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but was happy to visit, and we, in turn, were happy to have him. To thank him for his friendship, Meg and I supplemented his diet with mice, baby squirrels, and chipmunks — frozen, and vacuum packed, and all sent to me by Kent Murphee. I didn’t ask where he got them. Archimedes didn’t need the supplements. At least, I didn’t think so. He was a fine hunter and we often saw him outside in his favorite tree happily tearing apart some poor animal he’d caught.
I opened the refrigerator, found the coffee can in the back with “Archimedes” scrawled across it, and pulled out a freshly thawed chipmunk. I thought the owl was asleep, but when I turned back around, there he was, standing on the counter right beside me. I never heard a thing. He took the cold chipmunk from my hand with one talon, then gave two hops to the window, waited for it to slide open and when it did, took one more hop and disappeared silently into the night.
Nancy, Dave and I had gone through all three houses again, looking for any kind of clues as to how the bodies got there. Nothing. We checked for fingerprints on the closet doors. Nothing usable. Nancy took a few DNA swabs, but that was a long shot. Long shot, nothing. It was a moon shot, and we all knew it. We looked for blood, searched the houses top to bottom looking for a murder scene, looked for signs of a break in, and scoured the grounds as long as there was light. Nothing. The three bodies just seemed to have been dropped off — placed carefully in the closets and left there.
I was happy to stop thinking about it for a little while. Meg had decided to stay at her mother’s house in town, and whenever she did that, I lit up a cigar. She’d know, of course, but she said she enjoyed the smell as long as smoke wasn’t wafting through the house while she was there. She didn’t like to breathe it. Fair enough.
I got myself a BottleTree Imperial Red Ale, then walked over and turned on the stereo. Then I sat down at the typewriter, lit up a cigar, and prepared to give my burgeoning story my best shot. I was positive that I did my best writing listening to choral music. Meg wasn’t so sure. She certainly didn’t appreciate the madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo. But Meg wasn’t here.
Gesualdo, Italian Prince of Venosa in the later half of the sixteenth century, is known — as I remembered from my classes in music history — for both his intensely expressive music that uses a chromatic language not heard again till the twentieth century, and for his murderous temper. Coming home early from a hunting trip, he surprised his wife in flagrante delicto with the Duke of Andria, and murdered them both in the bed, stabbing them multiple times all the while shouting “They’re not dead yet!” Then he shot the duke in the head for good measure and dressed him in his wife’s clothes. This was enough to get him started writing madrigals. It would be enough to get anyone started.
Listening to Gesualdo madrigals was an acquired taste, like Skeeter’s homemade Possum-shine, or Stinking Bishop cheese. Or maybe like enjoying the wordplay of a multilayered detective story with no discernible plot.
The woman swept in like a mezzo aria: her middle-aged melody anticipated by the accompanying strains of a lush, overripe, dewberry scented décolletage. She surveyed the office, gave Pedro the once over, then dropped her gaze on me like a feed sack full of alto-meal. Her lips were fleshy and wanting in that kind of way that lips get after eating Hunan spicy beef with Szechuan peppers, extra hot with enough monosodium glutamate to exacerbate water retention and cause lips to be plump as a couple of round worms. I thought about lunch.
* * *
That’s a keeper, I thought. Meg will appreciate the subtlety of my description. I finished my beer, puffed on my stogy, and listened to the wailing coming from the stereo. I might have to rethink the Gesualdo thing. I was fairly sure I used to like it, but
I opened the refrigerator, found the coffee can in the back with “Archimedes” scrawled across it, and pulled out a freshly thawed chipmunk. I thought the owl was asleep, but when I turned back around, there he was, standing on the counter right beside me. I never heard a thing. He took the cold chipmunk from my hand with one talon, then gave two hops to the window, waited for it to slide open and when it did, took one more hop and disappeared silently into the night.
Nancy, Dave and I had gone through all three houses again, looking for any kind of clues as to how the bodies got there. Nothing. We checked for fingerprints on the closet doors. Nothing usable. Nancy took a few DNA swabs, but that was a long shot. Long shot, nothing. It was a moon shot, and we all knew it. We looked for blood, searched the houses top to bottom looking for a murder scene, looked for signs of a break in, and scoured the grounds as long as there was light. Nothing. The three bodies just seemed to have been dropped off — placed carefully in the closets and left there.
I was happy to stop thinking about it for a little while. Meg had decided to stay at her mother’s house in town, and whenever she did that, I lit up a cigar. She’d know, of course, but she said she enjoyed the smell as long as smoke wasn’t wafting through the house while she was there. She didn’t like to breathe it. Fair enough.
I got myself a BottleTree Imperial Red Ale, then walked over and turned on the stereo. Then I sat down at the typewriter, lit up a cigar, and prepared to give my burgeoning story my best shot. I was positive that I did my best writing listening to choral music. Meg wasn’t so sure. She certainly didn’t appreciate the madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo. But Meg wasn’t here.
Gesualdo, Italian Prince of Venosa in the later half of the sixteenth century, is known — as I remembered from my classes in music history — for both his intensely expressive music that uses a chromatic language not heard again till the twentieth century, and for his murderous temper. Coming home early from a hunting trip, he surprised his wife in flagrante delicto with the Duke of Andria, and murdered them both in the bed, stabbing them multiple times all the while shouting “They’re not dead yet!” Then he shot the duke in the head for good measure and dressed him in his wife’s clothes. This was enough to get him started writing madrigals. It would be enough to get anyone started.
Listening to Gesualdo madrigals was an acquired taste, like Skeeter’s homemade Possum-shine, or Stinking Bishop cheese. Or maybe like enjoying the wordplay of a multilayered detective story with no discernible plot.
The woman swept in like a mezzo aria: her middle-aged melody anticipated by the accompanying strains of a lush, overripe, dewberry scented décolletage. She surveyed the office, gave Pedro the once over, then dropped her gaze on me like a feed sack full of alto-meal. Her lips were fleshy and wanting in that kind of way that lips get after eating Hunan spicy beef with Szechuan peppers, extra hot with enough monosodium glutamate to exacerbate water retention and cause lips to be plump as a couple of round worms. I thought about lunch.
* * *
That’s a keeper, I thought. Meg will appreciate the subtlety of my description. I finished my beer, puffed on my stogy, and listened to the wailing coming from the stereo. I might have to rethink the Gesualdo thing. I was fairly sure I used to like it, but
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