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The Mystery of Martha Munch
Melissa Munch was a forty five year old single mother. She was an accountant. The detective knows that. Her husband died from carbon monoxide poisoning while sleeping in their home with the gas on. He was survived by her and their daughter, Martha Munch. The detective knows that as well. The name sounds like someone one would heard about in a children's fantasy show, complete with rainbows, unicorns, and other make beliefs.
Missing kid, his partner, Mar, says.
Missing kid? the detective asks.
Yep. Fourteen year old Martha Munch.
Slender figure, he notices to himself. Foul play?
We think she stabbed the mother. Fingerprints add up.
Motivation?
We don't have one yet, but hospital records suggest abuse.
She can be tried as an adult.
Mother's don't hit their children. They're not supposed to, anyway. He's never met a mom who did. Or maybe he's just never met a mom he knew who did. It's hard to know people in a world of fake smiles and compliments, after all.
Sick world, eh?
Yeah, Mar.
Martin Lively-- Mar, the detective calls him-- says that for every case. It seems they've been getting more gruesome as of late, but the detective has yet to figure out why. He wants to. His father always says one needs to find the crux of a problem before finding the solution. He's an ethicist, so it's always best to assume correctness (even when the man puts his kid's hand on a hot burner).
Sick world...
The detective rubs a calloused hand over his face. He needs to find the girl. If he finds the girl, he solves the case.
Two people have seen her. The man who runs the convenience store three miles from the house has seen her, and the detective has seen her. He watches the girl scamper up a rusty fire escape ladder, probably to squat in the apartment. He feels like a creep, eyes gluing themselves to day-old CCTV video of a woman who was a girl crawling into a dilapidated apartment building.
He turns away. The detectives thinks he's seen her before in the police station. Neither or her parents had criminal records, but her face brings a sense of deja vu. The type one feels when eating their favorite pastry for the umpteenth time.
Her eyes, from what he's collected from pictures, are like two cups of black coffee (did she smell like coffee?); her hair is a chocolate brown. Both features compliment her rich mocha skin. He can't remember the last time he'd seen skin so lustrous.
