Writing Prompt: Unsolved Mystery

Include the following in your story: murder, green, agreement, traditional, carpenter, snake, sugar, kidney, congress, jam.

It was supposed to be a traditional murder case. Open and shut. Textbook worthy. Yet, the carpenter’s home was a total mess when I walked in. Flies buzzed everywhere, constantly zipping past your head, and even running right into you. The horrid stench of rotting flesh tainted the air. I had to cover my hand over my mouth just to keep from gagging. The body was found in the kitchen and it was the worst room in the whole house. A carved wooden table was snapped in two, a blender had been running wild when the police first arrived, but now was shut off. Sugar and jam spilled all over the floor like clotted blood. Even a blind man could tell there had been a struggle.

The witnesses outside all came to an agreement on who did the crime and the evidence we have so far pointed at that very person. No one could say enough how much they loved the carpenter, the now deceased. The only person who didn’t have anything good to say was the carpenter’s next door neighbor: Congressman Bogard–a wicked man, in my opinion. The neighborhood claimed the two of them never saw eye to eye and the carpenter was even against the congressman’s campaign. I’d like to believe it was a corrupt member of congress, but until we went over all the evidence, we couldn’t make any claims.

I looked up from my notebook when I entered the kitchen and I stopped in my tracks when I saw the scene for the first time. It was just as the police described it; however, there was one thing missing. Where was the body?

The coroner hadn’t arrived yet and the police outside said that the body was splayed out on the floor and missing a kidney. I headed for the front lawn to shout questions at the officers; however, I didn’t make it that far. I reached the living room at the same moment one of my CSI’s opened a closet. She screamed in brief jolt a fright and I was left dumbfounded. A green, gutted snake was hanging in the closet like a coat on a hanger.

This was far from an open and shut case. The victim’s body was missing, a congressman might be involved, and now there was a flayed snake in the closet? What in God’s name happened in this house?!