Picking a lock for real

I learned how to pick locks over the weekend. Yesterday I had to use that skill. It was a sad day.

I visited a friend now home from a stay in a rehab facility following surgery. We sat in his house and chatted. The doorbell rang.

A distraut woman was at the door. She was frantic. She checks in on my friend's neighbor, an elderly lady who lives alone, once every couple of weeks. The lady was not answering the door or the phone and hadn't for several days. She asked about a ladder to look in the garage to see if the lady's car was there.

My recuperating friend was not able to participate. I took his ladder next door and saw that the car was indeed in the garage. The woman had already called 911, but no one had responded. The woman did not have a key. The doors were locked.

I went to my friend's workshop and found a small screwdriver and a heavy-duty paper clip. I picked the lock to the neighbor's front door, went in, and found the elderly lady dead on the floor next to her bed. The younger woman freaked out. I told her to call 911 with an update. A deputy sheriff was there within five minutes.

Now everybody involved thinks it was some kind of weird irony or fate that I learned to pick a lock two days before I needed to pick a lock to find a dead body. Except me, that is. I believe in coincidence over weird irony and fate.

I told the deputy how I got into the house, just so he'd know. He wrote it all down. He said there was no problem because the situation called for extraordinary measures. She might have still been alive.