She contemplated what she was going to have for lunch as he tumbled off the face of the mountain. She’d packed a wonderful spread, turkey on rye, cucumbers with ranch dressing, lemonade, but was now considering that she’d rather go down to the bistro instead. Such a wonderful afternoon, with a lovely view. She did feel bad for the man, if only a little.

She took one of the sandwiches out of the picnic basket and idly munched on it as she watched him bounce down the cliff. The pleasant chirp of birds drowned out his screams. If she went to the bistro, she decided, there would undoubtedly be questions inquiring after her airborne companion. So she sat down on the edge of the cliff, kicking her legs, and considered the pattern his splatters of blood had made.

The man was not as interested in the patterns as she was. His last thoughts before he fell unconscious, besides “Help me! I’m going to die!” were “I can’t die today. I promised Joe I would go fishing with him Wednesday.” He then continued his first thoughts as he bounded off the base of the mountain, struck several tree branches, and collided with the surface of the lake below. Touring wakeboarders would find the man, filmy with pond scum and caked with mud, two days later, but that is not important to the story yet.

Meanwhile, his female friend was descending the mountain, although not quite as violently. She stopped occasionally to gawk as flora and fauna or to wave at some passing backpackers. When she reached the town, a vague thought wandered across her mind; his friend Joe would probably like to know where the man’s vital bits were now splattered.

She arrived in town by four and remembered that she needed to get some bread, fresh lettuce, and some of that new corned beef from Mr. Magellan’s, oh my God, have you tried it yet, it’s to die for. The man had eaten corned beef every week, and she bought it simply out of habit. On the way home, she decided she’d rather have microwave lasagna instead and gave her groceries to the homeless man on the corner of Fifth and L.

At home, she ate her lasagna and set the leftovers on the counter for later. Then she picked up the phone and started to dial the man’s number, but she remembered that he had fallen off the mountain that afternoon. She sighed with exasperation and dialed Joe’s number instead. He didn’t pick up, either, so she put the phone back in its cradle, finished off the lasagna, and went to bed.

The man’s body had gotten caught in the branches of a fallen tree, the next morning. He still had yet to be discovered. The woman, however, woke to the scream of her alarm clock. She inadvertently knocked the alarm and the clock off her bedside table. She pulled a fresh pair of clothes on, brewed a cup of instant coffee, and skipped out of her house. She remembered then that she needed to chat with Joe and hurried over to his apartment under a light gray rain.

A knock on the door garnered no response. She tried to peer in through the peephole, but that didn’t work either. She jiggled the doorknob, sighing, and then left. The room was locked.

She wandered through town for an hour, found the streets too loud, and decided she needed a little peace. So she chose to return to the mountain. The air seemed cleaner there. And she was certain that Joe would be there, for he loved to hike and rock-climb on the weekends. She rode her bike the three and one-tenths miles to the mountain, chained her bike to a pine, and began the trek skyward.

After a few hours of hard hiking, she reached the summit. Joe was there, as expected. He stood on the edge of the steepest side, peering anxiously down at what he didn’t realize were dried bloodstains.

“Careful,” she said. Joe lost his footing, startled, and tumbled into the abyss.

How horrible, she thought as her eyes slid toward the bouncing body. Now the wonderful silence of the mountain was broken. She heaved a sigh, her day already stained before noon, and decided to climb down the cliff to find out what all the fuss was for. By that time, Joe’s body had already fallen into the lake and floated away, so when she finally reached the base of the cliff, she was surprised at how magnificent this spot would be to watch the fish jump and hear the lulling murmur of the water.

She sat down on the bank and dangled her feet in the cool water. The breeze was warm and soothing—it almost made her doze off, but the irritating shouts of a couple of wakeboarders farther down prevented her from being wholly at peace. She laid back and yawned.

The shouting died off as quickly as it started, and after a few hours of uninterrupted peace on the banks, she decided to return to town for a short brunch. In town, she discovered that the shouting had not died off but instead diffused here and infected every resident on the street. She began to wonder how anyone could tolerate, much less pander to, such disruptive tourists. What she did not hear were the sobs of a broken family, the whispers of a panicked crowd, and the stunned recollections of the horrified intruders. She walked around them with her bike, disgusted by their lack of social grace, and hurried home.

Not an hour after she arrived home, and scarcely five minutes after she had coddled up in her bed with a cup of tea and a good book (forsaking the brunch for comfort), someone knocked, rudely and harshly, on the door. She staggered out of her warm nest and inspected the faces through the peephole. Several agitated men in uniforms were outside the door. How rude, she thought, to solicit someone while they are trying to read! She bolted the door shut and returned to bed.

She finished her book two hours later and felt ready to try the day again. Her neck was a little stiff, but nothing a little lunch couldn’t solve. She noticed with some surprise that the rain had stopped, and, after throwing the curtains back, she noticed with more surprise that the policemen were still parked in her driveway.

There seemed to be rather more of them now, and several were congregated around on fellow with a number of badges on his outfit. She supposed this must be an officer. There were a few moments of agitated-looking conversation, and then the small knot of policemen dispersed, holding their guns in front of them. One of them, to her dismay, seemed to be making his way to her door.

A cacophony of knocks grumbled in her ear, and she ambled toward the door. She opened the door, and the man with the badges, a squat, round-faced man in pressed uniform, appeared on her porch. He introduced himself as Officer Johannes, a name she forgot almost as soon as he mentioned it, and asked if she knew anything about the murder of a “Joe Seagul.” Murder? Well, this was certainly news to her, and she told him so. She wished the officer luck and asked him if he would like a cup of slightly cold coffee, but the officer politely and sharply dismissed the offer. He thanked her for her time, wished her a good day, and failing to stifle a yawn, he return to his car.

She toddled out to check what was going on outside. The rest of the policemen surrounded her quickly, taking aim immediately. She blinked blankly at them and scratched her head.

She doesn’t quite remember what happened after that, because it wasn’t all that memorable. She remembered a lot of shouting, none of which she felt even a man with a badge and gun was entitled to. She remembered the metal bracelets they made her wear, and that they wouldn’t let her sit in the front seat of the car. And she remembered that it had started raining again.

By the time they drove her to a flat, gray, featureless building with bars in the windows, it was still raining. The policemen dragged her out of the car and into the building, and threw her bodily into a chair. A single naked light bulb swung drunkenly above her head, making shadows shift and twirl like smoky dancers. A large fat man stood in front of her, his arms crossed.

He eyed her as if she had a twig of broccoli in her teeth, and she compulsively tried to keep her mouth closed. The officer barked for her attention. Then he asked her to answer a survey, which she agreed to do, although some of the questions (“Where were you on the morning of June eighth?”) struck her as uncomfortably personal. The officer nodded when he was through and told her that he was sorry, but that she’d have to stay the night in the building until she could contact her lawyer. Well, that was certainly strange. She remembered that the Thompsons had not returned her fine china set in over a year, but that was nothing to call legal action over.

Anyway, she was pretty sure she didn’t even have a lawyer. Another policeman pulled her into a bare cell with a damp, clammy floor, and she made herself comfortable on the rather spare bed. There was a mountain of something unmentionable in the corner, right next to the bucket it was meant to be in. She ignored it stolidly and went to sleep.

She woke early the next morning, a good hour before any of the other officers expected to wake. Her eyes darted around the room, and she nearly raised a cry. Then the fog lifted, and she waited for her heartbeat to slow. She turned toward the cell guard, who was still snoring in his chair, and decided that she did not need a lawyer’s services. So she slid across the cold stone floor, puller the unlocked cell door open, and headed back to her house. The officers could easily contact her again if they needed anything else.

She walked home unhurriedly, the rain matting down her hair. When she finally arrived, there were policemen parked in her driveway again, and more policemen going in and out of her house, carrying things and bustling busily. She approached one of the policemen to ask what exactly they were doing. A policewoman clapped another pair of those uncomfortable metal bracelets on her, and then slammed her against a nearby wall.

She was about to protest the utter lack of respect with which the officers had been treating her, but she’d watched enough cop dramas to know that etiquette did not apply to heavily armed persons. She felt better about her decision not to speak after the policewoman gave her the right to remain silent. They sped her back to the station, where she noticed while being forced back into her cell that those disruptive tourists had just left the building.

There were a few minutes of uncomfortable silence as the policemen shuffled about outside her cell. Then one of them unlocked the door and wheeled in a cart topped by a lump in a white sheet. The policeman pulled the sheet aside, revealing the first dead man.

The policeman asked her rather invasively if she knew this man. She peered at his face and told that yes, indeed, she did. “Did you kill him?” he continued, face drawn in preemptive annoyance.

“No,” she said.

“What is this, then?” He produced a half-eaten sandwich held in a napkin embroidered with her name. “Several more of these were found at the scene and in your house!” He was yelling something about the contents of the victim’s stomach and started yelling about the truth, about a lighter sentence, about morals and conscience…but she was no longer paying attention to him. She eyed the sandwich with interest.

“Are you going to finish that?” she asked him.