Crime does not dog my footsteps, as one garrulous friend assured me. It was she who applied the first loathsome sobriquet. Neither am I one of those sleuths for whom corpses crop up conveniently. Such individuals should, in the interests of public safety, be marooned on a desert island. Their presence in the community is an incentive to murder. No claim is being made to the ranks of amateur detection. I am merely a police officer’s wife who has certain reasons in recording impressions of a homicide case. One is to defend myself against further attacks by friends. The affair was bound to happen some time, and therefore it was just a coincidence that it synchronized with our arrival in Middleburn. Crime waits for no man, least of all for the super-sleuth. It is strange to remember that it happened at that particular time of the year. One associates murder with a winter’s wind whining in the trees, or with the electrically charged atmosphere that precedes a summer storm; indeed, our treacherous spring days would have been a more suitable setting.
