A Stone Unturned

            Maggie Keizer drew a deep, purposeful breath as she stood at the kitchen window watching her husband argue with two men as a large white dog circled them anxiously, unsure what to do.

    A drystone wall stood proudly behind them, having undulated through the fields of Northumberland County for nearly two hundred years. Despite its age it remained steadfast, with only a fallen stone here or there. Most were a casualty of her exploits as a young girl: scrambling to mount its shoulders, walking along it with arms spread for balance and, dare she admit, pulling a stone or two out in search for buried treasures. Maggie knew this wasn’t the first, or last, quarrel that the tired stones would witness.

        She looked down at her hands and appreciated how they had changed over her seventy-nine years.  Lines of fatigued skin drawn over ropey veins whose prominence belied their underlying fragility. Making a fist, she exposed the nodularity of her rheumatism and felt the delicate touch of her fingertips on her palm. She startled as a sticky substance held her fingers momentarily. The heel of her palm had changed from its normal pallor to a deep crimson red.  Feeling a bracing December breeze on her face she looked up and was no longer in her kitchen. The window and sink had been replaced by the old stone wall and a field of dormant brown grass under a newborn sky. The morning fog was settling into a thin layer of frost and the sun’s rays were glancing over the horizon, curious to see what the night had left behind. Dropping her eyes she traced the cracks of the wall to its base where Adriaan Keizer lay motionless, the long field grass brushing against his lifeless body with every breath of wind. Staring at him, Maggie thought that for their sixty years of marriage, she had never seen him so still. Breathing in the warm morning air she looked at the silhouette of yet another subdivision rising on the horizon and placed a hand over the tightness in her chest.

***

            “Maggie? Maggie, dear…”

            “Oh… yes, Dr. Curran.” She looked up and saw the kind brown eyes of the elderly coroner looking back at her from across the table. He had flyaway grey hair along his temples that accentuated his bald scalp and rather large nose. Such a kind man. The Currans have done so much for the area over the years, she thought.

            “Maggie, this is Detective Kelly. He would like to ask you some questions about what happened to Adriaan.” Maggie adjusted her gaze to the right where a tall, thin man with a greying beard and dark framed glasses stood contrasted by the light of the kitchen window. He was inspecting the sink… or was he doing dishes? No. That wouldn’t make sense, a detective doing her dishes. He turned and stepped toward the table and sat down with a smile, his intelligent blue eyes surveying her. He has such a kind smile, she thought.

            “Hello Mrs. Keizer, as Dr. Curran said my name is Detective Graham Kelly. I’ve come to help with the investigation” he said. Maggie raised an eyebrow and tilted her head gently at the thin man with glasses.

            “I’m sorry… what investigation?” she asked.

            “The investigation into your husband’s murder, Mrs. Keizer.”

Maggie’s chin began to quiver.

“What?! Murdered? How… what do you mean?” she said.  A hand rested upon her arm and she turned to see Dr. Curran looking at her gently. She smiled warmly at him. He is such a kind man… such a good local family, she thought.

            “Maggie,” he began, “You found him dear. You found him by the wall this morning. He’d be struck on the head with a stone.” She stared at him.

            “Oh… of course, of course. Sorry Detective. As Dr. Curran may have told you I have a bit of trouble with my memory… but yes, that’s right, I did find him didn’t I…”

            “It’s understandable,” Detective Kelly said, “to be shaken by such a discovery. I imagine that your memory of this morning may be clouded by grief as much as much as anything, but whatever you can recall would be appreciated.” He stood and stepped around the table, flipping through some papers on a buffet table against the wall. Maggie watched him with absent eyes and then looked to the kitchen window.

            “Yes.” she said. “Two men and a dog were arguing with him… well the men were arguing… the dog wasn’t arguing, it was just walking around.” Detective Kelly turned around after folding over a piece of paper.

            “Did you know the men, or perhaps the dog?” he asked.

            “I’ve seen the dog before but wouldn’t say I know him… the man was a stranger to me though.”

            “I see. And where have you seen the dog, Mrs. Keizer?” the Detective asked. She looked about the room briefly as if expecting to point it out.

            “Around. Might be a stray.”

            Detective Kelly bent over and whispered into Dr. Curran’s ear before sitting down once more and taking out a small note pad. Maggie watched his pen move along the ruled paper and imagined the faint scratch of its nib, her ears no longer sensitive enough to perceive it. She looked over her shoulder at the sound of paws scratching the kitchen door and shuffled over to peer out its window. Her eyes searched for the origin of the sound but found only the rough stone path leading away.

            “Something the matter, Mrs. Keizer?” Detective Kelly asked, watching her intently. She looked at him.

            “No, it was nothing” she said.

            “Dr. Curran tells me that you grew up on this land, Mrs. Keizer. In this very house, in fact” he said. The elderly woman smiled brightly.

            “Oh yes. I was actually born in the master bedroom upstairs. That wasn’t uncommon in country homes back then.”

            “Of course,” the Detective said and scratched his beard rhythmically. “You must feel as part of this land as that remarkable stone wall.”

            “You know, it was built by my grandfather and his father and I think of them every time I see it. I imagine their callused hands laying the stones carefully, building our family into the land.” She mimed lowering a stone with her tremulous hands. “It was built because they were pulling stones from the field so they could farm it. So many generations of the families in the area became part of what they built… and now so much of it is gone.” Her voice shook and she braced herself on the door handle. Detective Kelly stepped toward her.

            “Why don’t you show me the wall, Mrs. Keizer?” He rested a hand on her shoulder and with the other invited her to step outside.

            Maggie looked back at the house resting beneath them half-way down the hill. How did it get there so quickly?  The white dog sat at the front door of the house, watching her. Offering it a small nod she turned, feeling a plastic ribbon against her waist, and ran her finger along the yellow banner.

            “Adrian was moved a few hours ago, Maggie. Just so you know that he’s safe.” Dr. Curran said gently.

            “Oh excellent, thank you Doctor. You’re so kind,” she said as the tall detective brushed past her.

            “I can see what you mean, Mrs. Keizer. About histories being erased,” he said, pointing to the development cresting the horizon. Maggie’s wrinkles deepened as she scowled.

            “Disgusting. Just disgusting. They are murdering our legacies Detective Kelsey, destroying any evidence that we were ever here.” She glared at the horizon.

            “I can only imagine how upset you would be if it were your land and legacy being traded for a hollow cheque.”

            “Ha. Don’t think they haven’t tried. But my father told Adriaan the day we married, he said, ‘Son, I’ll give you my daughter, I’ll give you my land, but you need give me your word it will carry on’.”

            “I see… and was he good to his word? Adriaan?” Detective Kelly asked.

            “Until those men hit him with a rock,” she said, now looking at the wall where her husband had lain. Detective Kelly and the Doctor shared a surprised glance. It was Dr. Curran who spoke first.

            “Maggie… are you saying you actually remember seeing Adriaan killed?” She looked at him with a furrowed brow.

            “Of course, Doctor Curran, that’s what I told you earlier. That there were three men arguing with him and one picked up a stone while Adriaan had turned his back and struck him with it.” She gave a curt nod in the direction of the wall.

            “And then what did you do, Mrs. Keizer?” Detective Kelly asked, stepping forward. His head was titled toward her and his shoulders hunched. A habit born of being taller than most of his suspects.

            “I, well, I ran out to him once they had left. He just laid there… I thought it was odd. Adriaan had never been one to just lie around you know. Such a hard worker. And then I had picked up a rock… it had blood on it and it upset me that it got on my hand…”

            Detective Kelly inhaled slowly and crouched underneath the police tape. Stepping carefully around the edge his eyes flitted to the left and right until he reached the edge of the wall where he crouched once more but this time next to a crimson jagged stone. He looked up at Maggie and then to Dr. Curran who gave him a gentle nod. Putting on a pair of nitrile gloves from his pocket he picked up the rock and stepped toward Maggie.

            “Mrs. Adriaan, is this the rock that you picked up?” he said turning it in his hand.

            “Yes, that looks like it would be the one… it’s covered in blood,” she said.

            “Right… right. So it is.” he turned the rock once more. “But you see here, Maggie. This hand shaped area where the blood is missing?” He gently brought her hand to hover over top. “This is where you held it… but before it got bloodied.” Maggie raised her eyes from the stone to the Detective.

            “What… do you mean?” she asked.

            “There are only two sets of footprints Mrs. Keizer, your hand has left its imprint, and there are the papers… on your buffet.”

            “I… I killed Adriaan?” she whispered and looked at her hands. They seemed so ugly, withered and broken. When did her hands get so damn ugly?! They had been so beautiful. Dr. Curran placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

            “Maggie dear, I’m so sorry. Sometimes with conditions such as yours there can be… lapses. I know that you likely don’t remember… but it would appear that you killed poor Adriaan. Perhaps you thought you were protecting him from the other men… who were hallucinations, I’m afraid.” Maggie gasped with a hand over her mouth and shook her head. Detective Kelly stepped forward after setting the rock down and Maggie looked up at him, still shaking her head from side to side in seeming disbelief.

            “Dr. Curran may be right on both counts, Mrs. Keizer. I do however have one concern.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “You see this is from your buffet table. It’s the signature page of a contract that agrees to the sale of your property to a particularly large contract firm…” Maggie stared at him with still eyes, her head no longer shaking. “Adriaan was breaking his promise Mrs. Keizer, and perhaps it’s just my imagination running away with me, but I think you found out. This paper has been crumpled and then smoothed out again after which the signature was applied. The suggests an argument. One person against its signature, the other taking back the damaged paper and signing it in rebellion… I think you were hurt and angry Mrs. Keizer… and that the reason your hands no longer have blood on them and that there’s not a speck of it on your freshly changed clothes is because you knew that you killed him… more so, you knew that you were going to kill him.” They held one another’s eyes for a moment before Maggie blinked heavily and with a stony glare said,

            “I’m sorry… I’m a bit confused. What is it you’re talking about?”

            Seated in the back of the Detective’s car Maggie Keizer looked at the wall and smiled. She heard a faint panting beside her and turned to see the white dog by her side, its mouth open and its snow-white fur speckled with the faintest shade of crimson red.