Another murder in Olympia, this one closer to where Jake and I live. A body found on a walking trail in the woods. It had been there for a few weeks, but it was being treated as a homicide because it looked like somebody had taken hasty measures to conceal the body. I guess they'd thrown a few leaves and sticks over it or something.
So Jake and I drove over there a night or two ago. As we were milling about at the edge of the police tape, a sherriff's deputy drove up. Simultaneously, a near-frantic woman walked up with her ten-year-old daughter. The woman said to the cop: "I don't know if this means anything, but I just heard that you found a body out here? Well, a week ago last Tuesday, I was walking down here, and there was this awful smell, and my dog wanted to go off the path and into the woods... Also, there was this sandal, lying on the path..."
The lady was sort of having a hard time keeping herself under control. But Jake and I didn't even pretend that we weren't listening in.
So, the deputy took the lady's number, and promised to give the information to the detectives on the scene. Jake and I stood around awhile longer, trying to figure out what had happened.
It is my supposition that a good detective also makes a good wait person in a restaurant. There are facts you have to memorize, quickly, and body language you need to read. I'm good with the facts and the body language -- it's the memorization I've always had a hard time with. I'm a lousy waitress. But this was a case where Jake and I only had a few facts: nothing to really memorize; from there, it was just analysis. So, the cop drove up to the site where the body was found (I tied the crime-scene tape behind his car; I have ALWAYS wanted to do that!), and Jake and I speculated.
I said: "I think the victim is female and fairly young. I think she knew her attacker. I think it was probably a rape or an attempted rape, and that there was a scuffle. That's how she lost her sandal. She wasn't planning on being out there, but she wasn't exactly against it, either. She was probably hanging out with somebody she knew, probably a new boyfriend or something, and he suggested they come down to this place... It happened at night, and he didn't mean to actually murder her."
But Jake disagreed. He thought it was a robbery. "An older guy," he said. "Walking down the path here... Somebody else was passing him by, and killed him for his money. They're not going to find a wallet on the body. The robber wasn't planning on killing the old man, but he probably had a heart attack when he was being mugged. So the killer dragged the body a few feet into the woods, threw some leaves over the body, and got the hell out of Dodge."
Me: "An old guy taking a two or three mile walk? An old guy with a possible heart problem? In his sandals? No way."
Jake: "I'll just bet you... I'll just bet it's an old guy! I bet it was a robbery!"
...But the cops identified the body the next day as belonging to a woman. They didn't give an age, an identification, or a motive. But I still think I'm right. Now, if only I could memorize things like who ordered which type of soup, I could hire myself out as a waitress-detective. Meanwhile, Jake's the genius memorizer, and I'm the bad ex-waitress...
I gotta get going. Be good, all.
~Helena*