Gladys Grunge had been driving along a country road, a little fast perhaps, and she had knocked down and run over a woman who was carrying a load of sticks on her back. A lot of people hereabouts heated their houses with wood fires, and you needed small wood and branches to get the fire started. Unfortunately the woman died, and Gladys Grunge was called in for investigation.
“I thought she was a tree!”
“You thought she was a tree, so you drove straight into her? It wasn’t that you hated her guts and held her responsible for your collapsing marriage?”
“You can’t prove that! And my marriage was not collapsing!”
“It’s not that Carmen Gonzales and your husband were often seen together, especially at the dance saloon on Saturday nights? That your husband was frequently seen to walk out of the house and slam the door? That your husband bought a red scarf at the church social that was never seen on you but which Carmen Gonzales was wearing when she died?”
“Pfft! Those are little things!”
“It’s often the little things that turn into clues to uphold bigger things! And there are other things that are not so little that I might mention, such as the fact that your husband bought a diamond ring at the jeweller’s, which I don’t see on your finger?”
“He did not!”
“And that he has asked for divorce papers to serve on you.”
“He has not!”
“Mrs Grunge, we have the means of obtaining proof of these things, and when we do, you’d better be prepared to spend a while in jail awaiting your trial.”
The prosecution was able to call in numerous witnesses to make up the case against her. The town had already made up their minds, and there were many people ready to testify against her for one reason or another. There were scores of testimonies to her bad character, her aggressive attitudes, the fact that she went to every village council meeting and voted against every proposal to better things, but the prosecution wanted something more concrete, and they got it. The couple never closed the blinds on their windows so that was easy enough. One said she had seen them quarrelling many times. One of the problems was that she smoked like a chimney and he wanted her to stop, but she just blew the smoke into his face. Another said that on the day before the infamous “accident” someone had seen her slap his face, hard, and he didn’t strike back but just turned around and walked out of the house. When they asked those who had known Carmen Gonzales they all agreed she was often seen with Bruce Grunge, that she had been rather lonely and sad last year but that lately she had been very happy and joyful, that once someone had left a dead animal, already putrefying, on her doorstep with a note ‘stick to your own kind’ and another time someone had thrown a bottle through her window. There was little doubt as to the author this time, for there was a note inside “get your hands off my husband”.
But Gladys Grunge was never condemned by law, never even brought to trial, because one night she was strangled in her bed, most likely by her husband, in that he was never seen afterwards and has never been found since. The police at first made some efforts to track him down, though the townspeople mostly considered justice had been done and were not particularly helpful. They finally gave it up as a cold case and eventually the story became old news and will probably remain so, unless thirty years from now some zealous young detective decides to reopen the case. But even if they do manage to track Bruce down, he’ll probably be dead by then. I know this because I know where he is and I’ve been writing to him, under an assumed name of course; the poor guy has cancer of the lung. You might almost say she’s killed them both.
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The one thing that seemed to help when she felt this way was to get out into nature. Living in New York City meant there weren’t too many options, but there was a small park near her apartment, and so she headed there one morning. As she strolled along the path, a woman with a medium-sized dog on a leash walked toward her. The dog, an adorable, fluffy, caramel-colored thing with overgrown brows and big brown eyes, was straining toward Samantha, and as they got closer to each other, the dog excitedly jumped up to meet Sam, gazing at her with adoring eyes. Sam’s mood immediately lifted. It was so strange, like this random dog and she had connected in some mystical way. She smiled for the first time in days, and she bent down to pet the pup and accept his many kisses. Her heart soared, and her smile got wider.
The dog’s owner chastised her dog: “Sadie, get down! Down, Sadie,” then said apologetically to Samantha, “I’m so sorry. She does that to everyone. She just loves everybody.”
Samantha petted the fluffy dog one last time, then walked away. The blues descended again like a lightning bolt. Why did she have to say that, Sam wondered. What did she have to make me suddenly and completely feel not so special, after all?
It’s the little things like that, Samantha thought, that can make or break someone’s day. Or someone’s life.
And that’s when she had an epiphany: Barely thinking about what she was doing, she walked across the park, looked up on her phone the address of the local animal shelter, and headed the few blocks there, where she adopted her own fluffy little pooch, one that would offer unconditional love, get her out into nature for daily walks, and look at her with adoring eyes.
