Chain of Evidence
A (Not Even Remotely) True Detective Story
Amber stood alone in the kitchen, her fingertips gently tracing the cool edge of the serrated bread knife, its nine inches offering a shimmer in the dim light. It was an unassuming instrument of domesticity, yearning to transcend its humble origins; a simple tool capable of slicing through not just bread but the fragile thread of life itself. Its handle, worn and comfortable from years of service, felt solid and reassuring, with the promise of transformation from baker’s friend to butcher’s assistant.
In the background of her mind, a dark symphony played. A discordant melody composed of stealth and shadows. Her thoughts danced through the labyrinth of possibility as she imagined creeping up on Paulie, her steps as silent as a whisper. One swift, decisive stroke, and the knife would sing its crimson tune.
That was Option #1.
Next, her eyes, wild with a feverish gleam, fixed upon the glass vase near the window. It stood tall and proud, a gleaming sentinel. A crystal killer. How easy it would be to wield its deceptive weight from behind the door, and to help gravity do the dirty work by swinging it into the yielding cradle of his skull. “BAM!” Her mind conjured the satisfying crack as it met its target, shattering both bone and glass in the process.
That was Option #2.
But practicality twisted her lips into a grimace. Both choices felt flawed. Each would leave behind trails. Her fingerprints. His blood. Not just on the tool of his demise but splattered or dripping in a grisly tableau across surfaces and walls. Like a Jackson Pollack painting flicked from a sanguine palette onto a Baltimore canvas.
The Clorox bottle gleamed from the countertop, a false beacon of hope. She pondered whether its contents could wash away the marks she’d leave behind, but the city’s men in blue would know. Damn them. Crooked as they were, so long as their attention wasn’t diverted, Baltimore’s finest possessed an uncanny knack for eagle-eying any hastily managed coverup.
Especially in the house of Amber and Paulie, where dust reigned over furniture, where countertops wore grease like a second skin, and where the floors were eternally grimy. Here, any sudden sparkle of sanitation would stand out like a scream in a library. Amber’s lack of housekeeping diligence was a constant thorn in their relationship, the subject of Paulie’s ceaseless critiques. He accused her of laziness as if she had spent her days glued to the soaps on TV — a sloth shackled to the couch. And he frequently complained about how manipulative she could be, tricking him into a marriage on the basis of a pregnancy she claimed ended in tragedy and he insisted never was.
And then there was the respect, or lack thereof, doled out like a pittance when Amber longed for so much more. That simmering disrespect, coupled with his wandering eyes and straying hands, was fuel for her dark contemplations. Paulie had more than dabbled in infidelity, showering his conquests with baubles and trinkets — jewelry more lavish than anything he’d ever deigned to bestow upon her. Some he’d leave in open view. Her discoveries of these treasures were like finding buried shards of glass, cutting and cruel.
Was there an Option #3? One that left no evidence? Amber continued to plot away within the shadowy corridors of her mind, each thought a step closer to a reckoning. Her mind’s noodling twisted and turned for endless hours.
At last, a smile, dark and devious, curled across her lips as a scheme unfurled. Her heart thrummed with an electric thrill, reveling in cunning’s sweet embrace.
“Hello, Detective Murphy,” she’d later say, hours after the deed was done, when the Baltimore detective arrived at the scene. She knew this cop, a fixture in her crime-infested Curtis Bay neighborhood. He was married to a woman Amber had a falling out with. He lived in one of the dingy rowhouses himself, only his had a few niceties he greedily pinched on the job. “Happy Anniversary,” she added, letting those words dangle awkwardly, ill-fitting, given her role as the newly bereaved wife. A wife who would try to claim this was a burglary-murder of some sort.
But these incongruous well-wishes nestled into the detective’s mind, worming their way into the cracks. “Crap. Is today the day?” he muttered, dread inching in as he foresaw the domestic fallout of another forgotten anniversary. “Hell, I could have sworn that was just last month. How quickly time slips by.”
Approaching the body, Murphy cast a cursory glance at what was left of Paulie, noting marks around the neck — evidence of strangulation, an observation he scribbled carelessly into his notepad while his mind drifted back to his forgetfulness. How come he never remembered the date?
On the counter, Murphy’s eyes caught the silver thick necklace chain, strong enough for choking, glinting innocently under the weak light. He didn’t inspect it too closely. Had he, he might have noticed the whispers of blood, the ghost of fingerprints, Amber’s fingerprints.
“Happy anniversary,” Amber repeated, excusing herself to use the bathroom upstairs.
While she was away, Murphy snuck about, ensuring his privacy before sliding the necklace chain into his pocket. A little Clorox first to make it spotless — the perfect anniversary gift, he mused to himself, now ready to concentrate on scouring the scene for the murder weapon he wouldn’t find.
Amber returned from the bathroom, smiling after spying the empty countertop, knowing that by the time Murphy made it home and realized no anniversary awaited, the evidence would be long erased, as if it had never existed at all.
And if anyone tried to pin the murder on Amber, she needed only point out that her necklace was in Murphy’s home. And his fingerprints were all over her Clorox bottle.
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