Homer's Rose

Case #:613

Missing Man

Victim: Homer Barron

Main Suspect: Emily Grierson

I was hired by the family of Homer Barron to investigate his disappearance. His family said the last time they had seen him was 2 years ago at Christmas; he was headed to Yoknapatawpha, a small city in Mississippi County to live with a women he had met, Emily Grierson.

 After arriving to Yoknapatawpha, before going to Miss Emily’s, I went to a local bar just to see if they had heard about Ms. Emily and Mr. Homer. What I got from the townspeople was that the last time they had seen Homer Barron was entering the Grierson home so I knew that’s where my next stop needed to be.

Upon arriving to the house, there was an almost unbearable stench coming from the house. After knocking on the door, I was greeted by a tall, older Negro who told me Ms. Emily wasn’t available. When I asked about Mr. Homer, he told me he wasn’t available also and closed the door. Before telling the family Homer was okay, I at least wanted to see him.

I checked in a motel right down the street from the Grierson house so I could keep an eye on it. I watched the house for a week and only saw the Negro, who I later found out to be Tobe, her caretaker, come and leave the house. One night, I saw a short, plump woman in the window who I believed to be Emily Grierson. I saw that as my opportunity to go speak to her about Homer. Instead of going to the front door, I knocked on the window where I had seen her standing.  I immediately noticed a crayon portrait of a man in the background. By the time I looked back over at Ms. Emily, Tobe was standing in front of the window, closing the curtains.

My next assignment was to try and get the scoop on Tobe, but the people of the town told me that they had given up asking him questions because he would never tell them anything about Emily Grierson. Before leaving town to try another lead elsewhere, I stopped by a place where the motel manager said he had seen Emily last, a drug store. When I arrived, I asked the druggist when the last time he had seen Ms. Emily and asked if she had purchased anything. He told me she purchased arsenic some months ago. I asked if she had rats. He said that she didn’t say but only thought that she was going to kill herself. I knew she hadn’t done that because I had just seen her in the window.

Two weeks later before I was set to go to meet with Homer’s family, Ms. Emily died. I stayed an extra two days for the funeral. I thought it was an invasion of privacy how the townspeople were just snooping throughout her home, but I found myself right behind them, doing the same thing. They said there was a region right above the stairs no one had seen in 40 years, so that was the main interest of the townspeople. When the door opened, you could hear a pen drop the way everyone held their breath. My view went right to the bed where I saw a figure of a human body. The people followed me over to the bed where I lifted the blanket and saw a long strand of gray hair on the pillow.

After running an autopsy, we learned that the body in the home of Emily Grierson belonged to Homer Barron. He had been poisoned. Arsenic.