(However, this is a fairytale, and a grim one at that, and one has little control over a fairytale.)
And now we come to the heart of this story, and why I call it a tale of our times. Because murder is of our times (and ages past — and ages to come) and so is DNA. (Not part of a fairytale, you say. Say on. I care not a jot for your criticisms. Besides, we must move with the times and craft our craft to that end.)
Shortly after finishing her master’s degree, Holly married a young man she met in her credentials program. Having pleased her parents for nearly twenty-seven years, she did not please them with her choice. (Not exactly the Prince Charming they had hoped for.)
“It’s hard to put a finger on it,” Anita said while discussing the upcoming nuptials with Johnny. “He’s just a bit, too…” but she left the sentence unfinished, having nothing with which to finish it.
“Yes,” agreed Johnny. “I find him rather…” And then silence fell from his mouth as well.
And so, Holly and Steven were married. It was a glorious affair: a beautiful and radiant bride, a rather bewildered mother (who had still not gathered the necessary words. Would it have changed the course of things if she had?), a tight-lipped father (because he had found the word, actually a number of words — WOMANIZER, LECH, and CAD among them; old-fashioned but you get the point — and feared they might escape his lips were he to open them. This information having been gathered the evening of the bachelor party, he tried with all his heart to put the groom-to-be’s behavior down to drunken lewdness and not a predatory nature. However, the incident with the stripper’s nipples was difficult to attribute to mere drunkenness. Still, he and Anita had reserved the country club and hired the best caterer. Huge nonrefundable deposits!), a well-behaved groom, a slightly tipsy mother-of-the-groom, a beautiful ceremony, and a lavish reception.
One must congratulate the parents of Holly Singleton, now Mrs. Steven McGuire. Once the wedding was a fait accompli, they resigned themselves and made every effort to welcome Steven as their son and beloved family member. Picnics, backyard barbeques, concerts, theater parties (a sizable down payment on a 3 bd. 2 ba.).
All the gracious and wonderful things of Holly’s growing up, the Singletons extended to their new son-in-law. Anita found words to finish her sentence: “He’s just so… one of our family now,” and Johnny shoved CAD and WOMANIZER to the back of his mind. (Not out of his mind, mind you, just to the back. Or perhaps I should say, toward the back.)
On the day in question (and that seems such an innocuous statement, “the day in question” when it was anything but innocuous!), the family was to gather at Holly and Steve’s new home on a Tuesday evening for a housewarming/three-month anniversary ceremony with BARBEQUE BY STEVE.
(And here our story takes on the horrors of the average fairytale. Think about it for a moment: kids fattened for eating; a witch shoved into an oven [how traumatizing must that have been on the kids in later years!]; parents deliberately abandoning children; little men demanding the first-born [are we talking pedophile here?]; a father who touches his daughter [Uh-oh!] and she turns into a lump of solid metal; a wolf slaughtered in front of a little girl. HELLO?! What is a little murder compared to that?)
Steve was to come home immediately after his teachers’ meeting, which usually ended by four o’clock (Steve at this point in his career was teaching third grade while working on his administrative credential), to begin the preparations for THE BARBEQUE. Holly was to stop by the store on her way home for a few deli salads and beer.
However, the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley (to quote old Bobby) and when Holly arrived home, she found that Steve was not a-gley (although Steve had aft been a-gley — or often been astray, for those of you who speak no Burns), he was dead.
This was the scene as Holly walked in: ribs marinating on the counter (a tofu burger for Anita, the vegetarian), a bottle of Merlot breathing on the counter, and Steve (not breathing) on the floor, their best Santoku knife protruding from his chest. There was blood everywhere; a large Waterford crystal vase that had been a wedding gift lay in shards. Holly screamed and sank to her knees, cradling Steve’s head against her breast, her tears diluting the blood that still seeped from his wounds. A sharp sliver of Waterford crystal cut her knee. She did not notice.
And this was the scene that greeted (well, greeted is hardly the right word, is it?) Anita and Johnny Singleton when they arrived shortly after Holly (but not in time to provide the alibi that Holly might eventually need — but I get ahead of myself here) bearing a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and a batch of chocolate chunk cookies. Anita screamed and ran to Holly (Sauv Blanc and cookies all over the floor), gathering Holly and Steve in her arms. She, too, cut herself badly on the broken crystaclass="underline" she, too, did not notice. Johnny fainted (never did get over that little propensity), cracking his head (a nasty cut that would require stitches) on the edge of the granite countertop before sliding to the floor himself.
It was Anita who groped for the phone on the counter and dialed 911.
The scene had changed little when the police and paramedics arrived. The police called immediately for a forensics team and the rest you have probably watched on C.S.I. (Yellow tape all around the 3 bd. 2ba.!)
Now this tale, which heretofore has not been complicated enough, becomes more complicated. The blood, you know. (We are pleased that the forensics team did notice and take a sample of the smear of blood they found on the front doorframe of the house.)
Holly quickly became a PERSON of INTEREST (it’s usually the spouse) but until the various bloods (and so much blood from so many people!) could be sorted and identified by DNA, she would remain just that: a PoI. Also, there was the crumpled note the coroner found in Steve’s pocket.
“Stevie,
Hope you can get away from the surly bonds of matrimony for some fine champagne. I have a bottle chilling just for us. I also have something else warming just for you. I’ll see you Tuesday after your tedious faculty meeting. Make some excuse to the bride.
Kisses,
(MOTIVE!!!!)
Once again I must back up a bit in my story, as you may well wonder how it is that “Stevie” was already involved with a woman when he was just newly married. (A truly decent man would at least wait more than three months, don’t you think? But Steve was not a truly decent man.) Actually, he and “R” had been lovers for about a year. And she minded not a speck when he got married. (And he didn’t seem to mind a speck, either. Oh, Johnny, if only you had spoken the words you found!) In fact, that made him even more exciting to her. Their relationship began when she subpoenaed him about a brawl in a saloon to which he had been a witness. (Well, you’ve known all along who it was, haven’t you?) to appear in court, and the rest, as they say, is history. (The “R”? Russkie, of course. Making the most out of nothing.)
We go now to the office of the district attorney. Entering our tale, Lara Schuller, one of a number of assistant district attorneys in this particular office. (Again, I name no names of places in the interest of protecting the innocent, of which, you have by now figured, there is probably one — and she is still a “person of interest.”)