The two hadn’t fixed the house yet. Lillies
and tulips were sprouting a ring around the garden in the backyard. Signing off on their dream house was a huge
step in their relationship, and they couldn’t wait.
Only
the wealthy lived in the valley, so Lydia and her husband, Jack, were fortunate
to have saved enough money to purchase a home in the area. It was everything
she hoped it would be: white picket fence, blue door with a welcome sign. She
hadn’t even begun to unpack and she had started to clean.
“Jack,
this place is filthy.”
“Honey,
I really don’t see anything but dust, that’s normal for a new house.”
“Not
OUR house!”
Jack
sighs.
Lydia
inspected everything; she was a perfectionist. But the moment the glistening
sun through the window caught her eye, she darted toward the backyard. In awe,
she opens the sliding door and removes her red-bottom Louboutins. She digs her
toes into the fresh soil, a gardener’s delight. Tiptoeing along the cobble path
delicately arranged leading to the blue shed. The set-up of the backyard was so
flawless; it seemed as if it was made upon their arrival. “Jack, Jack! Come
look, it’s like the people who lived here before knew who I was!” Jack
saunters toward his wife not surprised by her reaction. He never understood her
passion for gardening; but her skills at being a stay-at-home wife were okay
with him!
Lydia
notices the colour pattern of the roses and orchids; clearly whoever lived
their prior to them had no sense of theme. This upset her, so she decides to
get to work. She heads inside to the kitchen and lifts quite a few cupboard
doors before discovering the right one containing gardening tools. She grabs
the plyers, rubber gloves and mini shovel. As she leads back to the garden she
forgets she is not wearing shoes, and suddenly feels a nail pierce the bottom
of her heel. “OH MY GOD!” A ear-splitting shriek comes from Lydia.
“What?!” Yells her husband in confusion.
“Um
someone who is an idiot decided to plant some nails in the garden. Will I need
a tetnus shot now!? We don’t even know who has lived here before.”
That
was a good point, they did not know who lived there before… this began to raise
an uncomfortable awareness.
Lydia cleans and patches up her
wound. Her determination to fix this garden to her liking was not about to
seize to a little injury. She slowly hobbles back to the flower bed. Jack
watched her from the living room while he unpacked. Sometimes he would worry
about her, that her fire and feistiness led her into trouble. But he had
decided before they moved in that this was a new start, and he would let her be
the way she is going to so he could avoid conflict. He gets up to grab some
water, but realizes they haven’t finished unpacking the silverware and all the
essentials. Jack walks out to the back and slides the door open to call Lydia
and let her know she needs to come back in to help him; to his disbelief he
sees his wife laying in the ground with fresh foam around her mouth. He kneels
to the ground and cries, he knew she was dead by her cold skin, frozen eyes.
3:01pm is when the police
arrived. A frantic Jack could not make out a story, he had no idea was had
happened. One minute his beautiful wife was contently picking flowers, and the
next she was dead. “I..I..I have no idea wh-wh-what happened.” Jack was shaking
and went into a state of shock, unable to speak. The police announced they
needed him to come down to the station to answer questions so they could begin
to search for a lead.
Jack
remained silent. Words could not come to his brain because of the utter terror
he was experiencing. The cops knew this was a normal sign of a witness in a
tragedy; they still needed answers. They spent 8 hours hounding the poor widow;
but still nothing.
Meanwhile, the cops had acquired a search warrant so they
could find clues to help in this obvious murder case. The facts so far were
vague; a model-like woman poisoned with cyanide through a cut on her foot while
prancing on her glowing green grass. But how? By who? The first obvious
suspect, was Jack. The head investigator had a bad feeling that this was a
spousal attack, one that required a lot more thinking than doing. He needed to
find concrete evidence to place an arrest, and that was solely what he intended
to do.
The
investigator spread iodine powder across every crevice possible in the mansion.
One room in particular deemed suspicious. He came across a black box, opened
it, but nothing appeared. After searching for over 14 hours he was about to
give up; suddenly he drops to his knees. “YES!” He exclaims, launching his arm
under the desk the box had laid. He curls his hand back into his body, covered
with dust. Unraveling his palm he stares at the shining glory that lay before
his eyes: a clear Ziploc baggie that had black pills in it. Jackpot, he thought.
Arriving
at the station, the investigator believes he has caught Jack in the act. Why
would someone be so senseless as to leave the evidence in plain sight? Pompous
by his discovery the man sends the pills to examination, packs up his folders
and leaves for the night.
The
morning after the investigator, Slade, gets right to work. The results from the
test had come in; Slade opens the folder and reads the sad explanation to his
evidence. Ecstasy: party pills. He tilts
his head towards the ceiling, “ugh, you have got to be kidding me.” Although he
was alone in the room his face became flushed and he was highly embarrassed.
How could he have missed that? He continues to beat himself up verbally while
pacing around the room; he thinks there must be something more to this. It could
end up being evidence that will be enough to convict.
Being in a prison cell was Jack’s
worse nightmare. But until he breaks down and speaks, he will be stuck here. He
sat on the floor with his head between his legs, weeping until his stomach hurt.
He could not see out of his eyes they were so swollen. The other cellmate laughed
at his embarrassing cry, “You’re serious right now? You are going to pretend
you did not kill your smokin’ hot wife. Look at this picture!”, the man shoves
the photo Jack brought of him and his wife at their honeymoon as a memoir. “How
could you ruin…that!? Damn, I mean if I had hit that, there would
be no turning back. Ha. So why’d you do it?”
“Do
what”, Jack snaps.
“You
know, slaughter the hottest woman alive.”
“I
did not murder my wife.”
“Come
on, tell me something interesting. We do have all night, you know”, the man
smirks leaving a chill down Jacks spine.
“Well,”
Jack takes a deep breath, “I guess there was something that had been worrying
me for awhile.”
“Yes…?”
“I
mean, I don’t know if it happened because my wife and I were very much in love,”
he pauses.
“She
cheated eh?”
“How
did you—“
“Know
you were going to say that? It’s simple. You’re attractive, well put together.
You seem to have some money struggles, but your wife…well damn I wouldn’t be
surprised if she was escorting some old men on the side. You know what im sayin’?
“DO
NOT SPEAK ABOUT MY WIFE LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN!” Jack shrieks and hovers over the
cellmate. The man wasn’t scared, probably because he was right.
Slade came rushing into the
police station. “Sam! Sam it all makes sense now. Sit down.” He proceeds to
explain his version of what he believes has happened to Mrs Lydia Daultry. “So
they searched the house some more, results came in on the soil and it had been
prepared for the sole purpose to kill Lydia. Whoever owned this house before
had mixed highly concentrated cyanide into the soil. This explains the foaming
and convulsing that showed up in her autopsy report.”
“Wow,”
says his co-worker, “So who do you think did it? And what explains the party
pills, don’t only kids use those nowadays?”
“Well,
I’ve been asking around digging any dirt on this model like citizen. She
appeared so perfect, but I found lists of accounts where she was less than
civil.”
“Keep
going?”
“Lydia
Daultry was a part of a very elite social club. Ha, who am I joking; let’s be
frank. She was an escort, along with a group of successful gorgeous women who
mysteriously had gone missing over the years one by one. All by different acts
though, making it difficult to link. But now I have found it! She was a highly
paid escort for many men, and would attend events at clubs where they would be
out all night, most likely high on ecstacy to keep the party going.”
Slade
sits up, proud of his accomplishment to create a logical and most likely
correct story to explain this murder. He had spoken to many women in the area
who evidently all knew Lydia Daultry, all of which knew exactly what she did
for a living but somehow her husband was in the dark. The women shared stories
and gossip about how Lydia was the highest paid escort of the group. And with
her beauty and charm, the other women in the club were very envious. One story
in particular stood out to Slade: A week before the couple moved into their new
home, a neighbour spotted Lydia go into the mansion with a mysterious dark
skinned man. Yelling was heard around 2am as if the two were in a fight. Lydia was seen rushing out of the house
holding her sparkled 6-inch heels, she was on the phone most likely calling a
cab. But the man she arrived with…never left the house. The next day,
neighbours went to check what had happened, and all they saw was a bag of steel
nails on the porch with a note that read “throw
out to the garbage, where it belongs.”
