Mike X Ryan

Chapter 2 - The Purple Corpse

2011-11-28T20:32:00.000-08:00

An hour after discovering the body Drew and Aaron Lindsey were standing shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk out in the front of their comfortable two-story beautifully restored Victorian home. Boo, their small white and furry Terrier with pointed ears and a wagging tail, was tethered by a leash to the left hand of Drew and sat obediantly beside his master. Police cars were aplenty on the street and the neighbors were out to see what the commotion was about. The two men seemed to handle the situation well with Aaron describing his morning then repeating several times that he had not seen the body earlier even though he had been in and about the garden since seven a.m.. "Did the dog go near the body?" Detective Ryan asked using his pen to point to the dog sitting happily at Drew's feet. Aaron shook his head no. "When we came out on the porch..." he began. "Who is we?" asked the Detective. "Sorry. I came out the back door to the porch area with the dog.." corrected Aaron. "Ok. And?" "Well, when we first came out on the porch Boo did bark in the direction of the Oak Tree. I glanced in that direction but I did not see the body but then, I wasn't looking for a body either. I don't even recall if I really looked directly at the three willow lounge chairs, because I've seen them so often and they are a fixture of the garden. I just assumed they were there and empty. And Boo did venture off the porch and continued to bark in that direction but I assumed he was fascinated with a bird or squirrel. Now though, he must have noticed the body but I didn't and when I did nothing about it, he probably lost interest ..." Drew casually wrapped an arm around Aaron's shoulder while the Detective wrote down the information. "And you Mr. Lindsey," said the Detective speaking to Drew, "did you happen to look out in the direction of the body?" Drew shook his head no. "The first I was aware of the situation was when Aaron called out to me and that was..." he looked down at his watch which now said twelve-fifty-five, "oh, eleven thirty or so."

"And what did you do?" "I came out on the porch and the two of us stood there looking, wondering if it really was a body, then we stepped down to the lawn and walked out toward the willow chairs. Aaron stopped a few feet before we got to the chair and the man but I went ahead and walked all the way around the lounge chair. The guy was dead all right. There was a long knife sticking out of the middle of his chest. His eyes were black, I mean the pupil part and his upper torso was covered in brown blood and he was bloated, of course, and grape purple. Oddly he looked like a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon and he looked like he was ready to burst. There were some bugs crawling on him so we hurried back into the house and called 911. They didn't believe us at first but a police car arrived and then you guys," provided Drew.

Just as Drew finished another officer joined the Detective. He had been standing within listening distance a few feet away. "Did you touch him?" asked the officer. The Detective shot the officer a scowl and the man took a step back. "No. No. Neither one of us touched him. We didn't have to. He was dead. That was obvious. And, of course, there was the knife and all that blood. It was brown," offered Aaron trying to be helpful.

"And you didn't hear anything either earlier this morning or during the night?" the Detective asked both men. They said no in unison. "Nothing," added Aaron. "It couldn't have been suicide?" asked Aaron shaking his own head no. The Detective continued writing and finally looked up. "Suicide? Could you plunge a knife like that into your chest, deep like that? No. This is obviouusly a homocide." Drew squeezed his arm tighter around Aaron's shoulder and the two men looked at each other. "Seriously Detective, we had nothing to do with the murder of anyone. I don't know where the guy came from - maybe down the back alley - there's an alley way back there, at the end of the property. Did you see it?" "Oh yeah, we've been all around the property. No blood stains or noticeable footprints. Looks like the victim was stabbed right there and either fell back into the chair or sat down in the chair and died. From the decomposition of the body, and this is just a guess, I'd think he died a good twenty-four to thirty-six hours ago," said the Detective matter-of-factly. "Jesus! That means the guy was out there yesterday. You were out there Aaron. You didn't see anything?" Aaron had a look of panic on his face. "No really. Nothing ..." he said, shrugging his shoulders and looking at Drew oddly.

"Well, whether you two knew it or not you've had a dead man, a purple corpse, in your back yard since yesterday, maybe longer. We'll wait for the coronor to give us a better date and time" Drew dropped his arm from around Aaron's shoulder and slipped his fingers into Aarons. "God. This is grissley," issued Drew perplexed at how a dead body lay in their back yard all that time.

" The Garden Murder Mystery "©

2011-11-28T20:28:00.000-08:00

Chapter 1 A Jolt of Spring

Aaron Lindsey was up before the sun. He had to be because it was Tuesday and Spring had arrived just the week before. The flats of young flower seedlings ordered last fall arrived on time and he was excited to get them all into his pampered cultivated flower beds. He had spent the last two weeks massaging the beds, sifting the soil, adding just the right amount of fertilizer and he pampered the flats of tender flower seedlings by spraying them lightly with tepid water and making sure they were kept in the warmth of the small hothouse his husband Drew had built for him.

Showered and dressed, he prepared as much of his husband's breakfast as he could spending an extra few minutes making sure his bacon was crispy and brown just the way he liked it. The oatmeal was made from scratch, without lumps, and topped with the sliced sweet strawberries he bought from the Lily market and the favored brown sugar. Drew loved his oatmeal, wheat toast, eggs, hash-browns and the crispy bacon. He also loved Drew.

By the time he had rinsed off the prep dishes and pans and had them in the dishwasher he also had the eggs scrambled and covered and warming in the pan. The sun had come up lit up the kitchen enough for him to turn off the light. The garden he cared for was waiting for his attention. He toweled off his hands and poured a cup of fresh coffee cradling it gingerly in his hands as he stepped from the table and out to the sun porch where he stood at the screen door and surveyed his acre of back yard. Oh, the garden was going to be beautiful this year, he beamed. He just knew it. The giant oak stood stately at the far end of the garden, spreading its arms and branches so wide that some branches were now shading a portion of his prized rose bed. "We'll have to ask Drew to trim those," he said to Boo, their little white haired Terrier, a gift to Drew on his birthday two years ago. Boo looked up at Aaron, his tail wagging gleefully, as he continued to blather on, "They'll hide the sun from Daddy's roses. We can't have that now can we Boo?" Boo barked his answer. He loved the stately oak because it brought back wonderful days of summer when he was first dating Drew who would stretch out in the hand-made willow-wood lounge and read his paper or a book with Boo curled beneath him under the chair. "We'll cover all those shadier areas with the bright blue Phlox this year, Boo. They will fill the air with such a wonderful fragrance!"

The sound of Drew pulling his chair out at the kitchen table hurried back to serve him. "Good sleep?" he asked running his hand over Drew’s crop of thick brown hair and running his hands over his shoulders and down his hairy chest, covered by a fresh clean which t-shirt and then kissing the crown of his head. He smelled of his fresh shower. Drew looked up and they kissed for a long moment. Drew loved Aaron as much as Aaron loved Drew. They were both happy to be married, to belong to each other. Drew poured the fresh hot coffee from the modern ceramic coffee carafe on the table into his cup. With a T-towel in his hand Aaron pulled a warm plate from the oven that held the crispy bacon strips and a second warm disk of fried hash brown potatoes and filled Drew’s plate. Next came the a scoop of scrambled eggs spooned twice next to the bacon. Drew elected two pieces of buttered wheat toast from a a stack of toast in the middle of the table and pulled the dish of apricot jelly closer to him. Aaron lifted the cover from the bowl of oatmeal and stood back to make sure Drew had everything he liked. A moment later he ventured back onto the sun porch with Boo, still carrying his own piece of crispy bacon and dropping it at the door before he chomped down on it. Aaron waited for him to finish the food then the two bounced out the back door and onto the deck where they stopped and surveyed the acre of cultivated park. It was all so well manicured. Boo barked several times looking out at the grand Oak tree. Aaron smiled grandly and from then on the morning was devoted to setting out all those newly arrived bedding plants. "Come Boo," he said and Boo followed strutting like the gallant little soldier he was.

He carried the first flat of the blood red Iceland poppies out of the hothouse with Boo trotting beside him. The poppies would be planted in groups in front of the giant yellow Daffodils that rolled all the way up to the right of the giant oak tree. He had four more flats and hurried to get them in the ground, then watered and fertilized them nicely. On knee pads of foam he knelt down and tended the project of separating the rich loam and lifting a single poppy seedling from the flat and into patting it into the ground. One after another and thirty minutes later all the flats were empty and the poppies populated the flower bed. He stood back and imagined the bright red poppies with their black centers standing just below the king-sized yellow daffodils. A feast for the eyes.

Soon he was back in the hot house carrying another flat, this time of the blue phlox and went through the process again but this time the flowers went into the shaded areas of the yard beds. Boo had tired and rather then accompany Aaron back and forth to and from the hot house for a new flat, he stretched out in the morning sun near the discarded flats and nodded off to doggy land as Aaron transported the flats then gingerly lifted each seedling into place in the shaded pathways.

When the last of the seedlings were tucked into their Spring loam-rich beds he pulled the hose across the yard and lightly sprayed the poppy seedlings. They would bloom throughout the summer and attract the most beautiful butterflies, bees and birds. The sea of poppy’s red kimono petals, the tall yellow daffodils, the deep blue phlox, the rose bed of red, yellow and white along with the Asters, Carnations, pink Hydrangeas, and sweet smelling Star Gazer lilies would be the envy of the neighborhood. To see them as a mass of blooms would delight those lucky enough to be invited into his garden. he returned to the hothouse with his empty watering can and the gallon bottle of liquid fertilizer.
It was near noon when he stopped the planting and settled on the porch next to Boo for a rejuvenating cup of coffee. Gazing across the lawns his mind's eye was envisioning the entire acre of yard. The grass was thick and green, nipped short like a putting green by Drew two days before, the slender brick walkways curved the entire garden passing each island of flowers many beds under the shade of the Oak tree that stood at the far end near the back of the rolling yard. Drew had put those bricked walkways in for Aaron just the way Aaron had originally sketched them out on the kitchen table. Now two years later those pathways had aged and settled giving an appearance of being there for a good decade. Boo rolled over beside him as Aaron passed him small bits of banana muffin he had brought from the kitchen along with his fresh coffee. "Isn't it wonderful?"

Gazing about something caught his attention there beneath the shade of the big Oak tree. In the darkness of the shade he could see a figure slouched and stretched out appearing to be asleep in one of the three prized Adirondack white wooden garden chairs. A sleeve dangled oddly over the chair's right arm. H stood up for a better look. "Boo ...," he said in a low whisper. Boo paid no attention and continued to chew on his portion of Aaron's muffin. Aaron stood wavering in the sunshine for a long moment then shaded his eyes from the glaring sun and took a few steps forward stepping off the porch steps and on to the lawn. "Hello?" he called out in his "be nice to neighbors" voice. Someone was in that chair. He began to walk toward the chair taking short paces as he moved forward. Something just didn't seem right. "Excuse me!" he said, his voice louder as he neared the chair. There was clearly the arm of a person wearing a blood purple long sleeved shirt and rubber gloves too. As he approached the figure and looked his mind whirled.

Boo jumped off the porch and trotted to his side. Aaron stopped four feet from the chair. "Hello?" he said, now more cautiously, wondering if he should turn back and collect Drew. The figure did not move. Was he asleep? he wondered. Then he realized the man in the chair wasn't wearing purple gloves. Dear God, that was a bloated purple hand. With a great breath he hollered for Drew so loud it frightened Boo. Boo was stunned for a second then yelped and ran back to the porch barking wildly again and again.

"What is it? What IS IT Aaron?" bellowed Drew from behind the screen of the back door looking panicked, his outline barely visible through the dark screen. Aaron turned, his mouth agape as he pointed to the body sprawled lifeless in the slatted wooden lounge chair.