Eden: A Novel by W. A. Schwartz

Author:W. A. Schwartz [Schwartz, W. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Published: 2023-04-19T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTY

Nick | Baton Rouge

A thick mist hung over the city as Nick pulled into the Baton Rouge coroner’s parking lot. The oak trees lining the lot hung heavy with Spanish Moss, and, in the pre-dawn light, they took on a translucent, haunted appearance. Nick had pulled the reports surrounding the death of Gwen Yates and now sat in his car waiting for his appointment with the medical examiner and reading the witness statement and police files by the dashboard light.

According to official records, on June 12, 1986, while the rest of the family was out, Gwen Yates made the beds, straightened the house, did the dishes, took the sheets off the line, and left them folded in a basket by the back door, much as she did on other days. Then she took a shower, combed out her long hair, and, after some indecision- multiple outfits lay scattered here and there around the bedroom-she dressed in a blue skirt and new wedge sandals. Next, she went into the bathroom, sat down on the floor next to the toilet, emptied a medium-sized bottle of acetone nail polish remover into an over-sized, glass tumbler already half full of gin, and drank most of it before dropping the glass to the floor, where it shattered around her spilling the remaining contents and burning a hole into the floor the size of a half-dollar. As she died, she fell sideways, her head coming to rest, left cheek buried in the linoleum. The small puddle of vomit just outside her lips showed she’d been alive when she fell.

Officials ruled the death a suicide. Nobody argued. Gwen had a history of psychiatric problems and she’d been in the mental hospital at least once for a breakdown.

According to the official reports, Evelyn Yates, age ten, had witnessed the gruesome scene. She’d responded by retreating so quietly that her absence went unnoticed for over an hour. Someone found her under a pile of folded laundry near the back door. Mute and curled into a fetal position, she became violent when a neighbor tried to collect her and move her to a more appropriate location.

Nick had seen poisonings. He knew the effects of death by poison on a body. Evelyn’s lack of memory had to be a blessing.

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