The Murder

Pepper lived at the very end of a long lane. Her little five-acre plot included, at the back, a small hill covered with maples and evergreens. Her cozy house, a faded brick cottage with forest-green shutters and doors, nestled neatly near the foot of the slope. The front of her home faced the hill, so that when she sat on her expansive front porch in her old wooden rocker, drinking wild-gathered herbal tea, she gazed happily upon forest and fern, moss and maple. Most of the rest of the acreage was dedicated to a huge garden filled with vegetables and herbs. An orchard lined the lane, blocking most of her property from street view.

She preferred her ‘quiet neighbors’, as she called them, the ones whose roots were deeply planted. “Trees, flowers, herbs — give me flora over fauna (including people) any day,” she thought. 

Which is why she was so annoyed when a murder landed in her front yard. A murder of crows, that is. 

She was making her morning tea when she saw a shadow swoop past her kitchen window. Glancing out, she saw crows. Lots of crows. Crows that were no doubt already casting their beady little eyes toward her carefully tended garden. Shoving her feet into ratty slippers, she ran out the door, broom in hand, shouting, “Shoo! Shoo!” She waved her broom at them. “You’re not welcome here! Shoo!”

The crows, huddled in her yard like mourners at a funeral, responded with stares. One hopped crossly toward her with what looked like a twig in its mouth. Pepper swore that it raised one of its non-existent eyebrows at her. It tipped its head. “Caw!” it scolded through clenched beak. 

“Son of a snapdragon!” swore Pepper. “I haven’t even had my first cup of tea. I don’t want to deal with you right now.” She clomped back up her porch steps, deposited the well-worn broom into a corner that also contained a rake, a hoe, and an assortment of muddy boots, and marched into the house. 

“As long as they stay in the front yard, there’s no harm,” she muttered. “They’ll move on soon enough.”

She drank her tea without really tasting it, her mind still on the crows. Then she shook her head and sighed. It was time to get on with her day, crows or no crows – as long as they stayed out of her garden. 

“Never mind them. I’m going to make a nice loaf of bread,” she said to herself. She got out the flour, the salt, the yeast and the water. Once the yeast was leavened, she mixed the ingredients and kneaded until the loaf was smooth. She placed it in a bowl to rise, covering it with a folded cotton sheet that she’d inherited from her grandmother. That sheet had stood guard over hundreds, if not thousands, of loaves in its lifetime, and Pepper believed that it was responsible for her doughy success.

By the time she’d cleaned the kitchen and popped the loaf into the oven, Pepper had completely forgotten about the morning’s disturbance. Humming to herself, she stepped out onto the porch to shake the flour detritus off the sheet and into the yard beyond. 

In said yard stood the crows, exactly where she had left them. “Are you still here?” she said irritably. “Shoo!” 

They did not, in fact, shoo. She waved the sheet half-heartedly at them, and then returned to her kitchen. Carefully folding the sheet and placing it back in the cupboard, she looked around her kitchen. Pepper loved her kitchen. Open shelves held the requisite plateware, as well as rows of herb canisters. Under the shelves were bamboo poles, hung with drying herbs from her garden and the hillside. Her pantry held canned and dried produce, as well as a generous assortment of grains. On her wooden countertops rested bowls of berries, apples, and nuts. 

Unfortunately, her domestic bliss was being disturbed by the unwanted guests outside.

She glanced out the window at the crows. They glanced back at her. Sighing, she started searching. She finally found her cell phone in an apron pocket. The battery was dead, of course. She searched even longer before she found the charging cord, which had been shoved into the back corner of a dresser drawer. 

Plugging the detested device in, she returned to her kitchen and brewed a mug of courage tea, a blend of her own devising. She sipped slowly. By the time she finished, her cell phone had charged to 37%. “That’s plenty,” she said. Giving a sigh (Pepper was prone to sighs), she punched in a number.

“Good tidings!” said an annoyingly cheerful voice on the other end. “Pepper? I haven’t heard from you in a cow’s age! What’s up, girlfriend?”

“‘A cow’s age?’ Seriously? Fawn, you’re something else.”

“What’s that you say? Oh, I’m doing quite well, thank you for asking. My birthday party? The one you missed? It was quite lovely.” The voice became pointed. “You. Really. Should. Have. Been. There.”

“I sent a gift,” Pepper said defensively.

“And a comely gift it was,” retorted Fawn.

“Comely? Cow’s age? Fawn, have you been dipping into some Obsolete Phrase Book or something?” replied Pepper.

“Did you call just to disparage my phraseology and rub in your absence from my party, or did you have another purpose?” said Fawn in a slightly hurt tone.

“I’m sorry I missed your party – but you know how I am about gatherings of … people. And I wasn’t trying to disparage you. Those are lovely utterances, truly they are.” Pepper knew that Fawn was very sensitive about her looks – and apparently about her speech, as well. “You are as fabulous in speech as you are in looks.”

“Well, thank you,” said Fawn, slightly mollified. “And in fact, I was researching obsolete phrases. There’s a website that collects them. I find them ambrosial.”

Pepper was pretty sure that she didn’t mean they were edible, but she wasn’t going to risk offending Fawn by asking. Fawn was a delicate flower packaged in a 6’2” frame. She was built like a linebacker, and in fact, she had been a linebacker in high school. But that was long ago, and now she was a bird whisperer with a penchant for pink. 

“To each their own,” thought Pepper. She looked down at her grey cargo pants and black t-shirt. “It’s not fancy, but it’s practical for the garden.” And the garden is where she liked to be. Which reminded her – 

“Crows,” she said.

“Pardon?” replied Fawn.

“Crows,” Pepper said again, firmly. “There’s a murder of them in my yard. They won’t leave. They’re giving me attitude.”

“Crows will do that,” replied Fawn.

“But I want them gone. I need you to come do your magic hoo-doo whisper thing, and get them out of here. Please?”

“I don’t know what you think I can do about a bunch of crows. Those avians do what they bloody well please. They listen to no one, especially not humans.”

“But – “

“But I’ll come anyway. I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you,” replied Pepper. “I truly appreciate it. When can I expect you?”

“Oh, I should be there in an hour or two.”

“Wonderful. Thank you so much.”

Pepper pocketed her phone, and glanced up at the old-fashioned clock hanging on her kitchen wall. Eleven o’clock. (This particular clock told much more than the time, bossy timepiece that it was, and right now it was insisting that her fledgling rows of corn needed more mulch if she wanted a good harvest later this fall.) She had hours before she needed to put on a social face, thank the gods. Fawn was many things, but prompt was not one of them. In Fawn’s world, ‘one or two hours’ meant she was unlikely to arrive before dinner. “I still have acorn squash in the root cellar,” she thought. Halved, baked, and filled with rice, lentils, and goat cheese, it would satisfy even Fawn’s tremendous appetite. “I think I’ll bake another loaf of bread, too,” she said. The clock gave an impatient tick. “Oh, don’t nag,” said Pepper.  “I’ll still have plenty of time to mulch the corn.”

Pepper glanced out the window at the crows, which were all standing still as tombstones. Would they get ideas if she went into her garden? She noticed that they’d moved closer to her house. One of them was even perched on her porch.

“What is that crow doing?” she wondered.

She went to the front door and as she opened it, the bird flew off to rejoin its companions. On her welcome mat was a tiny scroll, wrapped in a bit of twine. Pepper slid the twine off and unrolled the scroll. There was only one word on it. 

“Help.”