The Case of the Fateful Reunion

The Case of the Fateful Reunion
By Alie Miller

Detective Fynn Fergus is crouched down close to Mr. Saunders. The vanishing traces of a sweet aroma hangs precariously in the stuffy apartment air; the smell of fresh death. Saunders' open eyes are turned upward in a permanent viewing of the fish floating in a cloudy bowl forgotten upon the bookshelf. Also dead. The detective is looking for evidence, a stray hair, a forgotten fiber, a clump of lint that can tell the tales that dead men keep quiet. Mr. Saunders however is disappointingly clean, not counting the dirty blue strangle marks encircling his wide neck. Fergus looks the man over from head to toe and back again, trying lose the feeling that he is overlooking something. Mr. Saunders stares back, a look in his open eyes that calls out for help even as he stays so very stubbornly silent. Fergus is again studying the neck of Saunders when the clack of a Kodak Vigilant and the flash of its bulb announces the arrival of Myra St. John. Somehow Fergus had missed the harbinger clicking of her heels on the stairs this time, so engrossed was he in his desperate search to lay all clues in their barest form. Fergus moves slowly, tipping his hat to the back of his head as he stands. Myra St. John, Photojournalist for the Columbus Citizen bats her brown eyes shamelessly and twists her lipsticked mouth into a smile, it was an odd sort of grin to bring to a crime scene. “Another crime of passion?” she purrs, with just a hint of question in the lilt of her voice. Fergus takes his time with an answer, searching for the type of words that could in return solicit minimal response. “That's probable, Ms. St. John” he responds, glancing quickly at the body of Mrs. Saunders lying at the feet of her husband, “off the record.” She raises a penciled eyebrow at his clarification and steps nearer to the center of the room. “He was strangled.” she points a pencil in the direction of the dead husband before making a lengthy notation in the notebook she carries. Fergus answers with an affirmative grunt. “And she?” Myra asks, with a definite question in her voice this time as she clicks her way across the floorboards in tiny strides. Fergus answers this question with silence. The truth of the matter being that he didn't yet have a clue as to why the very beautiful Mrs. Saunders lay dead at the feet of her Mister. She looked like the right kind of woman that got all the wrong kind of attention from men, but this didn't look like that kind of crime scene. The bruising on her late husband's neck clearly indicated strangulation as even the very pretty but vapid Myra St. John was able to discern, a nylon stocking was found resting purposelessly under a lamp table about four feet from the bare leg of Mrs. Saunders. It is under that table though that the trail of easy answers comes to a premature halt. Mrs. Saunders looks to be in perfect condition, save for her one missing stocking which waits damningly near her body as if to point the proverbial finger. Or toe. Her body is angled towards the door, the fingers of her outstretched arms still digging into the carpet, as if she were dragging herself towards someone or something as she died. Just off to the side of her body there appears to be a small stain of dried blood on the carpet, but neither of the victims is found to have any open wounds. These are all details Fergus keeps to himself, allowing Ms. St. John to ponder their existence aloud before scribbling them down into written permanence. Fergus walks the room and plays out a silent movie in his mind depicting the murder as he is able to piece it together thus far. Mr. and Mrs. Saunders engaged in the pantomime of an argument over the sorts of things couples quarrel about. Mr. Saunders eventually turns his back on his enraged Mrs. who quietly removes her stocking and then proceeds to strangle the life from her husband. Then, realizing the terrible crime she has committed, Mrs. Saunders suffers a heart attack and falls to the floor, using her last ounce of strength in an effort to claw her way to help. “Got it all figured out then, have you” Myra St. John is saying. She is standing so close Fergus is breathing more perfume out of the air then air itself. “Well?” she insists, “Well, you've been standing there miles away for hours now” she grossly exaggerates. Fergus finally remits, “Now Myra, you know I have nothing for you to put into print other than those facts which are plainly clear for you to see on your own.” He turns his back so as to not play patron to the pout he knows she is performing. “And I'm going to have to ask you to stop stepping all over my crime scene.” He adds, needing to dismiss her twice more before she finally takes to sulking for the officer in the hallway in an attempt to glean more details. Myra St. John is the prettiest little mosquito in town, thinks Fergus, taking liberty to watch her shadow dance on the wall as she at last makes her way down the stairs.
Back in his office Detective Fergus is reclining in his chair with his feet playing paper weight to a heap of potentially useful and probably irrelevant pages. He feels his early morning now catching up to him in the warm September afternoon. Still he is having trouble letting go of his thoughts in favor of a much needed nap. Even more now he can sense a large piece of the puzzle hanging in the air just out of reach. He can't bring himself to believe that Mrs. Saunders was done in by a heart attack. She was younger than his own wife was and in better shape than she. Fergus shifts in his chair and crosses his legs at the ankles, knocking a few scuffed papers onto the floor. The clacking of his secretary's fingernails on her typewriter outside his office door continues to make heavy his eyelids. Over and over he plays the murder scene in his mind, leaving off at the ending where the theory of it all falls apart. His eyes sweep from one corner of the room to another as he imagines the crime. Something is definitely missing. Fergus stares at the brown bag on the edge of his desk containing his lunch, packed dutifully if not begrudgingly by his wife Betsy, who wasn't much of a cook. He sends his eyes to yesterday's brown bag laying on its side unopened beside it. The bags remind him of bodies. Fergus, now absolute over the loss of his appetite feels a connection between the lunch bags and the murder scene across town. He starts to recall something about the apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Saunders, in the way that detectives make an art out of repainting scenery in their heads long after they have departed from it. “Ms. St. John is on the phone for you Detective.” Fergus' secretary says, interrupting his thoughts. “Tell her I will call her back.” he says, faltering to regain his train of thinking. “What's that?” she calls back to him from the front room over the continued clacking of the typewriter. He knows it will do little to put off Myra's harassment for a later time. “Oh, might as well.” He grumbles to himself. “Hello!” He says, barking into the phone receiver impatiently. “Detective Fergus,” Myra St. John whispers from the other end excitedly “Detective, I've met a strange man just now outside the Saunders' flat. I think you should come down here before he gets away”. “Gets away?” Fergus repeats, “Myra, what are you up to now?” Over the line the detective hears only the sound of the street in the background, the white noise from whatever pay phone the photojournalist is calling from. “Myra.” Fergus calls into the receiver. “Myra?” he shouts to the blank din of city life on the other end of the line. “Hurry!” her harsh whisper finally comes and then the call is suddenly disconnected. Cursing, Fynn Fergus hangs up the phone and hurls himself from his position behind the desk into the air, tripping over the coat rack on his way through the room and leaving his overcoat crumpled between the doorway to his office and the desk of his astonished secretary.
Myra is waiting for Detective Fergus in the hallway of the Ivy Place apartments. When he gets to the top of the stairs she is holding a finger to her colored lips and pointing with her other hand to the flat a few doors down and opposite the hall from the crime scene. Fergus does his best to reprimand her with his eyes but she is looking back at him with a ridiculous enthusiasm that threatens to be lethally contagious. They stand motionless in the hallway listening to the silence, he at the top of the stairs and she down the hall with her ear pressed to the stranger's apartment door. “Tell me....” he begins, but is shushed sternly both by Myra's pink lips and by the daggers she is shooting him from her narrowed eyes. If looks could kill, he thinks and waits through more moments of everlasting silence. He is about to risk verbal communication again when Myra St. John suddenly bolts from her post, making it not more than four tiny steps in her pencil skirt before the door flies open. There stands her “stranger” suited in a disheveled sort of way complete with a misfitting hat cocked at an awkward angle. He is dragging a heavy suitcase behind him which all but usurps his concentration to the moment where he turns at last and catches a surprising glimpse of Ms. St. John. At that point his mouth falls open and he wrenches the cumbersome luggage over the apartment threshold in an outrageous show of irritation. “What the blazes?” he is allowed before Myra seizes her opportunity to jump between him and the open apartment. Detective Fynn Fergus remains frozen at the top of the stairs, watching the drama unfold at a safe distance. “Where do you think you're going?” Myra interrogates, her finger waving maternally in the face of the stranger. “Now you look here!” he returns, “I have half a mind to get the police up here the way you keep harassing me” the stranger has a whine to his voice that Fergus recognizes as the sound of fear. “You tell me where you are taking this suitcase and what you were doing inside the Saunders' apartment earlier and you will never see me again.” Myra's finger wags out her syllables in the face of the increasingly suspicious character. At this the stranger drops the suitcase with a crashing thud and takes a step in Myra's direction, placing the five foot eight spindly suspect practically on top of the tiny photojournalist. Fynn Fergus finds a younger man's speed and is upon them both, pulling the man away from Myra before he realizes himself that he has even left the top step. “I'm not...you can't....I'm...” the man stammers with eyes wide as saucers. Fergus has the odd sensation that in that moment he is holding the elusive missing piece of the puzzle in his hands. It is like he can smell the guilt on the man he is clutching. Myra takes advantage of the stranger's temporary imprisonment and slips into his apartment with an abandon that brings the years back to the Detective in a hurry. Wasn't he a much different man before so many years wore the ruts through his routines he thinks to himself. Fergus has to tighten his grasp to keep the man from rushing in after her. “See here, I've done nothing wrong and I dare you to prove otherwise” He hisses into the Detectives' face, “that reporter on the other hand is breaking into my apartment right now and unless you stop assaulting me this instant I am going to start screaming for the police!” “Tell me what you were doing in the Saunders' apartment” Fergus counters, unrelentingly. “Tell me!” he repeats, this time adding a good shake for dramatic effect. “I was curioussss” the man hisses back. The detective watches the stranger's face; underneath a surplus of annoyance a current of sadness is puddling, he can see it welling up in the man's eyes. “Whats your name?” Fergus asks. The man seems to weigh out options in his head, Fergus wonders if he isn't choosing an alias to go by. “My name is Lundly” the man finally answers. Fergus continues to stare him down. “Henry” he says, scowling deeply, his eyes leaving the contest. “And before you even have to ask let me just inform you that I wasn't home on the evening of the...,of the murder. I was picking up an order at the butcher shop on the corner, the florist on Fourth Street should be able to place me as well.” he adds smugly. “Did you know the Saunders?” Fergus asks him. “I knew her” the man says, speaking beyond the detective. He meets Fergus' gaze and adds, “as a neighbor, of course.” Myra appears at the door again and hurries past the two men, giving a secret wink to the detective. Fergus lets go of the man who promptly turns tail into his apartment, slamming the door behind him. As Fergus turns to question Myra he finds that she is already down the hall and across the way, working the doorknob to the Saunders' place. The detective sighs loudly with the sound of parental impatience and hurries down the hallway to meet her. “What did you find?” he whispers to her. “Ssshhhh” “Myra, did you find something or not?” “Ssshhh” they seesaw like this back and forth until he finally nudges her from the door and produces the key from his pocket. Once inside he wasn't letting her take a single step until she paid on the explanation she owed him. “Look at this!” she exclaims exuberantly, pulling something from where it was tucked into the waistband of her skirt and shaking it in her hand in a way that makes it impossible for him to follow her instructions. “Look!” she repeats. Fergus snatches the photograph from her flailing hand and glares her into submission before glancing at it. A more alive Mrs. Saunders smiles back from the picture, both hands holding onto a rose positioned close to her face. “This came from that man's apartment?” he asks without attempting to hide his surprise at her resourcefulness. “He stole it!” she remarks back, a smile of satisfaction stretching her pink mouth from cheek to cheek. Fergus analyzes the item thoroughly “Maybe not” he muses flipping the photo around to reveal to Ms. St. John a woman's script on the back. “What does it say?” Myra questions as she bounds over to him. “Its a signature and it says '67'” “What do you suppose that means?” she asks, her eyes lighting up with the mystery of it. “I'm not quite sure” he offers, “yet”. He looks at the floor where the outline of Mrs. Saunders' body is marked, just under the foot of her husband's. “What else did you find?” he calls to Myra who is busying herself with the apartment peephole. “Nothing” she answers, sounding preoccupied and shaking her head with more clarification than the situation required “his apartment was clean”. “How clean?” he presses. “Cleaner than mine” she responds, shedding no new light with such an elucidation. “Except the table which was an awful mess” she finally elaborates, “correspondence and about a week's worth of dirty dishes, but the rest of the place looked like it hadn't been touched in months” “Who were the letters from?” he continues to question her. “I didn't think to look” she responds, meeting his eyes with a look of self-incrimination in her own. He stares at her incredulously, “You didn't think to find out who the letters were from?” “I was trying to be quick” she says defensively. “Did you notice anything else at all?” “Nothing.” she insists. Fergus ends his pacing at the spot in the carpet stained with the phantom blood. We are looking for a suspect who is wounded, he says in his head. Wounded where and by what? He questions himself. Detective Fergus repaints the image of the stranger in his head, walking the outline of the crime scene again as he does so. Five foot eight, about a hundred and forty five pounds, baggy blue suit, wrinkled blue tie, ill fitting hat, large suitcase. A suitcase, Fergus realizes from his own memory of the moment, monogrammed TBL for a man named Henry Lundly. Fergus can recall no visible wounds. “Tell me about his apartment again” he entreats Myra, blending the description she gives with what he can remember seeing through the small opening of the door as he had held the man to the threshold. Mismatched furniture, newspaper on the counter, window curtains drawn tight. “That and the table full of dishes, an ashtray, and letters of unknown origin” Myra said, saying “unknown origins” with a hint of playground snottiness. Fergus offers her another chiding expression but she has turned her attention back to the peephole. “A clean ashtray on an otherwise cluttered table?” Fergus points out. She doesn't bother to respond. “Where did you find the photo?” he asks her, looking at it again and waving it in the air himself. “In the kitchen, he was using it as a bookmark.” She answers into the door. “What was the book?” he asks her, striding the room to where she is. She turns and looks at him once more, biting at her lips and affording him a wide-eyed visage. “Well?” he asks. “I have no idea” she replies. “Blast!” Fergus exclaims, turning again to examine the peculiar art on the apartment floor. “It looked like a recipe” she mutters low. At this Detective Fergus feels his brows come together on his knotted forehead. “A cookbook?” he inquires. She says nothing but shakes her head with a hopeful affirmation. Fergus' eyes are fixed on the carpet stain “Myra,” he says, unable to hide the grin growing over his face “you aren't going to like this next part.”
An hour later the Detective and the Photojournalist find themselves in the basement of the apartment complex, splitting between them an open bag of garbage. Fergus is not without a little pride, even as his bare hands sift into piles that which is rotten and that which may be fruitful. This is because the Detective has once again proved worthy of his title, correctly estimating the length of time between a suspect being threatened with his own guilt and the suspect's need to expel any and all evidence of said guilt. With considerable coaxing Myra had waited alongside Fergus, squirming and buzzing with impatience like the pretty little mosquito Fergus thought her, until finally the man in apartment G-2 had appeared again, this time with a tidy little bag of evidence in hand. They had followed him from their clandestine position around a corner at the far end of the hall all the way down into the depths of the maintenance rooms. It had been challenging for the snooping duo to keep their trailing secret, it had seemed as if the stranger was trying to lose them at first in the labyrinth of the service rooms. It eventually occurred to Fergus that the man had seemed lost himself. After he had located the depository the stranger gave up his refuse and had begun to depart from the depths of the basement floor when Myra's shoe had suddenly slid noisily upon something slick underneath her. For a brief moment it had seemed as though they were found out, the man had turned abruptly and stood rigid straight, seeming to stare directly into the hidden face of Myra St. John where she was obscured by a few pipes and mass of shadows. Fergus had readied himself for another altercation during that long intense pause, but the man did finally shrink back up the stairs from whence he had come. As soon as he was gone they had settled down to dissect that which he had discarded. Much to Myra's dismay. The whole of it truly belonged in the trash but among the items Fergus began setting aside were a matchbook, a newspaper with a phone number written in the margin, and an invitation to Summerview High's ten year reunion. They had also come across that which the detective had come in search of, which turned out to be an entire pan of some sort of pastry, banished without so much as a bite taken from any of the slices. The rumpled man who lived alone in an apartment of mismatched furniture didn't strike Fergus as the type who dabbled in baked goods. He wonders aloud to Ms. Myra St. John as to whether this Pastry Roll might be the results of the bookmarked page from the cookbook she had found in the suspect's kitchen. Myra only continues to sift through the garbage delicately using the very tips of her fingernails to move about the refuse listlessly. Fergus concludes she is silently protesting which he finds delightfully amusing. Especially the silent part.
One week later and back at his office once more Detective Fynn Fergus has successfully cleared the piles of paper from his desk, filing them onto the floor with the other. He sits intently pondering the matchbook, the newspaper, the invitation, and an envelope addressed to a T.B. Lundly. He also muses over a well worn deck of cards Ms. Myra had insisted upon the importance of. The number on the newspaper had yielded an interesting lead. The operator had unceremoniously informed Fergus that it connected to a residence upstate, a listing for a Mr. Theodore Lundly. However, no one had answered all week. Fergus had indeed confirmed the alibi of the man from G-2 with both the butcher and the florist. So he was left to contemplate why a man with a perfectly good alibi was acting so suspiciously and why he was dragging around the heavy baggage of a relative who was no where to be found. Unless the missing T.B. Lundly was in the suitcase Fergus thinks for just a moment and then dismisses the macabre idea of it completely, having recreated the inadequate dimensions of the bag for his mind's eye. Instead he goes back to analyzing the matchbook, the invitation, and the envelope. Other than that and a collection of brown lunch bags, the detective has little to distract him. He is in fact, making a solitaire use of the playing cards when Ms. St. John unexpectedly comes calling. “I haven't heard from you for days” she pouts, a big blond curl sweeping her cheek as she flounces over to Fergus' desk and leans over him. She pretends not to notice his feet shuffling a mess of cards from sight. “Myra, I have nothing for you to put to print” he says curtly. He does not feel he needs this brown eyed reminder that the Saunders' case remains very much open. “The story has already gone to print” she laments, “A lover's spat gone wrong, it hardly made Section C” she continues. “Gone into fiction then have you?” Fergus asks. “Well, have you something a little closer to the truth?” she prods him, her fingers absently working one of the brown bags on his desk. “Not a thing” he replies. He watches her unroll a bag he is quite sure is the oldest on the desk and remove from it a pitifully basic sandwich. This is as much entertainment as he could have asked for given the circumstances of his past few days spent staring at a matchbook and listening to a dial tone. “What about the phone number?” Myra asks him. She is unwrapping the sandwich carefully. “Dial tone” he simply puts it. He is thinking through the details of the invitation as well, knowing Myra will want to know about Summerview High. Lundly is listed as an alumni of the school but has sent in an RSVP for the reunion under the name Theodore. Fergus is withholding the most interesting detail from the photojournalist for the distinct pleasure of revealing it only after she has officially given up. That detail being Mrs. Saunders' own invitation to the reunion. Myra is finishing unwinding the sandwich from its protective sheathing and brings it up close to her mouth. She is just about to take a bite when she pauses to ask another question, “And the deck of cards?” she asks the detective pointedly. “Still looking into it” he says, opting to participate in a shared smile. Just then a big glop of peanut butter falls from the sandwich in Ms. St. John's hand and plops onto the desk right in front of Fergus. “Oh brother” she mutters, dabbing at where it has continued to also dribble onto her blouse. The detective is instantly transfixed by the smudge on his desk. He traces the shape of the spot in his mind in the same way he had walked the outline of Mrs. Saunders in the apartment days earlier. He never even notices when Myra takes a bite of the sandwich, grimaces, and drops it promptly into the garbage can on the other side of him. She turns around, dabbing the remains of the peanut butter sandwich from her lips and sees the strange entrancement on Detective Fergus' face. He doesn't even seem to blink as she makes her way back over to him. “Detective?” she says softly, exhaling a wafting of peanut directly at him. “That's it!” he shouts, jumping to his feet and startling Ms. St. John into a yelp loud enough that the secretary barges in a moment later. “Myra, my dear mosquito, you've just cracked the case wide open!” he exclaims, grabbing her by both shoulders and pulling her across the desk to kiss her hard on the forehead. She stays stunned at length from both the term of endearment he had chosen and from the sudden and unexpected show of affection before noticing that the detective is already fleeing the room with his coat and hat in barely hand. He is out of sight immediately without so much as a pause as he passes the tapping foot of his secretary. “Myra!” he shouts, as he heads into the city streets, listening anxiously for the “click, click, click” of her heels as she struggles to keep up.
A wispy man stands under a building overhang, his shoes mostly hidden by pant legs that gather in the puddles that grow with the driving rain. His eyes dart across the street, searching the passing pedestrians as they intermingle in the distance. He watches but never notices the eyes that are watching him from a parked car waiting just yards away. A hand goes up on the opposite side of the street buying a nod of recognition from the man from G-2. He holds his hat onto his head as he runs across the street to meet the man who continues to wave him over. This man; with a cigarette dangling from his mouth which struggles to plume in the damp air and an ill-fitting hat upon his own head. The men talk at length in the rain, the shorter one gesticulating anxiously and the taller one growing a frown. A cab pulls up to the curb in front of them and one of the men starts to get in. Its the man they know from the apartment. Inside the surveillance vehicle Myra suddenly flails with alarm. “He's getting away!” she shouts, Fergus sees one of the patrolmen in the front grab at the handle of the car door. “Relax” he says from the backseat. “That is not the man we need.” When the vehicle pulls away Detective Fergus, Myra St. John, and two patrolmen watch as a taller sturdier version of the man they know as “Henry” flicks the stub of a cigarette into the gutter and jogs back across the street to the apartments. Wearing a hat that couldn't have fit him any better.
As the patrolmen fits the real Mr. Henry Lundly with a new pair of shiny cuffs, Myra is asking Detective Fergus to go over the case one more time. On the record. She chews at the pencil as she listens attentively to the details, making corrections in her notes as he speaks. “Mr. Lundly, six foot two, one hundred and seventy five pounds at rough estimate, lives here in apartment G-2. A week ago Friday his brother, a Mr. Theodore Lundly arrived in town for Summerview High School's ten year reunion. Upon his arrival I'm sure Theodore was thrilled to discover his older brother living down the hall from his own high school sweetheart, one Mrs. Saunders or as Theodore must have known her, Sandra Doreen May. At some point Sandra, Mrs. Saunders, passes along to Theodore a photograph on the back of which was written “G-7” not “67” as we originally thought. Its serves as an invitation for him to join her for a meal at her apartment five doors down the hall from where he is staying, an invitation prompting his trip to the butcher and the florist. I suspect it was an evening Mr. Saunders was supposed to otherwise be occupied. The brother, Henry Lundly upon learning of this date was enraged to learn that the woman he had been pining for since high school was once again favoring his younger brother. This my dear Myra was indeed a crime of passion as you suspected it was, but among different players I'm afraid. Henry was well aware of Sandra's allergy to peanuts, she mentions it in one of the letters we have been able to more thoroughly peruse since obtaining our search warrant.” At this Detective Fergus can't resist sending a glance in Myra's direction, who rolls her eyes in response. “Had Mr. Saunders not shown up when he did I suspect that Mr. Lundly would have indeed gotten away with the perfect crime. Henry disguised the murder weapon in a chocolate pastry roll, the same one we discovered the remains of in the garbage his brother later discarded. He probably presented it to Mrs. Saunders under the guise of neighborly affection, insisting of course that she try it. Mrs. Saunders died of anaphylactic shock while a jealous Henry simply stood nearby. Before he could leave, however, Mr. Saunders must have suddenly arrived home and discovered his wife's body, while the murderer was still in the apartment. Henry had little choice, his second murder weapon was but one of convenience. Mrs. Saunders' stocking. “So it was Lundly all along” Myra reiterates "just not the Lundly I thought it was." “I'm afraid so,” Fergus says, a tone of dismay peeking through in his voice, “the only thing that poor Mr. Theodore Lundly is guilty of is his inability to escape his older brother's thumb. He was somehow obliged by his own blood to stay on in apartment G-2 until the coast was clear enough for his brother to return home. Not expecting this lengthy stay he was forced to take to wearing his brother's clothes as my investigation continued.” Myra emits a forced cough that pressures Fergus to revise his statement. “Our investigation” he corrects. “It must have been the worst sort of limbo for that poor soul” Fergus continues, speaking directly to Henry now, “covering for the very man who had just killed the woman he loved, a man he probably loved equally as much” “But how did you figure all of this out earlier in your office?” Myra asks him. “The smell of the peanut butter jogged my memory, it was the sweet smell I first encountered the day the bodies were discovered.” he says, “And when you said “Oh Brother” after dropping peanut butter on your blouse that day” he continues watching Myra, appreciating the way she was blushing deeply as he spoke “I was able to connect the dots of the sibling connection. The mismatched clothing was a big tip-off, as well as the fact that Theodore never really seemed familiar in his surroundings. He was posing as his brother but he didn't smoke, so he didn't use the ashtray, and he didn't know his way around the building as we discovered that day in the basement.” “Remarkable.” Myra whispers. “I believe a better word might be “tragic”” Fergus says, watching Henry Ludly being led from his apartment in restraints. Just as a Lieutenant is guiding Henry through the door he turns over his shoulder to address Myra St. John directly, “There was a time when Sandra loved me” he says softly his eyes someplace deep in Myra's gaze, “make sure you write that down. I'd like that written down.” He walks out without saying another word. Fergus looks back at Myra who is returning a smile to him, despite the single tear sliding down her cheek. The detective then gathers his coat and hat and the two of them make their way down the apartment steps in reflective silence. The sunlight is finally beginning to peak through the parted clouds outside as Fergus and Myra exchange awkward farewells. He watches Myra attempt to navigate a few newly formed puddles of rain. “Myra” he calls. She turns and holds a hand to her brow, shielding the intensifying light of afternoon from her eyes. “Thank you” he manages to say. She smiles wide and waves off his attempt of gratitude. “Does this mean I get the exclusive on the next one?” she calls back. “I'm sure you wouldn't have it any other way”. He says, looking back at her where she is standing in a whole new light. He then tips his hat and walks in the opposite direction, listening to the sound of Myra's heels fade into the city noise.


Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirl Cake

Prepare a basic angel food cake from your favorite recipe or from a box mix
Pour cake batter in a shallow layer into an 11 x 13 dish that has been lined with wax paper and sprayed with non-stick spray
Bake cake in an oven at 400 degrees for approximately 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean
Meanwhile heat 12 ounces of chocolate in a double boiler
Whisk in 1 cup of coconut cream, 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, ½ cup of peanut butter
Add milk if needed to smooth mixture into a frosting-like consistency
After allowing angel food cake to cool, remove from dish and roll from one end to another
Unroll and remove wax paper
Set cake on clean sheet of wax paper
Spread the chocolate mix onto the cake and roll again, wrapping the wax paper around the finished cake roll
Place in a freezer for at least 1 hour
Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar before cutting and serving