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As Mimic strode towards the O’Doole home, he was suddenly aware of a volume of birdsong he hadn’t noticed on his previous visits. The sky was an unclouded azure blue and the sun was warm on his skin. A voice at the back of his skull, usually louder than it was now, reminded him of his itinerary and the delay his health issue had already caused. The cab had dropped him off and he’d confirmed his Toyota was still parked a block away, where he’d left it the night before.
He stopped at the rows of freshly planted cherry trees that demarcated the long strip of grass at the edge of the road. There were deep wheel marks in it. Had it been his unconscious body on a gurney that had made them? He looked across the street to the green there. No house opposite. If he’d collapsed here, it must have been Mrs O’Doole who had seen him and called the ambulance.
As he ambled casually to the front door, he considered how alternative events might have precluded him from being here. He couldn’t deny he owed Mrs O’Doole a debt of gratitude.
He waited for his doorbell ring to activate bumps in the house. No sound. It was Saturday morning. Maybe the whole family had gone into town. He rubbed his jaw as he waited. He felt fine now. It had been a warning. One that was significant enough to make him consider booking himself in for a private medical examination when his work was squared away, however.
He heard footfalls on carpeted stairs. One of the boys, or Mrs O’Doole? The muscles in his legs tautened. If it were her, she would surely recognise him. If she’d watched him being loaded into the ambulance, she’d know exactly who he was. He would greet her and thank her. Maybe she’d invite him in for a cup of coffee and make his job easier.
“Just a minute.” A woman’s voice and then scrabbling with the locks.
It was her.
The door opened and Mimic had the newly purchased ketchup bottle out of his pocket in time to slam it into the middle of her forehead. In the instant he’d heard her voice, Mimic had decided he didn’t want to look her in the eye while she was still alive. The force of the blow was so great that the bottle cracked and the bottom of it dropped onto the hallway carpet as he stood over her.
It was easy to discern which was blood and which was ketchup though. Mimic quickly snapped on his blue surgical gloves.
