the raspberries. Normally I love the wild raspberries that grow profusely on fences and stone walls at the edge of fields as well as in clusters like this where sunlight penetrates the canopy of leaves. The early flowers smell spicy with a hint of cinnamon and I enjoy picking the fruit when it ripens. However, falling into a thicket is a different matter.
I threw my hands out as if they would protect me. It raced through my mind that the scratches I was sure to get should clear up before the wedding. Unless they festered.
Just before I went in headfirst, a strong arm grabbed my blouse in the back and pulled me up short. When I got my feet under me, I glanced over my shoulder at William.
“I thought I told you to get lost,” he growled.
Ever astute, I deduced that he was not happy to see me. Ignoring his comment, I smiled at him. “Thank you, William,” I said most sincerely. “The bride wore scratches isn’t the look I want. What are you all looking at?”
It was obvious he didn’t want to tell me, but at that moment the cop emerged from the grasp of the raspberry brambles, still muttering under his breath as he tried to detach one long tendril that insisted on clinging to his pants. His arms were laced with red scratches and berry stains. His light blue shirt would be a total loss if the red polka dots stained as I thought they would.
William forgot me as he stepped close to examine what the cop held balanced on a piece of toweling.
“Paper bag,” William called and Natalie flipped open what looked like a bag from the grocery store. Carefully the officer from the raspberries slid his find into the bag—a jagged rock large enough to be a deadly weapon, a rock stained with blood, a rock that had strands of hair stuck to it.
My stomach churned as I pictured the murderer bringing it down on the head of an unsuspecting Martha.
“Natalie, take it to the crime-scene guys at the Lancaster barracks,” William ordered.
With a brisk nod, she and her paper bag were gone.
“Why a paper bag?” I asked William. On TV they always use plastic bags.
“So moisture doesn’t build up inside and break down the chemical properties of the blood and the other trace elements.”
“I’m assuming that’s the murder weapon?” I indicated Natalie’s retreating form.
“I don’t know.”
“But the blood and hair—”
“We don’t know that they belong to the vic.” He stared at me. “Goodbye, Merry. I have work to do.”
He turned to the officer with the camera and he and the others made a circle that shut me out. And rightly so, I admitted. It was time for me to go.
As I walked to the car, I knew that rock was the murder weapon just as I knew the blood and hair were Martha’s. Otherwise it was a case of one deer walloping another and tossing the rock in the raspberries where he knew it would be hard to find.
Right.
I climbed into my car, lowered the windows to release the heat that had built up and pulled out of my pocket the slip of paper I’d written Martha’s address on. I pushed the air-conditioning button and drove across town to her condo development with the windows open. My father would think I was crazy for having the windows open with the air-conditioning going, but I find the resulting mixed temperature most comfortable. I also love the air blowing my hair, which couldn’t get too messed up with all the mousse in it.
I wandered up and down the twisting streets west of Amhearst near Sadsburyville for a good five minutes looking for the right road and house number. I became totally confused and began to fear I’d never find my way back out, let alone Martha’s place. Why couldn’t developers put in straight streets anymore? Life had been so much easier when the line from point A to point B was a straight one instead of a corkscrew. Mazes might be fun to solve on paper or in an autumn cornfield, but in developments they leave a lot to be desired.
Finally I stumbled across the right road and followed the numbers until I came to the series of five attached units, the second from the left being Martha’s. Her unit had creamy vinyl siding, crimson shutters and a crimson front door behind a white screen door. The neighboring units were taupe, white, blue and brick. I liked the brick unit best; it had character. But architectural detail wasn’t why I was here. I wanted to see if I could find Ken Mackey. Ken MACkey.
I walked to the front door of Martha’s condo, noting that only her name, not Ken’s, was on the mailbox. A white plastic basket filled with deep red petunias and blue lobelia hung from one corner of the small roof overhanging the front door. In a little patch of soil beside the concrete slab front stoop grew pink geraniums backed by blue salvia and fronted by white alyssum. My heart contracted at the signs of the care Martha had taken to turn her rather ordinary residence into her unique home.
I pushed on the doorbell to the right of the jamb but heard no answering ring. I frowned and pushed again. No trill. I pulled the screen door open and knocked.
And took a step backward as the door swung inward at my touch.
FOUR
I stared at Martha’s front door as it slowly creaked open. Not good.
“Hello?” I called into the shadowed front hall. “Is anyone home? Ken?” I knocked on the doorjamb. “Hello?”
I thought maybe I heard a quiet thud and a soft swish. My heart began beating so hard my ears rang. Someone was here. I swallowed and elbowed the door farther open.
“Hello?”
No answer.
Remembering William’s edict that I never touch anything at a crime scene—and it didn’t take many brains to figure that with the condo’s resident dead and the front door unaccountably open, this was probably a crime scene—I didn’t touch the knob in case the cops needed to check it for prints or something.
I supposed it was possible that Martha had hurried out this morning to go on her run without shutting and locking her door, but I doubted it. Even I, Merry the Forgetful, remembered to lock my front door. Not the car necessarily, but definitely the front door.
If Ken was still home, maybe she wouldn’t have locked up, but she’d have at least closed the door.
