Arsenic in the Azaleas Read online

  “I have no idea how. I haven’t had to provide for myself until now, and, at this point in time, with three animals…”

  “But you’re resourceful. You’re a survivor. You can do this.”

  She openly stared at him. And she had to wonder. Was he right?

  One thing she did know. He was too handsome, too suave to believe most of the time. But maybe those most recent words from him were just what she needed to hear.

  Chapter 9

  “What questions did you want to ask me, Corporal Moreau?” Doreen studied Mack, wondering at his earlier insight. Mugs walked over and sniffed his shoes.

  “Just call me Mack. I’d like you to tell me what you saw outside and what you found.” He gave her a gentle smile. “Just start from when you first arrived.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’ll take a while. I’ve been here a whole six or so hours, and unlikely events have taken over my life.” But she launched into her story. Doing the best she could to leave nothing out, she brought Mack up to date on everything that had happened so far.

  “Do you have any idea why there would be a body in the garden?”

  She looked at him and said, “No.”

  “Any idea why Nan would have somebody buried in the garden?”

  She narrowed her gaze at him. “No.”

  He nodded. “Do you have problems with anybody from this area?”

  “Maybe the entire neighborhood for all I know,” she snapped. “Remember that part about how I just got here? Today? At noon?”

  “What about Nan? Did she have any enemies?”

  Instantly her ire subsided. “Hell no. Nan is one of the nicest people I’ve ever known.” She waved her hand around at the small house. “Maybe you should talk to the neighbors about that. Because I really don’t know. If they do have something to say, maybe you’ll fill me in. As far as I know, Nan didn’t have any arguments with anybody. However, Nan is alive and well in the retirement home, so maybe you should talk directly to her.”

  “And I will,” he said, tucking away his notepad.

  He’d been writing something on those pages. She watched him pocket his pen. “Can you tell all those policemen to get out of my backyard now?”

  “Not until they are done.”

  “And the mess they’re making?”

  He glanced out the window at the completely overgrown garden and said, “How can you even tell?”

  She stared at the garden area. “Nan couldn’t do very much gardening for the last few years.”

  He waved at the grass. It was well over knee-high, so were the weeds all throughout the yard. “At least that long.”

  A few trees in the back badly needed pruning. When she had the time and energy and money, she would get those done. Nan must’ve needed help with everything. All of it piling on top of her and just not enough energy to even care anymore. Between the garden, the house and the animals, it had all gotten to be too much for her aging grandmother.

  Guilt shot through Doreen. Poor Nan. She’d really hoped to stay here in her own home until she died. Maybe Doreen should ask Nan once more if she wanted to come live here with her.

  “Any idea what brought about her decision to move?”

  Doreen slowly faced him, her eyebrows raised. “You know? I never asked her. Maybe I should.”

  His voice dropping yet again, he said, “Maybe you should.”

  As he walked away, she studied his back suspiciously. “What do you mean by that, Mack?”

  He turned and smiled. “It might just have something to do with your circumstances.”

  She stared at him blankly for a moment, and then it hit her. She gasped in horror. “You’re not saying Nan moved into a retirement home so I could have her house? That would be horrible.”

  “Why would it be horrible?” He leaned against the doorjamb, crossing his arms as he studied her. “Sometimes it takes other people’s circumstances to make us realize it’s time for a change.”

  She huffed.

  He grinned. “Then, because of your circumstances, it might’ve been the final straw that led Nan to making that decision.”

  Somehow that sounded better, but, at the same time, it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She planned to ask Nan… she just needed the right time… She didn’t want to make it sound like she was ungrateful for all Nan had done. Neither did she want Nan to feel obligated to help her out. Doreen could stand on her own two feet. She had no experience doing so, but she was gutsy and getting more so every day.

  There was something incredibly freeing about her new life.

  Just then a knock came at the back door, and she opened it, amid Mugs’s crazy barking, to let in the same grizzled cop she had met at the very beginning of this strange day—Arnold. She couldn’t begin to remember his last name. Carmichael maybe? No, that wasn’t it. No matter. Chester said to just call them by their first names.

  He nodded, took note of Mack and said, “Good evening, sir. I didn’t realize you were here.”

  Mack nodded back at him. “Any forensic finds?”

  “Not that we noticed yet. The coroner is ready to take away the body. Did you want to see the backyard?”

  Mack said, “Yes, actually I would like to.”

  “I would too,” Doreen growled. She headed out to the back veranda behind them. When she saw how much of the garden they had dug up getting to the body, she winced. “You know? The least you guys could do is dig up the entire thing.” Several blank faces raised in her direction. She sighed. “Never mind.”

  Mack laughed. “They will get the joke later.”

  She followed Mack from the kitchen back door to the far set of veranda steps down to the decking nearest the grave. She stayed on the veranda steps while Mack walked around one six-foot-long pit, a couple feet wide, barely big enough for a body, and only a couple feet deep. “I thought you’re supposed to bury bodies at least six feet deep so that animals can’t smell them?”

  One of the officers turned to look at her. “That would be in ideal circumstances.”

  She nodded. “So somebody didn’t intend for this body to be here for very long?”

  Arnold faced her. “Maybe somebody buried it just recently.”

  A sour note had entered his voice. As if Doreen were somehow responsible. She glared at him. “It wasn’t me. Remember that part about me not being here until six hours ago?”

  “But you could have been here a couple days ago, coming in secretly, burying a man in the backyard and then coming back again when you moved in. All looking innocent like that.” He brushed most of the dirt off his hands and clothes.

  She glared at him. “Why would I bury a body in my own place?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet. But I will.” Arnold gave her a surly look and walked around the house.

  Several of the other men were busy walking the rest of her property.

  She waved a hand toward them. “What are they looking for?”

  “Anything and everything,” said the younger cop, Chester. “We must search to find any forensic evidence that would explain how and why this happened. And, most important, by whom.”

  “I understand that, but do you have to check in the garden like fifty yards away?”

  “If you were to stand on that deck,” Mack began, “and were to toss a murder weapon into that mess, how far do you think you could throw it?”

  She turned to Mack and answered his question. “I don’t know. Maybe thirty to forty feet?”

  “If you were a fit teenaged male, how far do you think you could throw it?”

  She studied the back of the garden and said, “Fine. I guess somebody good at pitching a softball could throw all the way to the back of the property. But it’s getting too dark to see anything.”

  The young cop said, “That’s why we will be back first thing in the morning.”

  She stared at him in surprise. “You guys will be here again tomorrow?”

  Mack cleared his throat beside her. “We’
ll be here every day until we have searched the whole place.”

  She stared at him. “Why?”

  “Because a dead body was found on your property.”

  She closed her eyes, hating the idea of starting a brand-new life immediately ravaged by something as nasty as a murder. Then she nodded. “That’s fine, but I want to know exactly what you take out of here.”

  “We can do that. We’ll give you a list of items before we leave with them.”

  She asked Mack, “If you guys are leaving now and coming back in the morning, how the devil will you know if the killer comes back and takes whatever it is he might’ve thrown out there?”

  He looked at her and just smiled.

  She shook her head at his failure to answer her and was about to go back inside, but Mugs sniffed around the bottom step. “Did you happen to check under these veranda steps?”

  Everyone still in the vicinity stopped and looked at Mugs. He sniffed from one side of the step to the other. Then he jumped down into the grave. “No, Mugs, no.”

  But Mugs ignored her command. With his short stubby legs, he dug deeper in the spot where the policemen had dug. Instantly several of the cops came back over with flashlights to look closer underneath that final step nearby the grave. And she had the sinking feeling they’d found something.

  Mack, disregarding his suit, jumped into the grave, picked up Mugs and put him at the top of the veranda steps beside her. “Can you keep him here until we find out what it is he smelled?”

  She nodded and grabbed Mugs by the collar. Goliath wandered out, completely oblivious to the fact that a dozen men surrounded the veranda. “What is it, Goliath?” She didn’t expect the cat to answer, but he walked back and forth over the top of the same step Mugs had sniffed and swished his tale. She wasn’t sure what that meant in cat language, but she presumed it was significant. Between the findings of the two of them, something had to be under there.

  When somebody tore off the bottom veranda step from its supports, set it to one side, and dug underneath, she winced and said, “Please tell me a second body isn’t down there.”

  “I don’t think so.” The cop pulled out what look like a briefcase. “A man’s laptop bag or something similar.” In the dark, it was hard to see, but the item was black and about the right size for a briefcase.

  The men kept digging a little more and came up with a dead squirrel.

  “Oh, that must be what the dog was after.”

  The cops shrugged. The squirrel was tossed into the nearest garbage bag beside them. One of the men asked the cop holding the briefcase, “Now this briefcase, that’s a different story. The animals weren’t necessarily interested in it. But is it the dead man’s briefcase?”

  “It’s a reasonable assumption,” said the cop holding the new evidence.

  With a flashlight turned on the briefcase, the cops opened it up to find papers. Lots and lots of papers.

  Doreen leaned in to make sure nothing pertained to Nan. A couple of the cops looked at her funny, but none told her to go away. They’d better not. Without her and Mugs, they wouldn’t have known the briefcase was even here.

  Mack pulled out several documents. “These look like investments, stock portfolios.”

  “And is Nan’s name on there or not?” Doreen asked.

  Mack looked at her and understood. He walked up the steps and turned on the outside light for more light on the veranda and the deck then he went through several of the papers. “I’m not seeing Nan’s name on any of these forms.”

  Doreen’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank you. I just want to make sure this guy hadn’t ripped her off or something. Nan must have had a really bad time financially these last few years, and I’d hate to think somebody took advantage of her.”

  “Forensics will get these original documents first. I’ll get copies and go over them in detail,” Mack said. “If there’s any mention of Nan on these, I’ll let you know.”

  He collected the pages, put them back in the case, gave it a good bang to ensure some of the dirt came off and then joined the other policemen on the yard.

  Chapter 10

  Doreen locked the front door once Mack and some of the other officers had gone, then, needing a better outlet for her growing frustration, ended up kicking it too.

  “Ouch.” Okay, that was stupid. Hobbling gently, she walked to the kitchen window where she watched from behind the curtains as the policemen slowly collected their tools and belongings and then left her garden. When the backyard was clear, she walked into the living room, just in time to see several cop cars pull away.

  A few stragglers remained from the crowd that had been outside, standing around, staring and talking. Several even had what appeared to be mugs of tea or coffee. She supposed this was their local entertainment. With a sad shake of her head, she turned toward the coffeepot.

  At least she’d learned how to make coffee. If she were lucky, there’d be a cup left.

  She perked up at the idea and walked to the pot. No such luck. It was a small pot, and between her and Mack, the coffee had been finished off. She pulled out the coffee from the drawer where she’d seen Mack grab it, and, true enough, the scoop was inside. So now she could make coffee herself. But, just in case, she jotted down his instructions on a notepad so she wouldn’t forget.

  She was hungry too and still had her lack-of-food issue to deal with. The Chinese food delivery would have to wait for another day. She was just so tired, but she forced herself to sit down and eat the rest of her traveling snacks. After the first few bites she felt better. By the time she’d polished off her meager meal, she was more than ready to go to bed.

  She grabbed several of her suitcases and marched upstairs. She hadn’t unpacked her bags yet, not with so much happening on her first day here.

  With all the animals following behind her, she opened the first room to see a small bedroom with ancient wallpaper and dingy curtains on the windows. In spite of the looks she smiled. This had been the room she’d stayed in as a child. There had been a bathroom across the hallway. Crossing the hallway she found the bathroom as she remembered, which at least looked serviceable. The master bedroom was at the end of the hallway. This was Nan’s room. She gasped in delight as she walked in. It was huge. This would work.

  Of course it was also jam-packed with all kinds of shelves and old furniture. She had no idea what Nan needed with all this stuff. But amid all this clutter was a very large bed in the center. She walked over and sat down experimentally. Loud squeaks and groans of metal springs erupted from underneath. She closed her eyes in defeat. “Really, Nan?” Was this the same old bed she’d always had? Hadn’t she upgraded anything? Doreen stared at it in disbelief. “This thing will break my back. I just know it.”

  Immediately she chastised herself for the uncharitable thought. It was probably all Nan could afford.

  Doreen pulled back the bedding to see that, indeed, clean sheets were underneath. Nan had probably left it ready for Doreen’s arrival. Which Doreen appreciated, but, at the same time, she wondered at the sense of just taking the mattress off the noisy steel springs and putting it on the floor. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to sleep on the bed as is. She was starting to feel like the princess with the pea—only right now she was more pauper than princess.

  Two very large double closet doors were on the opposite wall, and that was a plus. But as she opened the doors, the closet overflowed with everything else stored away in this house. It would take days, if not weeks or months, to sort through and toss all this clutter. Why hadn’t Nan done this first? She’d known she was leaving this house.

  When Doreen had a chance, she’d ask Nan. Doreen’s little Honda was too small to haul everything out of here, and she had no money to pay for somebody else to get rid of it all. The living room and dining room downstairs were full as well. But she hadn’t really expected this bedroom to be also. She turned to see Thaddeus, sitting on the foot railing to the bed. “Oh, I don’t think so.
This is where I sleep, not you.”

  But as she studied him and the newspaper on the floor under him, she wondered if that really was his sleeping spot. “Oh, my God! Please don’t tell me that you poop in here too?”

  As if knowing exactly what she said, Thaddeus gave a tiny squirt, and a white splotch appeared on the floor.

  It was just too much. It was all just too much. She could feel hot tears burning in the corner of her eyes. She brushed them away impatiently. By the time she cleared her eyes, she could hear a weird groan. She glanced over at the bed again to see Goliath dead center, curled up in a ball. Nan probably had lived with her pets as if they were family.

  The trouble was, they were Nan’s family. Doreen wasn’t at all sure they could become hers. Did she have any choice?

  Mugs stood up on his back legs, his front paws on the bed, took one look at the cat asleep there and barked.

  Doreen rushed over. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re not jumping on that bed.” But before she reached him, he lunged and ended up on the bed too. The bed squeaked and bounced with his movements. The cat didn’t even open an eyeball. Mugs sniffed at him hard and then circled around and dropped at the foot of the bed, stretched out, taking up over half of it.

  If she’d ever wondered how much her life would change now, here was her answer. The proof was right here in front of her. She would never be the same again.

  She turned her back on them and surveyed the rest of the room. She couldn’t deal with the animals right now. Later. Spotting a door on the far side, she walked over and pushed it open. And cried out in joy. Of all the things she hadn’t expected, it was this huge en suite bathroom with a large soaking tub, a separate shower and double sinks. When had Nan redone this room? Whenever it was Doreen would be forever grateful. And right now a hot shower would do a lot to ease her mood.

  She walked to the window to check if anybody could see her. The master bathroom looked over the backyard. Outside of the neighboring yards, only trees and grass stared back at her. She stood here, slowly unbuttoning her suit jacket as she stared out at the massive garden. Tracks and shovel marks and trampled grass reached all the way back to the dilapidated fence. Such an invasion of privacy. She knew she shouldn’t feel violated, as it didn’t feel like home yet, but she was more outraged for Nan’s sake.