Page 11 of Take Your Breath Away

Charles: Yeah. A little Volkswagen. A Golf.

Detective Hardy: And the husband, he wasn’t around, you said.

Charles: Yeah. Whether he was there between the time I left the day before and when I came back the next morning, that I couldn’t tell you.

Detective Hardy: Okay, go on.

Charles: I thought maybe she was in the bathroom or went for a walk or was out back. So I knocked again, and waited, then walked down the side of the house and into the backyard, but she wasn’t there, either.

Detective Hardy: And that’s when you left?

Charles: No, no. I went up to the door there. You go in that way and you’re in the kitchen, which is at the back. I called in, instead of knocking. Said, “Hey, Ms. Mason, you there?” And I didn’t hear nothin’ back. That’s when I noticed the door wasn’t quite latched.

Detective Hardy: The door was open?

Charles: Not open, just like when you let a door swing shut on its own, and it needs that little push to lock it into place. It hadn’t had that push. Am I going to get in trouble here?

Detective Hardy: Why would you be in trouble?

Charles: Well, did I, like, break-and-enter or something?

Detective Hardy: Don’t worry about that. Go on.

Charles: The thing was, I wanted to check what happened with the flour.

Detective Hardy: Flower? You saying you brought Brie Mason some flowers the day before? Or were these flowers from her husband?

Charles: Not a flower, flower. But flour, like you bake with.

Detective Hardy: I’m not following.

Charles: Okay, so, if you want to know if you’ve got mice scurrying around in the night, you sprinkle some flour on the floor so you can see their footprints.

Detective Hardy: You did that?

Charles: No, but I told her she should do that before she went to bed. Sounded to me like she was going to do it. I wanted to take a peek and see if there were any tracks. If there were, then we could get a little more aggressive, dealing with the infestation.

Detective Hardy: Where was she to sprinkle the flour?

Charles: On the floor in front of the sink. I thought I’d seen some turds—you know, mouse droppings—

Detective Hardy: I get it.

Charles: —under the sink area. So I thought, if they were running around, that was a good place to spread some flour.

Detective Hardy: And you had the impression she was definitely going to do that? Sprinkle the flour?

Charles: Pretty much.

Detective Hardy: We didn’t notice any flour on the floor when we went through the house.

Charles: Huh. Well, maybe she didn’t do it, or …

Detective Hardy: Or what?

Charles: Or she saw the tracks in the morning, and then vacuumed it up.

Detective Hardy: Her, or somebody else.