The Big Over Easy

Mary couldn’t sleep. She sat in the bedroom of her dilapidated flying boathouse and watched the rippled patterns the light made on the ceiling. Chymes seemed confident that the Humpty case hadn’t ended, and that bothered her. It shouldn’t have been any of her business, and that bothered her, too. At six-thirty she got up, showered and drove into Reading while it was still dark, the languid movements of late revelers and the bustle of early tradesmen the only activity in the sleeping town.

She had a coffee with the end of the night shift and at 8:00 A.M. went over to the Forensic Department to see if Skinner was by chance an early riser. He wasn’t, but she wanted to speak to him, so she sat outside his office until he arrived, coffee and papers in hand. He still had his bicycle clips on.

“I’m DS Mary,” she said. “I’m working with DI Spratt.”

She had expected a smirk when she said it but didn’t get one. Skinner was one of the friendlies.

“A fine man is Jack. Come on inside.”

He unlocked the door and let them both in. The strip lights flickered on, making Mary blink after the dinginess of the corridor.

“So,” said Skinner, guessing her intention almost immediately, “more questions over the Humpty murder? Or is it about Mrs. Dumpty?”

“Both.”

He pulled off his bicycle clips. “Shoot.”

“Five shots had been fired from Mrs. Dumpty’s .32,” she began,

“yet we can only account for one. What happened to the other four?”

But Skinner didn’t seem particularly puzzled.

“The fact they were missing from the clip means nothing, Mary. She might never even had loaded them.”

“So it’s not suspicious?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“What about not finding the spent cartridge in Winkie’s garden?”

“Shells are often picked up by astute criminals, Mary. It’s fairly common knowledge that we can match a cartridge to a gun as easily as we can match a slug—often easier. Perps often use revolvers for just that reason.”

“What about a .32 caliber being able to destroy Humpty?”

He scratched his head. “I tend to agree with Mrs. Singh—I would have thought a larger caliber. He was very badly damaged. But we’re both guessing. Data on bullets going through large eggs is a little bit in short supply, as you might imagine.”

“But if we had the spent slug?”

“Oh, yes.” Skinner smiled. “If we had that, we could know for sure.”

Mary thanked him and moved to go, but Skinner laid a hand on her wrist.

“Be careful, Mary.”

“How do you mean?”

“Just that things are sometimes not always what they seem.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re new to Reading and new to Jack. Don’t underestimate him. He’s a better man than most people give him credit for.”

“I still don’t understand.”

Skinner stared at her through his thick pebble spectacles.

“Some people at Reading are too powerful for the good of the service,” he said slowly, pointing at a buff envelope on his desk, right next to the evidence bag with the two weathered shotgun cartridges that needed to be returned, “and people talk out of turn at their peril. You can take the cartridges with you, but I wouldn’t want you to make a mistake and take that buff envelope as well. Do you understand?”

She frowned but nodded her agreement, wished him good day and dutifully took both the evidence bag and the envelope.

She had a look when she was in her car. The envelope contained crime-scene photographs of the Andersen’s Wood murder, and pretty gruesome they were, too. She went through them once, then again. If there was something going on, she was definitely missing it. She replaced the pictures inside the envelope, stuffed it under the seat of her car and headed off towards Spatchcock’s Gymnasium.

Mr. Spatchcock was giving a morning keep-fit lesson to a group of women who were all a bit puffed and had begun to go red. She could almost hear the silent pleas for him to stop or at least slow down. She was glad to be able to help. She tapped on the glass and hoped Spatchcock recognized her. It didn’t do to start flashing police badges around people’s place of work—unless you needed to make a point, of course.

But he did recognize her. He told his class to take a much-welcome break and trotted up to where Mary was waiting for him.

“It’s DS Mary, isn’t it?”

“It is, Mr. Spatchcock. I’d just like to ask you a few more questions.”

“Of course. I was very sorry to hear about Mrs. Dumpty. She had been a client for about two years and, like many of my personal charges, a driven woman with appetites the same as anyone else.”

“You were intimate?”

“If that is how you like to phrase it, yes. You may not approve of what I do, but no one is hurt by it, and I fulfill an important role. Laura was a lot better than most; I think we even had an affection of sorts for each other. Anyway, I have a friend in the pathology lab who told me they thought Humpty had been murdered, so naturally I thought Laura would be in the frame. Of course, I knew she hadn’t killed him—and that’s why I called you straightaway.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Which part?”

“The ‘hadn’t killed him’ part.”