Splitting Hairs

In today's story, Splitting Hairs, a detective meets the family

Today's prompt was loosely inspired by a trip to get my hair cut... which doesn't really have much to do with the expression. The phrase just came to mind, which is enough to make it a writing prompt!

As always, this story was written from the prompt, with no planning and very little editing. If you enjoy today's story, please share it with your friends and leave a review for Freely Written. Thank you!


More about Susan Quilty

Susan Quilty mainly writes novels, including two standalone novels and her current YA series: The Psychic Traveler Society.  Susan's short stories for Freely Written are created during quick writing breaks and shared as a way to practice her narration skills before she dives into recording audio versions of her novels.

Website:  SusanQuilty.com
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Transcript

Below is the transcript for Season 1, Episode 106 of Freely Written, a podcast by author Susan Quilty:

Welcome to Freely Written where a simple prompt leads to a little unplanned fiction.

[Light piano music]

Hi, friends! I’m Susan Quilty and today’s prompt is Splitting Hairs.

Happy new year! We are at the beginning of 2024. A new year, a fresh start. Or so it may seem. Though, to tell the truth, we really can treat every day—or any minute of any day—as a fresh start. It’s all in your perspective. But let’s not fall down that rabbit hole…

It’s a new year and I hope yours is off to a good start. I had my hair cut this morning, which led to today’s prompt: splitting hairs. Which isn’t necessarily about a haircut, but the phrase popped into my mind while I was thinking about haircuts, split ends, all that jazz. 

As always, I wrote today’s story using my typical Freely Written process. If you’re a new listener, that process is simple. I sit down with a chosen prompt and write whatever comes to mind, with no planning and very little editing, and then share that story with you. 

If you have a suggestion for a future prompt, please let me know! You can connect with me through social media or my website, SusanQuilty.com. Links are in the show notes.

And now, on to the story:

Splitting Hairs

The family gathered in the living room. Aunt Sheila and Aunt Diane sat in the wingback chairs. My brothers, Eddie and Alfie, sprawled on the couch. My cousin Sarah took the small armchair next to the fireplace, leaving me to sit cross-legged on its matching ottoman. There were no seats left for Detective Keen, though he stood with such authority it seemed he wouldn’t have taken a seat if there had been one left open for him. 

As I studied his confident pose, I wondered how many times he had stood at the center of other gatherings, just like this one, letting silence mount before launching into a rundown of his deductions. Then, I brushed away that thought. This was real life, not a cozy mystery set in some quaint New England town. 

Detective Keen—or Paul, as he’d asked us to call him—wasn’t here to solve a case. He was here as Sarah’s boyfriend, meeting the family for the first time. We’d finished dinner and moved into the living room to chat while Mom prepared coffee and dessert. I had offered to help her, but, as expected, she’d shooed me into the living room with everybody else. 

Within moments of sitting, Sarah jumped up—suddenly realizing the limitations of our living room—and offered Paul her chair. I stood as well, offering Sarah the ottoman, mainly because it would be strange for me to sit so close once Paul was in the armchair. My brothers didn’t move an inch, though they could have shifted to create space for Paul on the couch. 

“Oh, no, keep your seat,” Paul deftly demurred. “I’ll pull over a dining chair.” 

He stepped into the adjacent dining room, retrieved a wooden chair, and placed it beside the armchair where Sarah and I had been sitting. Sarah shared a smile with him before settling back into her seat. I hesitated. If I were to sit on the ottoman now, my back would be to both Sarah and Paul, which seemed rude. 

It was one thing to have my cousin sitting behind me, since I saw her all the time, but it would feel very odd to sit with Paul, a detective, staring at the back of my head. 

After a moment of thought, I hastily pulled the ottoman toward the unlit fireplace, nearly knocking over a ceramic vase before resuming my cross-legged seat. Aunt Sheila watched me with a slightly raised eyebrow. I was waiting for her to break the silence by asking if we were all settled now, when a shriek rang out from the kitchen. 

Every head swiveled to face the shout, though no one got to their feet. There wasn’t time before Mom came storming through the dining room with a serving dish in both hands. The dish held a fancy rectangular cake decorated with swirls of frosting and sprigs of fresh flowers. 

“Who did this?” Mom thrust the cake forward, tilting it for everyone to see. Her face was red, and her hands shook enough to send tremors through the flower petals. She glared daggers at Eddie and Alfie. 

“Did what?” Sarah asked, an edge in her voice as she glanced apologetically toward Paul.

“This!” Mom brought the cake closer, showing where she’d removed a few flowers to reveal a clean cut through the center of the cake. On closer inspection, there were traces of frosting smeared along the white plate. 

“Someone cut a piece from the center of my cake, pushed it back together and tried to cover their theft with flowers. Look how this end is all smashed in!”

She pulled off a few more flowers, revealing imprints from the cake being carefully pushed back together after a piece was removed. 

“Who would do such a thing?” Her question was directed toward Sarah, Paul, and me, but she quickly turned to confront Eddie and Alfie. “You couldn’t wait a few hours?”

“It wasn’t us!” Alfie yelped, then looked at Eddie. “Or, well, it wasn’t me.”

“It wasn’t me either!” Eddie insisted, glaring at Alfie. “I was shooting hoops with you!”

“Oh, yeah,” Alfie nodded, then turned back at mom with more confidence. “We were outside all afternoon.”

“All afternoon?” Mom frowned. “Didn’t you come in for a snack?”

“Yeah,” Eddie answered gruffly, “but that was while you were frosting that cake.”

“Oh, right.” Mom set the cake on the coffee table and crossed her arms. “But then I finished the cake and went upstairs to get dressed…”

“We were back outside by then,” Alfie told her. 

Mom nodded, then said, “Yes, but I didn’t see who was in the kitchen while I was upstairs.”

“What does it matter?” Aunt Diane asked impatiently. “There’s plenty of cake left and we brought those fancy cookies, too.” 

“What does it matter?” Mom repeated, narrowing her eyes at Aunt Diane. “This isn’t about how much cake is left to go around. It’s about someone disrespecting the work I put into making this cake. It’s about theft. A crime!”

Her voice shook and Aunt Diane rolled her eyes. “Oh, it isn’t a crime.”

“Theft is a crime.”

“Show me a law about taking a piece of cake before dinner,” Aunt Diane challenged. “Paul, do you arrest a lot of family members for pre-dessert cake eating.”

“Uh, no, but…” Paul looked at Sarah helplessly.

“Oh, stop splitting hairs,” Mom complained. “You know what I mean. It doesn’t have to actually be illegal to be a crime.”

“I think it does,” Aunt Sheila chimed in unhelpfully.

“I suppose we’re talking about ethics here, not criminal behavior,” Paul suggested.

“Yes! She knows that’s what I meant,” Mom said, indicating Aunt Diane with a flick of her head. “She’s always doing that… splitting hairs over every little thing that I say.”

“Calling someone a criminal isn’t a little thing,” Aunt Diane sniffed. “It’s not splitting hairs to be clear about what we mean.”

“Can we stop talking about hair?” Alfie mimed feeling sick. “Unless there’s hair in the cake.”

“Of course, there isn’t!” Mom snapped, then eyed the cake warily.

Aunt Sheila patted Diane’s arm and murmured something in her ear before saying, “The cake is still lovely, and we’ll all be happy to have some.”

Mom glanced at Paul and pressed her lips together. 

“Fine,” she said shortly. “But first, I’d just like to know who did this.”

The room was quiet. Sarah ran her hands over her face before looking toward her moms with dismay. Aunt Sheila met her eyes with sympathy, while Aunt Diane only sighed heavily. 

“We do have a detective here…” I said slowly, before Sarah kicked my ottoman in annoyance. “What? If no one wants to confess, I’m just saying… we do have a professional crime solver here tonight.”

“Paul is a police detective,” Sarah reminded with irritation. “Not a character in one of those books you love.”

“And I’m off duty,” Paul joked, though no one laughed. 

Eddie and Alfie slouched on the couch. The aunts shook their heads at each other. Mom hung her head as if someone had sliced into a puppy instead of swiping a sliver of cake. Sarah closed her eyes and took a long, slow breath. 

Paul cleared his throat. 

“Well, first we have to establish when the, uh, incident occurred.” 

Sarah looked at him in alarm, but Paul waved away her concern. 

“It sounds like you decorated the cake before going to get dressed?” Paul confirmed. “And who had access to the kitchen at that time?”

“The boys were outside, but could have come back in,” Mom said tentatively, her face beginning to brighten. “Diane and Sheila weren’t here yet. But Beth was here.”

“Hey!” I sat up straighter, shocked that she would accuse me.

“I’m not saying you did it, dear,” she told me. “But you did have access to the kitchen.”

“So did Aunt Diane and Aunt Sheila!” I reminded everyone hotly. “They showed up while you were still getting dressed, and I went back to reading after I let them in.”

Paul looked at the aunts warily. He clearly didn’t think accusing Sarah’s parents of cake theft was in his best interest. 

“We were all here before Aunt Karen came downstairs,” Sarah reminded. She and Paul had arrived shortly after her moms, and they’d mingled in the living room until Mom finally made an appearance. 

“And then I took Diane and Sheila out to the garden,” Mom remembered, “while Sarah and Paul went to make drinks… in the kitchen.”

“So, everyone had opportunity…” Paul smiled, as if that settled something, but Mom was looking at him and Sarah more suspiciously.

“I helped them with the drinks,” I added quickly, diverting Mom’s attention. 

It was sort of true. I had gone in to help them carry drinks to the living room, but not until I’d finished the next chapter in my book. The one where the small-town detective explained the killer’s motive…

“Oh, motive!” I gasped. 

“Yes, motive,” Paul agreed with relief. “Beyond opportunity, we would have to establish motive for the, uh, incident…”

“Exactly,” Mom said sadly. “Why would anyone do something like this to my lovely cake?”

“That’s it!” Paul snapped his fingers, as though just figuring something out. “It is a lovely cake. So lovely that someone couldn’t resist the temptation of trying a tiny taste before dinner. It’s more of a compliment than a crime.”

“A compliment?” Mom sounded unsure, though she was beginning to smile.

“Absolutely,” I agreed, just as Aunt Sheila began to sing her praises of the cake’s beauty.

“Can we just eat the cake already?” Eddie asked. 

Mom looked at each of us before shaking her head with a resigned laugh. 

“Fine, we’ll leave the mystery unsolved. Who wants to help me carry the coffee tray?”

Paul hastily volunteered and everyone made their way back into the dining room. I held Sarah back and lowered my voice. “It was you, wasn’t it? Sneaking a piece to show off for Paul?”

“Who me?” Sarah laughed with mock disbelief.

I raised an eyebrow. She and I had pulled similar stunts at other family dinners but had never gotten caught. 

“I like him,” I told her. “Even if I am a better partner in crime.”

“It wasn’t a crime,” she laughed. “It was an incident.”

“Oh, stop splitting hairs,” I bumped my shoulder against hers and we giggled all the way to the table.

The End

Thanks for listening. As always, I had no idea where this story would go, but I sort of worked that prompt into the mix. If you have another idea, try writing a story of your own. Free writing is a lot of fun and a great way to explore your creativity.  

If you’re enjoying Freely Written, please share it with your friends. I would also love for you to check out my novels. You can read about them on my website, SusanQuilty.com

Until next time, try a little free writing of your own. Let go of any planning and see where your imagination takes you. 

[Light piano music]