“.....and along came a...” begins the saga of an unlikely group of co-workers who watch too many CSI type television dramas and try their hands at forensic science.
When an unsolved and gruesome crime from several decades past is featured on the evening news, Samantha, news-anchor and reticent T.V. personality, reacts rather violently to the crime scene photos, intriguing Jaych, the weather girl and collector of arachnids, and then the entire eclectic crew of 'eyewitness news'. The friends and their friends (and so on and so on) embark on a mission which takes them across the country in search of the conclusion to a tragic tale of double murder and the tiny baby who watched it all.
Surprisingly, spiders provide answers along the way and aid in the dramatic finale. Or is it?
The beauty of Puget Sound and it's islands provide a stunning backdrop to the investigation, as the activist population of Seattle gives flavor.
Jock regarded the brown paper evidence pouch almost as a eager child would a gaily wrapped gift. Wearing the obligatory latex gloves, he began an inventory of the contents: “Blouse, slacks, under-garments, all with blood stains which have been shown to be the female victims'. Pair of loafers. The blouse is ripped with several cuts in the fabric corresponding with wounds to the deceased. Female deceased, black and brown, early twenties, approximately 120 pounds, early twenties. Post-mortem revealed a partial hysterectomy one to two years previous to time of death. She had been sexually assaulted prior to her demise and possibly after, as well. The carotid arteries had been slashed, resulting almost certainly in her death. Defensive wounds to her hands and arms lead to speculation that she fought her attacker heroically as well as did the male victim, who may have walked in on the commission of this attack. The toddler, discovered by the meter-reader likely two days later, was covered in her parents' blood, cold and scared and hungry and with a very dirty diaper, otherwise unharmed.”
“The attacker must have surprised the mother while she was feeding the baby, a partial bowl of cooked cereal was on the counter. I can't imagine the fright and panic she must have felt. She was fighting for herself and for the baby........Oh, my................that poor...poor........ But the toddler was o.k.?”
“Blood smears, determined to be the victims' were on the high-chair. Investigating Officer Seargeant O'Flaherty speculated that the killer took the baby out of the chair and put her down on the floor with her parents. Not a little bit twisted.”
“And, no one came forward to claim the bodies? Or the baby?”
“In forty years.........not a single soul......”
Writing fiction is the latest in a long list of hobbies and avocations that Lynn Thompson pursues in an attempt to retain some semblance of sanity. As a part-time political analyst/commentator, mediator in familial dynamics, psychiatric mentor, and student of music, psychology, jurisprudence and art, making time to invent stories takes a little bit of time management and subterfuge. Seeing these stories in printed form is iceing on the cake.
She and her current husband, Dale the patient, live in beautiful rural Missouri, among countless spiders and insects, not all harmless.