Quarantine Mystery X

April 4, 2020

I sit at the windows in my bedroom, a whole day of nothing looming before me. Traffic down my street has slowed to a trickle and is mostly delivery vehicles—Amazon, Fed Ex, UPS, USMail, various food delivery services. If it weren’t for them, cracks in the asphalt would be sprouting grass soon. Why have I not seen police here yet? The man across the street has been murdered with an illegal drug, but they don’t seem to care. But no. The hospital knows their patient died of a drug overdose but they have no reason to call it murder. They might assume Victor was a user, but they would have told the police by now. What would the police do with this information? Elderly man dies of overdose. A man who was well-known locally. Rich. Not that unusual—a lot of rich folks do cocaine regularly. And other drugs. I imagine the police would decide they at least need to interview people who knew him. Maybe discover where he was getting drugs from, like Hey! Wasn’t Victor Anderson the father of Martin Anderson? The guy that was killed in that drug war some—oh a long time ago now. We might at least see if there’s some connection here.

This is the way my mind is going as I sit here and wait for nothing. My mind has a tendency to wander off into strange places. Martin’s death. It almost killed Victor. The pain and the shame. This wasn’t long after Victor became Richard’s avenging angel. My husband was a good and honest man who had the misfortune of discovering something scandalous. He was a surveyor working for the state. He discovered a toxic waste dump on city property and reported it. Next thing we knew, he was jobless and threatened with prison. Victor took over and fixed it. I’m still not sure how, but Richard got his job back and some fairly important people at the state level disappeared. By that, I mean they left town. Or maybe the country.

My phone beeps. It’s Chris. “Mom? What do you need? I’m going out.”

I tell him I don’t need anything. He insists I must need something. I say, “How about toilet paper? And hand sanitizer?” He sort of chuffs, then realizes I’m teasing. I’d better think of something I need or he may not come and visit. I say, “I’d do need coffee, Dunkin’ Donuts if they have it, and a Sarah Lee cheese cake.” I ask him if he’s heard about Victor Anderson. He says he has and he’s so sorry because he liked Victor.

A car pulls up in front of Angus’s house and the driver emerges, carrying a box with a smiley logo on the side. Was this the way that fatal speedball was delivered? A car pulls up, a killer hops out. He has the speedball with him. In a syringe? In a box of chocolates? In a bottle of prescription meds? I wish I could think of some way to talk to the police without sounding like a meddlesome old busybody.