Why Did He
Really Cross The Road?
by A'keith
Walters
The three
feathers, chick yellow in color, lay embedded in
the gravel beside the county road. A red cap
rested on the pavement several feet away with
several similar feathers attached. Police tape
was strung in a makeshift pen to cordon the area
fifty feet in both directions of the two lanes.
Being just before dawn, there was no traffic. No
one was crowing about the early hour, either.
In the center
were two medical examiners hovering over the
bantam figure of a male in henna speckled tweeds,
his legs outstretched and arms folded at odd
angles like a stiff rubber chicken. Both
examiners were pecking out a visual survey of the
pavement before taking a diligent look at the
victim.
Ten feet to
the side, within sight of the accident, stood a
man, his beard oscillating from rooster red to
dark blue in the glare of the patrol cars’
strobes. His hand concealed a small digital
recorder. Being a techno cluck, he would have
preferred a notepad. After thirty years as a
reporter on the police beat, his editor insisted
he use the gadget.
He hacked to
clear his throat, almost crowing, into a
handkerchief which he promptly tucked in the side
pocket of his brown jacket. He pulled the knot of
his red tie askew, letting it dangle from his
unbuttoned collar under his chin sags. As he
puffed out his chest, he placed the recorder near
his lips to speak when an officer tapped on his
shoulder.
“Mr.
Henry Penny, you got here quick enough. Listening
in on our dispatcher?”
The older man,
his cropped beard strutted out stiff, frowned at
the interruption and lowered his recorder to his
side.
“Of
course. Same as I’ve always done, long
before you were even a baby fledgling out of
short pants, Chief Roster.”
The police
officer, a middle-aged man, still with a youthful
rugged appearance, gave a soft chuckle at the
humorous attempt at a put down.
“So, tell
me, Roster, what do you think happened? Kind of a
deserted spot out here. A two lane county road.
Middle of the night. Looks to me like a pretty
hard hit and run.”
Roster stared
at the medical examiners who appeared to be
finishing up their task. “Yep, kind of
deserted. A perfect spot.”
“What do
you mean?” The reporter turned on his
recorder and raised it to his chest. The pick up
was phenomenal regardless of its size.
“His name,
by his ID, is Eclore Poulet. And it would seem
his death may have been by his own hand.”
“Suicide?
How do you figure that?”
Roster held up
a slip of crumpled paper. “We can not be
sure but he left us a note.”
“What
does it say? For the record, of course.”
“Hard to
tell. His hand writing is such chicken scratch.”
“Do you
mean to say…”
Roster looked
hard at the old reporter then back to where the
corpse was being loaded onto a stretcher. The
examiners looked as if they were ready to fly the
coop. “Yes. I am afraid we may never know
why this Poulet crossed the road.”
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