A Body in the Backyard (2 page)

They all looked quietly out on the scene in front of them for a moment. Myrtle’s yard was filled with gnomes, feeders, and colorful azaleas—and a body blocking the path that led down the wooded hill to her small dock on the lake.

“I didn’t even know you had a Cousin Charles,” said Myrtle.

Miles put his glasses back on and looked at the body thoughtfully. “He’s not the sort of cousin that you claim.”

“Any ideas about why he might be dead in Mama’s backyard?” asked Red. “I’d love to have some theories by the time the state police get over here. Particularly since my mother is involved.”

“I’m no more involved than Dusty!” said Myrtle. “I just happened to
host
the dead body. Dusty actually discovered it. And good luck getting any sense out of him.”

Miles cleared his throat. “If I had to guess, I’d imagine that he was here trying to get money out of me. Just a guess.”

Myrtle was impressed that Miles had ventured into the realm of the imagination enough to come up with a possible scenario. “That’s so fanciful of you, Miles.”

Red was jotting down notes. “So this Charles—did he usually take on a lot of debt then?”

“I don’t know about his debts, but I do know that he’s one of those people who is terminally in a hole. He grew up here in Bradley, but he’s been gone since he graduated from high school, I think. I’m not real sure he’s ever kept down a job for more than a month at a time, but his mother always made allowances for it in the same breath she mentioned it: ‘Oh, Charles can’t ever find a job that lets him really show off his talents.’  If Charles had any talents, they had to be related to procrastination and deviousness,” said Miles.

“His mother?” asked Myrtle. “Do you have an aunt around here too?  Really, Miles! Any other relatives I should know about?” She glanced around her as if Miles’s kin might start popping out from behind gnomes or falling from the sky. “A crazed granny in the attic, with a spinning wheel perhaps?”

Red rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t be talking about crazy grannies if I were you, Mama. Besides, you’re the one with all the relatives. You’re related to most of the town. Probably related to Cousin Charles yourself.”

“Well, that’s typical when you live in a small town. People intermarry,” said Myrtle.

“I do have an aunt nearby, but she doesn’t live in Bradley. She’s over in Simonton,” said Miles.

“Oh, so she lives far away, then. Like ten whole minutes from here,” said Myrtle. “And aren’t you a bit long in the tooth to have aunts wandering around?  She must be hundreds of years old.”

“This aunt is actually younger than I am,” said Miles stiffly.

“How positively Gothic!” said Myrtle.

“Mama, give it up. So Miles, are you in contact with her often?” asked Red.

“Not so much. Actually, she’s a rather unpleasant person to be around. I did check in with her when I moved to Bradley, but other than that, I’ve only talked to her on the phone a few times.” Miles sighed. “I guess I’ll have to get in touch with her about this.” He didn’t sound like he was looking forward to the meeting.

Myrtle was still stuck on the fact that Miles had hidden facets to his life. “I thought you just moved here from Atlanta because this is such a retirement magnet with the lake and everything.” Bradley, North Carolina, population fifteen-hundred, wasn’t really a magnet of any kind. But there was a nice little lake, which tended to draw a nice-sized retirement-age populace to the town.

“That was part of it. But the reason I was so familiar with the area was because I had family here,” said Miles. “My uncle and aunt lived here until my uncle died and my aunt moved to Creighton.”

Myrtle’s back door slammed and Dusty moseyed up to them in his unhurried way. He studied Charles. “It’s a body, all right,” he said, apparently looking for someone to agree with him.

Red said, “You haven’t seen this guy around town have you, Dusty?”

Dusty squinted at the body. “Yeah, seen him fightin’ at the poker game.” He nodded at Red. “You seen him too.”

Red frowned and moved closer to the body, studying it. “Well, I’ll be doggoned. That’s the guy in the fight I broke up last weekend.”

“As I said,not the kind of cousin you claim,” said Miles.

Red was trying to remember the incident. “He was fighting with Lee Woosley. I didn’t even take their names down or anything, but I told them to knock it off or I was going to have to lock them up for the night. They sort of slunk off, as I recall. I didn’t recognize Charles and he said he was visiting.” He looked at the body again. “Well, I’ll be.”

Dusty announced to Myrtle, “I’m taking Puddin back home now. She asked if you’d closed the man’s eyelids.”

“You will
not
be taking Puddin back home now! You haven’t finished mowing or weed-eating my yard yet, Dusty. And I’m sure Puddin hasn’t done squat since you found this body,” said Myrtle.

“Think you’d rather have me take her home,” said Dusty. “She’s talking about scattering your fireplace ashes around for protection from spirits.”

“What?  That’s not even a real superstition….that’s something Puddin just made up.” Puddin and Dusty would do anything to get out of work. Once they left Myrtle’s house, she’d have the dickens of a time getting them to come back and finish the job they started. She hurried to the house before Puddin dumped ashes all over the place. Really, it was like dealing with very slow and magically-minded children.

Red was explaining to Dusty why he couldn’t disturb the body before the state police came and Dusty was arguing back that Charles was looking for somebody to take with him. It all made her head hurt.

Puddin was already in the fireplace when Myrtle bellowed, “Stop! Stop it, Puddin! Unless you want to clean up every single bit of ash, get out of the fireplace.”

Puddin looked sullenly at her, but there was a hint of genuine fear in her face. “Always something dangerous going on here. This place is hexed.”

“Hexed by poor housekeeping and slothfulness, maybe. Puddin, you haven’t even finished up the little bit of work you started! What about my kitchen?  You said you’d clean my floor in there,” said Myrtle.

“I’m not cleaning with them evil spirits around,” said Puddin, giving a defiant bob of her head.

Myrtle muttered darkly under her breath. “I’m getting too old to clean my floors and do heavy cleaning, Puddin.”

Red walked in from the backyard. “But not too old to chase criminals down?”

“Crime fighting never means I have to stoop down. Cleaning baseboards and scrubbing bathrooms means stooping,” said Myrtle.

Puddin was collecting her cleaning supplies. And some of Myrtle’s. “That furniture polish is mine, Puddin.”

“Ain’t neither! I brought it from home,” said Puddin.

“Brought it from home because you took it from me last time,” said Myrtle. Puddin was supposed to use her own supplies, but it never ended up that way.

Puddin put the polish back, resentfully, then made a jab at Myrtle that she knew would get at her, “By the way, your neighbor is out there. Erma.” She looked gleeful at Myrtle’s dismay.

Myrtle stomped over to the window to peer out. Sure enough, her donkey-faced, nosy neighbor was standing in her yard, gaping at her front door. “What’s keeping her from ringing my doorbell?” mused Myrtle.

“That witch. It’s on your front porch. Evil spirits,” intoned Puddin, taking a detour into the occult again.

“Pasha?” This was one reason why Myrtle loved that cat so much. “The darling.”

“Need you to move it,” said Puddin, holding her cleaning bucket with both hands. “I can’t leave while it’s out there.”

And Erma couldn’t come in with Pasha out there. It sounded like Pasha needed to stay put.

Red said in his authoritative voice, “You can’t go anywhere, Puddin. I’ve got to take Dusty’s statement. The state police might want to question him, too.”

“What!” Puddin looked alarmed. “I need to go home. How long will that all take?”

“By the time they get a unit over here, it might be almost an hour,” said Red. “But they’re on their way.”

“I’ll miss my show!” said Puddin.

“Might as well clean while you’re here,” said Myrtle with satisfaction. So, Puddin’s urgent desire to escape Myrtle’s house had all been due to her soap opera after all.

Myrtle’s phone started ringing and she peered out the window again. “Erma’s gone in, so that call is probably from her.” She looked at the ringing phone distastefully. “Puddin, if you’re not going to clean, you can at least answer the phone for me. There’s sure to be plenty of calls once the state police cars and forensics truck show up.”

Puddin glared at the phone.

“And try to be gracious,” said Myrtle.

Puddin slouched over to the phone and picked up the receiver while drawing herself up as tall and proper as her short, dumpy stature could manage. “Miz Myrtle’s residence.” She listened for a second, and then rolled her eyes at Myrtle, slumping again. It was apparently Erma, as Myrtle had figured. She could hear the nasal voice from where she stood. “Miz Myrtle is busy right now. That’s right. There’s a dead man in the backyard. Yep.” She held the phone away from her head and squawking could be heard from yards away. “Got to go,” said Puddin and she unceremoniously dropped the phone back on the receiver as the squawking continued.

It immediately started ringing again and Myrtle walked over, lifted up the receiver, hung up, then took it off the hook. “That should stop all those busybodies.”

Of course it didn’t.  By the time the state police and the forensic team had gone over her backyard with a fine-toothed comb and questioned her hapless yardman, the entire town of Bradley was buzzing about Myrtle Clover’s dead body. And half the town was standing in either Miles’s or Erma’s yard to view the proceedings.

Myrtle was pleased as punch that her house was a temporary command center for an investigation. Usually she was shooed away from crime scenes. This time the crime scene surrounded her. From what she could gather in snatches of conversation, the body had been in her yard since late last night—after dark, for sure. Miles’s Cousin Charles had indeed been killed by a blow to the head from her Viking gnome. And there didn’t seem to be any real physical evidence that indicated who the killer was.

Red said, “Dusty and Puddin, we’re all done talking with y’all. You’re free to head home.”

Puddin quickly picked up her cleaning bucket again and she and Dusty moved out of the house quicker than Myrtle had ever seen them move before. She watched them through the window as they left and noticed her boss at the small local newspaper, Sloan Jones, taking pictures of them as they left. Dusty looked as grouchy as ever, but Puddin managed a simpering pose as she clutched her bucket.

Neighbors appeared to be asking them questions and she saw Puddin put the bucket down and enjoy her few minutes in the limelight. From Myrtle’s interpretation of the pantomime, it appeared that her story centered around Pasha the Witch and evil spirits. Her audience watched with wide-eyed rapture until Dusty yanked her by the arm and they climbed into their aging Pontiac.

The police finally finished up. Myrtle’s interview had been woefully short since she’d seen and heard nothing. Miles’s hadn’t been much better, since he could only identify the victim and give a very vague background on him. He hadn’t seen or heard anything, either. “Do I need to visit my aunt and tell her the news?” he asked in a rather stressed voice.

“No, I think it would be better if the police took that on,” said Red with a sigh. “We’ll want to talk to her about Charles and why he was in town, her last conversation with him---that kind of thing. But thanks.”

Miles looked relieved. “Wonderful. I mean—oh good. Yes. Well, I can delay talking to my aunt a while then. Although I suppose I’ll have to give some kind of funeral lunch or family reception or something like that. The family plot is here in Bradley.”

Myrtle’s wheels were spinning. “I know what a drain that would be on you, Miles. Especially since you’re not fond of your family.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t fond of all of them….”

“So I’d be happy to host a reception here. At my house. Near the spot where Cousin Charles spent his final minutes,” said Myrtle, looking reverent.

Chapter Three

Red was taken aback. “A reception?  With…food?”

“Of course with food! This is the South, Red. People want food when they’re grieving. People
expect
food when they’re grieving,” said Myrtle.

“They don’t expect the kind of food you cook, Mama.” Red and Miles exchanged grim looks.

“I think they’ll be delighted,” said Myrtle. She frowned. “Are you trying to be ugly about my cooking again?”

“I’m just saying that, unless you want a whole bunch more dead bodies on your property, I’d consider getting your reception catered,” said Red. “Okay, that’s it for me. Miles, I’ll be getting back in touch with you soon I’m sure. I better head over to the station and fill out paperwork.” He headed to the front door.

Myrtle said quickly, “Better watch out. Erma has left her lair and it looked like she wanted to pester somebody.”

Red peered out the front window at the sea of gnomes. “You know, Mama, you’re not exactly a prize for a neighbor either.”

“I certainly am!”

“I’m your neighbor, so I think I’m well-qualified to give an opinion on your adequacy in that regard,” said Red.

“Miles, back me up,” said Myrtle.

But Miles looked like he was suffering a nightmarish flashback of some kind. Myrtle trusted it had nothing to do with her worthiness as a neighbor.

Red said, “At any rate, it looks like Erma has given up and gone back inside.”

“Pasha is such a
good
cat,” said Myrtle, pleased.

“If you say so,” said Red. “And Mama, I’m not sure what’s going on with the murder in your backyard, but please make sure to keep your doors locked. We just don’t know what we’re dealing with right now. And for heaven’s sake, don’t play detective. All I need is for you to stick your nose into the middle of this stuff and muck up my investigation.” He walked out the front door and strode down the front walkway.