THE
CROW AND THE ROSE
Joshua Michael Stewart
Now that I’m retired, I
spend my mornings at Deb’s Diner, solving the world’s problems over coffee with
Sid Abrams. Usually, I don’t get home until after 1:00 p.m., but Sid had a
urology appointment, so we cut things short, and I headed home to fetch the mail
and feed my tabby, Bounce. I pulled into the driveway, yanked out the junk mail
crammed in the mailbox, and unlocked the side door. It surprised me not to see
Bounce wrap around my legs. Meow for his lunch. Surprised me more to find food
in his bowl. He never leaves a morsel of his breakfast. But what surprised me
most was when I laid the mail on the counter along with my John Deere cap next
to a half-opened can of cat food, which I don’t remember leaving out, and
walked into the living room, I encountered Bounce curled up and wedged between
the legs of a woman sprawled out on my couch—a woman I didn’t know. “Excuse
me,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
The woman acted like I
wasn’t there. Stared at the ceiling. Bounce yawned. Chirped. Then bounded off
the couch and sauntered into the kitchen. Jesus Christ, I thought. Did
some drug addict stumble into my house? I took a step closer and realized
she wasn’t ignoring me. She wasn’t high; she was dead.
She wore shredded jeans.
Combat boots. Exhibited a crow tattoo with a rose in its beak on her neck. She
wore a black bob with cherry-red highlights and maroon lipstick. Her eyes were
as black as her eyeliner. A white Ramones t-shirt peeked out from under a
frayed army jacket. Her face, pale. Her fingertips, blue.
Looking at the coffee table
and the floor surrounding the couch revealed nothing. I knew not to touch her,
but leaned over to see if I could spot anything that would identify her or
explain how she died. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for—another tattoo with
a name or a hypodermic needle. I thought I saw something in the space between
the armrest and her head and shoulder. I bent forward, squinting into the void.
I kept thinking I could feel her breath on my cheek. I imagined her seizing me
by the throat. Then, the landline on the end table rang. “Son of a bitch!” I
almost fell back over the coffee table. “Goddammit!” I picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hiram, you won’t believe
it,” I’d know Sid’s Brooklyn accent from anywhere.
“Sid, what are you doing?”
I asked. “I thought you had a doctor’s appointment?”
“Ah! I farmisht the date.
It’s tomorrow. I thought we’d get lunch since my afternoon’s free.”
“I’m kind of busy, Sid.” I
heard NPR and Sid’s windshield wipers in the background. It’s been a cold and
rainy September. “Are you driving, Sid? You know you shouldn’t be on the phone
while driving.”
“I thought I’d swing by and
pick you up.”
“It’s really not a good
time, Sid.” I tried not to reveal the panic in my voice.
“Who’s too busy to eat?”
Sid offered. “Besides, I’m down the street.” He hung up before I could reply.
****
Sid and I stood
side-by-side, looking at the dead woman. “Was she a kurveh?” Sid asked.
“A what?”
“A kurveh. You know, sex
worker.”
“No! I mean, if she was, I had nothing to do with her.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“What?” Sid tossed up his
hands. “How am I to know?”
“Look,” I said, “as I told
you at the door, I came home and found this woman I’ve never seen before dead
on my couch.”
“Well, she must’ve been
here to rob you.”
“She didn’t ransack the
house,” I said. “If she was here to rob me, it wouldn’t explain how she died.”
“Do you think she
overdosed?”
“I assume,” I said, “but
she has her jacket on, and I didn’t find a needle.”
“Maybe she’s a pill
popper.”
“Anything’s possible with
these people, but where’s the bottle?”
“It’s obvious neither of us
is Sam Spade,” Sid said. “We should call the cops.”
“Yeah, I know.” I ran my
hand through what little gray hair I’ve clinging to my liver-spotted scalp.
“The last thing I need is to have another woman die suspiciously in my
vicinity.”
“What are you talking
about?”
“A long time ago,” I
started, “I was seeing this woman, Gail. We were hiking in the mountains. She
was younger than me. More athletic. She was teasing me about how I couldn’t
keep up with her and ran ahead toward a bluff. Next thing I knew, she screamed.
When I wheezed myself to the cliff, she was motionless at the bottom. The
police investigated it as a suspicious death. They thought I may have murdered
her.”
“Oy vey,” said Sid.
“Oy vey, indeed,” I
replied. “In the end, they ruled it accidental, but I think because they lacked
evidence, not because they believed me.”
“Hiram,” Sid placed his
hand on my shoulder. “The best thing is to call the police, tell them the
truth, and let the professionals do their job.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I
wish I knew how she got here and how she died so I had a better explanation.”
“The longer you wait,” said
Sid, “the more suspicious it looks.”
****
EMTs and two uniformed
officers arrived after the 911 call. The EMTs examined the body. After
determining there was nothing they could do, they waited for the Coroner to
arrive. The two officers were Office Dan Connolly, a lanky redhead, and Officer
David Chow, a stocky Chinese American. “That’s Raven,” said Officer Connolly,
entering the living room.
“You know her name?”
I asked.
“That’s her street name
because of her tattoo,” Officer Connolly replied. “I think her real name was
Rachel or Ruth.”
“She homeless?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Officer
Connolly. “She came from Springfield, but once in a while, she’d wander into
one of the surrounding rural communities. A lot of homeless people do that.
They feel safer, especially women.”
Connolly jotted in a
notebook. Then he called dispatch. “I’ll need you guys to step out and
separate,” he said. “A detective will be here to speak with you.”
The rain had stopped. Sid
opted to sit on the bench on the back porch while I went into the kitchen.
Bounce appeared at my feet and squinted at me with his yellow eyes. Soon, a
slew of people would traipse throughout the house. The last thing I needed was
Bounce getting in the way. I poured the remaining food left in the can on the
counter into his bowl. I scooped him up with his bowl and placed them in the
bathroom. He scratched at the door and yowled like he was being tortured but
eventually settled down and probably fell asleep on the bathmat. From the
breakfast bar, I watched Officer Chow take pictures of the body and different
angles of the room. The Coroner and detectives arrived.
On the porch, Sid spoke to
a black woman in a plum pantsuit. A balding, lazy-eyed detective named Patrick
McMullan questioned me. “How did you know the woman in the next room?”
“I didn’t,” I said. I told
him the same story I told Sid and Officer Connolly.
“How do you suppose she
entered the premises?”
“No idea,” I said. “When I
came home, I found my doors locked.”
Detective McMullan asked
some follow-up questions. My palms sweated. I could feel my heartbeat in my
throat—not because of the questions, but because I knew I met McMullan. Did
he interrogate me when Gail died? Does he remember me?
“Were you living at this
address a couple of years ago?” asked McMullan.
“Yes,” I said, trying to
figure out where he was going with the question.
“I thought so,” he smirked.
“I remember you from when I canvassed the neighborhood after the murder of a
woman and her granddaughter down the street.”
“Oh yes,” I replied, “it
was terrible. Shocked the whole neighborhood.”
“Sad. We never caught the
perp. Anyway, let’s get on—”
“Hey Pat,” Officer Connolly
interrupted, “we found something on the second floor you need to check out.”
Detective McMullan excused
himself and followed Connolly. What the hell did they find upstairs? I
thought as I listened to them creak up the staircase. “Mr. Thatcher,” Officer
Connolly called from the top landing, “could you come up here, please?”
I climbed the stairs. My
legs felt like jelly. I did my best to control my breathing. Connolly stepped
aside when I reached the landing and pointed me down the hall, where I saw the
attic ladder extended. I rose to my feet after climbing the ladder. Officer
Chow snapped more photos of a bed made from quilts and blankets from a spare
room closet. Empty soup cans and a bowl of souring milk lying nearby, as well
as one of my flashlights. Detective McMullan asked, “Do you know anything about
this?”
“That’s my flashlight. My
bowl. And those blankets and pillows belong to me,” I said. “Has she been
sleeping here?”
“Looks that way,” said
McMullan. “Have you heard strange sounds at night or noticed missing items?”
“I’ve heard nothing, but
I’m rarely on the second floor. My bedroom’s up here, but I sleep on the couch
in front of the TV. As for missing items, I sometimes thought I had more cans
of soup than I did, or the milk seemed lower in the jug, but I thought I was
just misremembering things.”
“Well, Mr. Thatcher,” said
McMullan, “looks like you had a phrogger.”
“A who?”
“Phrogger,” Officer Chow
chimed in. “It’s when someone secretly lives in another’s house without their
knowledge.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Afraid not,” said
McMullan.
“She could’ve been living
here for weeks, if not months,” said Officer Chow.
“She knew your routine,”
said McMullan. “She didn’t expect you home until later in the afternoon. Thought
she had time to stretch out on the couch.”
“But how did she get in
here?” I asked. “And how did she die?”
McMullan shrugged. “The
autopsy should tell us something.”
****
Detective McMullan and I
came down the ladder while Officer Chow finished taking photos and bagging
evidence. As we made our way down to the first floor with Connolly behind us,
the EMTs wheeled the body out on a stretcher covered in a white sheet. The
woman in the purple pantsuit stood at the foot of the stairs. She introduced
herself as Detective Belinda Nash. “What did the Coroner have to say?” asked
McMullan.
“That she was dead,” Nash
smirked. “Also, when they removed
the body, we found this wedged in the cushion between the armrest.” She held up
a clear bag.
“An inhaler,” said
McMullan.
“And it’s empty,” said
Nash. “Before he left, the coroner stated her fingertips turned blue, meaning
she died from a lack of oxygen, but no signs of strangulation and no
blood.”
“She had asthma,” Connolly
said flatly.
“How do you know?” asked
McMullan.
“This past summer, I took a
call about a medical emergency happening in Woodland Park. It was Raven having
an asthma attack. Luckily, an ambulance arrived on time.”
“Looks like her luck ran
out,” said Nash.
“Like her inhaler,” said
McMullan.
Detective
Nash rolled her
eyes and moved into the kitchen to leave out the side door. I found the
detectives’ banter disturbing, but I’m sure they need to lighten the tension in
their line of work now and then.
Poor Sid paced the porch
with his hands shoved in his pocket. McMullan motioned for him to come inside.
“Fellas, it looks like your story’s checking out, but we may contact you for
further questioning.”
Sid and I agreed to come
down to the station if asked, and McMullan left soon after. Officers Chow and
Connolly loaded brown paper bags into their squad cars and drove off. I opened
the bathroom door, and Bounce trotted out, grumbling. Sid asked what happened,
and I told him about the inhaler and a new vocabulary word, phrogger. Sid asked
if I was still interested in getting lunch. I told him I wasn’t in the mood.
Instead, I grabbed two beers out of the fridge. We sat at the kitchen table.
“Did they figure out how she got in here?” Sid asked.
“They didn’t mention it if
they did.” I took a swig of my IPA. I looked at the sliding glass door over
Sid’s shoulder. “I’m good about locking my doors, but I always forget to lock
that sliding door behind you.”
“Easy way in.”
“Heading out to the shed or
the garden, I go out that door ten times daily. It’s a pain in the ass to lock
it each time.”
“You said she was camping
out in your attic,” Sid said. “Did she take anything from you other than those
blankets and cans of soup?”
“Nothing major.”
“Money?”
“The only money I keep in
the house is in my wallet.”
“So, she wasn’t here to rob
you?”
“I think she was just
trying to avoid the weather.”
“And weather like this,”
Sid said, “can trigger an asthma attack.”
I agreed with Sid and
snatched another beer out of the fridge, Sid still nursing his first one. “I
like to think that if she just came to me, I would’ve helped her, but I
probably would’ve chased her off.”
Sid sipped his beer and
nodded.
“There used to be a drug
dealer down the street,” I said, “and degenerates of all kinds would wander the
neighborhood. It got so bad, neighbors wouldn’t let their kids play in the
front yard.”
“Didn’t he kill that
teenager and her grandmother down the street?”
“That’s what the cops say,”
I said, “but he skipped town, and they never caught him.”
“It’s a crazy world, my
friend.” Sid finished his beer and stood up to leave.
I offered him another beer,
but he declined. “I must be going,” he said, heading out to his 2009 Volvo
Wagon. As he pulled out of the driveway, rain began to fall again.
A few weeks later, I
acquired an official police report stating Rachel Becket, born June 9th, 1983,
died from cardiac arrest caused by fatal asthma, with bronchitis being a
contributing factor. The police did find her fingerprints throughout the house,
most notably in the kitchen and on the attic ladder and the sliding door. The
case is considered closed. I read the report in the same spot I sat in while
having a beer with Sid weeks prior. Bounce stared at me from next to his empty
bowl. They got it right, I thought. This time.
