Chapter 5

 

Chapter Five

 

 

Earlier that day.

 

Fanny reached into her pocket for her house key and instead she found the candy bar she had impulsively picked up at the checkout counter. She hadn’t had any sugar at all since she and Harold had been on his damned adrenal diet, but suddenly she’d had an irresistible urge for a candy bar that she knew would not be quelled by a roasted red potato – regardless of what Dr. Burger said.

 

On another impulse, she’d left her bags at the front door, unwrapped the candy bar and strolled over to her favorite spot – a worn green bench under the dogwood tree. The bench was a Mother’s Day present. Her son Pete had made it for her when he was twelve. She seated herself comfortably before she took the first bite. “If I am going to sin, let me sin vigorously” she thought. That was one of her favorite sayings, which she always carefully attributed to Dame Margot Fontaine. She took perverse delight in knowing that Rudolph Nuryev and Dame Margot were once arrested for smoking pot in Haight Ashbury. 

 

Her own, more innocent, trespass was abruptly interrupted when a late model green sedan stopped in front of the house and a well-dressed young man got out and walked toward her.

 

“Mrs. Britt?” he asked.

 

“Yes. I’m Mrs. Britt. Can I help you?”

 

The stranger took what looked like some type of official credentials from his coat and held it up briefly in front of her face before returning it to his pocket. “I’m Detective Svenson. I’m afraid your husband has been involved in an unpleasant incident. I’m going to have to ask you come with me, please.”

 

Without waiting for her response he placed his hand on her arm.

 

She pulled her arm away from his grasp. “Just a minute. I’m not going anywhere with you. What kind of incident? Is Harold alright?” Fanny stood up and stepped away from the stranger. He stepped toward her and again took her arm – more forcefully this time – causing her to drop the candy bar on the ground. Still holding her arm he knelt down, picked it up and dropped it into her open purse.

 

“Come with me, please. You don’t want to make a scene, do you?”

 

Fanny looked around. The street was empty. There was no one around to see what was going on. There was no one to hear her if she screamed. But she screamed anyway. The stranger hit her hard on the side of her head with his closed fist. The last thing she remembered, before everything went black, was the sound of Arlo’s frantic barking coming from inside the house.