Why Not Murder

16. Blog

16. Blog

Later that day, Maya was visiting Dog. She had received a message from him in Morse code saying that he had new information she may find useful. After the walk to his place, Maya was quite wet from the rain and wrapped up in cozy blankets to prevent a chill while her clothes were drying beside the wood burning stove. They sat close together in front of Dog's computer screen drinking a special tea, reading.

Dog had found Heather Roberts' blog spot and they were reading her latest blogs, starting from the most recent which was the day before her death and working back in time.

The most recent entry: "I've seen my rival. She is pregnant! H never told me. Why? This changes things. I was sure she was sterile with her personality. I have to tell H I am expecting. Tomorrow. Tomorrow for sure. I thought they weren't having physical relations any more. My pregnancy won't be so special to him. He still has to know though. One way or another, it will work to my favour. I will make it so. He does not love his wife and he does love me. He wants to marry me and this will make it happen sooner. He will be a fantastic father! I am so excited. I can hardly wait. I will take the first opportunity to tell him. I have been looking at real estate to find our new home. There are some lovely choices available not far from the office. As soon as possible after I break the news to him, we will begin our search for a house. He will probably want to buy me a car too. I am so glad our life paths brought us together. I have never been so happy as I am now."

The entry prior to that was several weeks earlier: "I am confronting the dark side of my personality. I am sorry about W. What a horrible way to go. The possibility of meeting a wild animal was one of the reasons W did not enjoy being in nature, also the bugs. However, I am glad he is finally totally out of my life. I never wished him dead, just that I would never see or hear from him again. He'd been away for a while. Many times I suspected he had someone else but he kept coming back, full of optimism about our relationship and claiming he was always faithful to me. He was forever trying to work out a plan to get his financial life together but nothing worked. Eventually he would get around to asking me for money and he would nag and nag and nag until at last, just to make him go away, I would pay him."

A prior entry: "H and I are getting close. Ever since that interview and then I got the job working for him. That was when I realized I could have a real quality man and not just some loser. I could tell from the look in his eye and the way he would look down at his notes smiling, I knew I would get the job. We haven't looked back since. He has dinner and spends most nights of the week with me. It's not just a money thing, I truly enjoy his company. I'm always smiling around him. About the money thing, that is a measure of how hard he has worked and how smart he is."

"Interesting," Maya said, thinking aloud to Dog, "She sounds like she has alot to live for, not at all like someone considering suicide, though perhaps, seeing her rival and realizing her rival is pregnant could make everything come crashing down, like an unexpected earthquake."

"It could go either way," Dog said.

"This blog of hers is giving insight into her world, we otherwise would not have," Maya said, "Thanks for finding this and sharing it with me." Dog smiled and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.

"New love seems to be a cure for everything," Maya said.

"Just so long as it doesn't go bad and poisons the rest of one's life," Dog said.

Prior entry, reading backwards chronologically:

"One of the drafting team at the office, the youngest one who is maybe a couple years older than me regularly stops at my desk to chat. He just does not understand that I am not interested. He wants me to go for lunch with him and after coming up with various believable excuses, I finally said to him that I prefer to spend my lunches alone. I don't think he knew what to make of it. However soon after that H asked me for lunch and since then we have been spending every lunch together. No one at work knows about W. They all think I live alone. One day the draftsman who was repeatedly trying to flirt with me, leans over me and says 'you know he's married, don't you?' I totally ignored him and since then I have continued to ignore him. There's nothing regarding my job that forces me to communicate with him. He's such a sour puss. Anyway, I was shocked on the inside. I had no idea. There's no picture of a woman in H's studio. No personal phone calls come through for him. He doesn't wear a ring and most important, he behaves single. How was I to know?"