Small Town Crimes

Small Town Crimes
Episode Number I

“Waiter there is a ring in my soup!” The woman at the next table screamed, and that was only seconds before she noticed that the ring was still being worn on some poor unfortunate souls finger. The woman fainted, and her body slowly slithered out of the chair, like a Burmese Python, down onto the highly polished, dark wood floors. There were three other women at the table with the woman who was now sprawled on the floor of this quite popular local eatery. All twenty tables at the Risky Biscuit Restaurant were occupied with an eclectic array of patrons, many enjoying the soup du jour – vegetable beef. Several nearby alert patrons spewed their mouthfuls of soup across the sparkling white, crisp tablecloths. In the span of a few seconds, the quaint downtown restaurant looked like a bloody butcher shop.

Two of the unconscious woman’s friends, Betty and Trish, tended to their lifeless friend; the third, Maggie, cautiously stirred Dana’s half-eaten bowl of soup looking for the ring. “I’ve got it.” Maggie shouted, excited by her discovery. She carefully balanced the ring in the oversized soupspoon, and as Maggie often did, she did the unthinkable – with the soupspoon, she lifted that ring, finger and all, out of the soup for all the dinners to see.

There was an immediate stampede of patrons making a mad dash for the restrooms with both hands clasped tightly over their mouths. Men and women alike, sicken by the site. And there stood Maggie, totally oblivious to the ensuing chaos, intensely studying the amputated finger balanced on the soupspoon.

“It’s a woman’s finger, it was a clean amputation,” Maggie said in a straightforward, matter of fact tone, “and it is a very nice ring.”

Maggie’s life long friends were use to her odd, seemingly cold, detached observations of all things that usually send normal people reeling. Maggie then laid the finger on the tablecloth next to the bowl of soup, and began to gently dap off the thick, deep red tomato sauce base of the vegetable beef soup that obscured her view of the offending finger.

“Will you stop that, Maggie? You’re disgusting.” Trish hissed harshly.

“Stop what? What do you mean disgusting? Don’t you want…” Maggie was abruptly interrupted mid sentence by Betty.

“No, I don’t want anything, and this is certainly a matter for the police, I think. And this is not a Nancy Drew mystery either.” Betty’s said sternly, hoping desperately that the severed finger was just some kind of a horrid joke.

“Look at this.” Maggie said as she motioned for others to come closer and view the finger, and adding, “The finger obviously was cooked in the soup.”

Many of the restaurant patrons were gathered at the opposite end of the dinning room, evidently trying to stay as far away from the severed finger and Maggie as possible. Some were still in the restroom. Three of the waitresses were in the kitchen, their combined raised voices, although unintelligible, was evidence enough that they were arguing with the kitchen staff and the cook. Someone evidently had called the police, and they had just arrived. Several officers entered the restaurant, and casually strode over to the table where Maggie was intently inspecting the finger.

“What are you doing?” A tall officer, with a very deep voice was now looming threateningly over Maggie. “Why don’t you give your name, address, and phone number to the officer by the door. We will be in touch.” The tall officer pulled Maggie away from the table, and physically pointed her towards the door. Even typically defiant Maggie could sense that no good would come from arguing with this officer. She dutifully walked to the front door of the Risky Biscuit Restaurant, and provided the officer with her and all her friends’ names, addresses, and phone numbers.

Dana was now sitting in a chair, sobbing uncontrollably. Her friends, Betty and Trish were doing all they could to console her, but the horrible realization that she had just moments earlier been enjoying a bowl of soup with a severed finger in it was beyond her sensitive sensibilities.

“We ought to take Dana to the hospital, right now.” Maggie announced to her friends. “I have given the officer at the door all of our information. We need to leave. Now.”

As Betty pulled up to the Emergency Room entrance of the hospital, it was immediately obvious that this was not a typical day at the hospital either. Trish and Maggie escorted Dana into the emergency room where she was quickly assessed by a nurse, and sent to wait in chairs. While waiting to be seen by the doctors, the rumor mill in our small town was already running rampant. Every patron in the restaurant had a cell phone, and the crowd at the restaurant had basically solved the crime of the severed finger in the soup.

Seems the cook had been having an affair with a woman from a neighboring town. The husband in a blind rage had killed his wife, cut off her ring finger, and somehow in the deepest, sickest regions of his disturbed mind decided that this would be the best way to destroy the culinary reputation of the cook, and cause him to lose his job.

Now, it is just a simple matter of how long it will take local law enforcement to figure out a way to take all the credit for solving this crime without having to admit that the town’s people did their job for them. This is not the first time our sheriffs department has made the Keystone Cops appear to be from Scotland Yard.



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Write a story using this as your first line...

"Waiter there is a ______ in my soup!" (When filling in the blank don't use an insect)