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Right Place, Wrong Time by Elizabeth Guy
So I’m jogging. First thing in the morning. Sun’s out. Wind’s blowing. Finally getting back in shape, yes sirree. I have my MP3 player strapped to my arm, my water bottle strapped to my waist. Yeah, I’m feeling fine.
I turn on Pine Street and bam! It hits me. Out of nowhere. Somebody’s watching me. Seems silly because I’m surrounded by pine trees. Matter of fact, Pine Street is nothing but a narrow paved path smack dab in the middle of a forest. Houses pop up here and there, but it’s definitely not the busiest section in town.
Still, I can’t shake the weird feeling no matter how hard I try. About the time I come up on Mr. Hosmer’s junky place, I can’t stand it any longer. I stop. I turn. Lucas Lively speeds past and sends me falling down the ditch. The earphones pop out of my ears. I grab for anything, which turns out to be an old broken window. Obviously one more piece of junk Mr. Hosmer didn’t need but couldn’t bring himself to throw away. I pull back a bloody hand. Then my elbow scrapes across the jagged edge. More blood.
“Jeeesus!”
That’s when I spot the twinkle of sunlight a few feet away. I recognize a foot. A human foot with red painted toenails and a gold chain around the ankle. I have to blink because I don’t believe what I see. But clearer, wetter eyes don’t change the truth. I’m staring at a dead woman.
I open my cell phone, see my bloody hand and wipe it on my jogging shorts before I dial 911. I can’t believe how calm I am when I tell the woman on the other end of the line what exactly I’d found in a ditch on the side of Pine Street.
“Oh my,” she whispers. “I’m sending Sheriff Tally right out.”
By the time I climb back up to the road, I hear a siren. Thank God. Sheriff Tally must’ve been nearby, and he wasn’t wasting any time getting to me. In a matter of minutes, his cruiser whips around the bend, lights flashing, and squeals to a stop at Mr. Hosmer’s mailbox.
I wave. That’s when I see the blood running down my arm. I wipe it on my T-shirt, but it keeps coming. So I take off my T-shirt and wrap it around my elbow.
While I’m doing this, I’m hit with the thought that the sheriff and his deputy might suspect I committed this heinous crime. And I don't know how I'd go about proving them wrong.
Shut up, you’re paranoid, I tell myself, and try to remain friendly and calm as they approach.
“Morning, Sheriff Tally.”
“You the one called?” he asks, hand on his holster.
“Yeah...yes sir, she’s down there. I saw her ankle thingy sparkling in the sun.”
He looks down at my bandaged arm where blood seeps through.
“I...I fell on a piece of glass down there,” I explain. “Sharper than I realized.”
“Don’t go nowhere,” he says, walking past me.
“No sir. No, sir, I'll stay right here.”
Deputy Campbell stays behind, eyeballing me.
I’m just glad he didn’t ask me to go back down there. I mean, these guys know what to do. They see this stuff all the time. They know what it’s like to meet the end of a human life. They're trained to take care of it, to talk to the survivors and ease them into the shock they’re going to live in for the next few days, or years, of their life. They know. I don’t.
“Heather Parker!” calls the sheriff.
“Reverend Parker’s Heather?” The deputy exhales. “You don’t mean it. She’s not a day past fifteen.”
“Ain’t been here long,” he says, climbing the embankment. “Go call Earl.”
The deputy goes back to the cruiser to call the coroner. The sheriff comes straight toward me. “What you doing in the ditch, son?”
I’m beginning to think I picked the wrong day to start jogging.
THE END Elizabeth Guy © 2008 |
