Shared Space

            by Mari Monosoff-Richards

 

Iridescent sunset lighted the park. Braxton had decided to move to Gildt after taking a hike in Vaust Park. He loved this time of the because of the delicious crunch of leaves and the milky yellow light filtering through the trees. Braxton knew he could never leave.

            The steam trains circled around on their track as they had for the last forty years. Braxton loved the slow chug of the engine and the shrill whistle. The giggling of excited children made him relax, although he was aware of the parents’ skeptical glances, questioning why a graying, middle-aged man rode the trains alone. The train shot into a dark tunnel, filled with the children’s hooting and whistling, and came out to a view of the sparkling blue ocean. Braxton tried to take a walk and a ride on the trains in Vaust every few weeks to regain his peace of mind.

            Working as a detective for the Gildt police department had made Braxton Rosco skeptical about humans. No one spoke without a motive. It was impossible to have a conversation without thinking about its ulterior motive. There was no purity except in the children.

Braxton hiked along Rockbridge Path for a mile before he reached the point where Jewel Stream ran tangent to the trail. He left the road and walked along the stream for a while longer before settling in a clearing and taking out his watercolors. Braxton occasionally passed people on his route to the clearing but he had never been disturbed while he was there. Everyone had their own time. The stream gurgled and birds chirped. Nothing human was audible. Some trees still held their orange, red, and honey yellow leaves, but many had fallen. A golden mound of them lay across the stream, flittering in the breeze.

            The sun sank. A shadow crossed Braxton’s paper. Light fell in the pile of leaves revealing new colors. A stone-gray hand faced palm up, like an offering to the gods.

            Calls occasionally came into the office reporting bodies found in the woods. They were usually the result of an accident but occasionally there was more to it. Braxton had never had a problem with observing the bodies, but somehow this was different. The hand, possibly a body, lying four yards from him, intruded on his space in the clearing. The shadows elongated and Braxton just sat, watching the wind reveal a wrist and then an arm. He wanted to be alone. When he got up, his back was stiff and his foot numb. He briskly walked back to the path calling headquarters on his cell phone. No reception. Braxton hiked down to his SUV, sat inside while dialing headquarters.

            “Griff, its Braxton.”

            “Hey Braxton. What’s going on? Aren’t you off today?”

            “Work found me. There’s a body on Jewel Stream about a mile off of Rockbridge. I was hiking and it… revealed itself.”

            “Male or female?”

            “I just saw the hand. The body is covered by leaves. I left it for the forensics team to go over.”

            “I’ll send them right away. Stay where you are so you can show them where it is. Looks like you’ve got yourself a new case.”

            The last spears of light faded over the hills as Braxton clicked his cell phone shut. He leaned back and shut his eyes, not wanting to make the hike again. He didn’t want this to be his case. Hopefully they’d let him leave and he’d get a call in the morning saying that he or she wasn’t a Doe. Even better, he’d get a call saying that Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so had been hiking, took a fall, and died. No foul play involved. No need to see the body again, no open case, no talking to angry, upset, or shifty people.

            The anger that people always saw fit to take out on him continually surprised Braxton. People blamed him for the death of their loved ones because he was the bearer of bad news. Or a suspect called nasty names which still managed to get under his skin. Braxton used to love the chase of an investigation but after years and years, it had begun to wear on him. Only the death, violence, and the overwhelming sadness stayed.

            Knuckles rapped against the window Braxton’s car, startling him from his thoughts. A quick glance at the clock told him that a half hour had passed. Detective Zevlin was waiting outside with his team. Braxton grabbed his jacket and braced himself for the biting breeze. Warm autumn days quickly lapsed into bone chilling nights. Zevlin was with the second team, which meant that Sergeant Griffin didn’t think this case was going to be a big deal.

            The clearing was dark, pierced by the beams of flashlights. The pile of leaves was a dark mass about knee high. Braxton silently pointed his flashlight at the hand, before turning his back. The crunch of leaves and several loud splashes told Braxton that the team had made their way across the stream.

            Zippers of backpacks were quickly undone, unloading tools, and flood lights illuminated the clearing. Braxton turned around to see the team uncovering the body of a middle-aged woman, dressed for hiking. She held the stiffness that made Braxton think of a statue on the lid of a coffin. Her skin had grayed and her eyes remained open. A gunshot wound pierced through her skull from left to right. In her right hand rested a red flower.

            “Looks to be suicide,” called out Zevlin. “The wound travels from the left temporal bone to right. A clean pass through the brain, leading to immediate death. Residue on the left side of her head shows that the gun was fired at a close range.”

            Braxton sighed in relief. It wasn’t going to be a case after all. He could have his peace and quiet. He wanted to leave the clearing, go back to his car, go home, pour himself a brandy, and read. It was his day off, there was going to be no case, he should be able to leave.

An itching feeling in his mind told Braxton that things weren’t as simple as he wanted them to be.

            Bracing himself, Braxton crossed the stream. His damp shoes squelched as he climbed the bank on the opposite side. Things added up: the wound, the position of the body. It was suicide…. Yet something was out of place: the leaves. The body looked, and smelled, to be about 3 days old. Due to the dry weather, little decomposition had occurred. In three days, a pile of leaves three feet high would not have gathered so precisely around the body. The bright white fluorescent light showed a clearing with few leaves on the ground and no gun in sight.

            “Zevlin. Hold your team. This wasn’t suicide. Someone else was here. Where’s the gun?” Braxton hated himself for complicating this case. It could be closed, no questions asked, but there would be no resolution for this woman. It was his duty to her to find out what had happened. In life she might not have been a person he would want to help, but in death she had regained her innocence.

            In the light, Braxton would have been able to recognize foot prints leaving the clearing. In his haste to be uninvolved he had let Zevlin’s team stomp through the clearing, demolishing any traces that might have been left. Putting on rubber gloves, and being careful not to kneel in the pool of coagulated blood, Braxton looked in the woman’s jean pockets for a wallet. He extracted an old and worn wallet and opened to reveal a California driver’s license with the body’s face printed on it.

            Ms. Regina Beatrice Firmul lived at 786 Ristate Road, Gildt, California, 98476. She had black hair, brown eyes, was 5 foot 3, and was born on April 9, 1949. She wore corrective lenses for being farsighted.

            Braxton was relieved that she wasn’t a Jane Doe. He didn’t want to make Rockbridge path a lonely place, with the gloom of death hovering over it. He hated the random search and the unfortunate questions that he had to ask unsuspecting passers by. His space had been violated but he didn’t need to contaminate the rest of the area.

            In the dark, there was not much more he could do. Braxton took several pictures, and left Zevlin’s team. They had things well under control and Braxton wanted to make sure that he was gone before the body was bagged.

            Climbing into bed that night, Braxton sent a prayer to whoever he thought might be listening to make the case brief.

            As usual Braxton rose before dawn the next day. He took a shower and tried to rinse the tension that had formed in his shoulders over night. Eating his oatmeal and reading the daily paper, the sun rose to show a clear sky. Braxton drove to the police department’s headquarters.

            In the office, a quick background check showed that Ms. Regina Firmul had never been in trouble with the law before. Speeding tickets here and there were present but nothing nodded towards dangerous behavior. Ms. Firmul had once been married but had gotten a divorce less than a year later. No children had resulted from the marriage.

            With no obvious leads, Braxton set off for 786 Ristate Road. A small tan house with a cream picket fence. A knock on the door went unanswered. Braxton had acquired a warrant and was able to easily pick the garage door lock. He entered into the kitchen and began to search. The contents of the refrigerator were sparse and the door with no personal magnets or letters. There was a living room which hadn’t been redecorated since the 1970s, all in blue. The bathroom cabinet contained a toothbrush, toothpaste, Pepto-Bismol, and aspirin. No antidepressants or sleeping pills. There were two bedrooms: one was used as a study and the other as a bedroom. A single bed and a modest dresser were the only pieces of furniture. A framed yellowed family photograph and a small jewelry box stood atop the dresser. The jewelry box contained nothing valuable and nothing seemed to be out of place. Shit, maybe it was murder.

            Braxton had left the study for last because he figured it was where he was most likely to find something useful and he didn’t want to look over anything else that could possibly be helpful. He had gathered that Regina was a lonely woman with few contacts with family still left. The study confirmed Braxton’s beliefs. There was no computer. A typewriter sat on the desk. A rolodex contained few numbers. Regina had organized it to allow her to group people into how she knew them. Family contained one brother, mom, and dad. Bridge contained three women. Work contained one number; the rest had been torn out. The last 15 numbers were of plumbers, electricians, and cab companies.

            Braxton decided to try calling the bridge ladies.

            “Hello, Mrs. Ventenna. I’m detective Rosco. May I ask you a few questions about Ms. Regina Firmul?” Braxton’s question was met with a long pause. “Mrs. Ventenna, are you there?”

            “Sure, but I haven’t heard from Gina since last January.” Mrs. Ventenna responded coldly.

            “What happened in January?”

 “She faded out of our bridge group, leaving us a player short!” Mrs. Ventenna snapped. “It took forever to replace her. And our new member? She can’t carry a conversation! Gina could talk her little head off and played a fierce game.”

            Braxton heard the same story from the other two bridge members. The same bitterness about finding a new partner remained. They all described Regina as a bubbly woman who seemed very content. They had never been to her house because games were always held at Ms. Ventenna’s house. Yes, they did know where she lived; they had dropped her off several times when her car was in the shop. Although all the women sounded spiteful, Braxton saw no motive or will for causing her death.

            Calling family was always painful. Parents rarely provided useful information but they helped Braxton create a background image of what the family looked like. Parents never seemed to know what sort of life their children lived. A call to Mr. and Mrs. Firmul resulted in a disconnected number. A later database search showed that they had died in a car accident five years earlier. Mr. Sam Firmul, Regina’s brother, had nothing of interest to tell Braxton. She was a simple woman with a steady job. He had talked to her three days earlier and she had seemed fine. Did she have any enemies? No. Close friends? No. Any money? Not enough to kill for, Sam said jokingly. Upon breaking the news, Braxton quickly got off the phone, unwilling to hear Mr. Firmul’s sobs.  Work was the last resort for clues.

            “Mr. Casey? I’m detective Rosco investigating the death of Regina Firmul. May I ask you a few questions?” Braxton heard Mr. Casey quickly inhale.

            “Pardon me, her death? But she was here on Friday. She had just given her two weeks notice as she was finally set to retire.”

            “How was she acting?”

            “Well she was quite excited really. She had been waiting for some time, and finally was ready. We were going to throw her a party. Dead?”

            “Did she have any close friends at the office or any that you know of outside of work?”

            “No. She’s always liked to keep to herself. She was my secretary for 13 years. I did find out that she recently started hiking. She had wanted to cultivate a hobby before retiring.”

            “Thank you Mr. Casey. You’ve been a lot of help.” Braxton quickly hung up his phone.

            Braxton was left with little more than he had started with. There was no motive, no prime suspect, and no clues. A hike up to the clearing was the only thing that Braxton thought could be helpful.

            In the clearing he found a young woman crying, holding a chrysanthemum and kneeling where the body had been found.

            “Excuse me, what’s wrong?” Braxton asked as he walked toward the woman. She let out a small shriek, she obviously hadn’t heard him coming, and turned to face him.

            “My, my, my… my friend. I think she killed herself.”

            “How did you know your friend?” Braxton asked.

            “We hiked together. We just met one day while on the path and kept going. We decided to meet at the same time the next week and the week after that. It became habit. We ended up walking together three times a week. We just meet. I don’t know her number or where she lives. I just know that she liked to hike and that she wanted to absorb the beauty in everything.” The woman rambled while wiping her blotchy red eyes.     

            “Did you know your friends name, Miss?” questioned Braxton.

            “Regina. Regina Fillmore I think.”

            “What makes you think she killed herself?” prodded Braxton.

            “She talked about death a lot. And the way that life isn’t much different. You just do the same thing over and over and sometimes things change but usually they don’t. When I saw the cop cars here today, and she was late, I knew.”

            “How did you know she would do it here? Did you come here together?”

            “She brought me here once. It was her spot she said. There was nothing to intrude and so much space to let everything out. I thought it was beautiful but I never came back. It was so much her’s that I couldn’t.”

            Braxton looked into the stream as the light reflected off of it. He noticed a dark object at the bottom of it.

            “Regina Firmul’s case is currently under investigation. You seem to know her better than most did. Do you mind coming back to the station with me?” At the start the woman gave at the mention of going to the station, Braxton quickly added, “You aren’t under arrest, miss…?”

            “Andrea Nilburg. Sure I’ll come.” Andrea wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She looked around the clearing for any signs of her friend but finding none, sighed deeply, straightened her back, and turned around, walking out of the clearing.

            Braxton waited until Andrea was out of sight before rolling up his sleeves, putting on gloves and sticking his hand into the cold stream water. He raised it back out and placed a colt .45 in an evidence bag. Placing the gun into his back pack, Braxton left the clearing for the last time.

Trudging back through the leaves, Braxton realized that he had to find a new place for himself. Regina had taken over his spot. He wanted to be alone and in the clearing, she would always be there with him. Reminding him of what he had once almost done, and she succeeded at.