A Friend Indeed

A Friend Indeed1

By Zaffen2

It had saddened and made Mrs. O’Dell quite furious when she’d heard the news of Mrs. Boden’s Murder. She couldn’t believe it! To herself she said, “Right in her own bed no less!”3

She could see the third story rear window of Mrs. Boden’s apartment through the window in her kitchen, not more then twenty feet away, directly across the little, U shaped, courtyard.4

Speaking to herself, she said, “Mrs. Boden had been a friend to everyone in the complex, always helpful or ready to listen and never tried to cause a fuss, just a very sweet lady all in all and a very special friend to me.”5

Since they had the last apartments in their respective wings, they’d shared a clothesline on a pulley as well as gossip, news, heartaches, and happiness through those windows many times in the ten years that Mrs. O’Dell had lived in the complex.6

Sadly, she thought, in those ten years, the area surrounding the complex had deteriorated and the little courtyard was no longer the oasis of beauty it had been.7

Now the little courtyard stayed littered with trash, unkempt by the management, and useless to the inhabitants of the complex. Since most were too frail to keep it tended, the door leading to it had stayed locked for years.8

The Detective, a nice Irish lad, had come asking, “If she’d seen or heard anything since her window was so close?”9

“Of course she had,” She said, “She had been jarred from sleep in her bedroom when she heard the terrible scream, but she wasn’t sure where the scream had come from at the time.”10

She had asked the Detective, “Why Mrs. Boden was killed?”11

He had replied, “That it looked like a botched burglary. She must have awakened during the crime, screamed, startling the burglar, and causing him to stabbed her.12

The burglar evidently knew someone would come to check on her-which of course they did in mere seconds, and the burglar had obviously fled in a pretty, big hurry because some things in the apartment were found knocked over by someone.13

According to Mrs. Boden’s neighbor, in the apartment across the hall; some small items seemed to be missing but that’s all.14

They still hadn’t figured out how the burglar had gotten in and out so quickly and quietly without being seen or heard. Some of the residents had been playing Whist in the common room, just off of the Main entrance, and swore no one had come in or gone out.”15

Everyone had assured the Detectives that, “The door to the apartment had been locked when they got there and there had been no signs of a forced entry to be seen, besides, the apartment was on the third floor.”16

After the Detective left, Mrs. O’Dell sat in her kitchen gazing through her window at the window across the courtyard and thinking.17

*****18

The Detective, such a nice lad had returned the very next day -even had a cuppa with her on this visit, to ask if she’d seen or heard anything since the night before?19

This time she had told him, “No, that she’d taken a sedative. Her nerves were that agitated, you know, from the murder of poor Mrs. Boden just the night before, and why would he be asking?”20

He told her, as he sipped his tea, that, “They had found the body of a young man, dressed completely in Black from head to toe, with a Black sack by his side at the bottom of the wall. The sack had contained items that they believed were from Mrs. Boden’s Apartment.”21

Asking her to keep it just between them or he’d lose his badge, He said, “It looked to him as if the burglar that murdered Mrs. Boden had returned to finish the job.”22

“The strangest part,” he said, with a slight smile and a twinkle in his eyes, “was the man was covered in cooking oil and an empty oil container was found nearby.”23

Mrs. O’Dell, ever the proper Irish lass, said, “Well, and the saints preserve us, fancy that.”24

After the nice lad left, Mrs. O’Dell went into her kitchen and sat at the table looking out her window.25

Remembering how she’d sat in the darkened kitchen last night and watched the Black on Black shadow climb the drain pipe next to Mrs. Boden’s clothes line pulley and use that to get to the window, which it slid open to disappeared inside.26

“Is it not amazing what can be done with a good strong clothes line clip and large container of cooking oil?” she thought to herself.27

She knew she’d done something really, wicked. She thought, even lying to the Detective, nice Irish lad that he was, but Mrs. Boden had been a dear friend to her.28

She thought that Father Flannery would get an ear full at her next confession but it would be hard to be repentant because, although Mrs. O’Dell knew that she should feel some shame or be sorry for what she’d done, she really didn’t feel any of that at all.29

Softly humming an old Irish tune, she arose to begin her day of straightening up the already tidy apartment.30

She thought, No, she wasn’t sorry at all.31