Red Snowflake

Blood splatters dressed as bloody red snowflakes had invaded her dreams since early childhood. They appeared on her windows and walls no matter what the season. The dreams faded for a few years but came back strong around the time her Dad died when she was a teenager.

Now, years later, she opened the front gate after a brisk morning walk. As she started up the front steps, her eyes caught movement in the corner of her closest garden. The wind blew the cover of a little black book open to blood stained pages. The book semi-floated in a tiny puddle of water and fall leaves. The movement of the cover opening and the brillance of the red caught her eyes but what took her breath away was the pattern of a bright red snowflake.

Blood splatters formed in the pattern of a delicate bright red snowflake, partially blotted out a phone number written in blue ink. How did this book get into her garden? Should she pick up the soggy book? What would she do with it if she did? Was someone looking for this? Could this be evidence in a crime? Maybe she’d been reading way too much Sherlock Holmes and James Patterson lately! Holy crap!

Elizabeth gingerly picked up the dripping book and brought it inside. She fanned it out and stood it upright in her sink to let the water run out and help the book dry. Overall the little black book looked to be in pretty decent shape. She grabbed a wine glass and poured some chilled peach moscato even though it was 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning. She figured a bloody book called for wine.

Elizabeth was a trauma nurse at Bartlett Hospital in Juneau, Alaska. She was used to seeing blood. But there was something unsettling about seeing it inside the pages of a book and deeply unsettling seeing it as a red snowflake covering a phone number.

She decided her literary hero Sherlock Holmes would figure out who the phone number belonged to. So that would be the prudent course of action for her to take to start. Four of the ten digits were missing. Six months ago she had come into a $20,000 inheritance due to the unexpected death of her only sibling, her brother, Timothy, so she had been able to cut back a bit on her overtime work hours. She now had some extra time to figure out the mystery. Putting herself in Sherlock’s mindset, she began to look for reasons why this book found its way to her.

There were a number of random pages torn from the book, she discovered. Most pages were filled with business names and phone numbers, dates and notes from meetings. There were doodles everywhere, the most common doodle being a horse head. The horse head doodle bothered her for some reason that she couldn’t quite figure out. There was a section with women’s names and numbers with astericks following their names. She was surprised to see women she knew on the list, both married and unmarried. The stars ranged from one to five.

The number she was investigating was scribbled hurriedly it seemed across the middle of a right side page. It was the only notation written on the page. After several frustrating weeks she’d had no luck figuring out the phone number or any other clue why it came to her. She contemplated just turning the book over to the Juneau Police Department and being done with it. She had close contacts at the PD, especially her close friend Mark.

Elizabeth was 31 years old and single. She had only been truly in love once. His name was Thomas John. He was a Juneau Police Officer. They had known each other since grammar school and had been sweethearts since high school. They got engaged after she’d finished nursing school and he was already working for the P.D. Everyone loved Thomas except for her older brother Timothy. For some unknown reason Timothy disliked Thomas and was rude to him fairly often, much to Elizabeth’s dismay. As Elizabeth and Timothy’s father had died, Elizabeth had asked her brother to walk her down the aisle at her wedding. He refused. She was brokenhearted over his refusal but determined to marry her Thomas anyway. Ten days before their February wedding three years prior, Thomas’s brakes failed and he was killed in a horrific accident on an icy, winding road. She never dated again. She stayed in isolation from everyone for months after Thomas's death. The blood splatter red snowflake dreams started again nightly after Thomas’s death, but now in the dreams the bloody red dripped down from the snowflakes on her mirrors in addition to windows and walls. It was only through the help of Mark and his wife Denise especially that she was able to start venturing out of the house again. She had been certain the pain of losing Thomas was going to crush the life out of her. She felt ready to go if there was no Thomas.

Elizabeth mourned for what seemed like years. She did have a tightknit group of friends including other police officers and their wives and good friends from the hospital. The group had a standing Friday night meet for pizza at Bullwinkles. Eventually Elizabeth started meeting up with them again on Friday nights. She had her cute little house, her gorgeous gardens, a couple laying hens running around, her dog Mollie and she slowly she discovered a place inside of peace and happiness. It’s hard to stay unhappy forever in Juneau with the natural beauty and loving friends surrounding and embracing you.

Three months after finding it, Elizabeth showed her friend group the little black book one Friday night at Bullwinkles. She had been through every page a dozen times. That particular night there were four couples there, including Thomas’s best friends Mark and Denise. As Denise flipped through the book, she opened the page to the blood splatters and gasped. She dropped the book onto the table and headed to the restroom. Mark picked it up, saying he’d turn it into the PD in the morning. Elizabeth followed Denise into the restroom. Denise was sobbing, saying “I’m sorry. The blood splatter pages just hit me hard. It brought back Thomas’s accident so vividly. I saw the photos when Mark was working on the accident investigation. He still thinks it was homicide.”

Homicide? Over three years later and this was the first she was hearing about homicide?!! Denise continued, “They are pretty sure his brake lines were cut but they couldn’t quite prove it. The case is still open. Mark never said anything to you because you were finally starting to heal.”

A few weeks later, Elizabeth received a box from her sister in law. She thought Elizabeth might like to have some the handmade wood toy cars Timothy and their dad use to collect. As she went through the box, she also found a small sketchbook from when Timothy was in middle school. Flipping through it, she saw pages filled with horse head drawings and doodles. Stunned, it all connected! The small black book was her brothers! But what was it doing in her garden? How did it get there? Feeling quite confused, she called Mark and asked him to come over.

After he got off duty, Mark stopped by. By then Elizabeth felt calmer. She got Mark some coffee and told him that the black book was her brothers. He asked her how she knew it was and she explained about the horse head doodles, showing him the sketchbook she’d just received. Mark had the strangest darkness to his eyes as he asked her if she realized how much Timothy hated Thomas. She responded that she knew they didn’t get along all that well but hate ... no ...

“But, yes,” Mark replied, “He hated him to the point of hiring someone to cut his brake lines. That phone number covered in blood is the hired guy’s number. He didn’t want to be seen near Thomas’s car so he hired out for the job. I found who the guy is. His number was right there in the book but I found it beforehand. And his criminal history. And now that guy is dead, too, as someone cut HIS brake lines. Some irony there, huh?”

“That can’t be,” Elizabeth exclaimed. “Timothy was the kindest person alive! He wouldn’t hurt me by hurting Thomas! He knew how much I loved Thomas! He wouldn’t! He wouldn’t even know anyone who could do something like that!”

Mark continued, “He could and he did. Your brother not only had Thomas killed but he also killed the hired guy and he killed your Dad. He did cut the brake lines on your Dad’s car himself. It took me awhile but I finally figured that out, too. He was quite proud of doing that, actually. Said it “made him a man at 16.” He wanted your Mom to die in that accident with him but she survived with just those disfiguring facial scars and broken pelvis. It took her just two years to die of a broken heart from missing your Dad, as you of course know.”

“He killed DAD?? And tried to kill Mom? This can’t be right! But, but, but ... why?”

“Your parents were going to send him to a rigid military school back east. He didn’t want to go. Your parents wouldn’t budge and the plans were in place. And so he killed them. And then later he didn’t want you to marry Thomas. He thought being a cop was amounting to nothing. He wanted you to marry someone of wealth.”

Elizabeth sank to the floor in front of the refrigerator.

“How did the black book get in my garden? Whose blood is on there?”

“It’s Timothy’s blood. I went to confront him on what I knew. I punched him in the face, he fell back onto the corner of his desk and hit his temple hard. The blood splatter hit his open book. The desk impact killed him. I couldn’t have been happier. Thomas was my best friend and you’ve always been like a baby sister to me. I took the book with me. I put it on your front step but the wind must have blown it into the garden. I wanted you to find it so you’d know. You’d told me about your red snowflake dreams and I think this is why you have always had them. They were about something to come. Premonitions. Confirmation. The snowflake blood splatter. And now they can stop.”

“I am sorry your brother wasn’t the good guy you always thought him to be. The guy was pure evil. The only good thing ever to happen from him was your $20,000 inheritance. I only wish he could have left you more. Your happiness is worth so much more than twenty grand. “

“But maybe it’s best to know the truth even if it hurts. I hoped you’d find this.”

Mark took the small black book out of his jacket pocket. He pulled the white paper away from the inside of the back cover. Inside was a small, folded piece of paper that read “Timothy killed Thomas and your Dad and I killed Timothy for you.”

-End-