Arsonyc

In the morning, four, I thought he spoke. And maybe he did. But not to me. And for a moment, I wondered, But the moment passed as the storm rolled on. I closed my eyes, and waited for Granny to shuffle by the door. But instead came Papa. He swept in and called to me, and I rolled in my waking, and he said, "I think I heard something that I don't quite like." "What did you hear?" "I think I head something that I don't quite like." His face wanted to cry. And I knew he did not mean the storm. He picked me up, after all these years, and carried me away with a fleeting thought, wondering where Ian was since he was not asleep. Someone was outs

May 20 – Wednesday Morning – Jennifer and Mitchel have a loud fight about Jennifer’s affair with Evan. Jennifer declares that she is leaving. Mitchel leaves for work. Jennifer calls Evan. Evan fights with Diane about going to Jennifer. Evan storms out to meet her.   Around dinner – Evan arrives at the pub. Evan and Diane argue about the machine part. Diane goes to run errands and Evan is gone when she gets back a little while later. 6 pm to 9 pm – Jennifer is murdered May 22 - Friday Someone finds Jennifer and calls 911. Linda returns from work. Mitchel returns from work. May 22. 5:36 Several reports a

May 22. 4:08 Thankfully, Beckett was on point with this investigation while Rogers and I were chasing theories. The second she heard that Evan had been missing since the murder, she put an APB out for his truck. Big and red, they found it just as soon as we made it to the Lake. It was parked at the train station. Well then. We asked around, looked at records, and sent a request for the video footage, but no one remembered seeing anyone of Evan’s description or taking his ID for a ticket. We left a man to sift through all of the video footage from Wednesday to present. There was bound to be something somewhere. Inside the car was a cro

May 22. 2:36 On our way to the lake the medical examiner called. Preliminarily, Jennifer was definitely murdered, water had completely filled her lungs. The contusion to her forehead appeared to have occurred during a struggle, though he was not sure what would have caused it yet. Interestingly, he had also found mushroom spores in her throat and an insect larva in her nose. The examiner happened to know that the larva was a type of beetle though did not know much about the insect. Jennifer’s hands were clutched as though from a struggle, which made little sense to me, but I am only the detective, not a doctor. Rogers told the examiner

May 22. 12:39 Evan’s pub is located somewhere in the middle of town about ten minutes away from the Blake apartment. The large sign has a harp tilted over with bear falling down its strings and towards the ground. It looks relatively new – maybe a year at the most? When we talk to Evan, I am sure that we will know more. The inside of the pub looks it belongs in all of the small town television shows with the Hog’s head mounted on the wall, wood paneling and flooring, and the overabundance of brown or sienna. Something about that color combination just screams place where people get drunk. I am sure there is a color theory f

May 22 11:07 Mitchel Blake just arrived home from being gone since Wednesday after leaving for his work. According to Mitchel, who is heart broken, he and his wife had a fight the morning of Wednesday over an affair that Jennifer had been having since they had been married. Even though she had told Mitchel that she was done with her long time college boyfriend Evan Harp, she started an affair with him a couple of months into her marriage. Mitchel knew that Evan and Jennifer stayed friends after college, but he never knew that they had continued their relationship. Mitchel did not know much about Evan. When Jennifer was new to the college, s

May 22 10:12 Linda Collins, the 52 year old neighbor, just got home from working an eight hour shift over night as a receptionist at a 24 hour clinic. She did not call 911 earlier this morning. Interesting. Linda lives in the apartment directly across from Jennifer and Mitchel. She is relatively good friends with Jennifer but only enough for her to occasionally pop by for a chat or a dinner invitation. The last time Linda really spoke to Jennifer, aside from waving hello and quick conversations as they both walked to their apartments, was over several weeks prior to the murder. She is kind enough to give us simple answers to questions. How

May 22. 9:02 We were called to a little, one story apartment in the middle of town this morning. A young woman, Jennifer Blake, was found dead in her bathtub by her neighbor, Linda Collins. She called 911 at 7:32 a.m. claiming to have found her dead neighbor in her bathtub with her arms crossed, fists clenched, and an obvious contusion on her forehead. She thought that her neighbor had been drowned. Reasonable thought but strange. When Detectives Marie Rogers, Charlotte Beckett, and myself arrived at the scene, Linda Collins was not present, but the body was exactly as she had suggested. The position was strange, almost forced.  Rogers seem

Jennifer Blake was 25, an accountant for Jonathan and Jameson  Oil Field Supply. She married Mitchel Blake several months after she graduated from college. They moved to a small town in Mississippi twenty minutes away from the Supply company but four hours away from Mitchel's complicated hours. As an on field technician at some place Jennifer never truly understood, Mitchel stayed at home for two days and then stayed at work for two days. He worked all waking hours and slept in a hotel that he now called his second home. Though she did not like the arrangement, Jennifer could not argue. He made double the amount of her own salary, so bills we