The collection of my short stories live on.

Sunrise

I tossed another half-written letter in the garbage can by the wall. My bunkmate, Johnny, was still sound asleep on the bottom bunk, his bed sheets crumpled up at the foot of the bed. It was hot in Hawaii, even if it was winter. The air was humid, especially in our crowded living space. Somehow the United States Navy managed to fit about two dozen men into a single living-room sized cabin.

Our room was dimly lit, only about four or five windows to let in sunshine. I was lucky enough to sleep directly beneath one. It was ridiculously tiny, about the size of a record, but I shouldn’t complain. There were some men on this ship that slept in rooms with no windows at all. Besides, the porthole gave me the perfect amount of light to read and write right on my bed.

I picked up another blank piece of paper and started my letter over again. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but there was enough light outside, mainly artificial, to allow me to write. Picking up my worn out, two-inch-long wooden pencil, I began to jot down what I had been thinking the past week. I scrawled in my messy handwriting, things I knew my friends would make fun of if they ever heard me say out loud. Reaching the end of the page, I drew a heart and signed my name.

I stuffed the thin paper with a stack of cash from my pay into a browned envelope. I addressed it to Daisy Morley, 220 Vander St., Wichita, Kansas. Jumping off the bed, I grabbed the letters I had written for my family earlier in the week and decided to send them all out together. My undress white service uniform was hanging on a nearby hook, freshly washed. I wore it over the same undershirt and briefs I slept in the night before, carefully putting on my pants in a way that didn’t get it dirty. I wasn’t sure why I tried so hard, it was going to get filthy in no time; a consequence that came with living on the USS Arizona.

I slipped on my shoes and was about to head into town to the post office when I heard the rustle of a pillow, followed by an annoyed groan.

“Do you have to wake up this early every single day?” Johnny murmured from his bed. He was undressed and had his arms dangling on the floor. His dark brown hair was a mess of waves and the side of his face had imprints from the pillows. It was safe to say he was not a morning person. Johnny rolled onto his back and stretched, making a loud, obnoxious yawning noise. The other men replied with grunts and curses. Johnny just laughed and sat up, eyes still closed. He flashed a smile at me but ended up smiling at the wall.

“I’m over here,” I said, “open your eyes and maybe you’ll see.”

“The only person I’d wake up for this early is a pretty girl, which I’m sure you’re not,” he joked, but sat up and rubbed his eyes anyways.

“Johnny, you’re a pig.” I rolled my eyes at him and returned to running my Sunday morning errands, unsent mail in hand. I held it up for him to see, “you comin’?” Johnny took one last look in the mirror and fumbled around his bag for his own mail. He had four older sisters, each in different states than each other and their parents, and he had to write them all. Me with my two letters and Johnny with his five, we climbed out of our closet of a cabin and onto the deck of the USS Arizona.

The sun was rising, its orange rays already beginning to shine from the horizon line. Dark blue filled the sky, making it so that the stars were still visible even in the morning. Of course, they would soon be replaced by puffy white clouds when day broke. I’ve always heard Hawaii was beautiful, but no words could help you depict how breathtaking it was to physically be there. Standing in Pearl Harbor, gazing out at the miles and miles of vast open water mirroring the morning sky, you could almost forget that there was a war going on. The battleships floating dormant in the ocean did not seem like weapons of destruction in that moment, but rather decorations. Decorations for the ocean. You forgot about death, about Hitler, about fighting and started to focus on life and the beauty of nature. Johnny called me crazy for wanting to get up so early, but to witness a view like this, it was worth it. This was a landscape famous artists could only dream about painting. It was mesmerizing, I couldn’t look away. I got lost in the shades of peach and coral that faded away into turquoise, longing for the day when I could see this again with Daisy in my arms. It reminded me of her, the Hawaiian sun, its soft colours and the sense of joy I received from simply taking a glimpse at it. For a second the rest of the world slipped away and it was just me. I wished the sky always looked like this.

“Hey,” Johnny waved his hands in front of my face; he didn’t really understand art or beauty. His area of expertise included swooning girls and drinking. “Quit lookin’ at the sun when there’s a whole town of ladies right in front of us. Let’s go Wichita! I want to go before it gets busy.”

It was almost eight and the town was starting to become steeped with sailors and airmen. The postal office, however, was empty. I fanned out my mail and got them stamped, watching as the man behind the counter took my letters and placed them in a plastic bin.

On the other counter, Johnny searched furiously through his fat stack of handwritten letters, counting and recounting carefully. He cursed under his breath and spread them out. “I’m missing the one I wrote to Cathy. Damn girl just had to move to New York, didn’t she?” He propped one hand on his hip and rubbed his forehead with the other. “The place is about to get crowded soon and I really wanna send ‘em all out today.” He stared out the store window at the USS Arizona in the distance, contemplating something hard. “Okay… How about this, you mail these for me now while I run and go get Cathy’s letter.” He checked his watch and looked outside again. “I was on the track team in high school, I’ll be twenty minutes tops.” I clicked my tongue and checked my own watch. 7:45. It was Sunday morning, not like I had anything better to do with my time.

“Alright, pal,” I said, “Tell you what, I’ll pay for drinks tonight if you can make it back before eight.”

“You’re on Wichita!” With that Johnny sprinted out the door and down the street, turning back only once to wink at me. I admitted it, he was fast. A minute had past and I couldn’t even see him anymore he was so far.

I mailed his letters for him and walked down to the hospital by the beach, next to the postal office. There was a bench in front of the building, on the edge of the sand. It was hot from lying in the sun, but I sat on it anyways and lit a cigarette. I wasn’t a smoker before I enlisted, but I became one a few weeks in; Johnny taught me how. There were things you had to adjust to in the Navy, smoking being one of them. I didn’t necessarily enjoy it, but I’d grown so used to the habit that I did it whenever I could. It didn’t take the edge off of anything like it did for other guys. For me, it was nothing more than a pastime. Duty in Pearl Harbor was tedious.

A low rumbling sound tickled my ear as I threw the butt of my cigarette in the sand and stomped on it. I squinted through the sunlight and caught the silhouette of an airplane. What was the Air Corps doing so early? The townspeople seemed just as confused. Heads up towards the sky, we watched more planes fly by. Strange. I had never seen any planes like those before. A large red circle was painted onto the wings, that wasn’t the design on American ones.

Shop owners, doctors, Navy commanders, and nurses gathered in the street to watch the airshow. Those airplanes with the big red dots flew in perfect formation towards our Pearl Harbor. The air raid siren turned on, sounding like a forlorn whale. It wailed for the entire island. Nobody followed the air raid drills we had done so many times before, they stood and gazed at the seemingly majestic aircrafts. But all beautiful things have an ugly core.

The machine guns opened up on showered the concrete ground with bullets. A few people fell down, dead or injured I couldn’t tell, I was too busy diving for cover. It all happened so fast. I couldn’t fully process what was going on. I talked so much about wanting to be in the war, but finally having it knock on my front door, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to open it yet. It didn’t matter, war had no manners; it barged in anyway.

The plane looped around and shot down another street; sparing ours for now. My heart beat so fast I felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. My eyes were wide, my breathing hard and short. Beads of sweat dripped down the side of my face as I played the experience in my brain again. I had heard gunshots before but never like this, saying I was terrified was an understatement. My legs lost its balance, feeling like jelly. The ground around me was spinning as I managed to push myself off the ground. I walked like a drunk man, staggering and wobbling all over the place. Lightheaded, I stopped in my tracks to regroup myself. I couldn’t hear anything, except for a ringing and muffled voices.

“Get outta here sailor!” A store clerk yelled at me, breaking me out of my shocked daze. I didn’t know what to do, my heart pounded inside my chest. I never imagined the war this way, although I wasn’t sure what I expected instead. My father recollected tales from his time of service in the great war, but he could never depict the true terror of being fired upon or the sight of corpses. The sputtering of gun rounds could be heard loud and clear from the ground. I watched as the planes circled around the docks, by the ships, giving me a sick feeling in my gut.

Johnny.

I sprinted as fast as my feet could carry me, the Arizona slowly coming into sight. I leapt over shrubs and small stairs, lessening the distance in any way I could. Nearing the docks, I saw him on the deck, head turning left and right, watching people rush past him. Men in their underpants, toothbrush in mouth, dashed up from their cabins to see what the commotion was about.

Ready sailors ran to their posts, manning their stations, but Johnny stayed put in the middle of it all. Torpedo bombers flew past the Arizona, but only one turned back, flying slightly lower than the others. A cylindrical object emerged from the belly of the plane. It was difficult to make out what it was from the ground, but the fan-shaped end of it gave it away.

“Johnny!” I hollered, running faster than I ever did, my lungs burning. “Johnny! Get off the ship! Johnny!” The plane released its bomb, a direct hit on the USS Arizona. It broke through the deck, destroying the metal as it made its way down. Time stopped for just a moment, Johnny stared at me. I could not see his face from this far, but I could tell he was scared. “I’m coming! John–”

The explosion ringed in my ears. I wrapped my arms around my head for protection. It detonated from the lower level, splitting the ship in two. The deck arched up before breaking apart and letting loose a burst of fire which spread to the ship next to it. I watched as bodies launched into the air. The power of the blast knocked me off my feet and emitted a wave of scorching hot air. Black smoke erupted from the ship and shot strands of fire into the sky. Everything was ablaze.

Nobody was left on the Arizona.

It was pure horror. Corpses floated in the red water. The ocean was littered with them. Johnny no longer stood on the deck, for the deck was nonexistent. The fire swallowed him whole.

Screams echoed from the ship. Survivors were trapped within the iron walls of a sinking tomb. The scene I had so beautifully admired only two hours ago was now what I pictured hell to resemble. Men plunged into the sea in order to escape the fire. Some made it and swam to shore, but others didn’t get to hit the water.

Bombs dropped on every naval ship Pearl Harbor had to offer. Radar towers came crashing down, bringing as many sailors as it could. People flew in the air, limbs in unnatural positions like ragdolls.

My hat was long lost, my white uniform stained with smoke. My eyes teared from the fumes and the thought of my dead friends. The war was here and it didn’t wait, I had to do something. Running beside the burning ship, I watched as a sailor I knew attempt to lift a shut hatch. I couldn’t recall his name, but I recognized him, he was the beefy guy with the one-year-old daughter waiting for him at home. His muscles tightened as he turned the dog and raised the hatch as much as he could before his face turned red and was forced to stop. The sliver of opening left enough space for a dozen prying hands to reach out. They clawed for freedom with no avail.

The muffled sound of plane engines filled the skies again, airplane shadows flying over me. They open fired on the docks, splintering the wood and denting the already wrecked Arizona. The strong fellow was shot in the chest and fell with a thud, rolling off the ship and into the saltwater. He bobbed above the surface, but his enormous muscular arms pulled him under. Like that, entire lives were changed within a matter of seconds. I felt like I was drowning with them, no air entered my lungs. My mouth was dry, body aching. I observed my surrounding devastation. It looked like the end of the world.

A plane dove from the sky and seemed to be flying right for me like it was a vulture and I its prey. Bullets chased me to the end of the docks; only a couple more feet until the boards came to a stop. I dove headfirst into the bloodstained ocean, narrowly escaping towards safety. The plane flew back up to its regular altitude and fired on someone else. Floating in the ice cold water, I felt weak. I couldn’t keep my head above the surface. In reality, I wasn’t safe at all.

My lower back hurt and my head pounded. I couldn’t tread water anymore; my legs refused to move. I reached for the source of the pain and felt a hole in my flesh, the warmth of my blood seeping out of it and mixing with the freezing seawater. They got me. The war got me. Perhaps I wasn’t so ready after all.

The world was getting dimmer and blurrier. I swallowed one last gulp of air before the weight of my immobile body dragged me down. The sun still shined through the smoke, its glare piercing into the water like the arms of an angel, reaching to pull me back up. But I was too far gone. I couldn’t be saved. The last bubbles of air escaped my mouth and made their way to the top, curving around the still bodies of men that were suspended in the ocean. I was cold, so cold. I extended my arms towards a world that began to fade away, the light getting darker and darker as I neared the bottom. I didn’t even realize I wasn’t breathing; my lungs didn’t burn despite the lack of oxygen in them. It was like they were trapped in a small box, incapable of expanding and letting in air. But none of it hurt; it seemed natural. Maybe they were too feeble to feel anything.

Before my eyes, all I could see was crinkled sunshine on the surface of the sea and my fallen friends sinking to the ocean floor. My eyelids grew heavy and I fought a failing battle to keep them open. Tired, I succumbed and let them shut. Blackness swarmed my sight and all I came to know disappeared.  My heart slowed to a stop, the last thump gentle and quiet. I felt myself slipping away, too weak to hold on.  I half expected my life replay in my mind, but no such thing happened. In that moment, I didn’t think about anything. I couldn’t bring myself to work my brain. I couldn’t remember a single thing, so I didn’t bother trying. I was learning to let go. A numbness hugged me, stealing my sense of touch.

Everything felt weightless.

I opened my eyes to the ocean and its azure blue. The sunshine was still there, although it seemed to get closer. Or maybe it was me who was moving. I looked down and saw my body, lying on a coral-covered rock. I didn’t move and somehow, I appeared peaceful. One arm rested over my ribs while the other was bent over my head like I was napping. My eyes were closed. I had said my goodbye to the world. I was ready now.

Around me were the transparent ghosts of sailors and pilots, all rising up with me. I recognized familiar faces among them; the beefy man with the daughter, tiny Frank, Bernie from Newark, Lieutenant Gordon. They all grinned at me, standing proud and tall while flying up towards the water surface. Proud to have lived, proud to have served. I saw Johnny there too, his whole body a glowing white and his uniform finally clean. He smiled at me and waved, then pointed at where we were going. The brightness was blinding but warm. We disappeared into the light.

Mr. Brown

**warning: this is kind of horrific with vivid and grotesque details, it might be disturbing to some people, read at your own caution**

We sat in silence around Lisa’s living room coffee table. Dried cucumber sandwiches collected two days worth of dust on their plates while cold peppermint tea began to make ring-shaped stains around the inside of the tea cups. The only noise that could be heard came from outside; people chattering and cars driving by in a habitual routine. The neighbours walked their dogs and laughed with each other about jokes I couldn’t hear.

Finally sitting in Lisa’s house on that grey wool couch she gushed so much about when she came to visit was not as glamorous as we had all imagined it to be. The so-called living room in Calderwood was dull. Leather couches that were too cold to sit on in short dresses filled up a large circular room. Though there were many windows, the bars on them never failed to remind us of where we were. Lisa was the first to be released from that horrid place and it would be three years before I left there too. In that time, five of our friends from the inside were let back into society–me, the very last when the institution overcrowded in 1964.

Lisa got married and divorced in those three years, but managed to visit us for weekly updates on her liberation. She took much pride in being the first of us to be declared sane again. She talked about getting her first job and how great her husband Jonathan was, then how stupid he was after he left her, but mostly about her wonderful house. It was a typical condo in the suburbs that was replete with furniture and home decor that was useless–like plastic display fruits and a meat grinder–but she always talked about that grey wool couch. She first saw it in an Ideal Home magazine while she was waiting for the nurse to bring her her pills and had her eyes on it ever since. Now, owning that couch, she thought of it as a symbol for what she had overcome, her mental illness and the institution, and refused to stop bragging about it. Though she was arrogant when sharing her stories, I took pleasure in hearing them. They gave me ideas of what to do when I got out myself.

When I did eventually walk free, I went back to live with my adoptive father at his funeral home and got a part-time job at a grocery store owned by a heavy, loathsome, middle-aged man named Joseph Brown. I didn’t like his face, how he always looked like he washed it with dirt, but no other employers in town wanted to hire a girl who was in a psychiatric hospital. I tolerated him because I needed the money, other than that, I despised the man. I often thought about what it would be like to slit his fat throat cutting him up, feeling that sensation rush through my body, pumping my veins. God, I missed that, but I had worked so hard to convince the staff at Calderwood to believe in my “recovery”, I wasn’t planning on going back anytime soon.

—

That night was supposed to be our first gathering as free people. We had all endured William Calderwood Mental Institution, some much longer than others, and deserved a celebration. Although I didn’t think we could ever become what the world considered normal and that our illnesses would never truly, completely go away, I did think we were better than we were before and that should be commemorated greatly. The whole thing was supposed to be a party.

It was not.

Lisa slouched in her armchair, her cheeks darkened by mascara and tears. She stared blankly at her knees and held her own hands, trying to calm down the rapid twitching of her fingers. She had been in that same position for hours, losing herself in her mess of thoughts. I didn’t know exactly what she was thinking, but I was sure it was similar to what we all thought. We were going to get caught.

It had been two days and no officer had shown up at our doorstep, but maybe it was too soon to assume anything. The police in this town were smart men, surely they’d come for us, if not today then tomorrow. The last forty-eight hours seemed like they did not happen. I felt like I was in a trance, or a dream. I remembered the smell of bleach, the frantic atmosphere, the loud weeping and of course, the blood. Oh, that wonderful, beautiful crimson. I felt like a fat kid seeing fresh baked cookies.

It happened in the kitchen. A large red stain was imprinted on the carpet where the living room and kitchen met. Kathleen and I scrubbed it until our arms were numb, but it refused to disappear. If anyone were to ask, we all agreed to say there was an incident with a can of tomato sauce.

I did most of the work, though I wasn’t even the one who committed the crime. It was Lisa and all she had done since then consisted of sulking in her chair and crying. Her cries were deafening and ugly, but her voice was worse. Her constant self-blame and whining was driving me crazy. I almost started to enjoy bringing the bones to the basement just to escape the noise for a minute.

“Rosaline,” she’d scream through her tears, “I did it! It was me! They’re going to send me to jail!” I told her to shut up. The neighbours could overhear.

Poor Bethany cried too, but I didn’t mind her so much. She didn’t help clean up either, but I told her it was okay. She was an innocent child, only eighteen years old. She wasn’t ready to face the horrors of the real world and its sick people like Mr. Brown.

We all watched as Lisa struck him in the chest with the same knife she used to prepare our cucumber sandwiches. She was a paranoid and jittery woman. Severe panic disorder, I think she used to have. Mr. Brown was walking behind her to the washroom when his round stomach accidentally grazed her behind. At that moment, I knew Mr. Brown regretted that he had not tried to lose weight before. It was his fatness that killed him.

Lisa had misinterpreted the situation. She thought the same thing that happened to Bethany was going to happen to her, in her own home, right in her kitchen. She picked up her knife, turned around and raised it high. Under the incandescent light, the blade shined like a sword. A sword with bread crumbs and streaks of cucumber water, that is. I had never seen Lisa so furious. She plunged the cutting tool straight into Mr. Brown’s heart and screamed. She was crazed and I was almost proud. She stabbed him again, and again, and again, and again. There was almost a beauty to it, the manner of how the blood sprayed from his chest and his neck. He was like a fountain statue, spitting out red water. It splattered on the walls, the ceiling, the refrigerator and all over Lisa. Mr. Brown died in that kitchen, in front of all of us.

Lisa came and wept in our arms after seeing what she had done. Everyone was horrified and shocked, but I was merely surprised. I always thought I would be the first to murder someone, since I dreamed about it most. But Lisa? I couldn’t have imagined it. She has too many feelings.

Nancy had to draw her bath and help her wash off the blood like she was a child incapable of bathing herself. She was shaking the whole time and never stopped. Even now, two days later, she continued to tremble in the safety of her red leather armchair. We cleaned her kitchen, her carpet and her knife. She needed to relax, it was not a big deal. It was only murder. Besides, it was her fault. She invited Mr. Brown in hopes of scaring him to leave Bethany alone, she wanted to cut the cucumber sandwiches and she was the one who slashed his throat and tore up his chest with a knife. Stupid woman.

We worked all night to cover Lisa’s mess. In the morning, with Mr. Brown rolled up in rugs in the living room; I shared with the rest an arrangement I thought up during the night when everyone was asleep. I unravelled Mr. Brown and stared at him under the moonlight for a long time before realizing how much he resembled a pig. That’s when I got the idea.

It was the second day after our bloody night, Mrs. Brown would’ve reported her missing husband to the sheriff. There were a thousand people in this town. The police would knock on our door soon and ask to come inside. No one had a better proposal.

“It is perfectly reasonable,” I argued to my friends, “meat is meat.” They fired their thoughts at me and I held them off.

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.”

“Our murder is illegal.”

“It’s unethical.”

“What is these days?”

“What about the bones?”

“We can bury them.”

“The thought of it makes me sick.”

“Think, you imbeciles, they cannot prove Lisa is a murderer with no body to be found.” They scoffed at me and called me insane. It was ironic, had they forgotten where we had all met?

“The more time you waste with your insensible chatter, the closer the police are getting. Would you like to see Lisa rot in jail?” I said flatly. Lisa screamed and flung herself off of the chair, curling into a ball on the ground and sobbing, repeating the words “don’t let them take me”.

“Besides,” I continued and knelt down beside Mr. Brown’s corpse, “we’d join her in jail too, for being accomplices, maybe we’ll even be sent off to Calderwood again.” Linda shifted in her seat, shuttering and smoothing out non-existent wrinkled on her dress. Nancy bit her lip and dug her fingernails into her forehead, her old habits resurfacing like an unwelcome friend. I saw each and everyone of them break for just a second, really considering the reality of our situation. They began to see it the way I did after a prolonged and tedious dispute. They knew I was right.

“Well, I suppose they do it in some native tribes in Africa and Asia, I read it in my brother’s National Geographic magazine,” Brenda said. “And there’s no possible way for them to find the body after.” Brenda always supported me, I loved that schizophrenic. Ex-schizophrenic that is. I kept forgetting we weren’t in Calderwood anymore.

“If Mr. Brown is anything like a pig, I think I’d know how to cut him up,” Kathleen offered for she was the daughter of a butcher. By 9 o’clock most people were on board. Bethany and Lisa continued to stand their ground of disagreement. They didn’t want to eat a man for some reason.

By 10 o’clock, we had won them over. Lisa really did not want to go jail and we persuaded Bethany into thinking eating Mr. Brown was a method of getting revenge. They were hesitant, but there was no other way.

At 11 o’clock, we got him ready. Linda took care of the head, Brenda the limbs, Kathleen the organs, Nancy the cooking, Bethany the blood and I was in charge of cutting the meat–only Lisa sat and did nothing. The blood was poured into toilets, sinks and bathtubs between one-hour intervals; we didn’t want that much blood in the drains at once. The dismembering of the body was the hardest task to do since no knives in Lisa’s kitchen supported the cutting of human flesh. It took many hours but by sunrise, Mr. Brown was in twenty-five pieces.  Linda shaved the decapitated head and skinned his skull. The eyes were baked like potatoes with the legs, covered with a lemon honey glaze and sprinkled with rosemary. The skull was crushed almost into a powder and scattered into the soil of the garden. We threw the tongue, ears and teeth into the neighbour’s trash at dawn and continued to cook our full course meal.

We turned the lungs, heart and stomach into haggis, the intestines into a stew and sauteed the liver with onions and sage. The back and breast were ground through the not-so-useless meat grinder and layered between tomato sauce and cheese, baked as a lasagna. His hands were chopped into inch long pieces, breaded and fried in oil. We removed the skin and meat from his feet, marinated it in barbeque sauce then boiled it in order to make them cracker toppings. Longer bones, such as those in the arms, legs and ribs were burned in Lisa’s fireplace along with Mr. Brown’s clothes while the smaller bones were buried in the backyard. Everything remaining we ground and fed to the dog in the basement.

The entire process was muted, all you could hear was the occasional ding of the oven timer or the flame of the stove. I could tell nobody genuinely enjoyed it by their grimaces and constant cringing, but I was rather amused. I thought it was almost fun. I remember smiling when I saw his pink flesh being grounded like beef. I hadn’t smiled in years.

Nancy set the table while the remainder of us sat waiting in the living room. Still, nobody spoke. It was a risky plan, but I believe we executed it with precision. The bones were burnt and buried, the blood already in the sewers and Mr. Brown’s insides were well in the dog’s stomach by now. All that was left was to eat the rest of him. It was a genius plan, I wanted to pat myself on the back.

“Dinner is ready,” Nancy called from the dining room. Blank faces started to turn to look at the feast we had prepared. It was like a Thanksgiving dinner. One by one, we stood up and took our places around the dining table. Nancy lifted the covers of each dish, revealing foods that appeared very appetizing. Bethany said grace with tears in the brims of her eyes and began to split the lasagna. Before she could serve it to anyone, Lisa’s doorbell rang. As the sound echoed throughout the small condo, Lisa jumped out from her seat and ran upstairs. Guilty people always ran.

Four policemen were at the door, one held a picture of Joseph Brown and asked if I had seen this man in the last two days.

“No,” I answered calmly, “I hadn’t seen him since my last shift at the store on Wednesday. Why? Has something happened?”

“Yes ma’am,” the young officer informed, “his wife said he hasn’t come home since Friday. We’ve listed him as missing.”

“Oh well, that’s just terrible!” I gasped, “I wish I had more information to give you, I hope you find him soon.” I pause to glance back at the dinner table, at my friends and the Mr. Brown themed foods. “You know what, my friends and I just finished cooking up a scrumptious dinner, would you care to join?”

The young officer cracked a smile and chuckled, “We’d love to but the case comes first. We still have many houses to question. I appreciate the offer though, your meal smells fantastic! Thank you for your time, miss. Have a good evening.” With that, the four policemen walked away from the scene of the crime and visited the next house. I shut the door and returned to my seat. Lisa came back downstairs, pill bottle in hand for her panic attack which had now calmed down. Everybody’s eyes darted around the ceiling, trying to process what just happened. I’ll tell you what happened; we really got away with it. I loaded a piece of lasagna onto my fork and grinned as I put it in my mouth. I savoured the flavour before swallowing it. Mr. Brown was delicious.

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