Just me and the birds this morning, so no real drama, just a really short window. I meant to get up earlier and just didn’t. So let’s just jump into the writing prompt while we can. Timers on and Go!
Okay this is one that I think i could really sink my teeth into. As it is a mystery i’d have to figure out the mystery and then work back but It could be fun.
Wednesday, July 26th: The milk was expired.
The milk was expired. Detective Simms sniffed at it once and felt his eyes water in reaction to the sourness. ‘Past expired,’ he thought. It was odd. Everything else in the house was meticulously clean, organized. On the wall calendar someone had marked grocery shopping 9am on every Saturday of the month. On the first of the month penned in was ‘clean out the fridge 6pm.’ He flipped through the pages. There were other notations, but those notes were marked down on every month. The ones that passed had a line through them.
‘Like a chore list,’ he thought. He moved to the current month’s page. Clean out fridge for the first of the month had a line running through it. It had been a Thursday. On the third, Grocery shopping was also marked off. Nothing past that had a line through it.
‘Gives us a bit of a window,’ he thought. Mary Watson was gone. No one knew where. A concerned neighbor called it in when the outdoor plants started dying. Mary loved those plants and kept some of them alive for years. The neighbor claimed she would never have gone out of town without arranging with her to have them watered.
The woman was in all earnestness and given what he saw of Mary through the mirror of her home, Simms expected the neighbor was right. There was nothing off with the house. Her boss confirmed that she was working from home but hadn’t made contact in several days. She was not expected to go on vacation and her boss, Alex DeWitt didn’t think she had any family who could have suddenly fallen ill and called her away. In fact, when her company record was checked the plant watering neighbor was listed as her emergency contact.
‘Maybe check the grocery store parking lot footage,’ he thought.
Mary’s car wasn’t in the drive. There was no sign of a struggle in the house. There was no sign that she packed up, either meticulously or in a hurry. There was no sign of anything. Mary’s keys were gone. If she had a purse she had it with her. The cell phone charger was empty but any attempts to locate her using the cell phone came to nothing.
It was a mystery. And for now, it was his to solve.
He slowly paced through the house. It was clean, well ordered. Everything seemed to have its place. When he went into the bedroom, the bed was made and a peek into the jewelry box showed no major unexplained gaps. Several of the pieces in the box looked to be real and probably worth something. They looked older, like something inherited. There weren’t many of the pieces. He would know if anything was gone without Mary to tell him but like the rest of the house every piece seemed to have its place. All the places were occupied.
‘So not robbery.’
He went into the bathroom. The room smelled vaguely of baby powder and a trace of perfume. He sniffed. It was nice, soft, feminine. He found the bottle by the sink, half full.
Ten til Midnight 