NaNoWriMo: Murder in Wilson Park, Chapter 24

That’s terrible! I’m so sorry that this happened. The police are here right now. Let’s go tell them what happened.

Amanda showed her phone to Jerky and pointed to the front entrance of the Senior Center where Matt and Jovan were talking to a small group of people coming to the center for afternoon activities. They were both in uniform with all their officialness and regalia. Matt told her last night that they planned on coming today. The idea was to spend some time with the folks at the Senior Center to see if any new information surfaced about Jacob’s murder.

Jerky read the text and then shook her head no. “No,” she mouthed. “No!” Backing away from Amanda and Sally, Jerky turned and started running, but not back to her place in the woods. Instead, she ran to the street where she could catch the #16 bus to the west side. She knew someone with a shack he’d built in the woods in Francis Park, that’s where she was headed. Someplace the man in black didn’t know about, someplace where she could be with someone who got it, got her, where she could relax. Gus Blue, the guy who stayed with her when she was drug sick, he would take her in and keep her safe.

“So, do we tell Matt and Jovan about what happened to Jerky?” Amanda contemplated not telling them but keeping the information for herself to fuel her writing. After all, no one really knew if Jerky was making it up or if the threat was real. Everyone said that she was a really strange, ghostly creature. Maybe she’d just had a terrible dream or vision.

“I think we have to tell them. Let them sort it out.,” said Sally. She’d already started walking in that direction.

“Hey, officers! A woman named Jerky, she’s homeless and lives in the woods, she just told us that a man tried to kill her.”

Matt and Jovan kept up their lively chatting with the seniors barely registering Sally’s presence.

“Did you hear me? This woman said a guy tried to kill her. You need to do something!” Now, Sally was getting irked.  It wasn’t every day that she told a cop something this important. She kind of expected that because she was an upstanding citizen and paid her taxes on time that they’d drop what they were doing, which, in this case, was just yammering with a bunch of senior citizens on their way to pick up free produce and go to a class on how to cook collard greens.

“Oh, that’s just Jerky. First of all, Jerky’s too tough to kill. And second, she says and does a lot of wacky stuff. She’s like the mysterious princess of the forest.” Jovan laughed out loud when he said this. “You two don’t need to worry about Jerky.”

Matt chimed in, “Did she give you any details? Who the guy was? Or where all this happened?”

“No,” said Amanda. “We were texting back and forth – because you know, she can’t hear – but we didn’t get very far before she took off.”

“We’ll check it out,” Matt said, knowing they wouldn’t but not wanting to sound dismissive. It was clear from the look on Amanda’s face that she thought this was a credible thing, but she was so new to crime, she hadn’t learn to sort through what was real and what was fairy tale.

“Excuse me, are you the officers looking into the murder that happened here a few days ago?” Jovan and Matt were glad for the interruption. It was a park employee, his badge said Mark O’Leary.

“That’s us. What can we do for you?”

“Well, I have something to tell you if you’re looking into this, but I don’t know if it’s important, it’s actually pretty weird, and I feel kind of silly telling you but, hey, a clue’s a clue, right? Not that this is a clue, it’s just a weird thing. I would have told the police earlier, but I had off because of my wife’s uncle’s funeral.”

“You work here in the park?” Jovan asked.

“Yeah. I’m the groundskeeper at the golf course over there. Last Thursday, it was last Thursday, right? the day that Jacob got killed? Well, last Thursday, I came to work early because it was a really nice day, especially for November, and I knew a lot of people would decide to get those clubs out one more time, you know, golfers are so devoted to their sport, boy, they hate winter. And so, I came in early, gee, probably around six which is pretty early for fall, you know, not for summer because everyone’s got early tee times, but fall, well, that’s different.”

“Okay. You were here real early. Then what happened?” Matt smiled at Mr. O’Leary who was so obviously rattled by having to talk to police officers that he could barely stop chattering.

“Well, I just wanted to tell you this. When I got out of my car to head over to the golf course, there was this strange flute music and it was coming from over here, well, actually around the back of the Senior Center. Flute music, like you hear at the symphony. You guys ever go to the symphony? There’s this great flute player – a woman. It sounded like her playing, but it wasn’t, of course.”

“Flute music, that is unusual,” said Jovan. “I think that would be classified as a clue, don’t you think so, Matt?”

“A definite clue, Mr. O’Leary. You did the right thing coming to tell us.”

Mr. O’Leary straightened up. “Okay, good, then you can tell my wife I’m not nuts?” He chuckled nervously, looked at his watch. “I gotta get back, the sales guy is coming to show me new putting cups.”

“Okay, well, you get back to work. We’ll follow up.” Jovan patted Mr. O’Leary on the back. “Thank you for coming forward.”

Matt and Jovan watched Mr. O’Leary traipse down the hill.

“That’s a lotta flute,” Jovan said. “Yeah, a real lotta flute.”