Overlooked

Edna was reading her mail, a letter from the church around the corner thanking her for her large donation of baked goods for its after-school program, when there was a knock on the door. She replaced the letter in the envelope and answered it. It was the police, as she knew it would be.

"I'm here to follow up on the missing-persons report you made yesterday," the middle-aged detective standing at the door told her.

"Have you found him yet?" she asked anxiously.

"No, Ma'am, I just need to get a little more information from you." She invited him to take a seat, and for the next half hour he went over her report and asked a few more questions. She once again described how, two nights ago, after supper, her husband had decided to take a walk and she hadn't seen him since.

"Is anything missing from the house? Any valuables, or any of his clothing? Cash? Credit cards? Anything of sentimental value?" Edna answered that she hadn't noticed anything missing. The detective appeared to be wrapping things up. He seemed to be bored with his job, and a little burned out, and she wondered if he would be putting much effort into finding Harvey.

"One last question, Ma'am, is your husband taking medication, or any health problems that might make it more urgent to find him quickly?"

"He takes pills for his heart," Edna said slowly. "I can't remember what they're called, let me go check." She went into the kitchen and opened a cupboard door. "What? I don't understand. They aren't there." She looked at the man helplessly.

"Did your husband have his wallet on him when he left?"

Edna nodded. "He always carried it in his back pocket until he got ready for bed at night."

The detective shook his head. "I hate to have to tell you this, Ma'am, but it looks like your husband may have left voluntarily. We'll keep his case open, but if he doesn't want to be found, there might not be any clues to follow. I'm very sorry."

"Thank you, detective, I understand. Let me know if you find out anything at all." Edna sniffled and closed the door. She walked to the kitchen a poured a cup of tea, sitting down at the table to drink it.

She looked at her large chest freezer, thinking about how long it had taken her and Harvey to eat through the stockpile of meals it had recently held. "Watcha gonna do with it now?" he asked her when she had taken the last one out two days ago. "Hide a body? Heh, heh, heh." They loved to watch those crime shows like Law and Order and Crossing Jordan, and often made jokes about hiding bodies or getting away with stealing millions. That night, though, she hadn't cared too much for the way he eyed her form and then the freezer, as if mentally comparing its capacity to her size.

Yes, the money she had saved recently by not having to buy groceries, while not millions, would certainly come in handy while all this got sorted out. On TV, it only took Jordan Cavanaugh or that handsome Detective Goren about an hour to solve the crime. There was always something, some overlooked piece of evidence or a surprise witness. Someone always got caught.

Then again, in real life, sometimes they didn't.