The Fall

 

“It’s not the fall that kills you,” Tom Rafuse always used to say. “It’s the landing!” Millicent Dunbar – Millie – heard Tom tell the gag many, many times. He had an easygoing manner, a penchant for pocket protectors, and the meaty paunch and polyester wardrobe of a much-beloved high school shop teacher, which he was. Tom’s wife, Rose, was downright dim – always at his side, looking up adoringly. Millie watched their delightful backyard barbeques through her kitchen window. Tom’s monster hamburgers and stupid repetitive jokes; Rose’s exquisite potato salad and chilled cherry cheesecake. 

Of course, the laughter stopped when Rose was found dead at the bottom of the cellar stairs, her blood pooling under shelves of raspberry jelly and pickled beets. It was, indeed, the landing and not the fall that killed her. The coroner ruled the cause of death a broken neck. The manner of death she left undetermined.

A tall detective with an odd moustache came to question Tom daily for the first few weeks after Rose took her tumble. Millie took note of the comings and goings. She’d been briefly confused when she saw Candy Krauss bounce up the driveway within days of the accident. Candy chewed gum vigorously and wore a midriff baring blouse that barely contained her perky, 16-year-old breasts. Her cut off jeans rode so high that her left butt cheek was exposed as she stepped up on the back porch, spit her gum into Rose’s prized begonia and knocked on Tom’s door. He must be tutoring the poor girl, Millie decided, to take his mind off his troubles.

Millie redoubled her efforts to ease Tom’s pain, enveloping him with support and casseroles. She dead-headed the begonias, weeded the walkway and mulched Rose’s roses. When she offered to wash and fold his laundry, Tom happily handed her a key to the back door. With access to the house, she tackled his sink full of dirty dishes, ran a vacuum over the gold carpet in the front room and mopped the cellar floor with bleach. She reined in her instinct to straighten the entire house. She didn’t want to overwhelm poor Tom. Not when he was grieving so, and keeping up such a hectic tutoring schedule.

The day after Remembrance Day, the detective knocked on Millie’s door.

“Mrs. Dunbar,” he started. “Detective Al Himmelman. Just a few questions—”

“Miss,” Millicent corrected him. She took an immediate dislike to this smirking man who reeked of cheap aftershave and condescension. Good breeding, however, dictated she offer him a seat and a beverage. She led him to her front room and pointed to the pink patterned chesterfield. Its plastic cover crinkled with his weight. The odious and odoriferous detective seemed fixated on Tom and Rose’s love life. “How was their marriage?” he asked. “Any signs of trouble… fights? Other women?”

Millie was secretly pleased when Princess Poo rubbed up against Detective Himmelman’s leg and then jumped into his lap, spreading her white fur across his navy suit.

“Miss Dunbar, we have reason to believe that your neighbour, Mr. Rafuse, is having an affair,” he said.

Millie felt the heat rise to her face. She and Tom had exchanged a significant look that horrible day. She’d been tenderly folding his underwear since Thanksgiving. He’d told her just last week that he didn’t know what he’d do without her. How could this smelly man, and his prurient questions have guessed?

Mister Mittens, perhaps mistaking the facial hair for another cat, took a swipe at the detective’s face.

“An affair?” Millie echoed weakly.

He continued to smirk as brushed ineffectually at his pantsleg. “We know for a fact that Mr. Rafuse is in a relationship with Candy Krauss.”

“What?” Millie sputtered. Sir Scratchalot appeared on the back of the chesterfield and hissed at the detective.

“Miss Krauss has confirmed for us that she and Mr. Rafuse are romantically involved. I would like you, Miss Dunbar, to think back to this past summer and the behaviour of your neighbour. Is it possible—?”

“That can’t be! Candy is a child--”

“—possible the affair began before Mrs. Rafuse’s unfortunate fall?”

“No…no…no. No! N-n-n-n-n-n-no! No!”

Her precious Poo Poo, Mittens and Scratchy reacted to the shouted word in the same way they always did, which was not at all.

“Miss Dunbar, I don’t mean to upset you, but there is some evidence that Mrs. Rafuse was pushed down the stairs. If Mr. Rafuse was having an affair with Miss Krauss, that would be the motive we’ve been looking for.”

Millie ignored the dangling preposition. “Tom did not push Rose down the stairs, and I can prove it!”

In truth, Millie had no idea how to prove Tom’s innocence. She spoke and acted on instinct. In a fury, she rose, beckoning the detective to follow her through her immaculate kitchen, across the driveway, through the back door and into Tom’s kitchen. The cellar door was to the left of the refrigerator where, gathering snow in the freezer compartment, sat a lasagna, two tuna casseroles, a meatloaf and a Tupperware container of chicken ‘n’ dumplings.

Millie opened the cellar door and gestured to Detective Himmelman. It wasn’t the fall that killed him. 

This time there was no doubt about the manner of death. It was homicide. No question about the culprit, either. The detective's suit was covered in cat hair. 

*photo credit: Bewitched