On the third day, early in the morning, she hears a knock on her door. She gets up slowly and answers it.
“Hello?” Two sharply dressed ladies are standing in the doorway. They move in unison as they both pull out their badges.
“FBI. I’m Agent S, and this is my partner, Kelsey,” the taller woman says, the one with wavy, blonde hair and light blue eyes. The other agent has straight black hair, freckles and sparkling, mischievous green eyes.
“But... Why is the FBI here?”
“We are investigating a death that had just recently happened in the area. We only need to ask you a few questions,” S says. Lynsey quickly hides any hint of her shock with a look of surprise.
“Oh, of course. Come in.” The agents nod and step inside. “Here, have a seat.” Lynsey brushes a mound of cat hair off the couch to make room for them. They both take a seat, and Lynsey sits right between them, oblivious to the weird looks they give her.
“Th-thank you,” S replies, awkwardly adjusting her position in the cramped situation so that she is practically sitting on the arm of the couch. Kelsey scans the room. Cat hair covers every square inch, coating the entire house in a fuzzy layer of catiness. Disgusting. Choking down the urge to vomit, Kelsey pulls out a picture from her pocket.
“This man was found dead next to some bushes. Did you happen to know him?”
Lynsey lets out a tiny gasp as Kelsey shows her the picture of the scene, feigning shock.
“Y-yes. He… he was my neighbor. He told me he was going on a hunting trip about a week ago. I simply thought he was still out! Sometimes he would get into a wrestling match with a bear, and it would take him days to take the beast down. Oh, poor, poor Andrew. He… he was such a nice, sweet man.” Lynsey cries, tears streaming down her face.
“So, his name was Andrew? Did you know him well?” S asks.
“Yes. There isn’t anyone else out here for miles, so we talked occasionally. Neighborly stuff and things, y’know?”
“You say that you knew each other well, yet you guys only talked occasionally?” S inquires.
“Well, compared to anyone else I knew, I was acquainted with Andrew the best. We were both so isolated from everyone else that even his slight amount of company meant a lot to me. Sometimes, after some of his hunting trips, he would even bring back a dead squirrel for my cats to play with. He was always so thoughtful. So caring.” More tears slide down Lynsey’s downcast face, wetting her shirt as they fall.
“Did you guys ever do anything together besides talk and… share squirrels?”
“...Not much else. We would sometimes barter. Y’know, he’d give me firewood, since he was a burly lumberjack, and I’d tell him where some good berry bushes and foraging spots were located, in return. Every once in a while, he’d come over if he was really hungry and too far from his own house to make it back there without starving to death. In fact, that’s exactly what happened before he went off on his last hunting trip. Gosh, if only I had known what was going to happen to him, I… I would’ve…” Lynsey breaks down, sobbing uncontrollably.
S and Kelsey glance at each other, having a silent argument, quietly making signs at each other, trying to figure out who would be the one to comfort Lynsey. They decide on a match of rock-paper-scissors, silently playing it behind Lynsey’s back as she is bowed over in grief. Kelsey loses, scissors to rock, as S smiles satisfied. Rolling her eyes, Kelsey stiffly lays her hand on Lynsey’s heaving back, hoping that the drama will be over soon.
“There, there,” she mutters awkwardly. “Uh, it’s… okay and… stuff. I mean..All he did was die..So” Lynsey starts sobbing even louder, and S glares at Kelsey. “Right. Clearly the wrong thing to say… So..Uh..”
Eventually, Lynsey’s weeping subsides and she sits back up, wiping tears away from her reddened face. “S-sorry about that. Um, wh-where were we?”
A cat, noticing Lynsey’s distress, jumps up into her lap and purrs like crazy, rubbing up against Lynsey’s face and reassuringly kneading her stomach. Lynsey absentmindedly strokes the fluffy creature with shaking hands, spreading a fresh layer of cat fur onto her clothing.
“I was just about to ask you where you were on the day of the murder,” S replies, relieved that Lynsey is finally finished with her blubbering.
“Ah, um, if you guys told me the day of the murder, I don’t recall what it was. Sorry.”
“It was three days ago. Do you remember what you did that day?”
“Let’s see… Well, if I remember correctly, that was the day that I was cleaning the house. I worked really hard to make it sparkling.” A sudden gust of wind comes howling through an open window, blowing around the cat hair that has accumulated throughout the house into a furnado.
“Well, you certainly did a knock up job of it,” Kelsey mutters.
“Well, when you own so many cats, it’s hard to keep up with all of the hair they shed. It’s like the stuff is growing right out of the walls.”
“So, you didn’t do anything else that day? You were solely devoted to your duty of making this house spick and span?” S asks.
“That’s correct. It took me all day to sweep up and vacuum all the cat hair. My poor vacuum was sputtering and smoking by the time I was done.”
“And you never saw Andrew that day?”
“No.”
S and Kelsey nod to each other. They throw in a few pleasantries before they both rise from the couch, wiping away cat hair as it cascades from their clothing. The agents thank Lynsey for her time and then leave, walking together to their car. S hops into the driver’s seat, while Kelsey settles into the passenger seat and begins the process of filing through the massive amount of papers accumulated within.
“Well, that was our last suspect. We are officially out of suspects,” Kelsey grumbles, crumpling up a piece of paper.
“I don’t know. I think we might have a lead here,” S replies. “We should take a thorough look at the evidence. Did you pick up the autopsy results?”
“Yeah. Nothing out of the ordinary. Says cause of death was poisonous berries. And the crime scene there was no incriminating evidence. No blood, no muscle strain, nothing.”
“Hmm… Something about this just doesn’t seem right,” S maintains, a look of solid determination on her face. Kelsey shrugs, not really caring.
Kelsey goes home that night to relax and fall asleep, but Agent S doesn’t. S goes to her own house and coops herself up in her study, pouring over all the clues and evidence.
“There’s something here, I just know it… But what?”
She works all through the night, tirelessly putting the pieces together. When the sun is just rising above the horizon, she finally puzzles out the puzzling puzzle.
