Sitting at dinner with Brock, my mind goes in a million directions. I can’t get the last words Gray said out of my mind. I’ve hardly touched my food when Brock turns to me.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he says, dishing up some more mashed potatoes. I contemplate on whether to tell him I called Gray, even though he said not to, but I must tell someone. Another thing that strikes me as odd is that Deanna told the police she discovered the body at around 7:30, but I was going past her house at 8:15, and no one was out there, let alone a dead body that was dug up. I mean, she very well could have just gotten the time wrong as she was in shock.
“I called Gray, and before you say anything, he wasn’t bothered by it,” the little lie flies out of my mouth. Brock raises his eyebrows. “Anyway, he told me the body was only a few months deceased, which is weird. I keep trying to figure out how someone just digs up a yard and tosses a body into it in a nice neighborhood. You know?”
Brock sighs, the same sigh Gray made on the phone. “I wish you would just leave it alone, Trice. There’s nothing you or I or anyone else for that matter can do. The police are handling it, and I’m sure we will get more information once the medical examiner has done an autopsy. Until then, don’t let it become an obsession.” He pulls down his short-rimmed glasses to his nose and gives me the look, and then pushes them back up again.
“Yeah, you’re right. There are just inconsistencies that I can’t quite understand.” Brock knows me all too well; he knows my true crime binge-watching, my hyper-awareness of everyone and everything around me, and he also knows I love watching murder mysteries.
I’m a lost cause.
A few hours later, I dump the remainder of my dinner into the disposal, turn it on, and watch as it sucks it up. A clanging noise causes me to flip it off quickly. Did a spoon or fork get caught in there? I put my hand in, but it’s clean. I listen to see if I hear it again. It’s probably just a cat, but curiosity and all that. I peer out the window. The sun has already gone down and is nearly pitch black on a clear night, so I can't see the backyard well.
I don’t see anything and conclude it’s just a stupid cat, but then I hear Hercules start barking. Oh, here we go. He darts out the doggy door to the back and starts his, what I call, warning bark. He’s quite protective, so if anyone out there shouldn’t be, he uses the “Get off my lawn!” bark.
I throw the door open and yell for him to knock it off, but he’s persistent. “Herc, there’s no one out here,” and yet, when I say those words, I don’t know if they’re true. I’ve always felt safe in my backyard, so I go out and over to where the mutt is, and he’s cornered; you guessed it, a black cat with piercing yellow eyes is hissing at him from where it perches in our Cottonwood tree. But then another movement catches my eye as it darts to the side and then is gone.
I slap my hand to my chest, feeling my heart race. What in the world? Goosebumps form on my arms, and I instinctively wrap them around myself, scurry back to the door, and fling it open.
“Brock!” I charge up the stairs to the attic, where I know he is.
“What?” He doesn’t move when I get there, just studies papers before him.
“I just saw someone in our backyard!”
“What, when?” He stops and looks up at me as if I just told him the goldfish had died.
“Just now. Come, quick!” I motion with my hands.
“It’s probably just a shadow, Trice.”
“No, it’s not.”
At this point, he gets off his chair, pushes past me, and walks down the stairs and out the back. Whatever it was is likely long gone since he took his time.
I follow him out, and Hercules is still growling at the cat, staring him down. This cat loves to taunt him and has been in our tree numerous times. It’s one of our backdoor neighbors, and by the look of him, the black cat with green eyes gets plenty to eat as I see him lay his chunky belly across a sturdy branch. He doesn’t care that Hercules is barking and trying to get at him. Cats are like that; they act like they own the neighborhood, and you’re the nuisance.
“I don’t see a thing except that stupid cat,” he shakes his head. “Herc, no bark!” Of course, the mutt listens to Brock, but I tell him repeatedly, and it’s like our kids when they were younger, and they completely ignored me.
“Someone was out there. I watched them dart off to the side and then take off.”
“Trice, we have a fenced-in yard. You are seeing things. Maybe it’s time to lay off those true crime stories, eh?”
Maybe he’s right. But I swear …
Later that night, I’m watching another true crime story. Yes, I’m a glutton for punishment.
This story features a local town that never had a murder until a decade ago, and then five women went missing in a month, and they knew a serial killer was out there. I sat there, watching the host, tearing up when she talked about the victims' families. I couldn’t imagine what those poor families had to endure. If That ever happened to my daughters-in-law, it would destroy my sons and Brock, and I. We love each of them like a daughter.
I finally shut my laptop down at 10:30, the magic number to hit the sack. Brock hadn’t come in yet; he was still working on his case.
I drift into a restless sleep and come wide awake at 3:30 when the sound of footsteps pounds on our hardwood floor. “Sorry, babe,” Brock sits on the bed, takes off his shoes, then climbs into bed. “Go back to sleep.” It’s not good for Brock to burn the candle at both ends, but I can’t think about that when all my body wants is sleep.
____________________________
The next morning is bright and sunny, and as I glance at my watch and notice it’s nearly 9:00 a.m., I bound out of bed. The kids will be here any minute. How did I sleep in? Brock is already gone, probably having only had 5 hours of sleep.
I rush to get dressed and put on a little makeup so I don’t look like a ghost and get downstairs just as the grandkids punch in the Ring code and come bursting through.
“Grandma, I’m hungry!” Chris makes a beeline straight to the kitchen.
“Didn’t your mom feed you before you left?” That’s typically what happens.
“Not today. She was running late.” I couldn’t blame her as I was too.
I pull out the cereals and milk and let them have at it.
So much for my walk. If I had gotten up at 7:30 like usual, I would have had time to take it before the grandkids showed up, but now, it’s too late. Hercules wags his tail. He knows we should be leaving, but I rub his head and say, “Not now, buddy.” He skulks away and heads out the doggy door.
After I play some Xbox games with the boys and a princess game with Claire, I turn on Disney in the basement and let them watch something for a while.
I turn on my laptop and type in Channel 2 News, and the first article that pops up is about the dead male body.
Here we go …
Medical examiners have concluded the autopsy of the male body discovered in Deanna Carmichael’s front yard in Grantsville last Wednesday morning. According to the chief medical examiner, Brandon Cartwright, it didn’t look like the body had been there very long, making it easier to identify.
Carmichael has been divorced for two years and says she’s not seen her husband, Troy, since then but figured he went to live with the woman he had been having an affair with. There is speculation that the male body could be that of her ex-husband. A press conference has been scheduled for 3:00 this afternoon, and Deanna has been taken in for questioning, which is normal procedure.
Every fiber of my being is screaming that the dead body is Troy. Who else would it be? If Deanna and the kids haven’t seen him since their divorce, and she has no idea where he is, the logical conclusion is that someone murdered him and then dumped his body in her front yard. And then a new thought gives me chills.
Is she being framed?
No comments:
Post a Comment