While she waited for the police, Helen went to the kitchen. She measured eight full cups of water, instead of her usual two, and reached past the decaf for regular beans. The coffee hadn’t quite finished dripping when she heard the siren, but it seemed it had been a long time.
Another siren sounded in the distance, the curious sing song pattern of notes weaving ever closer. An ambulance stopped in the street beside the police car and two EMT’s carried a stretcher into the house. Another car pulled next to the curb in front of the ambulance. Helen vaguely noticed masculine figures emerging from it, but her attention was fixed on the door of Jonathon’s home.
She didn’t recognize any of the officers she saw that day. How odd that she could have lived in Louisville her entire life and know so many people, but not know the men who came that morning. Perhaps it wasn’t reasonable to expect that she would know them, but after seeing the blood Jonathon’s floor, she didn’t care about reason, she wanted a familiar face.
"Mrs. Pierce? I’m officer, McPherson." He held a clipboard with a notebook. "Could you tell me what you saw?"
"There isn’t much to tell." She took a deep breath. "I waited for Jonathon, that’s Mr. Grace, my neighbor. His first name is Jonathon. He didn’t show up, and that’s just not like him. He’s never late for anything, he never pays late rent, he never sleeps in on the weekend, he’s never sick. He’s a nice guy. I’ve been inside his townhouse a couple times since he moved in, but didn’t see a lot of expensive stuff, so I can’t imagine why anyone would rob him. I suppose he does have a nice computer, he’s a programmer, isn’t it a rule that computer people have to have great systems for their personal use? I went to knock on his door, found it open, saw a mess and something that looked like blood you know?" she paused expectantly but the officer didn’t even nod to confirm her suspicion. "So I came back here and called 911. Would you like some coffee?"
"No, thank you" he waved aside the offer and closed his notebook. "I think that tells me what I need to know for now. I’m sure the detective will want to talk with you later. We’d like it if you could hang around this morning, is that a problem?"
"No, I’ve already called my assistant. Barb will call me if there’s anything she can’t handle."
"That’s good then. Thank you, Mrs. Pierce. You’ve been very helpful."
Once Officer McPherson left, Helen’s need to see a familiar face began to grow. Margo was a great best friend, but not much use in a crisis. She was probably serving soft drinks and scotch to nervous passengers about now. "Please turn off all cell phones while the plane is in the air . . . return trays to an upright position … in case of a water landing, your seat can be used as a flotation device."
"I need a dog," she said aloud. "I could talk to a dog. A dog wouldn’t be on a shuttle to St. Louis."
She stood and looked out the window with her arms hugged across her chest. Where was Jonathon? She hadn’t heard any unusual noise last night. Surely if someone had hurt him, he would have knocked on her door, or shouted for help or something. If someone broke in and killed him, where was his body? Maybe the substance on the carpet wasn’t blood. Maybe he tripped over his chair in the dark, spilled a handful of papers, and … broke a bottle of ketchup. She stopped. That didn’t make any sense.
By now several police cars and a van were parked out front. Men and women in latex gloves carried tackle boxes inside. Helen dusted her furniture, and looked out the window. Watered her plants, and looked out the window. Vacuumed the living room even though it didn’t need vacuumed, and looked out the window.
The growling of her stomach finally drove her to the kitchen. While leftover kung pao chicken warmed, she took out a bowl and spoon. The timer on the microwave dinged and she reached in to stir the food. The white carton spun around again.
"Ding!"
It took a second for her to realize that this bell was from the door, not the oven.
A nondescript man in jeans and a rumpled tee shirt stood at her door.
"Hello?" she said.
"Mrs. Pierce?"
"Yes, I mean, no, it’s not Mrs., I’m Helen Pierce."
"I’m David Anderson, Louisville Police Department." He showed her a detective’s shield. "I understand you made the 911 call this morning."
"Yes, Jonathon didn’t show up for carpool."
"Ms. Pierce, I’m sorry to have to tell you this. There’s a body inside the house. Can you identify it for us?"
"Oh, God, he’s dead." She put a trembling hand over her eyes.
"Is he, I mean, is it bad?" She stopped, "That’s a stupid question isn’t it. There isn’t any such thing as good when your neighbor gets killed."
"I’ll be right beside you, they have the body on a stretcher now. All you have to do is look at his face."
"Okay, Detective, what did you say your name was?"
"It’s Anderson, David Anderson."
He didn’t touch her, he probably wasn’t even standing close to her, but Helen felt that all the space, all the air around her was taken up and sucked away. Each step toward the door of Jonathon’s house took effort. An invisible wall of resistance seemed to have grown up on the lawn in the past few hours. Or maybe the wall had grown inside her.
Fear that Jonathon was dead had been pushed down and held at bay since she first saw the mess in his house. Now that her fear was confirmed it pushed back with vengeance, almost paralyzing her.
Detective Anderson led her to a gurney with the ubiquitous black bag she’d seen so many times on television. She hadn’t ever noticed how horrible and impersonal those bags were. No one should ever be zipped inside plastic like so much garbage.
The EMT opened the upper portion. At first all she could see was red. She thought maybe she was going to faint, then realized she really was seeing red. Red hair. Jonathon didn’t have red hair. She shook her head and looked at the face.
"I’ve never seen this man before."
But, I WILL simply declare that December is LoNoWriMo (Local novel Writing Month) and I'll finish it up when I get home.
In other news, the word count has not increased in the past two days, BUT I have had plenty o'time to ponder plot points. I've answered a couple of the questions that came up in those first writings. For instance I NOW know who that third guy was the night that they came for Jonathon. See what I mean about characters who won't cooperate though? I started that scene planning to have a dead Jonathon Grace by the end, but now he's not only escaped, he's running around the midwest getting into all sorts of mischief. I know that Occam's Razor is a good rule of thumb for logic (the simplest explanation is usually the best) but with this novel writing thing, the more complicated it gets the more I enjoy the writing.
And let me tell you, if I make that 50,000 mark by November 30 - I plan on making Tim spoil me rotten. 
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