Tell me quickly: Where could the murder weapon be? I can’t see it. Copper seems to be aware of this, too, and leaves Bob sitting on the lounge, pale and now sobbing, while he walks almost gingerly back into the kitchen, locating the small plastic thingie that holds that door open. He secures it in place, then glances quickly down at me, just checking perhaps that I am still lying there in my black briefs, as frozen as the loaf of bread beside me.
I’ve never been the sexy lingerie type. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong with Cass. I see the catalogues, I wander past those sparkly stores with their slutty mannequins, and I get it. The stuff is gorgeous, provocative, glamorous. But it also looks bloody uncomfortable. I know that stuff would ride right up, the cleavage-inducing wires poke right in. I just don’t have the patience for that kind of nonsense. Or I didn’t. Now lying in my boring Bonds undies, I wish I had.
Fortunately, copper doesn’t seem too nonplussed. He looks around again, steps towards the sink, looks in there too. Sees nothing, unless you count the dusting of charcoal I recently scraped off some of the toast. He steps towards the back door of the kitchen, which is slightly ajar.
Aha! There’s another clue, and this one looks good for my Bob. That definitely wasn’t open this morning; I would have noticed that for sure. I never opened it. I was too busy making toast. And Bob was in his room. So why is it ajar? Surely that proves someone else did it.
Doesn’t it?
Using his sleeve to cover his hands, copper (clearly no idiot) pulls the door wider and leans out. He looks down the mouldy cement steps to our dreary backyard. It’s better than the local park but only by a few pot plants. I’m not much of a gardener, never was. That was Cass’s territory, or at least it was for the short time we lived together in faux domestic bliss.
There’s a loud banging on the front door now, and copper steps back into the kitchen, gives me another glance—does he really think I might vanish?—then rushes for the front door and unlocks it. It locks automatically from inside, in case you were wondering, and I think you should be if you want to solve this thing.
So that’s when the real commotion starts. I watch it all from a kind of suspended universe. As I said before, I’m not simply floating above, like they say in books, but I’m not lying on that floor either. I’m not really sure where I am, to be honest, but let’s not worry about that for now.
A fleet of cop cars have arrived, and four more officers, all in uniform, are now standing at the open door of the kitchen staring at me. They seem genuinely interested in checking out my corpse. I guess I can’t blame them. It is a curious sight. How often do you get to check out a dead woman lying in a pool of blood on her kitchen linoleum, piles and piles of cold toast above her on the bench?
“What’s with all the bread?” some bright spark ventures, and they all peel their eyes from my corpse to survey the scene. Nobody answers. They do not know. How could they? Just another mad housewife they probably think, although their thoughts are not open to me.
Now that is strange. I always thought death would enable the sixth sense. How disappointing.
Anyway, soon someone in a different uniform squeezes past them, followed by another. Must be the paramedics. One of them, the smaller, female one, methodically takes my pulse, pulls my eyelids back, and shines a torch into my pupils and then declares the bleeding obvious to no one in particular.
“She’s deceased.”
It’s like a load has lifted, and I feel a certain brightness enter the house. I can tell at least two of the cops are happy about this. Not the one who found me, mind, he still seems a bit sad, which is just lovely, but the other two, a fat one with a goatee and a thinner one with a badly receding hairline. They’re almost twitching with joy.
“Better alert Homicide,” the balding one says and steps out of the kitchen and back to the front door, a jig in his step. It’s like he’s been waiting his whole career to say that.
“What happened?” Goatee Guy asks the first copper, the sad one.
He blushes. “I don’t know! I just came to serve the lady an AVO. She was already dead.”
“An Apprehended Violence Order?” he says, which is very helpful of him because for a moment there I wasn’t sure what that meant. “Wow,” Goatee Guy continues, “so the brutal bastard got to her first, hey?”
He does a little tut-tut, and First Copper looks confused for a second, then shakes his head.
“Nah, mate, the restraining order was taken out against her. She was the perpetrator.”
Now Goatee Guy looks confused and scratches at his prickly beard.
“Wow, okay, that’s odd. Maybe he did it in self-defence then. Who took it out? Hubby? Boyfriend? An ex?” He clearly has aspirations to be a detective, that one.
“Some chick,” says the other cop.
That forces the goatee into a smile. “You serious?”
First Cop nods solemnly.
Goatee Guy chews on that for a bit. “That the son in there?”
They both lean a little so they can see across the corridor and into the living room where Bob is seated, head in his hands. I wish one of them would go in and give him a cuddle. They lean back.
“Yep, was as shocked as I was.”
“He the only one home?”
“Oh shit,” the first copper says, darts into the living room, and says to my son, “Anyone else here? Your dad? Any siblings?”
Bob doesn’t move his head from his hands as he shakes his head no.
Clearly not prepared to take his word for it, both coppers are now rushing through the house, thrusting open cupboards, checking under beds. They find nothing, of course, no shocked baby sister or blood-dripping de facto cowering behind the shower curtain. But Goatee Guy does stop to check out my wardrobe for a little too long. I wonder if he has a thing for women’s clothing and wonder why he bothers. My dresses are about as thrilling as my lingerie. I half expect him to start fossicking through my underwear drawer.
He doesn’t though, just returns to the kitchen where First Copper has a look of utter relief on his face. Apart from the backyard, he hadn’t thought to look beyond the kitchen sink. His boss would probably have his balls for breakfast if he knew that. I’m no copper, let’s face it, but it’s gotta be Policing 101—call the ambo, secure the scene and, oh yeah, look for the culprit.
With cops like these clowns, I’m really glad you’ve come along for the ride.