Assailant

“Surprisingly, the shock of the icy snow beneath my body didn’t prevent me from sliding down into unconsciousness.” Lorna took a sip of coffee. “Thanks for the coffee, Detective Blankenship.”

“No problem, Lorna.”

“When I woke, I was in the hospital with a nasty bump on my head.”

“Do you think you got a good enough look at the attacker to describe him to a sketch artist?”

Lorna nodded her head. “Maybe. I can try.”

“Okay, I’ll go get Scotty. He does a great job.” Detective Blankenship left the room. Lorna set there trying to recall details that may help Scotty.

The door opened and a small, thin man walked in and sat down in front of Lorna. “Hi, I’m Scotty.” He offered her his hand; they shook.

“Lorna, Lorna Bradshaw.” She said.

“Okay, Lorna just begin describing the assailant, and I will ask more details if I need them.”

Lorna took a deep breath. “Sure, he had big round dark eyes.”

“Okay.” Scotty began to scratch his pencil on the paper.

“He, he had a long pointy nose, his head was round and quite large.”

“What about his ears, big, small?” Scotty continued to sketch.

"No ears, at least, I didn’t notice any ears. He did have very thin lips, almost non-existent.” Lorna held her head. “I still have headache from him bashing it against frozen ground. I’m having trouble concentrating, so bare with me.”

“Sure, Lorna. Take your time.”

“He…he was wearing a hat. A large black hat, like a top hat. A red scarf, other than that he was dressed in all white. I remember because I could see his body in the dark.”

“Okay, I have a sketch done.” Scotty stared at it a moment. “But um…give me a minute with the Detective outside, okay.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Scotty took his sketch out to Detective Blankenship. “Psst… come here.” He laid the picture on the desk. “Do you see what I see?”

“Frosty?” Blankenship raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, I think that knock on the head messed her up. This is exactly what she described.”

Blankenship went back in to talk to Lorna. He sat down beside her and looked into her eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine, expect for the headache.”

“And the doctor at the hospital said everything was fine?”

“Yeah, great.” She rubbed the back of her head. “Just a goose egg back there.”

“Lorna, let’s go over your statement again.” Blankenship took out his notes.

“Sure, if it’ll help.” She took another sip of coffee.

“So…let’s see you were walking up to your front door, right?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “It was pitch black because the outside lights were out, I only got a glimpse of his face from the light of watch. It glows in the dark."

“The assailant.. he came out of nowhere and you fought with him?”

“He… He scratched me see.” She showed him the scratches on her hands and face.

“What’s that, there?” Blankenship pulled his glasses down to the end of his nose. “It looks like a splinter.”

“They took some splinters out at the hospital.”

“I see. So, at some point he knocked you to the ground and took …ice?”

"That’s all he got, the bags of ice I bought for our Christmas party.”

“And he didn’t say anything during the struggle?”

“Nope, and I think he was wearing skates ‘cause he slid right up to me , pushed me out of the way, and went for the items in the back of my car.”

A knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Another officer motioned for Blankenship to come out.

“Excuse me.” Blankenship said as he rose from his chair.

Lorna watched them from the window between the rooms. She saw the officer hand Blankenship something orange. They both looked at the sketch on the desk, then back at Lorna.

Blankenship entered the room. “Lorna, did you have carrots among the items in your grocery bags?”

“No, just party things, ice, cups, snacks…”

“We found this tip of a broken carrot at the crime scene. It has, what appears to be a speck of blood on it.”

Lorna stared at it. “I have no idea where that came from. It was dark. We struggled, but I can’t explain the carrot.”

Blankenship excused himself again. He called the other officers into his office. “Bare with me, this sounds a little crazy. The lady in the next room was assaulted by what she describes to Scotty as a snowman, who stole nothing but ice.” He held up the sketch. “She has scratches with splinters, and to top it all off, Officer Simmons found this at the crime scene.” He held up the baggy containing the tip of a broken carrot.

A lady came running up to the office and pounded on the door. Officer Simmons stepped out to see what she wanted.

“I was just mugged outside the Leery’s Grocery.” She said after catching her breath. “It was a large man. He came up behind me and took my bags of ice.”

Simmons opened the door. “Detective, you better get out here.”

As the detective stepped out of his office, three more ladies ran in with similar stories. He assigned each one to an officer to take their statement. More women with stories of robbers stealing their ice streamed through the office until dawn.

Exhausted and perplexed Detective Blankenship couldn’t wait to get home. As he drove down Hudson and Pennsylvania streets, he noticed all the porch lights were out, but from his illuminating headlights, he also noticed snowmen were missing from the yards.

The detective turned up his radio to hear a breaking news report.

Breaking news, several women were mugged in the metro area over night, but the strange thing, in each case the robber or robbers only took bags of ice, strange huh? Now for your local weather.

Temperatures are on the rise for your Saturday forecast. We’ll see unseasonably warm temperatures for the next seven days./i} The weatherman reported.



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