The Lost Crime
Jane Simpson was lost. She stared at the tree-lined street with rows of cookie-cutter houses and nothing looked familiar. Within minutes, street lights began to fade as the sun began to rise. Even in better lighting, this was still a strange place.
Jane’s right hand slid over the leather she was sitting on. She realized she was in a car…a white car with tan leather seats, but she didn’t know whose car she had evidentially stolen. Her breath came more rapidly as fear gripped her body. What had she done? She closed her eyes tightly as if sucking in her eyeballs would allow her to see her memories in her brain. With furrowed brows the thinking process began. What did she remember last?
There was a little boy with…curls…blond curls…. But who was he? Jane slowly opened one eye—nothing had changed and all she could remember was a blond curly-headed boy with no name. Oh, my God, she thought, did I steal a child too? She did a quick check of the back seat and was horrified to see a baby’s car seat securely in place behind the front passenger seat.
Jane sat motionless for several minutes as she contemplated the graveness of her situation. Suddenly a name popped into her head, Billy. She found herself repeating the name, “Billy.”
With some difficulty, Jane pulled her legs up from under the steering wheel and turned completely around to face the back of the car. With her body hanging over the top of the front seat, she held her breath. She was expecting to find Billy on the floor. She slowly exhaled as she sat back on her feet. The only proof that Billy had ever been in the car was a few goldfish crackers and a Lighting McQueen toy car. What happened to Billy? What did I do with the child?
Without hesitation, Jane turned back around. As she gripped the wood-grain steering wheel she realized she hadn’t stolen just any old clunker, this was a really expensive automobile. She reached down to the ignition, her hand frantically feeling for the keys—nothing! Jane quickly glanced down on the carpeting and back up to the passenger seat. Not only were there no keys, but she couldn’t find a purse or jacket or anything resembling a personal possession.
I’ve stolen a very expensive car, perhaps with a little boy named Billy in it…who…who is missing…and somehow, I lost the keys to this thing.
Jane was motionless with her thoughts. Why would I steal a child? Unless…Jane had an “ah-ha,” moment, “That’s it,” she exclaimed, “he was in the car when I stole it! But for the life of her she couldn’t come up with a viable explanation of what she had done with the boy.
Jane sat very still for several minutes…thinking. Something else was bothering her…something recent…very recent. At a snail’s pace, an image began to form in her mind. House slippers—blue house slippers! What could it mean? How did blue house slippers fit into my crime? Have I stolen a blond curly-headed Billy from his home who was still wearing his blue slippers, or was he in this car already when I stole it. Had his negligent mother left him strapped to his car seat while she ran into the drug store? Or Walmart? Probably Walmart, kids are hell in Walmart. Poor boy was probably still in pajamas and slippers—his mother was too lazy to dress him. I must have just picked a car at random for my getaway…my getaway from what?
Suddenly, her thoughts began to overwhelm her. Jane felt tired—confused—and scared. She knew that at any moment she would be arrested. Her trembling frail hands gripped the steering wheel once again as she stared directly ahead.
The gentle knocking on the driver’s side window startled her. She turned to look at the rather handsome gentleman standing by the car door. He wasn’t wearing a badge, or for that matter, a policeman’s uniform, and he seemed to be saying something to her. She shook her head, “I’ll go quietly, Officer.”
Billy opened the car door, “Mama,” he said as he gently helped her out of the car. “You know you can’t drive anymore.”
Jane sighed with relief, he doesn’t know.
Billy tenderly held his eighty-two year old mother by the hand. “Wait, Mama,” he said as he bent down by the car. “You dropped your slipper.”
The End |
