A Collection of Short Stories

The Murder of the Mayor

*Just a disclaimer so the story makes more sense... This short story is set sometime in the 1990s. Thank you! Enjoy!*

      The mayor of Gruenesville was found dead in his home on a particularly crisp Autumn morning by an unsuspecting young maid who had taken the unpaved servant's entrance behind the manor at around 6:00 am. Surrounded in a pool of sticky, dark liquid, that had not yet been fully absorbed and dried into the nearby wool carpet, the body was covered in a pristine, starchy sheet, causing the wallpapered living room to look out of place in the large untouched manor. 

The unrelenting, metallic scent persuaded everyone in the body's presence to wrinkle their nose in disgust. The head of the police department called everyone around the oddly-shaped lump that contrasted the dark, smooth flooring for a moment of silence to remember their fallen leader, and all did so, some even bowing their heads in silent prayer. 

The Mayoress arrived home later that day in her small red car with dirt-ridden tires sporting a leopard skin blouse, white pencil skirt, and blue-green striped pumps. Her car had some shopping bags placed in the back seat from popular stores, such as Gadzooks, that were bursting with colorful fabrics. She had raced home from a ladies getaway, that included the other prominent wives of the inner circle of the town, at the family beach house a couple of miles down the main road, to greet her husband. Unfortunately, she was not met by her beloved, yet a swarm of burly men decorated with badges who were pulling her home apart much like ants to a tree. 

As a mustached officer was gently explaining to and comforting the distraught Mayoress, she gazed around at the scene displaying before her through her tearful eyes: boxes stacked up at the start of the gravel driveway where vans picked up these boxes full of pieces of her life and took them down the paved roads that led all throughout the county, groups of men in deep, blue uniforms huddled together exchanging notes and ideas, and one peculiar, lone officer, in his twenties by the looks of him, sitting on the stoop staring at the sky. 

All exchanges paused for a moment to glimpse at the oncoming vehicle, a silver Acura Integra, which had sped down the drive and stopped suddenly just before the driver hit the brick tool house, which sent a wave of dust onto the manicured lawn. 

A thin, wiry woman stepped out of the car dressed in tight, close-fitting jeans that had patches of color stitched onto them in an unknown pattern, a flowing purple top, and black flats that were a tad small on her wide feet. She rushed over to the crying widow and introduced herself to the nearby officers as the sister of the mayoress, calling herself a woman by the name of Martha Wren. 

Ms. Wren demanded she takes her drained sister up to her rooms to rest and ease the strain of grief. The Chief reluctantly allowed after a heated exchange, but finally told his men to reschedule the Mayoress' questioning for that evening. Ms. Wren cooed her only sibling into her stripped home, leaving behind all of her luggage, and up the steps into her quarters before steering her through the white door left of the bed into the powder room. 

She wiped away the remnants of the blue-brown hue from her sister's rouge lips and the white from her powdered, tear-stained face, waving away the thick scent of sulfur. She then forced the mayoress under the fluffy comforter and sang a lullaby their mother once sang when they were young before she passed away until her sister was soundly asleep. 

Ms. Wren then began to tidy up the room, placing the powder and the one case of Burgundy lipstick she found on the bathroom counter beside the teeth whitener, gathering the pins on the bed-side-table and placing them next to the cold curlers, hanging up the plastic overcoat in the closet above the pink, blue, and cheetah heels laying discarded on the closet floor. She was utterly unaware of the commotion going on in the living room below. 

Officer Gryes, a good-looking young man who recently joined the force and had everything to prove, got up from the stoop and walked calmly over to the Chief who was overseeing the removal of blood stains from the living room. Gryes explained his evidence he unearthed when he examined the numerous rooms of the manor, and when the Chief dismissed his theory, he persisted until his boss understood how all the pieces fit together, and they did, ever so perfectly, in the officer's mind. 

Two hours later, the Chief led the congregation over to the station where a detective, who was already briefed, tapped his foot impatiently while he was waiting by the door. The Chief calmly led the widow through the maze of corridors, into the interrogation room, and pulled out the heavy, metal chair before he urged her to sit. When she complied, the Chief poked his head out of the door to beckon in the detective and told Ms. Wren to sit tight on the plastic chair in the waiting room with an officer to answer aimless questions. 

The Chief reentered the room this time followed by the detective where he instituted the detective before casually walking out of the room. The detective, a large, burly man with a dark beard, started his interrogation out calmly out of modesty, but soon became frustrated as the Mayoress only answered in a meek "yes" or "no". The detective's face turned red after a few more minutes in dissatisfaction and he struck the mirror running along the wall facing the mayoress three times with his calloused fist, knowing the Chief was smiling inwardly to himself at his failure to extract relevant information to the investigation. 

The Chief understood the signal and smirked before composing his features, a mask falling over his worn face as he picked up the box of evidence waiting next to him. In two monstrous strides, he was at the interrogation door. He stepped inside, blinking only twice to adjust to the light that came from the blacked-capped fixture overhead. 

The Chief slammed down the box on the smooth, metal table in front of the widow, whose eyes widened in shock at the sudden change in demeanor. The contents were then being pulled out one by one and soon photos in addition to evidence bags with objects from her home were scattered across the table: a picture of the puddle under the sleek overcoat, a copy of her car wash ticket dated for 2 days ago, well-used powder and lipstick, a picture of the mayoress before Ms. Wren arrived, cheetah-skin heels that still held a small bit of moisture, and a picture of her dirt-ridden tires. 

The officers looked down at the widow expectantly, but she only bowed her head for a moment, and when her gaze shifted up, she was smiling.

***Thank you for finishing The Murder of the Mayor!  The explanation is below! You don't have to read it for the story to make sense!***

***EXPLANATION: This story is set in the '90s. The shorter explanation is that in my mind, the wife did it ( I intentionally didn't give her a name). The longer explanation is the wife of the mayor came during the night. she drove through the back entrance (which is why she has dirt on her tires-- she just got her car washed and the roads were paved so how could she get dirt on her tires?) and entered using her key. If you didn't notice, she was wearing an animal skin printed top and blue-green heels that do not match her outfit. The heels that were matching found in the closet, and they were wet. They were wet along with her plastic overcoat because she was wearing the shoes, blood got on them so she used hydrogen peroxide to remove the stains. In the '90s, hydrogen peroxide was often used as a teeth whitener. She didn't want to alert her companions of the chemical when she went back to provide an alibi, so she left her things to dry in her rooms. If you're wondering why her clothes (like her pure white skirt) are not stained if other things did, it's because she was wearing the overcoat. As for the makeup, Burgundy Lipstick was the most popular lipstick color in the '90s. It was a brownish color with a berry-blue hue. Ms. Wren was said to have placed her sister's only tube of lipstick away yet she was seen coming home with the color already on. So, this points to the answer that after the deed was done, she got blood on her face which she had to rub off and reapply her makeup, which she accidentally left at the scene.