My right shoe had been bugging me. My sock was all bunched up inside it, and I hadn’t remembered tying the laces so tight. I removed my shoe to adjust the sock, and a silver gum wrapper fell out of the side. I picked it up, looking at how perfectly it had been folded down the middle. I was about to toss it out, when I noticed something odd—there appeared to be writing on the inside of the wrapper. I unfolded it, revealing the message: Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them.
A few minutes earlier, I’d asked Noel to get me a cup of tea. He walked into the room, cup in hand, hesitating when he saw me scrutinizing the wrapper.
“What do you have there?” he asked.
“I knew it,” I said. “I knew he was there.”
“Knew who was there?”
“The killer.”
He raised a brow. “How do you know for sure?”
I handed the wrapper to him. “This was folded up in my shoe. It’s a quote from Macbeth.”
Noel looked at me, confused.
“One of Shakespeare’s plays.”
“Oh, gotcha.” Noel set the tea down next to me and held the wrapper in both hands, looking it over. “Writing is so small, I can barely read it without my glasses.”
I read it aloud.
“I think the killer was there, hovering over me right before the ambulance arrived,” I said. “He must have shoved the note inside my sock before he left. What kind of weirdo does something like that, knowing the police are on their way to the scene?”
“I think you’re asking the wrong question.”
“What’s the right one?”
“He had the chance to kill you. Why didn’t he?”