Mrs. Drew

Part 1: Ice Cream in January

McGinnis breathed in deeply and exhaled even longer. The athletic red-head sitting in the uncomfortable chair beside his desk looked nothing like her father, but she was every inch a miniature of the dead women's league baseball player in the morgue.

"Hullo, Nancy," he sat down noiselessly, "I'm Detective McGinnis."

There it was. Carson Drew's bright blue eyes bore up at him. "Hello, Detective. Did you know that when ice cream sales go up, so does crime?"

"I did, as a matter of fact. But it has more to do with the sun being nice and hot in the summer, less to do with the sugar."

She nodded like a teacher would, excited that a student had finally gotten the answer right. It wasn't hard to picture the freckled eight-year-old telling this factoid to her schoolmates, the initial thrill of being the only one who understood the true correlation quickly giving way to disappointment that no one else seemed to care much about that kind of thing. Now this excitement gave way to puzzlement, "But it's January."

"Yes, it is," he nodded solemnly.

"What happens now, Detective?"

"Well, I just spoke to your father... He can't get a plane in this storm, I'm afraid, but he gave me the number of your maid -"

"Our housekeeper."

"Yes... Hannah Gruen. But you must stay with me and the missus until your father returns. Not in... that sort of neighborhood."

"The Gruens live in a lovely part of town near a beautiful orchard. When you've finished asking me your questions, Detective, I'd like to call her, please."

"Nancy, we have the guy. And it's past midnight. You've been through a lot tonight. Questions can wait -"

"Oh, but they really can't. Interviewing witnesses while the event is freshest in their minds is central to developing a good case. Dad read a research paper by an old professor of his at Yale and told me all about it. Our memories are not infallible and it's already been five hours since... since it happened. I won't leave until you've taken my statement."

The young detective on the night shift was weary but he could easily put that aside when compared to what the child before him had experienced. "Very well," he took up his pen and notebook, "Tell me about it."

"The doorbell rang at almost nine. I couldn't sleep. Never could the first night Dad's away. Mom couldn't either so we were watching television in the living room.

"She opened the door and a masked man with a gun pushed his way in. He was six-feet tall, but very thin and walked around like he'd entered many houses this way before. He went into the kitchen and ate hearty, left hand shovelling Hannah's chicken salad with a spatula, right hand pointing his gun at us.

"His hands had bulging veins, hard calluses. When he lifted his mask up, we saw this horrible scar going down his neck from just below his left cheekbone. He had light blond scruff across his chin and the mayonnaise kept getting caught in it. His eyes between the slits cut in his mask weren't skittish at all. They were firm grey steel.

"He finished eating and told Mom to take him to the safe and open it. She led him upstairs and I tiptoed across the hall to the telephone as soon as they reached the landing. There was a sharp crack and an even louder bang. They were both dead by the time I got to the second floor."

McGinnis had never seen such a wry smile on someone so young.

"She really took him to bat," the girl's voice was hollow.

He closed his notebook, his pen tucked between the pages, "I think we have everything we need. Thank you, Nancy," he shook her small hand and noticed the blood caked under her fingernails.

Bonus Scene:

"Gee whiz, Georgie," Bess licked her sucker daintily while they waited outside in the icy yard, "She couldn't even step inside the mall yesterday. No way Hannah'd let her come to school today."

"Oh sure," her lanky cousin with a shaggy bowl cut gnawed on a stick of bright red licorice, "and Nancy's just the sorta person to give up after just one try."

"There's no shame in taking care of yourself. That's what Mama always - well, I'll be darned - Nancy!"

The cousins ran to meet their friend.

"I'm not late, am I? I only stopped at the soda shop for a minute to buy some ice cream?"

"In this weather?" George kicked up a few snowflakes to make her point.

The redhead just shrugged, the vanilla swirl in her gloved hand still holding its original form, "Why not?"