MURDER IS

                                 SUICIDE

                                                      C J Bernhardt

 

                                                                              PROLOGUE

 
     The moon was setting and all that remained of it was a golden sliver on the western horizon. In the darkness a figure moved cautiously toward a small house near the dunes. The only sounds were the waves breaking gently and the occasional call of an owl from the ancient forest, near the water front cottage. The building was dark; there was no one at home in the rental property on Albemarle Sound toward the coast in North Carolina.
     The house stood alone on a small bluff and as the man climbed the slight elevation, the moon gave up to the trees and slowly disappeared, finally plunging the entire scene into darkness. Using a penlight, the figure opened the front door, took a final look toward the water, then slipped into the house.After a few minutes, the man reemerged, closed the door behind him and began walking away from the house, but not toward the truck in which he had arrived. Instead he trudged toward the water and soon his boots left a trail toward the surf. He walked out into the water and the incoming tide began washing over the prints he had left in the sand. Later, when the advancing tide reached the high water mark, only a few of the footprints were left as a sign that he had been there. The cottage was quiet and once again the gulls and terns flew silently, with only an occasional whistle or caw from them, to mark the man’s departure.