Passing It On

Thursdays are pear sandwich for lunch day in my life, at my favorite deli and pasta house, Nearly Famous, here in Springfield, MO. Today, being Thursday, I ventured over to my spot d'amour, settled in at the bar (no seats in the house, of course, standing room only), and proceeded to revel in my lunch.


As I left the restaurant, one happy camper, I noticed a book lying on a ledge in the entrance way to the restaurant and at first, I thought, well, someone's left their book here by accident, how sad. However, at closer inspection I found a tag on the book, an intriguing, mysterious, inviting tag. The book had been left there on purpose today, just minutes before I exited the building. The note told the finder to go online and let the "leaver" know that the book had been rescued, read the book, leave it elsewhere for someone else to find. What fun!!! Sort of like a treasure hunt, yes?


Pick Me Up, the note says. Report me to http://www.bookcrossing.com/.


I open up the front flap, ever so carefully, reverently even, and I find some sort of registration card taped to the inside cover. How interesting. As the rescuer of the book, I am to read and then release it back into the wild for someone else to find and enjoy.


I'm sold. It's an easy reading murder mystery, a nice light summer read I think.


Pick Me Up. Okay, I will. And I will let the rest of you know how it turns out. I'll be passing it on for sure.

Has this ever happened to you? Isn't it fun? So unexpected, yes? A nice diversion, yes.

Sadness

A terrible thing happened in my neighborhood this week. It was an awful, heinous, despicable happening and I am very, very sad as I write this.

A woman was murdered this past Monday, murdered in her own car, as she drove someone (we now know who) to a missed location. It may have been a lapse in judgment, or maybe a forced happening, we'll never know for certain. What we do know is that, Kristi Kimes dropped her children off at her ex-husband's home early this past Monday and one can only assume that she was going to go to work afterwards, but something awful happened, and her ex-husband, who she had a restraining order against, somehow got in the car and left with her on the last journey of her breathing life. She was found later, in the driveway of the Taco Bell on West Chestnut Expressway, throat slashed, slumped over the steering wheel. Dead. Witnesses say they saw the car swerve, heard the horn honk and then saw it pull into the Taco Bell parking lot. Was she trying to save herself or trying to make sure someone saw what had happened to her?

Witnesses say that someone got out of the passenger's side of the vehicle and walked away.

Surveillance footage later showed someone hiding in the bushes, someone hiding, watching, as the police were called. A bloody knife was found at the site. As part of the whole investigation, the ex-husband may have ingested anti-freeze prior to the incident and even told his oldest daughter to make out his will on that very morning the girls were dropped off at his house. Bloody clothing was found in his house later on.

The details are hard to take.

The fact is, a woman died in my direct focus, in my neighborhood, in my area, this week, and I am sick about it. She was 47 years old, younger than me, but what does that matter? Two daughters left behind, and now that the ex-husband has been arrested and charged with her murder, two children have now lost both parents.

Our society is simply in a mess. Plain and simple. And this writer doesn't know the answer to any of it. I wish I did and I wish I could have learned it in time that Kristi Kimes could have been spared.