True Crime

With all the television programs available to me I tend toward two genres. One is the History Channel, which my kids have renamed the Hitler channel since most of the programing re-packages stories on the rise, fall and atrocities of the Third Reich.  When I tire of that I turn to the "true Crime" stories.  48 Hours, Forensic Files, Cold Case File and a wealth of others shows are on late at night as I am winding down.  It could be the reason my artwork is so depressing since these types of programs are on in the background while I draw and paint.  But that is another discussion.

I find a Sherlock Holmes fascination with the way modern detectives use the crime scene evidence to deduce a felony on television. It seems to spill over to my everyday existence. Take the enigma of the cocoons that attached themselves to the eve of my porch on the back deck door in the last weeks. I call it "The Case of the Black Butterfly."

Earlier in the month I watched as black hairy worms crawled up the molding to become these bat like hangers on the eve.  My first instinct was to weep them down thinking they would morph into a puppet eating moth that would threaten my lively hood. However, Sandi convinced me to let them run their course since they might become beautiful butterflies.

We watched them as they turned more ridged and plant like than insect. Every few days we would assess their progress. About a week later the mystery began.

I looked up in their direction to see something red running down the molding of the door. It looked like blood that dripped from somewhere and dried on the white trim.  Under closer inspection I saw that there were drops of the same substance on the bottom of the sill and also on the brick below.  I became  Dect. Donnovan from the Grover Police Department attempting to decipher the nature and MO of a crime scene. I didn't have any Luminol, like  they use on television to determine if it was actual blood, but it sure looked like it to my layman eyes.  I followed the trail and it seemed to drip in an OJ Simpson fashion to the french doors of my bedroom.  It ended not at the door we usually use to enter and exit, but the other side that is rarely opened.

I didn't disturb the evidence right away since I wanted a second opinion from Sandi.  She was baffled and wondered if the humming birds had spilled the red food-colored-liquid there while trying to devour the cocoons.  Illogical my dear, Watson.  Humming birds eat nectar not worms and besides the humming bird feeder is at least twenty feet away and there was no trail from that direction.

Two days later there was another drip extending from the same place.  It too had dripped onto the  brick with a trail similar to the first. More blood... no body. I thought about lizards, but how would a lizard lose a bloody battle with a cocoon? And if that could be the case, after loosing that much blood why would it return again to be bloodied once more?

The cocoons finally opened and produced a black looking winged creature that was neither friendly nor beautiful. It was indeed some sort of moth that I consciously released into the fragile eco system of my yard.

There has been no more blood dripping.  The cocoons dried and fell off.  Sandi insisted I clean up the crime scene there by destroying all the evidence.  It has now been more than 48 hours, the case is closed and officially gone Cold.  Because of my lack of forensic tools it seems to have been the perfect crime. They make it look so much easier on television.  I can only hope that some day the perp who did this is caught trying to steal memorabilia from a Las Vegas hotel room and jailed.

As you were,

Jay