Murder in Kenmore: Part 2

If you haven't already, read Part 1 first. 

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My knees buckled and I forgot how to run. My eyes darted left to the rabbit cage—the wooden mansion my dad had carefully constructed to give Binky and Dinky more humane living conditions. Maybe this wasn't really happening. Maybe I was dreaming, or perhaps it was some sort of elaborate prank. But the rabbit hutch sat empty. 

Unable to move, I screamed instead. 

"HELP! HELP! HELP! HELLLLP!!!!!!"

I kept screaming until my sister Char appeared from around the side of the house. I pointed. She saw. Now we were both screaming. She ran to get my mom as I stood watch over their lifeless bodies, which had the odourless scent of fresh death. 

Binky and Dinky were dead. They had both died, somehow. Was it old age? How old were they? Or was it some terrible illness—a bout of Rabbit Flu that they just couldn't overcome? 

I wasn't a dumb six-year-old, but the obvious truth simply didn't occur to me. Binky and Dinky didn't pass away gracefully in their sleep. They were murdered. They didn't die side by side on the soft grass. They were placed there. 

The Investigation

About an hour after the discovery, my dad's car screeched into the driveway. He threw open the front door and yelled, "Nobody touch ANYTHING!"

This. Was. His. Moment. 

Rich Kay had dreamed of a life as a private detective since he was a kid. From the fictional Sherlock Holmes to the real-life Pinkerton Detectives, he'd always been fascinated by the mystery-solving profession. Now was his chance to put his sleuthing skills to the test. 

His investigation of the crime scene, which, yes, involved a magnifying glass and a notepad, uncovered the following bizarre pieces of information:

• No sign of forced entry into the backyard or the rabbit cage
• No blood on either bunny
• Rabbits were placed side by side in a deliberate, perhaps ritualistic manner
• No rabbit hair in the kiddie pool (which we'd filled up a few days earlier and had left out in the yard)

From those clues he determined:

• The killer was human (a dog couldn't open the latch on the gate or the hutch, and the rabbits would have been torn to pieces)
• The cause of death was NOT drowning (no hairs in the pool, rabbits only wet with a bit of dew, but not soaked)
• The cause of death was NOT complications from injuries (no blood)
• The cause of death was likely one of the following: A) strangulation, B) poisoning or C) having their necks broken. After further examination, he settled on option C. 

In all his thoroughness, my dad wasn't able to bring any more closure to this case. He and my mom never called the police or spoke to any animal welfare officials. I phoned them last week to ask why, and my mom said, "I don't know. I guess we thought they wouldn't do anything. I suppose we just lived in the present."

I agreed with her at first. Rabbit murder isn't exactly the case of a lifetime. But then I thought about it some more. Imagine if those rabbits had been a golden retriever. Surely they would have called the police then?

The more I think about it, of course the cops would have at least taken a statement and made a note of the crime in case it matched with other suspicious activity in the area. If someone creeped into our yard, killed our rabbits with their bare hands and laid them out in the grass like lawn ornaments, what else could they possibly be capable of? 

The reality is, and thank goodness for it, none of us realised how troubling the incident really was at the time. 

The Suspects

This is where things get dicey. I'm hesitant to be too specific about possible suspects, as I don't want to falsely incriminate someone or be sued for libel by my former neighbours who most definitely read this wildly famous blog every day. 

So, with that in mind, here are generic descriptions of the main suspects:

1. Weird / Troublemaking neighbour boy. Three sources I've spoken with (OK, my mom, my dad and my friend who lived three houses down from us) have pinpointed this shady fellow as a prime suspect. I've been told that he may have had a crush on my sister Francie, he was possibly a drug addict and he lit fireworks off on non-fireworks days. 

2. Residents of the 'halfway house' kitty-corner from us. There's debate about whether the house was really a halfway house, but there's no question that the people living there were up to no good. From late-night knocks on the door asking for "coffee" to visits from their estranged children, who ended up playing at our house and begging my mom not to make them go back, there's no doubt that the house's three residents are all suspects.

3. Weird / Quiet neighbour boy. These were the days before school shootings, but we all now know that it's the quiet ones who often surprise you. At the time, we wouldn't have considered this shy high schooler a suspect, but looking back, he definitely knew about the rabbits and maybe he was a secret sociopath living next door. Who knows?

4. Of course, the final suspect has to be the person we'd never suspect. The family friend. The babysitter. The relative. The teacher. And these are just the known unknowns. There are even more unknown unknowns that will simply never reveal themselves. 

The Funeral

Max, Char, my mom and I stood over a small dirt grave. Anna and Francie were at summer camp. They'd been sent the news in a rambling letter that ended with "P.S. Binky and Dinky were murdered."

I remember Char sobbing as my dad carried them over, one in each hand. They were so long. That's all I could think about. They looked nothing like they did when they were alive. It was as if they'd been put in one of those medieval torture stretch machines and pulled like taffy.

In they went, one on top of the other. As my dad shovelled dirt over them, Char read a eulogy from a 3x5 card and we all said some quiet goodbyes. 

The next year we got two replacement rabbits for Christmas. Rudolph and Frosty. But it just wasn't the same.

Tschüss, 

Margaret