A Midwinters Morn Mystery

I woke up at 6:00 a.m. Thursday morning and shuffled outside to get my paper. It was still dark outside, with the light above the garage door illuminating the way down the ramp and driveway. I noticed dark spots on the ramp, but of course I couldn’t see what they were. When I returned to the porch swing to have my morning cig, I noticed a bunch of those splotches over at the end of the first platform, the turn of the ramp. Still, I couldn’t tell what they were.

Fast forward about an hour. Outside for another cig, I sat on the swing and looked over to the end of that platform. The splotches were red, bright in the morning sun. Getting up, I walked over to look closer. Yes, blood. I followed the trail down the ramp; a drop here, one there, nothing like the splotches before. There was a gap of a few feet between the last drop and where they picked up again on the driveway – a trail going around the front of my car. I walked around the car, but the drops were only around the front, like someone walked in front of it and then on to the grass. I turned back towards the house and stopped. There on the top tier of the flower box, level with the porch sits a ceramic cat. Along its side were two larger blood traces. Nothing on the brick in front of it, nor on the brick along the lower tier. I studied the concrete that ran along the front (the part of the sidewalk that shows through. Nothing. That part of the ramp was bare too. It was if whatever it was leaped into the air and landed on the side of this cat and then bounced back out to the driveway.

To be continued …

I know, you love me. :)