Caught In The Middle. Gayle Roper
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younger brother, who’s at Penn State.” And Jack, I thought. And Jack.
“So you took your car to be inspected this morning. Why’d you go to Taggart’s?”
“The people at work recommended that garage. No huge bill for unnecessary work, you know?” I noticed I was picking nervously at my cuticles and forced myself to stop. “Lots of garages like to bleed single women, but they told me Mr. Taggart wouldn’t do that.”
Sergeant Poole nodded like he knew Mr. Taggart and agreed. “When’d you get your car back, Miss Kramer?”
“Jolene dropped me off on her way home. I hadn’t expected to be able to leave by five because of a late-afternoon meeting I was to cover and write up, but the meeting was canceled.”
I gulped some tea, then continued. “Mr. Taggart wasn’t around when Jolene dropped me off, but my car was waiting, the new inspection stickers on the window and the bill on the seat, just like we’d arranged when we thought I’d be late.” I shrugged. “I just climbed in and drove off. After dinner at Ferretti’s, I covered the Board of Education meeting at the high school. Then I came home.”
“Did you have dinner with anyone?”
I shook my head. “I ate alone.”
“You didn’t stop for those sodas sometime between picking up your car and coming home?”
“No, I bought them yesterday. I just hadn’t taken them out of the trunk.”
Sergeant Poole nodded. “Did anything else significant happen today?”
I realized that, in place of my cuticles, I was playing with the string from my sweatshirt hood. I tucked it inside so I couldn’t fiddle with it anymore and said, “I almost had an accident on my way home when some guy pulled out in front of me over on Oak Lane. But I didn’t.” I paused, thought, then shrugged my shoulders. “That’s it.”
Sergeant Poole chewed the tip of his pen for a minute, wrote something down, then asked, “Does the name Patrick Marten mean anything to you?”
“Patrick Marten?” I thought for a few minutes, then shook my head. “I don’t know anyone by that name. Why? Is he the man in the trunk?”
Sergeant Poole nodded.
Patrick Marten. I sighed. Was there a Mrs. Patrick Marten somewhere waiting for him to come home? Were there kids? Certainly there was a mother and a father. A girlfriend? Obviously there was an enemy.
By the time Sergeant Poole capped his pen and hefted himself to his feet, I was feeling more normal. I almost smiled as the gaps in his shirt slid shut. After all, I was used to talking with people in living rooms. It was just corpses in the rain that bothered me.
And I had finally realized that I was in the middle of the biggest story of my fledgling journalism career.
“I’m sure we’ll be talking again, Miss Kramer.” Sergeant Poole pulled on his still-dripping slicker. “Maybe tomorrow when you stop in to sign your statement.”
“Whenever you want, Sergeant Poole.”
He stopped and turned at the door. “By the way, we’re going to have to impound your car for at least a few days.”
I stared in consternation. “My car?” How could I investigate a murder without a car?
Don spoke for the first time. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning, Merry, and take you to one of the local car dealers who leases as well as sells. We’ll charge it to The News.”
I nodded as I almost pushed Sergeant Poole out the door. What other unforeseen complications hunkered down just out of sight, eager to pounce?
But who cared about complications? I had a story!
“Don,” I began.
“Yes?” His voice was full of suppressed emotion. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was laughing at me.
I glared at him. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“Of course I do,” he said. “I sat on your sofa and watched you go from scared victim to professional reporter. You want to cover this story.”
“You bet I do! It’s the story of a lifetime, and I’m the perfect one for it! Who better?’
“Do you think you can handle it?”
“Can I handle it? Of course I can!” I was too excited to be mad at the suggestion that I couldn’t.
Don grinned at me as he patted his carefully barbered graying hair. Everything about him was neat and precise, even the tidily folded scarf resting on the chair back. He shook it out and draped it about his neck, making sure the ends were even.
“To be honest, as soon as I heard the call on the police scanner at the office, I knew we had a winner. If you have any trouble as the story develops—” He held up his hand at my indignant look. “If you have any trouble, Mac can help you.”
Don took his mug to the kitchen, and I heard him rinse it out. I stood in the middle of the living room and grinned like an idiot. I had a story!
I made myself act professionally as I walked Don to the door. I even made a pretty speech. “Thanks for being here when I talked to Sergeant Poole, Don. Something about a policeman always makes me feel guilty even when I’m innocent, which is all the time—except for the time I got a speeding ticket for going forty-five in a twenty-five mile zone.”
Don laughed. “You’ve got nothing to worry about, Merry. I’ll vouch for your character if they ever begin to suspect you.”
“And my whereabouts,” I said, suddenly remembering Don eating spaghetti at Ferretti’s, talking intently with some unknown man. I hadn’t approached him because the two of them looked so involved. In fact, I deliberately sat with my back to him. “That is, if you saw me like I saw you.”
Don hesitated, then shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
I shrugged. “Oh, well, I doubt it matters. Thanks again for being here.”
I watched him drive up the alley, then locked my door carefully. I washed my mug and Sergeant Poole’s and decided there was no way I was going to take the trash out. I didn’t care that the police were still in the parking area. I was in for the night!
I checked and rechecked the doors and the windows, the tall, breakable windows that suddenly seemed less wonderful than usual. It was when I tested them for the fourth time that I noticed the moon peeking through the running clouds. The storm was over.
I got into bed with Whiskers and plumped the pillows carefully against the headboard. When I leaned back with my lined pad on my lap, Whiskers promptly climbed onto the pad.
“Not now, baby,” I said, lifting the heavy creature and setting him down beside me. “I’ve got to write everything down before I forget it. Who knows?” I grinned at him. “Maybe I’ll even write a true-crime book about this someday.”
Whiskers yawned hugely, and I tickled him beneath the chin. I had selected him at the pound because he kept coming to me to be petted, purring whenever my hand even reached toward him. Now he lay close against me, a comforting presence after an unbelievable night.
I turned to my pad, feeling ghoulish as all my journalistic juices flowed and excitement coursed through me—now that I didn’t have to look at the body again. Admittedly, what had happened was a great tragedy, especially for Patrick Marten. But a great story is a great story and deserves to be written about, I told myself hard-heartedly. In all great stories people suffer. If I could just get the information together, find the motive, the means, and the murderer, certainly I would reduce the suffering for Patrick Marten’s family and friends. If Don was hugely impressed with my work, that was just a small extra.
Satisfied that I had manipulated my motives well, I wrote:
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