“Yes, I can see him doing something like that,” I say. “I know who he is. He’s trying to prove himself and he thinks the way to do it is through rudeness. He wants to guess you and your niece are the first suspects and you would bring him to our swimming pool of all places. I know you would not want to see that first thing in the morning. Have they taken him out yet?”
“Not at all,” says Mrs. Clark. She motions for me to follow down the hall to the french doors in the back. We cross over into my grandparent’s backyard. She’s surprised at how easy it is for her to take someone else to the pool and show me the dead body. She knew Detective Wagner would forbid it to be seen by anybody outside of the case and the pool would be cordoned off with yellow police tape if he is doing his job.
The backyard is serene and pleasant. It is wide and lush with greenery, flowers, and a garden lining the stone patio encircling the pool. The lawn was freshly cut and manicured and shows no signs of being trampled upon.
I walk fast to get across the stone walkway and peek around to the side of the house to observe the fencing and gate.
The house is located midway down the street with a private backyard. The tall privacy fencing hinders any entrance from other backyards unless they were able to climb it and jump down from it. The row of houses are not in a straight line but curved around in the direction of the street. On the left lay the bay with its flowing waters and connection to the Atlantic Ocean.
One particularly large home where the well-known television psychiatrist, Doctor Clifton Highland resides, who films his daily show in Miami and who also receives respect and admiration in Palm Beach.
My Grandma always brags how she enjoys the famous psychiatrist as a neighbor. The value of their home retains a high price as long as he is in the neighborhood.
“He came over this morning too,” Mrs. Villery says. “He could give us a little perspective on this horrible incident. Detective Wagner believed the dead man may have committed suicide by jumping in the pool with nothing on but some sunglasses as a way to hide his crying eyes. Detective Wagner walked over to talk with Dr. Highland this morning to get his perspective on his idea. The doctor is always personable and talkative and said he was working on some show ideas for the next season when the police officer and Detective Wagner rang his doorbell. He wanted to jot down one last idea before he left his home and then walked over with them to take a look at the dead man.”
“What did he say?” I ask raising my eyebrows.
“He didn’t have an answer for Detective Wagner. He said there were no outward signs to suggest this was a suicide and he had never seen such a thing in all of his years in psychiatry.”
“None of his past guests had ever done this before?”
Mrs. Clark stretched her eyes wide and cleared her throat before responding. “I don’t think they would be able to come back and talk about it on his show, do you?”
“Well, if they were able to do that, I think we would all know about it,” I reply. “Let me take a good look at this guy.”
I look around to see what the uniformed police officer is doing.
Good, he’s on his phone.
I take out my cell phone and swipe it to take some pictures. “You can walk back to the doors and wait for me over there if you want, Mrs. Villery. Being around dead bodies sucks, it can spoil your whole week, believe me, I get it. You don’t have to look at it again if you don’t want to do it.”
I glance out the side of my eye to see Mrs. Villery take a few steps back towards the house.
The dead body floated in the aqua blue water of the pool. He is a man in his forties of about average height and trims in size. He has dark brown wavy hair that is covered in streaks of gray and down to his neck around his ears and his eyebrows on his forehead. His facial features are fine and chiseled with a pair of expensive sunglasses exposing bushy eyebrows. His thin lips are almost covered by a bushy mustache leading to a thick dark brown beard. The skin of his face was so pale it showed hints of blue. The expensive sunglasses on his face made it seem like the man was sunbathing in the pool. The strong legs lay stretched out along with the muscular arms with the palms facing up.
This looks like a cruel prank.
I almost want to bend over and touch this guy to see if he a real human being and not a fake corpse.
I would like to know this man had to pick my grandparent’s pool to drown in if that’s what he did.
My grandparents have never done anything to anyone and neither have I.
Except, I did take the school records, but that wouldn’t cause someone to want to kill themselves in our backyard pool.
My mother and I used to love
