Schuyler Square Day 48 Girl Reporter Begins to Cover Her First Murder

“What happened? What’s going on?” Mindy Cooper elbowed her way through the crowd in the country club’s kitchen until she reached the side of Peter Van Husen. On her way, she made a mental note of how dilapidated the kitchen was, really rather disgusting with crappy appliances, dirt in the corners and cracked tiles. That might make a good story one of these days—how the rich and mighty of Schuyler Square had a kitchen at their country club that looked like something out of a fast food dive that Ronald McDonald wouldn’t deign to put one oversized red toe in. Mindy quickly filed the thought under “Future Exposes”—a file that was always bulging with possibilities in Schuyler Square.

Skidding to a stop, she gaped downward at Ron Schuyler’s body. The kitchen expose was going to have to wait. This was a far, far bigger fish to fry. Mindy gulped. She’d never seen a dead body before, not in person, anyway. Forcing herself not to throw up the half dozen canapés and four glasses of chardonnay she’d downed while working the room, she put on her professional journalist armor and tried not to look horrified. “He’s dead,” she said to no one in particular.

Peter Van Husen glared at her. “A brilliant deduction, Ms. Cooper. Or should I call you Sherlock Holmes?” Mindy wasn’t hurt. Peter had never liked her and he had liked her even less since she had interviewed him and his sweetie about this very ball. Mindy smiled back at him with all the charm she'd learned in journalism school. It was a shame that good-looking men like Peter Van Husen were so often rats. She looked down at Ron Schuyler again. He hadn’t been all that good-looking but he had certainly been a rat, through and through.

“So, any idea of who might have done this?” Mindy whipped out a tiny notebook and an even tinier gold pen that she'd popped into her evening bag. One never knew when a story might happen.

“What do you think?” Peter snapped. “I just found the body about three seconds before you got here. We’re good but we’re not that good.” Peter turned away from Mindy and began barking orders at the other police officers. Mindy stepped back, leaning against a battered stainless steel counter and did her best to blend in with coffee maker and toaster oven. These were crucial moments in the investigation and she didn’t want to get kicked out with everyone else. She hoped Kirk would show up soon. She could use an extra pair of eyes.


Then Mindy remembered that Ron was Kirk’s father. Oh, good heavens--how was he going to feel when the dad he’d never gotten to know, the man who had basically abandoned him, turned up murdered? Was he going to feel cheated out of a real father/son relationship with Ron or was he going to be ticked because there was no way Kirk was going to be mentioned in the will now?

Someone covered Ron Schuyler with a white tablecloth and silence fell over the crowd. A shiver ran through Mindy. That was a real, live dead body lying on the floor, a dead body that just a short while earlier had been walking through the ballroom like he owned it—which he kind of did—peering down all the women’s dresses and leaving his fingerprints on more behinds than the FBI had on file. This wasn’t a t.v. show—this was really happening. Someone had murdered Ron Schuyler and whoever that someone was they were most likely standing in the kitchen along with Mindy.

“What’s going on?” Kirk appeared next to Mindy, breathless and sweating a little bit, as if he’d run to the ball from the apartment they shared a mile or so away. The shirt he was wearing was wet on the front and his tie was crooked. Mindy felt her heart go out to him. Of all the rotten luck—to move to a town to meet your father and then have the chance stolen out from under you. Kirk looked at the tablecloth covered figure. “Who is that?” he asked. “What happened?”

Mindy reached out and took his hand, squeezing it tightly. “Kirk, I’m so sorry. I hate telling you this but Ron Schuyler is dead.”