cynthia brown

by nick nelson

cynthia brown lived alone in an old house on the outskirts of town. nobody knew anything about her, and she kept to herself. she must have thought she was better than anyone else. and she was nothing much to look at. she had money, because she went to the general store every month and bought things, but nobody knew how or where she got it. she never went to the bank, and she almost never got any mail. so, naturally, folks figured she must have a big stash of cash in a safe, or hidden in the house. she was just tempting fate, practically begging lowlifes and desperadoes to rob her. sheriff jack floyd and deputy frank winters would go out and check on her from time to time because that was part of their job, but she was never friendly and never offered them coffee or tea or lemonade, let alone any pie or cake. things went on in this way. finally, the inevitable happened. the two lowest rascals in town, young pete harmon (he was not that young, but his daddy had been old pete harmon) and dipso dave whistler, got drunker than usual and went out to pay miss cynthia brown what they said was a “little social call”. nobody knows to this day exactly what happened, but they did not find any money and cynthia brown ended up with a broken neck, which the boys swore was an accident, when they were just “horsing around”. be that as it may, the county district attorney charged pete and dave with murder in the first degree. the trial was moved from the local courthouse to the county seat, where pete and dave would be tried by a jury of twelve complete strangers, instead of twelve good men and true who had known them all their lives. lawyer jim scott from town defended them. he thought he had a good case, especially against first degree murder, because no money was found to prove robbery. but then - dipso dave turned state’s evidence against young pete, who had always been his best friend! jim scott did what he could and pete got ten to twenty for second degree murder. dave slunk off and never showed his face in town again. good riddance, folks said. pete got out on parole after twelve years. he still hangs out downtown, an embittered man, sometimes with a rough tongue for passersby. but folks cut him some slack, because he got a raw deal and because the harmons have lived in town for seven generations. all in all, a sad story. it goes to show you what happens when people think they are better than anybody else. nobody in town ever found out just how much money cynthia brown had. and nobody knows or wonders where she is buried.