"I took my tea this morning at around 6:15. I always add a splash of milk and a little drizzle of honey, but I skip the sugar because I like to have it with a pastry for breakfast and it makes the entire ensemble abhorrently sweet. Oh, damn this wind- Apologies for the foul language, Constable but it about carried my shawl out to sea, which has much less use for it than I do at the moment, I'm sure. Nothing worse than a soggy shawl... except soggy socks, perhaps. Though, I cant imagine a soggy hat would be a pleasant experience either-"
The Constable knew she was more than capable of keeping him there for the next few hours if given the chance. He was absolutely certain of this. Yet, as soon as they'd arrived at the location she'd found the body, he acted as if he hadn't the slighest idea what would happen if he looked her promptly in the eye and, with no constraints, requested she describe her morning up to the point of discovery 'in detail'. Old habits died hard.
"-and she says it's carved from real rosequartz they had shipped over from Ballstonia. Puh. Real, my left foot. You wouldn't believe how quickly she tried to change the subject when I inquired about the costs, because on what green earth would a village fisherman be able to afford a thing like that, and in the midst of the conflicts? It just didn't sit right with me, not for a second. You know what I suspect? I suspect it's not Ballstonian rosequartz at all, it's just polished pinkstone she got off one of the travelin' merchants that run through here from-"
The Constable's regret was palpable. In most any other situation, he would have been much more tolerable of her ranting, but the body lying face down at their feet was beginning to make him feel queasy. He never had much of a stomach for death and gore, ironically enough. Bancrug didn't suffer much from crime, and was plagued even less by random corpses to stumble across during a morning stroll. When he'd glanced over the body (from an appropriate distance) he'd found no open wounds. There were no pools of blood that eluded to any injuries to the front of her torso, neck, and head. No missing limbs or appendages. It was as if she had been deposited with the swell of the incoming tide, perfectly intact, onto the sandy shore like an old glass bottle. Sure, she was dead, but the lack of injury to the body given the hostility of the coastal landscape and its angry waters was a bit shocking.
The Constable closed his eyes to regain some of his composure, but found he couldn't escape the eeriness he felt from the sight of her. When he opened them again, he made an effort to look at anything else for the sake of his nerves. The sooner he was able to get this over with, the better.
"-festival for Allprince's Day, but you remember what happened last year. It was a nightmare getting blackberry pie filling out of the-"
"Apologies, Ms. Parsons, forgive me for interrupting, but actually, the most important piece of information I need to know is what time you happened to find the-"
"Of course! Of course," The older woman sputtered back in an interruption of her own. He could tell by the way she'd frowned and fidgeted with the wrapping of her shawl that he'd insulted her, something he was certain he'd suffer for later.
"I was getting there, Constable, I was getting there, but if you didn't want a detailed account of this mornings goings on, you shouldn't have asked for one."
"You're quite right."
"As I tend to be."
Ms. Parsons eyed him a moment before lifting her chin and continuing her account. "As I was saying, after breakfast, I bundled myself up and headed down the sandy path to the beach for my hour of contemplation. That's sixty minutes of complete silence, aside from the sounds of nature and all, that you're meant to spend contemplating- well, anything, I suppose. An hour of silence a day spent deep in thought is good for keeping your wits sharp. You know, Constable, with your profession you ought to-"
"I'll certainly give it a go at your recommendation, Ms. Parsons. Now what time did you find-"
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"Yes, yes, alright. I don't see what all the rush is about, it's not as if she's going anywhere. I begin my hour of contemplation directly after I arrive, at 6:45. That's when I found her, and she gave me such a fright I thought for a moment that I might end up right beside her. I imagined after a while my old son would amble his way out here to try and find me, he has a bad heart, they said it was 'enlarged' when he was born, bless him. Anyway, he would come on out and end up getting scared to death after almost trampling over the both of us all cold and bloated on the ground. Then, there would be three bodies piled up, waiting for the next poor soul to fright into an early grave." Ms. Parsons shivered and pulled her shawl tighter around herself as the wind blew sand against their ankles. "Gives me a chill, the thought of it."
The Constable frowned beneath his own bushy eyebrows and thick mustache at the ridiculousness of the hypothetical scene, but wisely choose to keep his thoughts to himself.
"Anyway," the older woman sighed, "as soon as I saw her, I ran to find you. I didnt waste a single second."
Her statement made him pause, and his frown deepened in a way that betrayed his curiosity. "You didn't check for a pulse? Or to see if she was breathing?"
"No," Ms. Parsons looked disturbed by the thought, "Absolutely not. She- Well, you see her... She looked, and still looks, quite dead, Constable."
A few moments of awkward silence passed between them, filled only by the cries of gulls and waves crashing in the distance. It wasn't until she had glanced expectantly down at the body and then back up at him a few times that the Constable remembered he was the one that was supposed to be doing the investigating. He sighed and adjusted his belt, then mumbled something about formalities as he took a knee in the sand next to poor drowned thing. As he reached out to brush away some strands of thick, black hair from her neck to check for the absence of a pulse, memories of his very first murder case flashed in his mind in an instance of deja vu. He had been kneeling down just as he was, over a body that had been very obviously bludgeoned to the point of near unrecognizability. Standing just behind him, and observing with a critical eye, was the officer who was tasked with his onboard training. "Is this entirely necessary?" He had asked, respectfully, of course. His superior only sighed. "The last thing we need is for another coroner to suffer a fit when the stiff they're about to work on suddenly sits up and asks for help finding the bathroom. Now go on and check." The Constable never got the chance to, though. He didn't know what the tipping point was. He assumed it was a combination of a lot of things, mostly psychological, that forced the contents of his stomach up his throat and out his mouth into a messy puddle near what was left of the victims face. Then, he'd promptly fainted.
The Constable's hesitation didn't go unnoticed by Ms. Parsons. "What's the matter? Have you seen something?" It was enough to snap him out of his unwanted daydream. The Constable shook his head, "Take a step back, if you would, just need a bit of space." He took a deep breath to steel himself and shoved the feelings of shame and embarrassment that clung to his memory aside, and then pressed his fingers against the dead woman's neck.
Her skin was cold.
"Do you feel anything?" She asked in earnest, still clutching onto her shawl. "Please, Ms. Parsons, I need to concentrate-" At that moment, the body twitched with a violent start, and a wet cough erupted from the mouth hidden beneath layers of hair. This caused both of them to cry out loudly in shock, and the Constable to lose his balance as he ripped his hand from her neck. He fell backward into damp sand and scrambled away, half panicked, as Ms. Parsons nearly dropped her shawl to clutch at her chest, "Oh good heavens, she's alive," she gasped. The ruddy coloring of her face had drained away, leaving her paler than a sheet of paper. "What's happenin' down there?" A shrill, childlike voice called down from behind them suddenly, which provoked another frightened shout from Ms. Parsons and made the Constable whip his head around in search for the source. "Who's calling? Who is that?" He shouted back while the older woman next to him tried her hardest to compose herself. "It's Jonah Skelter, obviously. Who else would it be? And who's that on the ground? Why is she laying like that? Is she dead?" Before the Constable could respond, Ms. Parsons turned suddenly, her shawl whipping around behind her with a flourish. "I-I'm fetching Amantha," she called out as her stout frame hurried away.