The Demise
I recall it as if it were yesterday.
We sat in armchairs in the parlor. Mr. Hart, then I, then Tony, then Molly. The sofa to our left, the unlit fire to our right. Two rivermen stood before us, caps in hand. A police constable stood by the door, hat in hand, not looking at us but at the men.
They’d been out dredging the South River, you see, like they’d been doing for the past year. And this morning they found a girl in the river. Face up in the river, dressed in red and green. A red and green dress, quite pretty, her auburn hair streaming out around her. Roses and daisies and holly lay floating round her, and she wore a noose for her necklace, the end broken off some three feet from her body, like it’d snapped.
It was then the constable spoke. “Looks like suicide to me. We
