Month: October 2020

This is a bit longer than usual, and a bit more serious because the topic is.  I believe deeply in democracy, even when I see people on street corners holding signs with slogans for positions I flatly reject or that raise my blood pressure.

Continue reading “Why I’m an Independent Voter”

OK.  I’ll admit it.  I’m now at that in-between age where nobody tells me “how good I look” (which I’m sure they will when I’m 85), but where getting out of a chair is an effort and keeping shoelaces tied requires deep breaths and carries an element of chance. Napping is essential because, heaven knows I’m not going to sleep solidly for eight hours any more.  We’re at that stage where “spry” replaces “vigorous” or “athletic” in descriptions of us. I called my brother last week to wish him a happy birthday.  (He’s much older than I – well, 14 months anyway.) He was on his second nap of the day – a pre-dinner nap that will carry him through to bedtime.  I’m thankfully not there yet, although it’s coming. 

Continue reading “Reminders of Aging”

For those readers that have not met our dear friend, Lady Peacock, well, you’ve missed a treat.  A little something about her for the uninitiated.  As we meander through life, one meets characters that loom large, simply begging that their stories be told.  Sometimes, these people are famous, having achieved a degree of notoriety for an event, deed, or made contributions to society and culture.  In the case of Lady Peacock, as she’s known to her friends, it’s her manner that provides endless hours of entertainment. 

Continue reading “In Quarantine with Lady Peacock”

If you’ve already been done in, don’t bother reading further into this.  However, if you manage to go through life generally pissing off almost everyone you meet, if you’re known as the village curmudgeon, if you’re the keeper of secrets, if you have a spouse or lover that tends toward maniacal jealousy, or if you have lots of money and a gaggle of needy heirs, here might be some helpful hints in protecting yourself from becoming a potential victim. 

The information here has been assembled from years, way too many, in fact, of watching television shows with a murder theme and reading lots of murder mysteries.  My faithful readers know that Herself and I are frequent viewers of Law and Order (mostly Herself), although we’ve worked our way through twenty-odd seasons of Midsommer Murders, as well as many episodes of Death In Paradise, Rosemary and Thyme, Father Brown, and Poirot.  There are some common themes that literally jump out at you in these, so I’m bringing you this information as a public service, although not in any official capacity but as close to a highly skilled sleuth as you’ll find.  We’ve offered our training and expertise to local law enforcement, which has consistently declined any outreach.  Their loss, I’m afraid.

Tip #1 – Dark Roads. 

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen people foolishly venturing out for an evening stroll, somewhere between 10 and midnight (according to the medical examiner) in a small, picturesque village where a string of murders has recently occurred.  What are they thinking?  “Oh, yes.  We all heard about Mildred’s death, but I needed some fresh air before bed.”  Or, “No need to walk me home.  I feel perfectly safe.  What’s that lump under the tree over there by the brook?”  Don’t think that riding a bicycle at night is safer than walking – it’s not.  It only brings you to your doom a little faster.  The only person that seems to get around safely on a bike is Father Brown.  Similarly, if you’re driving on a dark, secluded road at night and headlights come up behind you quickly and the driver nudges your rear bumper, by all means hit the accelerator.  Don’t just tighten your grip on the steering wheel and continue on at 35 mph. This is a common mistake, and observing the speed limit is not a good strategy under the circumstances.  And a final suggestion, and I’ve sadly seen this too many times, if you’re on foot and a car is chasing you, don’t keep running down the middle of the road.  Run into the woods, get behind a tree, anywhere but the middle of the road.  

Tip #2 – Dark Alleys

This is typically the city version of the dark country road, where victims have just emerged from the back door of a bar.  Why they choose to go out that way, or step out to this natural crime scene for a quick smoke, I’ll never know. A trash can rattles or an old board cracks, and the victim calls out, “Is anybody there?”  Seldom, if ever, does the perpetrator call back, “It’s me – Pete.  All good here.”  If you’re standing on the sidewalk staring into a dark alley and you hear that same noise, for heaven sake activate that little voice in your brain that says, “run away as fast as you can.”  Investigating cannot end well.  

Tip #3 – In the Bedroom

You may not have noticed this, but I as a trained specialist have observed that a healthy percentage, and I’d estimate at least half, of all homicides happen in the bedroom.  It’s good and bad for investigators, in that the bedding very often will be a great collector of evidentiary bodily fluids, unlike the bricks of a dark alley. However, they still have a body or bodies on their hands. The message here is, lock the damned doors.  If you’re meeting a lover and the husband is liable to come home early, you’ve bought a few minutes to get him out the window or into the closet.  If you’re elderly, with your idle, worthless nephew hanging around for the inheritance and waiting for you to skip your medications just isn’t working for him, you can possibly avoid that ugly situation of a pillow over your face.  Keep the door key on a cord around your neck, so he can’t do the old “push it through onto a newspaper and slip it under the door” trick.  

Tip #4 – Poisons

They’re almost always in a drink.  Putting rat poison in the stuffed mushrooms is very 19^th Century.  No, no.  It’ll be in the wine, the ice tea, or the bourbon that you’re about to sip.  The flavor will disguise the smell, and if you notice that your drink has just a hint of almond, it’s probably strychnine.  (By the way, when I googled the spelling, the first entries that popped up were “Strychnine at Amazon.com”, followed by “Great Deals on Strychnine at eBay”.  Apparently, one doesn’t need a chemist’s license or special credentials to get this.)  Word to the wise, if you’re at a dinner party, make sure you drink something from the same bottle as the host or hostess, unless you suspect they’re also trying to “do in” each other.  If you know somebody that might have a grudge against you and they garden, with several beds of foxglove, don’t drink that bottle of homemade elderberry wine they gave you.

Tip #5 – Be Aware of Your Surroundings

If you think you might be a potential victim, be constantly on the alert to your surroundings, particularly as in tips 1 and 2.  Someone sneaking up behind you with a raised baseball bat or ax could be a sign of danger. Don’t stand there with your mouth open, run away.  Move quickly and learn to duck. This can be practiced in front of a mirror, if you think you might need to deploy evasive action.  Cemeteries at night aren’t necessarily places of rest unless a stone marks your presence.  That gloved hand pulling back a tree branch to get a better look at you is never good.  I’ve often said that if I could see their faces, I could really help out the detectives working the case. Or the person that shows up at your front door late at night is more than likely not there to borrow a cup of sugar.  The greeting, “Oh, it’s you.  Come in.”  almost always screams “homicide about to happen.”  The dagger emerges from the behind the back, the hammer snatched from the tool shed makes its appearance, or the shovel with which to bury you makes its appearance.  You might also keep walking sticks and fireplace utensils well out of sight.

In fairness, I have taken the liberty to include a couple of suggestions for the one on the other side of the sword blade in the interests of equal time.  When you’ve already got a dead body on your hands, don’t throw it into the river on the assumption that authorities will consider it an accidental drowning.  They’ll know if there’s no water in the lungs. Of course, gunshot wounds or strangulation marks around the neck will give the game away.  Similarly, don’t take the body out to sea and throw it overboard.  The corpse almost always washes up on the beach.  Don’t put the body in the trunk of your car – blood seeps through and gets all over the carpeting.  Investigators typically call that “evidence”. It’s best not to drag the body anywhere – the drag marks are traceable and reveal the spot of the unfortunate incident.  Better to wrap and carry.  And if you’re planning something lethal, I would strongly, strongly recommend that you not buy your strychnine on eBay.

In my continuing quest to be insightful and informative, I hope that this has some informative value on both sides.  Warmest regards, as always.