Murder in the garden

Perry Mason was a brilliant TV lawyer who always managed, not only to solve the case, but also via some kind of magic or mind control, to obtain a confession from the perpetrator. (Take that, you CSI types who have only your time-consuming little science tricks to rely upon; Perry Mason talked the confession out of those bad guys. Let’s see you do that.

Which brings me to my own confession: I’ve been murdering away in the garden all year: rosebush-munching Japanese beetles; fire ants; crabgrass; and sweet gum sprouts. The motive? My own selfish interests, of course. Somewhere along the garden path I got the notion that my garden should be my garden. No room in it for those who aren’t pretty or useful or tasty or willing to leave my stuff just the way I want it.

People who dig and plant in glass gardens (a terrarium?) shouldn’t throw stones, perhaps. Meaning, who am I to accuse and condemn another murderer on the premises? But I must.

Here are the sordid details of the crime: out of the corner of my eye I saw the platform feeder of birdseed swinging madly. My first thought was that a squirrel had fallen out of it. Rushing to the window to investigate, I saw a gray cat running away with a bird—one of my birds, if you please—in his mouth.

This is a puzzle, a mystery for Perry Mason. We live in a dog neighborhood; where would a cat come from? Is he/she a legacy of reverse trick or treating, the kind where the so-called animal lover drives to a likely neighborhood and dumps out a trusting pet? Maybe. Odd that this new guy arrived so soon after Halloween.

Yet, with blood (and sap) on my own conscience, who am I to condemn Gray Cat? At least he killed only in order to eat, not, like me, merely for preserving the roses.

Copyright 2008 by Edith Flowers Kilgo. All rights reserved. May be used only with prior permission and attribution.