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 soon as William and Natalie disappeared into the trees, I followed as quietly as I could. At times like 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