Outwitting a Killer by Lynne Curry
How long before someone else figured out who killed my sister?
He’d sat beside me during the interview, his hand resting heavy on my shoulder, a shepherd guiding his sheep. His face pious whenever the detective’s gaze turned to him; his eyes drilling into mine when they briefly exited the room.
I didn’t flinch. Just counted the seconds until I could breathe again.
Now, only a handful of mourners lingered around the grave. Damp earth clung to the edges of the open hole like it didn’t want to let her go. The sky pressed low, clouds bruised and trembling.
One of them—the detective— hung back. Her gaze skimmed the mourners, hungry for a tell. She missed the one staring her in the face: the man in the collar. My father. My sister’s killer.
I stepped forward, pulse hammering. “May I say a poem for my sister? One of hers that she sang to me at night?”
He hesitated, then nodded. He couldn’t refuse, not with my grandfather nodding beside me, his hand clutching his Bible.
My one shot.
In my hands, I held a notebook. He’d burned her notebook of songs, but last night I’d recreated what I remembered from the lyrics she sang to me at night. “Silence swallowed Elisa. But I still hear her. Here’s something she wrote. In the hush before a storm, when the trees turn blue. Do they know something secret? Something true?”
The detective glanced my way.
Do we chase shadows for the truth, when sunlight hides the clue?
A whisper of wind caught my skirt. My voice held steady.
“My sister sang the blues, even when forbidden.”
The air snapped. His anger flared—barely—but I caught it. The twitch in his temple. His eyes locked on mine. His jaw tightened. A silent command: Stop.
The detective caught it too. Her gaze slid from his face to mine, understanding.
I didn’t look away.
“She sang this line.” My voice rang out. Truth burns bold beneath the mask. Truth lies buried by a blue-eyed reaper.
His eyes—ice blue—bored into me.
I closed the notebook and stepped back.
The detective didn’t look away.
Later, at home, I dropped the needle on the old John Lee Hooker vinyl Elisa played. The guitar moaned, slow and low. Hooker’s voice crawled out like smoke, thick with secrets. The kind you don’t say. The kind you play.
Last night, I let the guitar speak while I wrote the lyrics that gave voice to what Elisa felt. Hooker’s riffs worked under my skin, scratching out the silence until it bled the truth. Until I knew what to do.
Silence swallowed my sister—and once swallowed me.
Until I spoke for her.
Alaska/Washington author Lynne Curry is a 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee, and has published seven short stories, three poems, and six books, including Navigating Conflict: Tools for Difficult Conversations (https://amzn.to/3rCKoWj. Managing for Accountability and Beating the Workplace Bully: A Tactical Guide to Taking Charge – (https://amzn.to/3msclOW) Solutions 911/41, (https://amzn.to/3ueSeXX) and Managing for Accountability: A Business Leader’s Toolbox (https://bit.ly/3T3vww8).
She founded “Real-life Writing,” https://bit.ly/45lNbVo and publishes a monthly “Writing from the Cabin” blog, – lynnecurryauthor.com/writing-from-the-cabin/. https://bit.ly/3tazJpW https://bit.ly/3tazJpW
Outwitting a Killer was first published in Suddenly, And Without Warning and on the lynnecurryauthor.com website.
Photo by Andrew Neel on pexels
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