Status Updates From Murder, Mystery & Mothers

The arcade-themed T-shirt… The ghost design T-shirt… It’s the same person!

And he’s a cartoon character, always wearing the same clothes.

another brick on the floor with a note attached. Wally extricated the letter

Wally’s a former policeman; shouldn’t he be saying clever things like “perhaps forencics can lift some prints from that piece of paper.” Rather than adding his own set of prints to the note?

“There’s a faint handwritten note. It says ‘Reginald is known for turning in before dusk, often as early as five or six in the evening.

The police added hearsay to a witness statement? Why didn’t they just ask the witness what time he went to bed?

“The property reverted to the town council,” Mrs. Temperance said. “A.k.a., the Willowcroft Trust.” Tammy glanced at the others, noting their rapt expressions. “The town owned it? Until…” “Until you bought it,”

The town council owned it for 70 years? What did they do with it in the interim?

“Bruising on the inside of her right arm, consistent with a forceful grab.” Tammy tapped her fingers on the table. “Does that mean the killer was left-handed?”

No, the killer was probably holding the murder weapon in their dominant hand and made a grab for the victim with their empty hand.

Introduction of the first males that get a speaking part, not counting the meows of the cat.

“The Willow-Crafters came up with nothing. But 1954 is too early for our memories.”

1954 is seventy-one years ago. The Willow-Crafters are on average seventy plus years old. They may not have first hand memories, but they certainly would have heared the stories told years later.

Tammy’s fingers hovered over the spines of bound newspapers, their musty scent filling her nostrils.

Microfiche, anyone?

And this woman would make three people in a few hours.

Meeting three people in a few hours time is not so strange (particularly if you go into shops and talk to people behind the counter). Stranger perhaps is that Tammy hasn’t seen any men yet.

On a whim—or perhaps out of desperation—she’d picked up the phone and bought it based on the pictures alone.

Ah, to have the financial means that to buy a house is only a phone call away.

Old threat letter, leading to an unsolved murder in the 50s.

May be too much of a cozi for me.

“The book reviews rang in her head. “No emotional depth.” “Lacked soul.” Tammy winced, acknowledging their bitter truth. But the one that stung the deepest: “She’s not just over forty, she’s over, full stop.”
Excerpt From
Murder, Mystery & Mothers
Fran Heap

As much as I love a person who’s self aware, I hope dearly this is not a foreshadowing of what’s to come.