An Account of Some Strange Happenings in Burdock

Nicolas Bouligny

1

A thin veil of smoke swirled beneath the light of a buzzing fluorescent tube. The stench of a thousand cigarettes lingered on every piece of furniture and inch of the padded walls. The suspect shifted uncomfortably in his chair but continued looking straight ahead at the wall, holding a lit cigarette precariously in one hand. After taking only one drag he had resigned to let it dangle between his fingers.

The detective let out a deep sigh as he looked through the tiny square of one-way glass set into the metal door that separated him from the suspect. This door was the gateway between worlds; when one stepped through, they became either the accuser or the accused. The inner machinations of man’s mind and the convictions therein were splayed out on the table between them, and judgement was passed. The detective took hold of the brass doorknob, quickly turned it, and pushed the door open. He closed the door behind him, and with perfectly even and calm strides he walked to his chair, placed a folder on the desk, and sat.

“Good evening Mr. Francis, I’m detective Whitman.” Donald Francis just sat there, not staring at the detective, but through him.

Andrew Whitman was entering his fourth year as a detective at the Burdock Police Department. At only 34 years old he was the youngest officer to ever become a detective in Burdock, though whether he got there by his ability or by lack of other suitable officers, he would never know. It was a relatively small force, but they were like a family. This was one of the last few small towns in America where it wasn’t strange to greet all your neighbors with a smile and a “goodmorning”, because they would do the same for you. That integrity, unity, and one-ness with the community only made this interrogation that much harder.

“Mr. Francis, I have some questions for you, think you could answer them for me?” The man sitting across from him didn’t respond.

Donald Francis was a thin, wispy haired man in his early 60’s. His long face and features were accentuated by the weight of his grief, drawing his lips down into a tight curve that would not budge. Whitman saw he was clearly shaken up from whatever events had transpired earlier in the night, but that didn’t really matter when it came to murder. Questions needed answering. “Mr. Francis?”

“Yes.” he said tonelessly.

“Good. Let’s lay out this scene one more time. Where were you last night at 9 p.m.?”

His body tensed before answering, “With my wife.”

“And where were you both?”

“In our home. 496 Winstead Avenue, Burdock South Dakota, 57-”

“We’ll just stick with your home, Mr. Francis. Was there anybody else inside with you?”

“No.”

Andrew opened the file in front of him and quickly skimmed through his notes. “What were you two doing during the interval between 9 p.m. and 11?”

More silence, followed by, “Reading. I read at nights. Angeline sits-” he gave a sudden pause and took another slow drag from his cigarette. “She sat with me. Crocheting or leafing through a magazine.” He was silent again for a while. Andrew gave him time. He resumed 30 seconds later, “At around 9:40 we headed to bed. She got up an hour later and went downstairs to the kitchen. I didn’t think anything of it, except she didn’t come back.” Another pause. A minute this time. “I went down. There she was.” He took another long, slow drag from his cigarette.

“What was she doing Don?”

With a choked voice and tears welling in his eyes, Donald said, “Dead. Knife in her throat.”

Calmly and slowly, Andrew sincerely asked, “Who did it, Don?”

“I don’t know!” he screamed. “Herself more than like, but I don’t know why. We loved each other, we were happy. In another couple years I was going to retire, and we were going to move to Nebraska. We had our future all laid out ahead of us, detective.”

Again, Detective Whitman studied his notes in silence, let out a sigh, then slowly looked up at the man across from him. “Mr. Francis, somebody else was with Angeline that night.”

Suddenly the tears stopped, and the look of despair on Donald’s face was replaced with shock. “What? You’re saying she was murdered? By who?”

This time it was Andrew’s turn to pause. “Mr. Francis, at 10:57 the station got a call from your neighbor, Mr. Hatche. He reported hearing screaming and loud crashes coming from your residence.”

“Yeah, I was distraught, I was in pain dammit! I knocked some things over and threw some other things, what would you do if you suddenly found somebody you loved lying in a pool of her own blood?” He shot Andrew an accusatory glance which, to Donald’s surprise, seemed to have an actual impact on the detective’s composure; his eyes softened and turned away from the other man’s, lazily resting on some nondescript patch of carpet on the floor.

“I’m not too sure what I would do in that situation Mr. Francis, and I empathize with the pain you feel” he quickly returned his attention to the man sitting opposite him, “but emotions and empathy have no place when it comes to the acquisition of facts.” Donald’s hateful expression dispersed after that. “Now, regarding Mr. Hatche, he had a bit more to say. He said that after having a little argument with his wife he went to sleep downstairs in the den. This was at 10:52. When he got down there, he said he could see Angeline through the window in your kitchen nook. She was talking to someone, a man wearing what appeared to be a dark suit with his back to the window. Mr. Hatche said he, ‘respected the privacy of one’s own home,’ and just figured you and the Mrs. were having a little late-night chat, so he paid no mind. Once the screaming started, he figured that that was the right time to start paying some mind and called the police. So, let me ask you again Don: who did it?”

The soft concern on Donald’s face once again turned hard as stone “You think I did it, you bastard! The audacity! We loved each other dearly, she was my stars, my moon, why would I kill her? You have no proof, you little shit!” Although he was in relatively good shape for a man of his age, Andrew thought he might have a heart attack if he went on like this for much longer.

“Please, Mr. Francis”

“Don’t ‘please Mr. Francis’ me you prick! How dare you accuse me without any proof.”

“This is not an accusation Don, at least not yet anyways. As of right now we have no suspects, fingerprints, signs of a break-in, or witnesses other than your neighbor. I’m sorry to say it, but you’re our prime suspect in this case. And I’m even more sorry to say that we can’t release you from custody until we acquire further evidence that proves you’re innocent.”

“But I am innocent!” He looked around, struggling to find the words or phrases that could help prove this point.

“I’m tempted to believe you, Don. I know you’re a good man; you’ve got no prior record, don’t cause trouble around town, and mostly keep to yours and your own. I know you’re grieving, but I can’t release you.”

Resignation washed over Donald’s face. “Okay detective. Put me in my cell. I want tonight to be over.”

Andrew closed his report and stood up. “I’ll send someone in to escort you, Don. You’ll get a quiet spot away from the rest of the degenerates.”