Leave No Stone Unturned

 “This can’t be happening,” Ethan said in a flustered panic, “You’ve got to believe me!” The acrid stench of stale cigarette smoke lingered in the air as Detective James Callahan lit a fresh one. Ethan waved his hand in front of his face, trying in vain to waft the smoke away. As soon it had mostly cleared another cloud bellowed towards him, oozing through the air like some sort of gaseous slug. Ethan frowned.

“Look, Mr.—” Detective Callahan trailed off and had clearly already forgotten his name.

“Ethan is fine.”

“Okay then. Ethan.” The detective looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept in a week. He was in no mood for games or people who “thought they might have seen a crime,” as he snidely phrased it moments ago.

Ethan had lost all of the cool demeanor that he had started off their conversation with. He promised himself that he wouldn’t make a scene, despite this being a serious matter. Someone had been murdered after all.

“If you are not going to help me directly, then can you at least help me find someone here who will?” Ethan’s tone was sharp, borderline demanding. He knew better than to make demands from cops though, especially in a police station. He kept his desire in the form of a question, and thus nonthreatening. He was starting to go from desperate to hopeless. The detective pitied the man but showed no signs of it. “Any sympathy shown to people like this only encourages them more,” he thought.

“As I was saying,” Callahan said firmly, “I went to 193 Oakleaf Lane and there was no evidence even of a death, let alone murder. Mrs. Walcott seems like a typical lonely old woman. She let me in and seemed to be quite grateful for the company. I checked the closets, basement, everywhere. Just a normal house with a sweet little old lady. She even offered me tea and cookies.”

Ethan had to give it one last try and re-stated his story. “There must have been blood on the ground!” Ethan begged, “I saw her dragging a man’s body who was all bloody through the area on the side of the house towards the back yard.” Ethan’s skin looked cold and clammy, he was afraid. Pushing through the fear Ethan continued, “I thought she was dragging a bag of leaves or something at first, that’s why I walked over to her as I was passing by. I said to her “Mrs. Walcott, please let me help you with that.” and I walked over from the sidewalk. She told me, “Oh, thank you but I don’t need any help with this, Dear.” She was so nonchalant and had a smile on her face when she said it!” Ethan shuddered after recanting that detail. “My jaw must have been down around my feet I was so stunned and horrified! After what seemed like forever I managed to back away and then to run! I came straight here after I got away!” She had not tried to stop him from leaving but he still felt like it was an escape.

Detective Callahan looked unamused.

“That lady could barely carry a tea kettle and you expect me to believe she killed a full grown man and then dragged his body to the backyard, which I also checked by the way!?”

“But the man had deep wounds, like she had chopped him up with an—”

“Enough!” Callahan barked.

Ethan cowered in his chair, startled by the sudden loudness.

The detective stood up and his body language was clear; he wanted Ethan to get out of his office. He wasn’t shy about saying it either, “I don’t want you harassing Mrs. Walcott anymore. I don’t know if she kept your ball that went into her yard when you were a kid and this is some sort of weird revenge or what. I will personally see to it that YOU are arrested if I ever see you in here wasting another officer’s time like this.” His gaze turned into a cold stare, “Now get the hell out of my office.” He extinguished his cigarette.

Ethan was shocked. He had never felt so helpless and so angry at the same time. There was nothing more he could do. This cop would not listen to his pleas. He got up and left the police station feeling hollow.

When Ethan got home he could not help but shake the feeling of uncertainty. The detective was so sure that there was no murder committed but he knew what he had seen. Or did he?

Ethan started questioning his sanity.

“Is this what going crazy feels like?” he asked himself aloud, alone in the livingroom of his home. He scolded himself, “Talking to yourself probably isn’t a good sign.” He only dared think these words though. He worried that if he spoke out loud while he was by himself then it would somehow prove his paranoia correct. He needed someone to confirm his story. He needed to feel sane again. “If someone would agree with me, it would validate my story, and then maybe a different cop would take over the case.” he thought. Ethan knew that going back to Detective Callahan would prove useless. Callahan seemed furious that he would not drop it. “But how could he drop a murder?!” Ethan wondered, “It is not exactly a victimless crime!”

He wished he could just leave it alone, but there was no way he would ever be able to look at himself the same way again if he did.

Ethan decided to cook himself dinner. It would be something to take his mind off of this at least for a little while and he could use some nourishment. Being doubted and retelling the story over and over had exhausted him. The cigarette smoke at the police station had turned his stomach and made him lose his appetite but luckily it was back now.

He decided to cook himself a New York strip steak that he had been saving in the freezer. He felt that he could use a good meal and that some protein might help him think. He started thawing out the meat by placing it in a plastic bag, filling a bowl with cool water, and submerging the plastic wrapped steak into the water. “That should take about an hour” he thought, having had a bit of experience cooking before.

Ethan usually got takeout, but he did cook two or sometimes three meals a week for himself. A greasy cheeseburger did not sound good right now anyway. Before fixing side dishes he could not help himself from looking out the window. He stared past the neighborhood trees to the house across the street and down four houses.

Mrs. Walcott’s house.

On any other day it would look like a normal house. But today it took on a sinister appearance. Perhaps it was the long shadows being cast because the sun was going down that made it look different. Or it could have been the memory of the dead body he had seen in the yard earlier that day.

His eyes narrowed and he scowled, as if he hated the house itself.

Ethan shook his head to try to shake the thoughts and memories away. It didn’t work, he was still thinking about that house and Mrs. Walcott. He decided that carrots and broccoli would be a good side for the steak and busied himself again with food preparation.

He plopped the carrots and broccoli down with a “thud” onto the counter. He gave each a quick rinse under the faucet and then chopped them into smaller pieces. The pot heated up and he put the chopped veggies in a steamer basket.

Ethan caught himself looking out the window again staring at Mrs. Walcott’s house. He did not know how long he had been staring for but the water in the pot was now in a rolling boil. He managed to avert his eyes from the house and start steaming his side dish. He did not wait for the steak to be fully thawed and took it out of the water just after. He shrugged and thought, “Cooking it will heat up the un-thawed part anyway, right?”

The steak hissed when placed into the buttered pan.

Ethan stared at the house again. The smell of burning butter made him snap back to reality again. He flipped the steak over and it was fairly black on that side. “Damn.” He thought. The truth was, he did not care about the steak. There was only one thing he cared about right now. He glanced out the window and stopped himself, focusing back on the cooking.

The sizzling steak was smelling quite good now and the veggies were done. Draining the water and giving them a spritz of lemon juice, he added the broccoli and carrots to a dinner plate. He put the steak on the plate too but left the heat on the stove turned up in case the steak was still frozen inside and needed to be cooked longer. He preferred his steak medium-rare but was ready to settle for well-done if it was still cold in the middle. He cut into the meat and the crimson stream that flowed from it brought back the terrible memory of what he had seen earlier. His stomach sank and he felt like he was going to be sick.

Ethan looked out the window to see Mrs. Walcott’s car drove by. “That’s right, it is Thursday! She always goes over to her friend’s house and plays pinochle on Thursdays!” He said excitedly to himself when he realized she would be out for a few hours.

Now that it would be possible for him to poke around in her yard without her being home he knew what he had to do.

He abandoned the idea of eating what was both burned and probably still frozen steak.

Ethan glanced over his shoulder nervously as he crossed the street. There were no cars driving by or anyone out at this hour. Most people were inside having dinner with their families. The ones who were not eating dinner right now were the ones that were still out, either working late or bowling, which seemed to be quite the popular sport in this area of the suburbs.

One more nervous look around from the sidewalk in front of her house, he decided not to linger too long. If he were seen skulking in front of her house, he would be in a world of trouble. He would have no explanation for being there. He was trespassing after being warned earlier that day to stay away from Mrs. Walcott. He cringed thinking about the chewing out Detective Callahan would give him if he got caught.

He mustered up the courage to step off of the public sidewalk and into the grassy yard.

The feeling of guilt weighed heavily on him. Even though he felt morally righteous, he knew that it was wrong to go into someone’s yard without permission.

The first area he investigated was the walkway where he had seen the body. The stepping stones were clean. “Maybe the detective was right.” Ethan worried, “This sure doesn’t look like a body was dragged through here.”

He walked to the grassy area in the backyard. There were no blood stains on the grass, but then again that would be pretty hard to notice, especially the area were simply hosed off. “She easily could have sprayed the hose on the grass.” he thought. There was a large dirt patch with flowers growing in it in the very back part of the yard. Mrs. Walcott seemed to be quite skilled at growing roses in particular. The rose bushes in her yard were quite thick and healthy looking.

There was an old tool shed next to the flower beds. He went to see if he could open it. There was a large new padlock on the latch. The contrast between the shiny new lock and the rusted latch and old weather beaten wood was unsettling. He got the impression that the lock was purchased recently. He thought about going home and getting a hammer and attempting to break the lock but quickly dismissed the idea. He did not want to be seen going back and forth from Mrs. Walcott’s and his own home. Plus that would make a lot of noise and a neighbor might get curious and come over and discover him breaking into her property. He wanted to minimize the risk of getting caught.

He looked at the house and there was a wooden deck on the patio. He walked over to it. The wood was old and there was no coat of laquer on it.

“Blood stains would certainly would be hard to get off of that wooden patio.” he thought. “Not easy to wash like a stone walkway.” He shuddered and felt the need to see if the stones on the walkway had been washed.

Sure enough the stones looked like they were recently scrubbed. They were far too clean. “Who scrubs the rocks in their walkway?” He asked himself, growing concerned. He started turning the rocks and the dirt around and underneath them were still moist. “She must have scrubbed these rocks while I was at the police station filing the report.”

Underneath one pebble there was a dark red wet spot. He touched it with his fingertip. It sure looked like blood. “The detective probably didn’t turn over every rock. I doubt if he turned over any.” He thought because the rocks looked naturally settled into the soil. “Mrs. Walcott must had scrubbed the tops of the stones and hosed off the area, the blood would seep into the dirt and the evidence of a body being there would wash away too. But it looked like she hadn’t used enough water or maybe just didn’t count on it pooling underneath a rock like this.” he concluded. He slipped the bloody pebble into his pocket to save as evidence.

“The rocky area being easier to clean would explain why she didn’t simply drag the body out of the back door. There is a side door on the house luckily enough for her. Dragging a body out of the front would have been quite obvious. Someone would have noticed long before I did if this wasn’t the first time she had done this.” He shuddered at the thought, wondering how many other bodies there may be in that shed and flower bed.

He decided to see if any of the doors in the house were unlocked. Ethan knew it was now becoming a crime, he was merely trespassing before but entering the house was a much more serious offense. The evidence he had in his pocket gave him the courage to proceed and he tested the side door first.

The side door of the house was locked.

He debated going to the front or the back next and decided to go with the back. The front door would be his last hope because someone could easily see him trying to open it from their house or if he were unlucky enough to have a car drive by while he was opening it.

The wood on the patio looked splintery, he was thankful that he was wearing shoes and could see why an old lady who wears slippers wouldn’t want to walk on this ratty old wood.

Thankfully for Ethan the back door of the house was unlocked. Perhaps it was because Mrs. Walcott rarely used the back door and forgot to lock it again the last time she used it, whenever that was.

He walked through the kitchen and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Ethan was unsure of what he was even looking for. The most damning would be blood. If he could find blood or an axe that would prove him right. He knew very little about the law but figured a bloody axe would be at least suspicious enough to investigate further and get the attention of more police, not just apathetic Callahan.

“But Callahan had said he was in here earlier and found no blood.” Ethan reminded himself. “How could that be? There has got to be blood here somewhere and he must have missed it somehow.”

Ethan explored the house and wanted so badly to find even a speck of evidence that would prove him right. If he could just find one more thing then he would go back to the police station. A blood spot on a rock would likely only get him yelled at by Callahan. A piece of evidence from inside would be justification for going in there. Now that he had been inside her house it would look really bad on his part if there was no murder. He would look crazy.

“No.” he realized, “If there was no murder then I AM crazy.”

He did not like that idea so he kept moving and searching the house.

Opening the door to what must have been her bedroom he held his breath, expecting to find something terrible.

To his relief all he found was a neatly made bed, a nightstand with a lamp, a dresser, and a bunch of old photographs.

The next bedroom was not so neat.

Blood was soaked deep into the carpet and splattered on every wall. Ethan’s stomach felt like it was twisting into a knot.

“How did Callahan miss THIS?!” He asked himself and terror struck him when he realized, “He didn’t miss it.”

A terrible and familiar smell was in the air.

Cigarette smoke.

He slammed the door shut and panicked, he had to get out of this house and get to somewhere safe. As he headed for the back door, he stopped dead in his tracks.

Standing in kitchen was Detective James Callahan with his revolver unholstered.