Sprinkle Takes the Cake
Page 4
Sprinkle stood and waited.
An everyday sound sent a thrill through Sprinkle. It was the sort of noise people don’t really notice, an unmotivated noise that never imagines it might be mimicked by a whistling passerby or used in an orchestral piece. It was, simply, a lock being unlocked.
And it was followed by its cousin: a creaking, as of a door being opened.
“Oh, good morning off—”
Sprinkle imagined Jimmy Baker, crime scene cleaner and suspected pernicious poisoner, had just spotted him. Otherwise the man’s ‘Oh, good morning off’ greeting made little sense.
“We have a few questions for you, Mr. Baker,” Officer Brown said.
And then no one said anything for precisely ten seconds. Sprinkle knew why.
A whoosh of air and a violent slamming sound, as of a door being abused, shattered the warm quiet morning with its aroma of freshly mown grass.
“He’s bolting!” Brown shouted. “Simms, Thomson, go around back.”
There was a lot of hotfooting after that. Someone jostled Sprinkle. The back of his thighs, a bit gooey from years of indulging in syrup-laden pancakes, struck the porch railing and Sprinkle had to catch himself, throwing his arms out in hopes of latching onto a support pole.
His hopes were fulfilled and he sat on the porch railing to catch his breath.
He’d been left alone. Normally Sprinkle felt sufficiently confident to go wandering, but he was unfamiliar with this place, and he’d forgotten to bring along his ping machine.
A gunshot rang out, startling the man. He clutched his chest, “Good gracious.” Heart racing, he waited, wondering if he’d inadvertently brought on one man’s big sleep. Even if Jimmy Baker were a poisoning pain in society’s keister, Sprinkle didn’t want his death on his conscience.
“It’s okay,” said a soft, familiar, and very welcome voice. “It was just a warning shot. They got him subdued and they’re bringing him around now.”
Sprinkle, beaming, reached out. Soft supple hands embraced his. He hugged June and tried not to think about Ishmael’s horrible accusation against hugs.
She hugged him back—without stabbing him.
“Oh, June dear, it is mighty fine to see you.”
She didn’t make a crack about ‘seeing’. She knew what he meant. Knowing also what he would ask, she said, “After they gave me a clean bill of health and released me, I called the station, found out about your theory—and your confrontation with Ishmael; that’s all over the department, by the way—and then I asked around for the crime scene cleaner addresses. Had to flirt with an overweight desk clerk with too much mustache, to get them.”
From behind Sprinkle, out on the front lawn, he heard Jimmy Baker struggling and cussing at the officers as they tried to herd him away.
Overwhelmed with glad tidings of giddiness, Sprinkle embraced June again. When he pulled away, without any backstabbing having gone on, he said, “I’d never hurt you, my dear.”
“Of course not,” June said. After a pause she added, “And I would never hurt you.”
“And the poor widow Roger’s would never hurt anybody, either. I’m going to prove Ishmael wrong. The world really is full of puppy dogs and hugs. Or at least I think it can be, if we show it how to be.”
Arm in arm they walked down the porch steps, over the lawn, and onto the sidewalk.
As Sprinkle and Dye strolled down the poisoner’s street, they discussed how best to prove Ishmael wrong. During their discussion, a breeze smelling of freshly mown grass filled them with contentment, and they giggled and laughed and knew without a single niggling doubt, that they could prove the un-provable.
In the bright corners of his mind the blind man saw a world filled with love and tolerance, where no one ever killed anyone else, where hugs were exchanged instead of bullets and poison.
Perhaps, he thought, the first step toward that world had begun with a hug.
If he was going to build such a fantastical reality, however, he would need to find a way to embrace his nemesis. And that was a challenge that would challenge even the likes of Henry J Sprinkle.
For now he beamed at the sun, and she beamed right back at him.
The adventures of Henry J Sprinkle continue in A Collection of Sprinkles, four tales starring your favorite blind pathologist.
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