When Cindy’s taxi pulled up, Margot’s house was roped off as a crime scene, with rows of police cars lined up in front. Photographers, on the edges of the property, were snapping pictures for the paper, as heavy rain fell on all of them.
Cindy got out of the taxi and saw Mattheus a few feet away, looking down the road, waiting for her. He immediately ran over with a big, black opened umbrella. Cindy got under the umbrella with him and they wound their way through the crowd of cops. Fortunately, Mattheus had clearance for them to get in.
“Unbelievable,” Cindy breathed, as they approached the front door.
“Worse than that,” said Mattheus, his arm now tight around her.
“What?” asked Cindy, horrified. “Margot?”
“Can you imagine?” said Mattheus. “Right now she’s on heavy sedation. They were afraid she’d have a heart attack when she found out.”
“Was she the one who found Graham?”
“Yeah,” said Mattheus. “A complete nightmare.”
Cindy shivered and moved closer to him in the pouring rain.
They got to the door, and Mattheus opened it, shook out the umbrella, and the two of them walked in. Everything in the house seemed the same, perfectly organized, not a paper out of place. Only the wind whipping at the shuttered windows gave any indication that something was wrong.
“He’s still upstairs in his room,” Mattheus said. “I’ve seen the body.”
Cindy hadn’t yet seen a dead body -- and didn’t want to.
“You don’t have to actually go up and look at it,” said Mattheus. “We have clearance to go, and it can be helpful. You could notice something.”
“I’ll go,” said Cindy.
Trembling, she walked up the stairs with Mattheus to Graham’s room, stood at the edge of it and looked in. He was still there, lying silently on the floor, trickles of blood around his neck. He looked fantastically still, oddly at peace.
Cindy wanted to take him in her arms and hug him, tell him it was all a bad dream, and that he should come back to life. He was so young, had so many years before him. She thought of the beautiful pictures of him and Nell. He’d seemed so happy in them. There were a few cops inside, dusting for prints, walking around the body gingerly.
“Another stabbing,” a cop, came up from behind them.
“Why?” asked Cindy, not noticing who he was.
“Same way the father was killed,” said Mattheus.
“Could be.” The cop came and stood beside them. It was Nojo. He seemed sad, quieter. This had sobered him up. It stunned and sobered everybody.
“We only got maybes at this point,” Nojo said.
“Kendra was in jail when this happened,” Cindy remarked slowly.
“Yes, she was,” said Nojo, shaking his head.
“Who was here in the house?” Cindy turned and looked at him directly.
“Only the mother,” he said, quietly. Clearly, this had taken them all off guard. Suddenly Kendra might not be the main suspect any longer - and Cindy wasn’t the enemy, who’d flown into town to help someone they all hated.
“Where exactly is Margot now?” asked Cindy.
“Off limits. In her room with doctors,” Nojo said. “She’s hysterical. But, as far as we can tell, she was the only one within miles of this kid today. And with the storms like they are, nobody was travelling.”
Mattheus let out a long, breath. “Sweet Jesus,” he said.
“Ain’t always so sweet,” Nojo jostled him, “you know that.”
Cindy just stared at Graham, who looked defenseless, lying there alone. She couldn’t put it together, see the point in his death.
“Let’s hope he’s with his father now,” Nojo said quietly.
Cindy suddenly felt agitated. They should have seen something like this coming - been prepared. How could it have hit them from behind? They’d all missed something important and it led to a senseless death.
“Who called this in?” she asked.
“The mother,” said Nojo. “We couldn’t make out what she was saying for a long, long time. She just kept yelling, come over, come over. Then we came and found this.”
“No one’s talked to her yet?” asked Cindy.
Both Mattheus and Nojo looked at her strangely.
“It’s way too soon,” said Mattheus.
“She can’t talk,” said Nojo said. “That doesn’t mean she’s not a suspect. What else in the hell can we make of it? She could have gone crazy after finding out about the second wife? Could be the lunch was too much for her. Could be she snapped. Maybe the son suddenly reminded her of the husband. Then, she forgot herself for a few seconds. That’s all it takes. A few seconds of rage, revenge, and before you know it, someone is dead. Sometimes the one who did it doesn’t even realize they did. It’s like a flash fire that burns out of nowhere and then goes out. Are they guilty then? It’s a big question.”
Cindy turned to walk away.
“Hey, don’t take it so hard,” Nojo said to her, reaching out to bring her back. “We’ll find the killer, they got lots of prints here.”
Cindy nodded sadly. “Well, at least it isn’t Kendra,” she said.
“Nope,” Nojo agreed, “she definitely didn’t do this. But we have no idea if the two killings are tied to each other, yet.”