It's the Polite Thing to do

 

She had been living in New York most of her life, but then the winters became just too much to deal with.  In New York she didn’t really need a car, so she never learned to drive.  After moving here, she still relied on taxies, but seldom went anywhere.  She could walk to the market from her apartment and rolled a wire basket behind her with her groceries.  She had not requested the top floor but at the time it was the only thing available, so she took it.

 None of her neighbors got to know her until the break-in.  After that, everyone in the building couldn’t get enough about her life before here.  Right out of high school she had joined the Marines.  She was tough, with a no-nonsense personality.  But that was some 40 years ago.  Today she looked just like the other old ladies in the building, just going about their day, complaining about supermarket prices and watching the evening news.

 The break-in changed all of that.  According to the police report, the man broke in at the streel level apartment and had ransacked the place in search of drug money.  Had he stopped there he would have been better off.  He did not realize Bess was at home when he busted through the upper apartment door.  

By all accounts, he had been flung across the living room, suffered a broken arm and three broken ribs, after which, he was tossed over the balcony railing, striking the pavement below, which is were the police found him.

The only comment Bess made to reporters was, “People should really call before stopping by.”