by Matt Ferraz
She had seen a man leaning out of a large window, no question about that. Grandma Bertha’s eyesight wasn’t what it used to be, but she knew it hadn’t been Mr Johnson. It might be a burglar, but her gut told her it wasn’t that simple. Someone was hiding something, even if she had no evidence of that.
The reporter went on, talking about how Mr and Mrs Johnson had gone into their apartment and found a man robbing the place. There was no confrontation: the burglar jumped out of the window and escaped along the alley behind the building, but Mr Johnson had already got his pistol and fired a shot. He didn’t hit the burglar, however. Instead, he hit his wife in the back. She died at the scene.
Grandma Bertha was thinking of the sequence of events. First, she saw the couple in the street, and noticed the pain in Mrs Johnson’s eyes. Then she was in the alley, which was crowded. And then, to everyone’s surprise, there was the car accident. People ran out of the alley into the street, where they saw that nobody had been hurt.
She couldn’t be the only one who had seen the man leaning out of the window. Could she? The kids had been busy playing football, the people walking by had not been paying attention, and the blind cigarette vendor couldn’t have seen anything, for obvious reasons. Even if someone else had seen what she saw, Grandma Bertha couldn’t track them. It was no good.
Also, the car crash was a big distraction. It was going to be the high point of everyone’s day, the thing they would recall – if it hadn’t been for the murder. It was too much. First the car crash, then—
“Then Mr Johnson kills his wife,” said Grandma Bertha.
Grandma Bertha knew she had forgotten something. An important piece of the puzzle was escaping her. Maybe if she found that piece, she’d be able to see the full picture. She stared at the hotel phone, thinking about making a call. Should she? Would it help? She scratched her head, and decided to do it. Talking to someone might help to put things in perspective.
She picked up the phone and dialled home. It was her second call home that week.
“Hello?” said a voice at the other end of the line. It belonged to the person Grandma Bertha had hoped wouldn’t answer.
“Hello, Lyd!” said Grandma Bertha, slapping her forehead. “How are things?”
“Oh, hi, Albertha,” said Lydia. There was no pleasure in her voice. “I was just finishing making dinner. How’s the trip?”
“Very well,” said Grandma Bertha. “I’ve met a lot of interesting people.”
“So I heard,” said Lydia. “We’ve not really had the chance to catch up. I’m always so busy around here, I don’t pick up the phone any more.”
“Really?” asked Grandma Bertha, already regretting making the call.
Lydia went on. “We never know when you’re going to appear on the news. People have been calling, you know? Asking for your autograph.”
“Really?” said Grandma Bertha, aware it was the second time she had used the comeback. “Is Todd there? Or Stu? I’d like to talk to one of them.”
“They’re away,” said Lydia. “When are you coming back? Stu asks about you all the time.”
“Soon, I hope,” said Grandma Bertha, wanting to hang up. But now that she had called, it would be nice to make something of it. “Listen, Lydia, I’m working on a case now, and I’d like to ask for your opinion.”
There was a moment of silence. “You shouldn’t be doing anything dangerous, Albertha,” Lydia said. She had never approved of her mother-in-law’s detective work. It wasn’t just fear for Grandma Bertha’s safety. Having a detective in the didn’t please her at all.
“I’m not,” said Grandma Bertha. “But I witnessed something today and—”
“I keep telling Todd we shouldn’t have let you go away,” complained Lydia. “At least here we could keep an eye on you and—”
“Please, it’s important,” Grandma Bertha interrupted before Lydia got too angry. She had a live case, whether Lydia liked it or not, and Grandma Bertha needed help to solve it. “I think I saw or did something, and can’t remember what it is.”
Lydia sighed. “All right, then. Tell me everything.”
Grandma Bertha told her about the events of that morning in as much detail as she could remember. Lydia listened patiently.
A bit too patiently, thought Grandma Bertha, wondering if Lydia was actually finding the story intriguing.
“And then I came home and watched the news.” Grandma Bertha summed up. “The police can’t decide if it really was an accident, or if the man pretended there was a burglar at his home.”
“Didn’t you see a man at the window?” asked Lydia. “There’s your burglar right there.”
Grandma Bertha wasn’t sure how to explain that the man might not be the burglar. If she was talking to Todd, or even Stu, they would understand her sixth sense. “Something didn’t seem right about that man,” she said. “I can’t put my finger on it. He wasn’t acting like a burglar.”
“Burglars leave signs, don’t they?” asked Lydia.
“Yes,” said Grandma Bertha. “But it’s not hard to pretend you’ve been burgled. Mr Johnson could have arranged the place to look like someone had gone through his stuff, and then shot his wife.”
“And when would he do that?” asked Lydia. “Before he shot her or after?”
That was a good question, Grandma Bertha had to admit. Tearing the place up after shooting his wife wouldn’t be a good idea, and he hadn’t had the opportunity to do that. But doing it beforehand also presented some issues. “So, let’s say there really was a burglar waiting for them,” she said. “What kind of—”
“Oh, jeez, my roast is burning,” said Lydia. “We have to finish this another time.” And she hung up.
Grandma Bertha yelled a curse word that her daughter-in-law didn’t hear. She then opened another beer and turned the TV on again. The news was over, and now an old sitcom was playing. She tried to pay attention, but it wasn’t easy.
What was bothering her so much? Something she saw? Someone who did something that didn’t make sense? Something out of place? “Well, it’s seven pm,” she said, looking at her watch. “Time to go to bed.”
Grandma Bertha put on her jack o’ lantern pyjamas, took her pills, said goodnight to her dogs and turned the lights off. She closed her eyes, hoping that sleep would come soon to free her troubled mind. But she couldn’t fall asleep. She couldn’t stop thinking of Mrs Johnson’s face. Her eyes, crying for help. Something was keeping Grandma Bertha awake, and she knew the feeling well.
It was guilt.
“What was it?” she said into the darkness. “What did I miss? I went there, I bought the fruit, I went to the alley and…” Her eyes grew large when she realized what she had done. Something she had promised she would never do. “I forgot to pick up the poop!”
3
It only took Grandma Bertha ten minutes to reach the alley. She hadn’t brought the dogs with her. This was something she had to do, or she would keep thinking about it forever. It was still bright when she got there, and Grandma Bertha hoped nobody had stepped in the poop before she arrived. If there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was dog owners who didn’t pick up after their pets. She was not going to be one of those people.
Grandma Bertha wore the same dress as she had that afternoon, and brought along a plastic bag. Walking to the alley, she started to think about the case again. After all, the murder had taken place right next to the alley where Rufus had done his business. This might be a good chance to take a look at the place again, and maybe develop some new ideas. But the one thing on her mind was cleaning up the poop before some poor soul stuck their foot in it.
There were still children playing in the alley, but the cigarette vendor was gone. Grandma Bertha entered the alley from the opposite direction. She could see the window the burglar had supposedly jumped out of. The strange thing was, nobody had seen him escaping, which only reinforced her suspicion that the whole story was baloney.
“There’s somethi
ng else here,” she murmured. The kids, who were now skipping, laughed at the crazy old lady talking to herself. Grandma Bertha stretched her mouth with her fingers, making a funny face that made them all laugh even harder. She then went on her mission. The poop should be somewhere around here.
Grandma Bertha almost yelled another curse word when she saw it. She managed to control herself. After all, there were children present. But she was still angry with herself. The poop was squashed. Someone had already stepped in it.
“Oh, shoot,” she said, shaking her head. Now that she was there, the least she could do was remove it before anyone else stepped in it.
But when Grandma Bertha bent down to pick the poop, she noticed some odd things. First, whoever had stepped in it must have been very heavy. She was no footprint expert, but none of the kids in the alley would have been able to spread it so much. Second, the person didn’t try to remove the poop by rubbing his soles on the ground, like everyone does. There was a perfectly good block of concrete right next to the poop, and anyone would have used that to get it off their shoes. Third, the footprint was strange. It wasn’t just the size, but the shape of the marks in the poop. Grandma Bertha loved her flip-flops enough to be able to tell one just by looking at the print.
A child’s voice came from behind her. “Hey, Granny, why are you looking at that poo?”
Grandma Bertha turned around and saw four ten-year-olds looking at her with amused faces. She smiled back at them. “You play here a lot, don’t you, kiddoes?” she asked.
“We’re on holiday,” said one of the kids, probably their leader.
“You were here this afternoon?” asked Grandma Bertha.
“When the car crashed?” another kid asked.
“No,” she said. “When…”
Grandma Bertha stopped. She hadn’t paid enough attention to the role of the car crash in all of that. It happened just before the murder. Everyone ran into the street to see what had happened, then they heard the shot that had killed Mrs Johnson. The car driver hadn’t been injured, and nor had the bystanders. Could the crash have been arranged as a way of distracting people from the murder? But how would that work? No, that didn’t make any sense. Unless…
“Did you see a man come out of that window this morning?” Grandma Bertha asked the kids. “Right before the crash. He opened it and looked out here, like he was going to jump.”
The kids looked at each other.
“I didn’t, did you?” said one of them.
“No,” said another.
One of them added, “And we were here all afternoon. One of us would have seen it.”
“That’s right!” the others agreed.
Grandma Bertha smiled again. “You were here all the time,” she said, raising her finger. “Except for a few minutes, when the car crash happened. Then you all ran into the street to see what was going on. Maybe you thought you saw something, but didn’t pay attention, because, right afterwards, something bigger and louder happened. Am I wrong?”
“You’re right,” the kids agreed. The leader then asked, “What’s your point?”
Grandma Bertha continued. “What if someone jumped out of the window when you were away, stepped into this poop and ran along the alley?”
“He had to be really lucky,” said the leader. “Because if he’d jumped out at any other time, everyone would have seen him.”
“Really lucky,” said Grandma Bertha. “Or he might have planned it.”
She was thinking how strange that car crash had been, and how no one had been hurt. It could be a way to cover the burglar’s escape. But that didn’t make a whole lot of sense, did it? After all, the burglar hadn’t escaped at a planned time. Had Mr and Mrs Johnson not walked into the apartment, the burglar would still have been there when the crash happened. Or maybe he was supposed to jump out of the window when he heard the crash, and the couple entering at the same time was just a coincidence. No, that didn’t add up either. Grandma Bertha was getting more frustrated with the case by the minute.
“The thing now is to find out how he got in the apartment in the first place,” she said, thinking out loud. “He couldn’t enter through that window, or everyone would see. But why would he escape from there if…”
The kids were all staring at Grandma Bertha, trying to follow her train of thought. “Listen, kids,” she said. “You were here all this time. Did you hear any noise coming from that apartment there? Anything unusual? Any fighting? I mean, before the accident?”
“No, ma’am,” they all said but one.
“I saw something funny,” said one of them, a little boy with freckles and curly brown hair. “A man walking around inside the apartment and peeking out of the window. I only saw his shape for a second.”
“Was it Mr Johnson, the man who lived there?” asked Grandma Bertha. “The one with the walking cane?”
“Could be,” said the kid. “It was about ten minutes before the accident.”
Then it couldn’t be him, thought Grandma Bertha. She added another question. “Did you see him going through the Johnsons’ stuff? Like he was robbing the place?”
“No, ma’am,” said the kid. “It didn’t look like it.”
Grandma Bertha took some candy from her bag and handed it out to the kids. She decided it was better not to clean up Rufus’ poop and went back to her hotel, where she made an anonymous call for the police telling them where they could find the footprint. They had the tools and techniques to make the best of the evidence. Grandma Bertha only had her mind, and it was full of new ideas about the case.
4
A few days later, when the press had already forgotten about the case, Grandma Bertha was having a banana split in an ice-cream parlour, her dogs at her feet and a thousand thoughts in her mind. Call it guilt or mere curiosity, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the case.
The burglar had to have been the one to stand in the poop. It had to be him, because anyone else would have stopped to try to clean it off. Only a man in a hurry would not do that. Grandma Bertha briefly considered the possibility of a bystander stepping in the poop while running to see the accident. They wouldn’t have noticed it at the time. But the poop was too close to the wall to have been stepped in by anyone walking down the alley. Also, the owner of the flip-flops hadn’t cleaned them. That’s what sealed the deal for her.
So, the burglar wore flip-flops. That was odd. Not the kind of footwear people usually wear while invading other people’s homes. Something else was bothering Grandma Bertha: the fact that she was the only one who saw the man leaning out of the window That was only because of the accident. At any other time, at least a dozen people – the kids and the other bystanders in the alley – would’ve seen him.
The question was: had the car crash been part of the plan? No matter how hard Grandma Bertha thought, she couldn’t imagine how that could have been arranged. The burglar was a lucky, lucky man. He escaped right before the car crash, and…
Grandma Bertha almost choked on her banana split. Everyone looked at her as she gasped. A young woman was kind enough to come over to help, but Grandma Bertha dismissed her with a smile. “I’m fine, love, don’t worry,” she said.
The smile didn’t leave Grandma Bertha’s face. How could she have been so stupid? She had seen the burglar looking out of the window right before the crash. She had been at the site of the accident when she heard the shots that killed Mrs Johnson. The burglar must have jumped out of the window while everyone was running towards the street, so he should have been in the alley by the time the shots were fired. Therefore, Mr Johnson couldn’t have been aiming at the burglar when he shot his wife, could he?
An evil scheme unfolded in her mind. The Johnsons’ marriage was troubled. Their relationship was clearly abusive, and he couldn’t wait to get rid of his wife. They come home one afternoon and see a man robbing their apartment. The husband reaches for his gun, but when he looks again, the burglar is gone. He has his gun in his hand, and his wife has
her back to him. He then thinks, why not? and decides that saying he was shooting at the burglar will give him the perfect alibi. He doesn’t think any more before pulling the trigger.
Diabolical, thought Grandma Bertha, wiping away a tear. Once again, she thought about how the tragedy could have been avoided if she hadn’t let the woman go with her husband. But it was too late to change things. The only thing Grandma Bertha could do was make sure the killer was punished.
The police would already have done forensic analysis of the footprint. Grandma Bertha wished she had access to the results, but you can’t have everything. All she had were the pieces of the puzzle. It was hard to see how the full picture was supposed to look. She tried to look at it from many different angles, but couldn’t find one where everything fit well. The chronology of events, the clues, the personalities of those involved – something always seemed out of place.
What if Mr Johnson was innocent? What if he had been scared and fired his gun by accident? He looked like an abusive husband, but that didn’t necessarily make him a killer. Grandma Bertha didn’t like the man, but this was a serious allegation. There was one witness: someone who could clarify everything. Unfortunately, that witness was the burglar. Only he could say for certain what had happened in the apartment. But it would be impossible to track him down.
Grandma Bertha finished her ice cream, put on her sunglasses and picked up the dogs’ leashes. It was hotter than ever, and there were still so many places she wanted to visit. But she couldn’t think about tourist attractions while there was a murder to solve.
There was only one thing Grandma Bertha could think of doing. In a few minutes she was back at the street where everything had happened. The fruit vendor was still there, only this time his goods were displayed on a plastic table, since his original stand had been destroyed in the accident. Apart from a bandage on his forehead, he didn’t seem hurt, and recognized Grandma Bertha straight away.
“Hello, lady, what is it going to be today?” he asked in a friendly tone.
