Detective Plots and the case of the Missing Wife

Image by Kevin Rosseel,
as found on MorgueFiles

This is my participation in the
1000words meme,
prompt #19

combined with

3WW #CIX
[corpse damage knife]

= = = =

Pulling up at the Peter residence, Detective Plots eyed the two huge pumpkins on the front steps. "Strange," he thought to himself, "don't people usually carve faces into those things if they are going to display them like that?" He glanced up and down the street at the other houses, as if to confirm the validity of his question. White picket fences obscured his view. Rather than dismiss the thought, Plots fished the battered spiral notebook from his back pocket and clutched his well-chewed Bic pen in nail-bitten fingers as he scrawled "Check other houses on victim's street for pumpkins displayed - carved or not?" in untidy letters across a new page.

He eyed the words warily. Another hunch. Most of the time his hunches didn't lead anywhere. Most of the time. The few times they had, however, had led to the solving of particularly heinous crimes with loads of publicity that might have otherwise gone unresolved. The Chief got the props, Plots got the pat on the back, and the stationery administrator no longer begrudged him his ten spiral notebooks a month. Everyone was happy.

Well, everyone except Mr Peter, apparently. Plots turned his mind back to the case at hand. Walking up to the house, the aroma of pumpkin was unmistakable. Strange. Dispatch had said Mrs Peter was the missing person, and her husband didn't seem like one to mess around in the kitchen. What's with the baking, then?

"Detective, good to see you," said young Officer Thorpe who opened the door at Plots' approach. He was polishing off a slice of pumpkin pie, cleaning some crumbs off the corner of his mouth with a quick lick of his tongue. "Eating on the job, kid?" Plots asked wryly, knowing that in a small town like this, refusing a proffered treat would be considered downright rude, nevermind what the Code of Conduct said. Thorpe had the decency to blush, and stammered that Mr Peter was in the kitchen if Detective Plots would be so kind as to follow him.

Plots brushed past the youngster and walked briskly into the kitchen, stopping at the sight that greeted him: Mr Peter with tears streaking his flour-plastered face savagely kneading a piece of dough. He was muttering a phrase over and over again, sometimes in an angry manner, sometimes in obvious sadness. Plots strained his ears, and wondered about what he heard.

A freshly baked pumpkin pie with a slice missing was sitting on the windowsill. A knife lay beside it, crusted with pumpkin gooeyness.

"How long has he been like this?"

"Mrs Spratt came over at 10:15 am to see why Mrs Peter hadn't attended their daily knitting meeting, and found him slumped over in the kitchen. She called from the phone here, and I got here about 10 minutes later. I shooed her out, and shook Mr Peter a little; didn't get much out of him, radioed for you. Then he kinda woke up and turned all sweet, and insisted I take a piece of that freshly-baked pie. As soon as I took a bite he went back to pounding that dough. Then you got here. That's about it."

Plots looked at his watch. 10:47am. His stomach grumbled. Damn did that pie smell good.

"Did you look around for Mrs Peter?"

"Ummm, no sir. Figured it might be better to sit with him, y'know? He doesn't look too stable right now. I can do that now, if you want."

"No, no, no. You keep an eye on him. I'll take a look around."

Plots made a quick circuit of the house, inside and out, upstairs and down. No sign of the missus. Her clothes seemed to be all there, no sign of any missing suitcase or of too many clothes-less hangers or empty underwear drawers. Nothing to indicate that Mrs Peter was missing. No damage indicating any domestic disturbance had occurred.

Nothing to go on, except Mr Peter's mutterings. What did he mean by "Couldn't keep her"? Plots doodled distractedly in the notebook as he made his way back to the kitchen. Mr Peter was no longer assaulting the dough. Instead, he was stuffing his mouth with pumpkin pieces. It was all he ever ate, if Plots remembered the rumours about the Peters when they first moved in two months ago. Wonder what he ate when pumpkins weren't in season? Wait a minute. Eat?

Plots cleared his throat nervously. "Uh, Officer Thorpe?" he asked.

Mr Peter's head swung towards the voice; now-insane eyes watched Plots, no malice, no fear, just a vacant yet weighty gaze.

"Sir?"

"That ~is~ a plain old pumpkin pie that you ate, right?"

"Yessir, and a darned good one too, sir," was the reply, followed by a gasp of horror as young Officer Thorpe caught on to Plots' implication. "Definitely pumpkin and nothing else, sir, nossir, nossir, nossir!"

"You're sure?"

"Yessir!" he replied desperately.

"Well that's good, I'd hate to think you ate some evidence," chortled Plots, finding some unholy glee at Thorpe's discomfort.

Mr Peter seemed enjoy it too. He started laughing, an eerie wheezing huffing that seemed more cough than laugh. "I kept her very well!" he crowed suddenly, capering around the kitchen flapping his arms about, stirring up a cloud of flour and nutmeg, coming to a halt only when he thumped his hip into the table, crumpling into a heap on the floor.

The handcuffs were quickly put into use.

It turned out to be yet another high profile case, and the media swarmed all around the house as Detective Plots methodically went through the scene, trying to make sense of it all. In the end, it was his hunch about the displayed pumpkins that broke the case. Those of Mr Peter's steps had in fact been carved out, leaving just a pumpkin shell. That's where they found the well-kept corpse.

Once again, the Chief got the kudos, and Plots the pat on the back.

And Mr Peter got his own rhyme.

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her.
Put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well.