Is Harold's Squeeze Pregnant or Not?

    So I am no longer a suspect, but an investigator. Or as least a consultant in the murder of my neighbor.                                                         

                                                             CONSIDERING MURDER                                                                  

                                                                         Part 15

Sitting cross legged at the edge of my pond I struggled to picture the events leading to Amy Hayes’ death. What was she doing at the pond I could not imagine. Nothing here but stubbly grass, algae covered rocks, slithery mud, and a  raft of dazzling Blackeyed Susans.  I could not believe Amy was the daisy kind of girl. She would most likely choose plastic roses or silk peonies – not prone to wilting and dying.

“How might it have happened?” I had asked Sheriff  Marlings. He insisted I call him Jerry, but I was stuck on Sheriff Marlings. He had kept me sequestered a whole afternoon, and that I could not easily dismiss. He had sensed my coolness. “That, Mr. Murdock, is what we have to find out.”

“I hardly knew her,” I said, “and the extent to which I did – “  I looked for the right words. Finally I said, “Let’s just say I regret ever having met her. She has done nothing but make my life Hell.”

The sheriff had smiled. “And you found her a bitch, right?”

Why had I ever said that?

Looking now toward the Hayes’s trailer I felt a surge of real hatred. I realized  I might have been willing to kill her. But just thought about it.  I could never do such a thing. To think I thought I had found the perfect hideaway for concentrated writing.

I did not see Sheriff Marlings coming across the field. Not did I hear him until he called out. “Mr. Murdock, we may have a break. Well at least more information.”

I rose, extended my hand which he vigorously shook. “Yeah, wanted to pass it by you. Got a minute?”

“Or three or four,” I said. “Pull up a log. Or do you prefer to go up to the house?”

“This is fine.” He remained standing until  he took out a notebook, flipped the pages and had he been more disheveled I might have imagined he was Columbo. Sitting on a big log he said,  “Here’s what is new. Carol Newman—that’s the young woman Harold has been seeing. The one everyone says is pregnant. Well her father has spirited her away. Says there’s way she has any interest in Harold Hayes.   She’s somewhere—as far as I can determine- in North Carolina with an aunt or something. And the family is claiming that the gossip of her being pregnant is just that—gossip.”

“Well,” I said. “Jennifer and Jake both seem to believe she is.”

“On what do they base it, but gossip?  I talked to the Newman family doctor. He says she is definitely not pregnant. I see no reason why he’d lie to me. So if she’s not with child—as they say—where does that leave us?”

I buried my head in my hands and tried to imagine how much my life would be if I had never come here. “And how do we prove it one way or the other?” I asked. “Supposing your doctor is protecting Carol and her family.”

The sheriff rose from his log and brushed the dirt from his backside. ”Tell you what. My sister goes to Dr. Newman and she’s on pretty close terms with his receptionist. I’ll put her on it.”