The call came into the station at ten twenty-four a.m. on Wednesday, December 3rd, 1976. Detective Jack Bridgesmith was issued to go check out a report of a murder. He arrived at 742 Maple Leaf Trail in record time. As he got out of the car, he looked at his wristwatch. The time read, 11:07. He was shocked that he had made it there so fast, given the fact that he had just gotten the assignment not even twenty minutes ago and made it thirteen miles through Chicago morning traffic.
Jack walked up to the door and grabbed the big circle knocker. He knocked three times, waited two minutes. Knocked three more times and, again, waited two minutes. He figured that no one must be home. To see if he could see any evidence from the outside of the house, he walked into the backyard. He walked up to what looked like the kitchen window. Jack looked into the window and couldn't see anything because the window was too high off the ground. He turned around, stepped on some broken glass and walked back to his car to wait for the homeowner to return.
Jack was doing the crossword puzzles from the Monday and Tuesday papers he missed, when the homeowner arrived back at their house. They both got out of their cars at the same time, and met up on the front lawn.
"Sorry I wasn't here when you got here officer", he said.
"It's Detective Bridgesmith" Jack replied before the homeowner could say anything else.
"Sorry, detective," he responded, "I didn't want to be in the same house as a corpse so I left for a few minutes. Sorry if I held you up."
"No Problem at all sir. It's part of my job to just sit around and wait, so i'm pretty much used to it. May we go inside to talk?"
The homeowner motioned for the door and Jack followed him into the house. The inside was warm and bright. Bright green walls and light oak floors. No carpet in any of the rooms he could see but he saw some sort of black and white checkered tiles, to go with the red cabinets and white tile countertops in the kitchen. The homeowner asked if Jack would like any coffee but he kindly declined. He already had his morning coffee anyway. The homeowner sat down in a chair across from the one that Jack had sat down in.
"So, can we start with your name and the name of the victim?" Jack asked pulling out his pad of paper and a pen in a very comedic way, given the situation.
"My name is Kyle Fykes. The victim's name is Sharon Shenk." Kyle could barely say this over the shaky breaths he was taking. His eyes were tearing up and he was very quiet as he spoke.
"Okay. Now how did you know the victim Mr. Fykes?"
"She was my fiancé. Call me Kyle, please? She loved my last name and now I don't even want to think about her. It's too depressing."
"Sure Kyle and I'm sorry for your loss. Alright, now I need to see the body. Could you lead me to it?"
"I guess." Kyle said, as he started to stand up and walk towards the kitchen. Jack followed.
When they got there, Jack noticed that there was a half eaten bowl of cereal on the table. There was Sharon, who was lying dead on the floor, with her head near the window. However, the chair remained where it was last left when she was sitting in it. He walked over to the broken window he saw earlier and looked down at the floor. He noticed something strange, but didn't think anything of it. There was no blood.
"Do you mind telling me what you saw or heard earlier this morning?"
Kyle had his back turned to the body.
"I was sitting in the living room, watching The Price Is Right, when I heard a loud bang and the window break. The next thing I knew, she was dead."
"Thank you Kyle. I think that's all the questions I have for today. I'll have a crew come in here to clean up the scene, as I go ask the neighbors some questions as well
"Have a nice day detective" Kyle called after him.
"You too."
Jack walked out the front door and interviewed three neighbors. The grouchy old man Mr. Flanagan, The crazy cat lady Miss. Shemp and the local loudmouth, Miss. Janley. They all had very similar stories. Mr. Flanagan said that he was sleeping and even the sound of the breeze blowing could wake him up so he heard no bag, he told Jack. Miss. shemp said that she was on her back porch and didn't hear anything like a bang. And finally, Miss. Janley who said that she had her kitchen window open to listen to the birds said, "I heard no loud noise but my kitchen looks out onto Mr. Fykes' kitchen and i did see something go flying and then I saw the window break but that's it."
Great, Jack thought, All that got me was to realise that either Kyle was lying or this is just a town full of the most oblivious people.
Jack gathered his things and got in the car. As he did he heard a crunching sound. He looked down and saw that there was glass all over the floor. He checked the bottoms of his boots and noticed that they had glass lodged in the tiny cracks. He then, almost immediately picked up his notepad. He reread Kyle's and Miss. Janley's stories. Suddenly he put all of his observations throughout the day and his notes together, and figured out who the murderer was. He walked up to the door of 742, knocked and as soon as Kyle opened the door, Jack got his handcuffs off of his belt and said, "Kyle Fykes, you are under arrest for the murder of Sharon Schenk."
It was three days later and at the police station, Kyle asked Jack how he found out that he did it.
"It was simple," Jack started, "I remembered that as I walked through your backyard, i stepped on glass, right under your kitchen window. Next when I went inside, to look at the body, i noticed that it was facing the wrong way to have been shot from the outside. I also noticed the fact that there was no blood. Just to verify my hunch, I sent a sample of the milk from the cereal to our forensics unit, and they came back with the fact that the milk had been poisoned. To make sure we were one-hundred percent correct we asked our chief medical examiner to look at a sample of her blood. Sure enough, he came back with the fact that there were toxins in her blood."
Kyle said nothing to this and instead turned around to sit on his bed and wait for the officers to come and take him to the county jail to wait for his trial. About fifteen minutes later, the officers came to put him in the bus with the other people they arrested that week, also going to the county jail.
As the bus drove away, he watched until it went over the first hill and was out of sight. He would see Kyle again soon though, in court when he finally get a trial date. Until then, he had more cases to solve. I hope they all go as quick as that one did he thought as he walked over to his desk and picked up the new case files that had just been placed on his desk.
