by T. W. Fuller

Created on: June 08, 2009

Excerpt from The Emerson County Murder Mystery, working title

(Note: if quotation marks don't appear it is Helium, not the author)

I've tried numerous times to pick the lock, Tina said, staring down at the golden object. She loosened her grip on it, and exposed a tiny hole at its base. I thought about taking it to a locksmith, once, but a nagging suspicion always prevented me from going through with it.

Nagging suspicion? Davidson questioned.

Those men that came to visit me, inquiring about my family, and asking about any small heirlooms that might have been passed down to mea week after I showed them this antique bureau, and told them I had taken it to someone I knew who fixes and restores old furniture, I read in the paper he had been murdered. I always knew I had been responsible. John Collinswood was a good man, someone I had known all my life, and he was murdered because of me. I've had to live with that for four years.

I'm sorry. But why didn't you ever go to the police?

You're a detective, you know how the police are. They would have asked a lot of unpleasant questions, and I was fearful they would have gotten a search warrant for my home. Besides, ever since that day, I've felt as though somebody has been watching me. Not so much now, but then, definitely. Well, I didn't want to be murdered too. There's already been too much of that in my family. Maybe I was being watched, for a time, and they gave up, thinking it wasn't worth their time any longer. So I put this piece away, resigned I should never know what it is, or what, if anything, is contained within it.

Detective Davidson handed the key to Tina. Try picking it with this.

This is the key grandfather swallowed?

It's the key the coroner found on his skeletal remains, lodged near his throat.

It must open something, then. Something important. Without the dramatics, Tina inserted the key into the tiny hole. Well, at least it fits, she said, turning it as far as she could. A muffled click was heard as the piece sprung open, catching Tina off guard so that she nearly dropped it on the floor. She tightened her grip, and while the piece remained secure in her hand, both Tina and Davidson observed something fall out onto the glass table, just missing being submerged in a half cup of hot coffee.

Davidson stared at it for a moment. It's paper. Seems to have been well preserved. He pick it up and began unfolding it. Oh, perhaps you should be the one, he said, staring at Tina. After-all-,

No,

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