Seams Like the Perfect Crime

Sunday morning, Nick took Leonard out for his morning walk while Zack and I prepared breakfast. Ralph kept an eye on our progress from atop the refrigerator. Moments later, Nick and Leonard reentered the house.
“That was quick,” I said.
“Leonard started barking and pulled me across the street. That weird new guy was still flat on his back at the top of his steps. Like he hadn’t moved since we came home from dinner last night.” He paused for a moment, took a deep breath, then said, “I think he’s dead, Mom.”
Zack turned off the stove and held his arm out for Ralph. Once the bird alighted on his favorite human, Zack returned him to his cage. Ralph squawked his indignation, but Zack only said, “Sorry, pal.”
Hopefully, Ralph wouldn’t pick the lock, one of his many talents. To prevent parrot temptations, I covered the sausage with a heavy lid and placed the uncooked eggs in the refrigerator before Nick and I followed Zack.
Before opening the door, Zack turned to us and said, “Best if you two stay here. Let me check it out.”
We remained inside the house but left the door open. Leonard’s barking resumed as we watched Zack bound across the street. After climbing halfway up the steps of the McMansion, he stopped short, turned toward us, and shook his head. As he descended the steps, he pulled his phone from his pocket.
“The police are on their way,” said Zack once he’d returned to the house.
“What about an ambulance?” I asked, continuing to focus on what little I could see of the still body across the street. “Are you sure he’s dead? You didn’t even check for a pulse.”
“No need. Someone plunged a bayonet into his heart.”
My brain reeled as my body gave off an involuntary shudder. Another murder on our block. How was that possible? This was Westfield, not Camden or Newark. But you’d never know it from the string of murders that had occurred during the past ten months. First Betty Bentworth and Carmen Cordova last October. John Doyle and Cormac Murphy in April. Jared Oberman a month ago. Now Barry Sumner. On the exact site of the razed house where the first murder on our street had taken place. All on one short block. How long before someone started bus tours to capitalize on the notoriety of the deadliest street in New Jersey?
I reached for my son. “You okay, Nick?”
He allowed me to draw him against my side. “Yeah, I think so, Mom.” He cocked his head and forced a grin. “After all, as I’ve heard you say, not my first rodeo.”
“Really, Nick?”
“Too soon for homicide humor?”
“Probably.”
Nick was right, though. Barry Sumner was the second murder victim Leonard had sniffed out on our street, then dragged Nick toward the scene of the crime. Four months ago, the Dog Whisperer and his canine with a nose for murder came across Corman Murphy’s body in a shallow grave behind our garage.
In the distance, the sound of sirens grew louder. Any moment a convoy of police vehicles would round the corner. The press would soon follow. They’d camp out on my front lawn, demanding to know my connection to this latest murder. Because they’d long ago decided that Westfield’s own Miss Marple/Jessica Fletcher/Nancy Drew was always somehow connected to every murder, not only on our street or within our town or county but throughout the entire tri-state region. Or so it seemed.
Worst of all, the moment the press connected me to the murder, I’d receive a blistering call from my mother, berating me for sticking my nose where it didn’t belong and risking life and limb.
Not this time, though. I’d never even spoken to the man. He and his wife had only moved in three days ago. I hadn’t discovered the body. I hadn’t called the police. And yet, somehow, I knew I’d get sucked in. Because I always do. It was only a matter of time.
And now my younger son was following in his mother’s reluctant sleuthing footsteps. “You tell no one you discovered the body, Nick.”
Zack and Nick stared at me. “I don’t want the press hounding you,” I explained. “They’re relentless, and they won’t care that you’re only a teenager.”
“Don’t I need to talk to the cops?” asked Nick. “I found the body.”
“Did you touch anything?”
Nick shook his head. “I know better than that, Mom. I stayed on the sidewalk. I guess Leonard smelled blood, but I couldn’t see any, and I sure didn’t see a bayonet sticking out of the guy’s chest.”
I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Zack will speak with Detective Spader. If the detective needs to hear from you, he knows where to find you.”
“I can’t even tell Alex and Sophie?”
I tightened my lips and shook my head. “No one.”
Zack indicated his agreement with a nod. While he waited for the police to arrive, I grabbed Nick’s hand and pulled him and Leonard away from the front entrance, closing the door behind us.
“What now?” asked Nick.
“Take Leonard into the backyard before he has an accident.”
With both Nick and Zack occupied for the moment, I directed my attention to our abandoned breakfast. Fat had congealed around the half-cooked sausages. I turned the burner on low to melt the fat, then raised the heat to finish browning the links. While the sausage cooked, I sliced a cantaloupe, placing a few pieces in Ralph’s cage, a reward for staying put, and left the door open. The eggs sat ready for scrambling once Nick and Zack returned.
Even though I had no intention of getting sucked into the investigation of Barry Sumner’s death, my brain had parked itself on the topic and was raising all sorts of questions. For one, where was Gloria, aka Mrs. Stoop Sitter? She apparently hadn’t bailed her husband out of jail if he’d been charged or bothered to pick him up at the station if he hadn’t been charged.
He didn’t drive himself home. Even though he walked back and forth for hours as he mowed his dirt, he didn’t strike me as the sort of man who would walk a mile into town in full Continental Army attire, especially in the middle of the summer. Those uniforms were made of heavy wool, not light cotton.
If he’d taken his car downtown, why hadn’t he driven himself home? Was he so intoxicated even after cooling his heels in a cell that the police kept his keys?
If Gloria had gone out for the day, wouldn’t she have noticed her husband lying on the stoop when she arrived home? Wouldn’t she wake him before she went to bed?
Maybe she didn’t notice him because she pulled into the garage, but then, wouldn’t she have realized he wasn’t in the house?
Or perhaps, after her altercation with Tonya yesterday, she no longer cared where he was or with whom. Hadn’t she inferred she planned to divorce him?
If Mrs. Stoop Sitter was still sound asleep this morning and unaware of her husband’s murder, she was in for a huge shock. Unless she’d killed him while he slept. After all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, no matter that the man in question was no one’s idea of Prince Charming. But why kill someone she planned to divorce, especially if she wouldn’t financially benefit from his death?
The sound of the front door opening pulled me from my mental gymnastics. Hearing two sets of feet striding across the hardwood floor, I knew Detective Sam Spader had accompanied Zack into the house. I was expecting the visit. I’d even added a few more eggs to the bowl.