Morning one and all. i hope you had a fabulous Christmas. My goose turned out well with no fire and not only am I planning a fabulous sandwich with left overs later today but this morning featured potato pancakes fried in goose fat. They were decadently delicious and we have plenty of goose fat left over. So worth making the goose. But now it is back to the morning prompts so set those timers and off we go…
Not sure why I felt murderous today, but I like the set up. And I haven’t written a good murder in a while.
Tuesday, December 26th: The lights were turned low.
The lights were turned low. It wasn’t a candlelit supper but it was romantic in tone. He took in the place settings for two, the good China, the heavy silver, the open bottle of red wine on the table and the bottle of champagne waiting off to the side for later. Through the door he could see rose petals scattered on the bed.
The ice was melted now and the two people who sat at the table would never make it to the rose petal strewn bed. ‘They never made it through the appetizer.’
There was food on the plate. It was a small delicately arranged plate. It was something designed to look more like art than food. From what Ian could see, neither pate was touched. The art of the plate still as the chef intended, albeit well past it’s prime. In the kitchen, Ian saw several other plates lined up in pairs. While the appetizer was on the table, the soup, main entrée and desert plates were all waiting.
There was a stack of delivery containers in the trash and Ian could almost see each dish being carefully removed from containers and transferred to the good China. Someone enterprisingly lay a heat pad on the counter to set the soup and entrees on so they could easily stay warm. The heating pad was identical to the one he used when his back was acting up and he knew it had a timer.
He expected that in the normal course of things the timer would have been adequate for the meal. It long since shut off the heating elements and let the food grow cold.
Ian stepped back. Everything read like a romantic meal for two. It seemed like an anniversary of some sort between two people comfortable together but still wanting something special. Both were dressed up, but neither bothered with shoes. They weren’t going anywhere and while they wanted to look good, they didn’t mind getting comfortable. As there were regular shoes stationed by the door and a rack placed there for them, Ian guessed that the couple didn’t often wear their shoes in the house.
‘It might not have occurred to them to put them on. They weren’t going out.’
He could see one of them going to the kitchen to drop off dishes and pick up the next course. Perhaps it was the woman, perhaps the man, perhaps they alternated. He could make it play all three ways in his head and didn’t know them well enough yet to eliminate. However neither of them got up. They both sat down and never ate the meal.
Both of them had their throats slid and that was something he couldn’t figure out. It was clear from the blood spatter that they were killed where they sat. Their blood sprayed out over the table and down their fronts. They were each tilted back, the chairs high enough to support their heads. Then silk scarves were used to tie them to the backs of the chairs. One blue scarf placed across their foreheads to hold their heads up and one black scarf around each of their waists to keep them sitting upright. The black scarf was wider, more like a band supporting them from the waist to upper chest. From the blood he could tell the scarves were added after death.
‘Two assailants would make it easier,’ Ian decided looking at the scene. The lack of defensive wounds bothered him. ‘It was like they never saw it coming.’
Ten til Midnight 