A Body in the Backyard (13 page)

“I’m so sorry, Peggy. Your father was a fine man. He actually was over here helping me out with some repairs just a few days ago.”

Peggy sniffed and Myrtle quickly reached for a nearby tissue box. Finally, Peggy said in a small voice, “Now I’ve lost both parents. It’s just my daughter and me now. And I just don’t understand at all. Why would somebody kill Daddy?  Over here?  What could have happened?”

Since Peggy seemed to be trying to work it all out in her head, Myrtle was happy to think it through with her. Particularly, since Red would be sure to cut their conversation short as soon as he realized she wasn’t outside.

“Peggy, did you talk to your dad at all today? Was he at the funeral?” She hadn’t seen him there, but maybe she’d just missed him.

Peggy gulped and struggled to contain her emotions. “I talked to him for only a minute or two this morning. He said he might not make it to the funeral because there was something he had to do for work.” She stopped, and a horrified look crossed her face. “And we were arguing. Oh no! Our last conversation was an argument.”

“Honey, it happens.” Myrtle walked quietly over to Peggy, putting an arm around her as they both looked out the window.

“He said he wasn’t going to the funeral, but that he’d be at the reception afterwards.” She looked up at Myrtle. “Do you think that maybe he was here to finish up part of the job he’d done?”

Myrtle said slowly, “I do think he was here to finish the job, yes. The only thing he hadn’t done was hang my planter back up on the wall for me. It looked like he’d come back with the right screws to mount it.” She paused. “Was your dad having a problem with anyone?  Arguments?  Disagreements?”

Peggy shook her head vehemently. “Absolutely not. Everybody loved him.”

Myrtle hesitated. “But Red told me that your dad had an argument with Charles Clayborne before he died.”

Now Peggy looked evasive. “Charles Clayborne?” she asked, as if not remembering the name.

“Yes. The man whose funeral this is,” said Myrtle patiently. There had to be something there. Why was Peggy acting as if she and her father didn’t know Charles?

Peggy quickly said, “Of course. Silly of me. I guess it’s the shock. Yes, Daddy had an argument with him because he thought Charles was cheating him at poker. Other than that, I can’t think of any problems he’s had with anybody.”

Myrtle could hear Red’s voice near her front door. Shoot. He was coming too quickly. “Did you see your dad at the reception when you got here?”

Peggy shook her head solemnly. “I sure didn’t. I was looking for him too—to apologize for the way I’d spoken to him on the phone this morning.” Her voice started shaking again as she thought about their argument.

“What was it that you were arguing about this morning?” asked Myrtle as Red came hurrying through the front door, calling her name. “That is,” she added quickly, “I’m sure that it couldn’t have been as bad as you’re thinking, Peggy.”

“It
was
bad,” said Peggy, but stopped talking as Red came up to them.

“Mama, I thought I told you to come outside.” Red’s voice was tight with stress.

“I figured you’d want me to stay with Peggy,” said Myrtle coolly. “Surely you didn’t intend for her to be standing in the front yard with all the gaping masses.”

“Is it all right if I use your bathroom?” asked Peggy.

“Of course. Right down the hall. And there are clean washcloths under the sink if you want to refresh yourself a little. It’s been such a shock, I know.”

“Do you have an aspirin or something?” she asked, pressing her fingers against her forehead.

“Right in the medicine cabinet,” said Myrtle as Peggy walked out of the room.

Red gave her a stern look.

“Well, what was I supposed to do?” Myrtle asked with a shrug.

“Has it occurred to you that there appears to be a murderer hanging out at your house?” asked Red in a hushed voice. “Maybe it would be a good idea if you stuck close to me.”

Myrtle put her hands on her hips. “Where exactly would this murderer be hiding in my house?  Hmm?  This isn’t exactly a mansion, Red.”

“Under your bed.”

“He’d have to push aside fifteen different boxes to hide under there. It just wouldn’t be an efficient place for a murderer to hide,” said Myrtle.

“While Peggy is in the bathroom, why don’t you fill me in?  What did Peggy tell you?” asked Red. “Did she say anything about what might have happened?”

Myrtle reluctantly filled him in with what she knew.

Then Peggy came back out and Red said, “Now Mama, I’m going to talk to Peggy for a few minutes. I need for you to go outside and rejoin your guests. Lieutenant Perkins is out there talking to them now. Besides, I think the forensics team might want to be in your house awhile, too.”

Not that they were going to get any good clues from the house. Most of the town had been in there, sloppily leaving their DNA around. She grabbed her cane and headed to the front door.

It proved to be more interesting outside than Myrtle had thought. Lieutenant Perkins was busily conducting short interviews with the guests, giving Myrtle time to conduct her own without being frowned at.

She was immediately pounced on outside, as she’d known she would be. First of all, the old McKenzie sisters grabbed her arm.

“Isn’t it awful!” one of the elderly sisters said to Myrtle with gleaming eyes. “I simply can’t believe it. And isn’t this the second time now that you’ve had a body in your backyard? How terrifying!”

“We all have our own peculiar trials to bear,” said Myrtle. She was already pulling away because, if her past dealings with the sisters were any guide, they were heavy on drama and low on real information.

The older of the sisters dug her claw-like nails into Myrtle’s arm a little more, apparently for support since she wavered a bit on her feet. “I saw it, you know. I saw the body.” A satisfied expression crossed her face.

“I think most of the party saw it,” said Myrtle impatiently. “And, technically, I believe we should be referring to the body as
him
.”

“I mean, I saw him
before
everyone realized it was real,” said the woman in an insistent voice. Once she saw she had Myrtle’s attention, she continued. “I got to your house right after you did,” she said to Myrtle.

“We’d heard you had an open bar,” her sister helpfully interjected.

“Erroneously, clearly,” said the older sister, her voice heavy with disapproval.

So that’s why the attendance at the reception had been so heavy. It hadn’t all been Erma Sherman’s fault. Unless she’d been the one behind the rumor.

“When I came in your house, I looked around a bit. To get my bearings, you know. Find where the sandwiches were; find where the powder room was….”

“And figure out where the drinks table was,” said the younger sister with a disappointed sigh.

“When I looked outside—just wondering, of course, if there were possibly some additional refreshments outside—I thought that you’d had a fairly uncharacteristic lapse of good taste. We’ve all gotten used to small memorials, of course. We see teddy bears, balloons, flowers and flags all the time to commemorate an untimely death. But using a manikin to depict a reenactment of the scene—well, it seemed to me that Myrtle Clover had gone too far. You do remember my saying that, don’t you, Sister?”

“I certainly do, Sister. I certainly do!”

Myrtle said, “All right, just summing up this story of yours, you’re saying that you were one of the first guests at my reception and you noticed that there was already a body in the backyard when you arrived?”

The elderly woman’s thin face beamed at her. “That’s right!” She paused. “Is that important, do you think? Do you think the policeman will be interested?”

“I think it helps to pinpoint the time of death,” said Myrtle, finally managing to pull her arm away from the woman’s digging fingers. “I was starting to wonder if it had happened during the reception itself. Everyone was so distracted stuffing themselves with ham sandwiches….”

“And looking for the bar,” reminded the younger sister.

“…that I wondered if a murder might have taken place in full view of everyone and nobody even noticed,” finished Myrtle. “But it sounds like that wasn’t true.”

“What I’d like to know, though,” said the older sister with avid interest, “is more about how you discovered the very first body. Who exactly was this Charles Clayborne?  And what on earth was he doing lying dead in your yard?”

Myrtle gave her best impression of a regretful smile. “I’d love to be able to share that information with you, but it’s classified. Besides,” she said, catching sight of Wanda staring at her from a few yards away, “there’s someone that I need to talk to.”

“Thanks for giving me that warning about putting Pasha down,” said Myrtle. “She’d have carved me up into a million pieces with those claws when all the screaming started up.”

Wanda nodded and smiled, looking down somewhere in the direction of her scruffy shoes. Shyness from the psychic?  It had to be due to her being out of her comfort zone.

Myrtle continued. “So you knew?  You’d seen the body out the window before you warned me?”

Wanda shrugged an emaciated shoulder. “Seen it in my head.”

Was Myrtle ever going to get used to this hocus-pocus stuff?  “If you saw the death before it happened, why didn’t you let the police know?  Red would’ve….”

Wanda gave a scornful snort. “Red would’ve patted me on the back and sent me off. Would’ve thought I was crazy or making stuff up.”

He would have, at that.

“Besides, ain’t seen details. I thought I was seeing the
other
body again. Like a rerun. Didn’t know it was a fresh body,” said Wanda.

Myrtle glanced around to make sure no one was in earshot, then said in a low voice, “Tell me who you favor for the murderer. Have you seen anything in your head about how these murders happened?  Any shadowy figures?  People lurking in my bushes?  A hint as to who did it?”

Wanda shook her head. “Wish I did. But there’s nothing.”

“All right. But you seem like a pretty perceptive person.” An understatement. “You were at the reception and might have gotten more of a chance to watch people than I did. Did you pick up on anything? See anybody acting suspicious?  Hear any threads of conversation that might give us a clue as to who’s behind all this?” asked Myrtle.

Wanda looked at Myrtle shrewdly. “Yer in danger.”

Chapter Eleven

Not this again. “I know. But if I find out who’s responsible for these killings, then I won’t be in danger anymore, will I?  Can’t you help me out?”

The appeal seemed to sway the woman. She sighed. “Don’t know if it’s important. But that Peggy? She had a past with that Charles.”

“Charles Clayborne? Your cousin?  She used to be involved with him romantically, you’re saying?” asked Myrtle.  She remembered seeing Peggy crying at Charles’s funeral.

“Used to be. Still wanted to be,” said Wanda coolly.

“But she was practically telling me she didn’t know who Charles even was!”

“Came to his funeral, didn’t she?” asked Wanda. “Cried over his body, too.”

That she had. “And you’re saying that she still wanted to get back together with Charles?” The two seemed like an odd match to Myrtle. Charles, slick as he was, was still a fairly attractive man. Peggy was pleasantly plump and looked older than her thirty-six years.

Wanda nodded. “That’s what I heard. She was trying to hitch back up with him and he wasn’t wanting to. Hurt her feelings.”

Hurt feelings were understandable. But would that be enough to kill someone?  And she certainly hadn’t appeared to know anything about her father’s death. It was hard to picture Peggy being responsible for killing her own father. Could there possibly be more than one murderer afoot? 

Her thoughts were interrupted by Lieutenant Perkins. “Mrs. Clover?  Could I speak with you for a few minutes?” Myrtle had forgotten that she was probably a person of interest to the state police. How many times could you have a body in your backyard without attracting attention?

They stepped off to the side and the sergeant with Lieutenant Perkins flipped to a fresh page in his notebook and looked at Myrtle expectantly. He had such an eager expression on his face that she felt sorry to have to dash his hopes.

Which she did almost immediately. “Lieutenant Perkins, I would love to be able to help you out. But I’m like the little monkeys who saw and heard no evil. I’m completely useless to you. As far as I can tell, I had a body in my backyard for hours and had absolutely no idea that it was there.”

Lieutenant Perkins retained his same thoughtful expression, but she did see the sergeant’s face fall.

Perkins said, “So when you returned from the funeral service, you didn’t notice there was another victim in your yard?”

“No. Wish I had, though.” Myrtle could tell her irritation at that fact was seeping into her voice.

“There appeared to be a small memorial set out in the yard that was directly under the victim. Could you give me an idea when you set that out?” asked the police officer.

“It’s probably not going to help you out much. I put those flowers out there early this morning; right after the sun came up. Clearly he was murdered sometime after the flowers were placed outside, but I already knew that he was still alive this morning.” Myrtle abruptly slammed her mouth closed. He wouldn’t have spoken to Peggy Neighbors yet, and if she filled him in, it was going to make her look nosy again. The police warnings did wear thin after a while.

But her comment hadn’t escaped notice. “How did you know that Lee Woosley was still alive this morning?” he asked. The sergeant was beginning to look excited again and had his pencil poised once more over the notebook.

Myrtle sighed. “Lee’s daughter, Peggy Neighbors, talked to him on the phone this morning. She told me about it a few minutes ago.”

As expected, Lieutenant Perkins gave Myrtle a disapproving look. Before he could offer her his standard police warning, Myrtle decided that the interview was entirely too one-sided and that she needed to turn the tables. “It looked like someone had smacked Lee on the back of the head with a shovel—is that right? Could a woman have done it?”