Before The Deed was Done

  That afternoon, nothing seemed appealing to me but that wide curving walkway beside the pond. It reminded me of the curve of a swan’s neck.
  I decided not to know anything. One thing I allowed myself to know:  that I was lost in a park.
  My suit had not been much cramped that day. For some reason I had managed to remain neat-looking and, in the twilight, I imagined I was even debonair. I had even managed to forget the bald patch sitting atop my head.
The air was thick with the smell of nature’s gifts, fragrance, mud, water.There were crickets about. Ever since I was a child I found their chirping a weird sound. I questioned my parents about it and they told me that only naughty children heard it.
  Something appeared at the end of the bend, where the willow trees hid the cobblestone. It was a woman. Her dark silhouette swayed against what I could see of the tree trunk. She looked feeble, dressed in an airy dress that flattened her form rather than accentuated it. Before I could observe more of her, she fell to the ground, like a heap of silk.
  I rushed over, jogging, as fast as my chubby knees would allow. I brushed the willow curtain aside to pass through and then we were alone in a circle of shadow in the embrace of the tree.
  He breathing was faint. She smelled of a flowery perfume that seared through my nostrils at first then shyly died away. I fought the ridiculous urge to lean down and sniff her neck.
  “Are you ok?” I asked, “Do you need help?”
  She answered with tears.
  “Ma’am.” I emphasized, “Do you need help? Are you fainting?”
  She nodded. Her fingers clutched weakly at a clump of grass.
  “I’m pregnant” she whispered, finally. Her voice could easily have been carried away with a breeze, if there was one.  “Will you carry me?”
  I placed my hands around one of her wrists and maneuvered her arm over my head. Finally, she was in my arms. She was very light and molded her body easily against me.
  “Where to?” I asked, gruffly. I could smell the perfume more easily now, mixed with the warmth of her own natural scent.
  “Just the bench there, thank you.”
  “What is your name?”
  “Fiona”
  The bench was situated near the edge of the pond where one could watch the voyages of the ducks.  I laid her on its wooden surface and sat by her feet. I noticed that her flat brown shoes were just as delicate and frail as the rest of her. The muscles of her legs, what showed of them, were taut. This woman might have been an athlete, a dancer, or a ballerina.
  She was breathing, at the moment, like someone who was asleep. The blue irises of her eyes, were watching the star-spangled sky.
  “Do you feel better now?”
  “Yes,” she said,
  “So you can begin telling me the truth,”
  The irises flicked sideways in surprise.
  “What do you mean?” she asked,
  “You’re not pregnant, are you?”
  She lifted herself on her elbows. “What do you mean I’m not pregnant? Why would I lie about that?”
  “Maybe you are pregnant…but you’re not telling me the truth anyhow.”
  She gaped at me. The delicate helplessness was erased from her face. She seemed half astonished, half abashed.
  “Your pulse, Fiona, was faster than it should have been, which means that you were not fainting at all. It would logically follow, that I should not believe you about your pregnancy.”
  “Are you a detective mister…”
  “Bakatooshi. And yes I am a detective.”
  I was, in fact intrigued. “Now there could be several motives behind your little lie, Fiona,” I analyzed, “You could have been using me as a distraction. Or you could have wanted to be seen while you were carried by a strange man in the park. There could be some individual in those bushes there across the pond, watching you. Or you could have planted something in my jacket or stolen something from it.”
  Her face was red with a fleeting flush of anger.  “Or it could be none of the choices above!”
  She immediately sat up, faced the pond and crossed her arms. She suddenly seemed livelier.
  I chuckled. It was almost as if her perfume had gained a sharper impact on my nostrils with her change in demeanor.
  “Bakatooshi?” she said scornfully.
  “Yes. Roots in Egypt.”
  For some reason, she would not have seemed inadequate smoking a cigarette in that posture.
  “I’m an actress,” she announced.
  “And you were_”
  “Practicing,”
  “On a stranger?”
  “Yes, who else? You don't know me enough to tell if I was acting or not!”
  “Don’t you think it would be better practice to act out your stunt with someone who knew you very well?”
  “Oh I will soon,” she said carelessly, “Strangers first,”
  At that moment I almost believed she was smoking an invisible cigarette.
  “Why do you need to practice so much?” I asked nicely, “Are you in acting school?”
  She shook her head then turned and glanced at me. There was a fearful glimmer in her eye. Her lips revealed a row of sharp white teeth.
  “I want to be prepared when the time comes,” she said,
  “The time for what?”
  “The time to kill my brother in law.”
  She laughed. It was a high laugh with a squeak at its end. It was ungraceful in such a romantic environment.
  “You will be the detective on the case, won’t you? Oh I would love you to be!”
  Then she got up. I was stunned, I must admit.
  “Ta! Ta!” came her old-fashioned goodbye.
  She raced along the pond as fast as her ballerina feet could carry her and disappeared from view at the end of the park.
  When I recovered, I threw my head back and gave a wild laugh.
  “I will be on the case indeed!”