Hope, Faith, and a Corpse

by Laura Jensen Walker

  Then I filled his outdoor water bowl, squared my shoulders, and headed to the shed again. This time I made a lot of noise as I approached, stomping my feet and loudly singing “Mamma Mia” to frighten off any other creatures who might be lurking inside. I picked up a nearby stick and banged on the shed walls before I entered. Then I waited. Nothing. No sound. No movement. All was still. Flinging the door wide to let in more light, this time I quickly found a shovel, spade, and some old metal loppers before slamming the door shut and making sure it was firmly secured. Then I made my way over to the spot where I intended to plant the rosebushes at the back of the yard, currently possessed by what might once have been a hedge but now more closely resembled the Incredible Hulk on a rampage.

  You can do this.

  I took a deep breath and began whacking off dead branches from the overgrown hedge, which I could now see had once been individual bushes before they all grew together in a tangled mess. Ten minutes later, as Bogie stretched out on the grass nearby, basking in the late-morning sun, I began to dig up the first bush with the shovel. You’ve got this. You’re a healthy, strong, independent woman. What did that seventies women’s anthem say? Hear me roar!

  As I worked, perspiration dripped down my back and blisters began to form on my hands. Sweat trickled into my eyes, and I paused to wipe it away with the hem of my T-shirt. My womanly roar receded to a whimper, but I continued digging. Half an hour later, I was rewarded with a pop. Yes! I set the shovel down and tugged on the trunk, but it refused to budge.

  Think maybe it might have been a good idea to soak the ground first, Sherlock?

  Oh shut up, I told my inner nag.

  I dug deeper, and this time Bogie joined in. “No, no,” I scolded, until I saw that Bogie was a good digger. Many paws make light work. Moments later, I heard another pop. I tugged on the trunk again. This time it gave some. We both dug some more. More popping. More digging. More tugging. At last, the recalcitrant trunk gave way as I yanked it, causing me to stagger backward and Bogie to release a concerned yip. I tossed my Incredible Hulk nemesis to one side, then raised the shovel high over my head and swayed back and forth as I sang “We Are the Champions.”

  “Love that song,” a familiar voice said.

  Bogie barked, and I spun around to see Susan in denim capris and a red T-shirt advancing toward me with an icy pitcher and two glasses.

  “I saw you working away from my upstairs window and thought I’d better bring you some lemonade.” She set the pitcher and glasses down on a rusting bistro set the former owner had left behind, then knelt down to scratch the backs of Bogie’s ears.

  I motioned for Susan to sit as I gulped down the refreshing liquid. Then I sank into the other bistro chair and fanned my face with my hand. “Thanks. I was dying.”

  “I figured that. I’m guessing you’re not used to manual labor.” She pushed her dark hair behind her ear.

  “Not so much. I can deadhead and plant six-packs with the best of them, but David was the one who did all the heavy lifting and digging. I’ll get the hang of it, though.”

  Susan flexed a sturdy bicep. “If you need help, let me know.” She took a drink of her lemonade. “By the way, I hear you’re joining the Downton Divas.”

  “Looking forward to it. I loved that show.”

  “Who didn’t? Other than my husband and most men.”

  David had not been like most men, for which I was grateful. Masterpiece Theatre had been our Sunday night TV tradition, and we always snuggled in and watched Downton Abbey together, as well as all the Masterpiece mysteries.

  Susan’s voice interrupted my memories. “Word on the street is you’re also a woman of means.”

  I choked on my lemonade and sputtered. “Woman of means?” Yes, David’s life insurance, split between Emily and me, had left me comfortable, but not wealthy. Thanks to the sale of our home, I’d netted enough to buy my Apple Springs bungalow.

  Susan held up her hands in mock surrender. “Not my words. I couldn’t care less how much or how little money you have, but you bought Harry’s house outright, and real estate’s not cheap in these parts.”

  “Cheaper than the Bay Area. Especially when the house is twelve hundred square feet and in need of work.”

  “True dat.”

  I lifted an eyebrow.

  “Did that sound as ridiculous to your ears as it did to mine?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “That’s what I get for trying to speak my kids’ language.” Susan held up her right hand. “I solemnly swear: those words will never pass these lips again.” She pretended to spit them out.

  When we stopped laughing, I asked, “How many children do you have? Do they still live at home?”

  “Bite your tongue. We are empty nesters at last, thank God. I love my kids, but I thought they’d never leave. Jennie and Jeremy are twenty-five and twenty-seven, respectively. Jeremy and his wife Amanda gave us our grandchild, Jason, who will turn three in a couple months—thank goodness. I adore Jason, but they don’t call them the terrible twos for nothing.” She shuddered.

  “Is Jason your only grandchild?”

  “No. Jennie and her husband Brian have given us a beautiful granddaughter, Julia. Eleven months. Mike is completely besotted. Turns to total mush whenever she’s around. I have to fight him for the chance to even hold her.” She took a drink of her lemonade.

  If David were still alive, I would probably have had the same problem with our granddaughter, Kelsey. Not for the first time, I thought of what a wonderful grandfather David would have been. He had been an amazing, involved dad to Emily, and I wouldn’t have expected any less with his only grandchild. Sadly, though, he got to see Kelsey only twice before he succumbed to cancer.

  I shook off the bittersweet remembrances and returned to the present. “I checked out Don Forrester online last night and learned something. Stanley had an affair with Don’s wife?”

  “Yep. Poor guy got hit with a double whammy. First Stanley cheated him out of the law practice, and then Don discovered Debbie was cheating on him with Stanley. Broke his heart, and he filed for divorce.”

  “What happened to his ex-wife?”

  Susan’s mouth tightened. “She thought Stanley was going to marry her, but he played her like a violin. Stanley used Debbie to get Don’s private business files, and once he had them, he executed some shady behind-the-scenes maneuvering to push Don out of the firm. Once that was a done deal, Stan dropped Debbie. Last I heard, she had moved to the Midwest some—”

  Bogie interrupted Susan by proudly depositing something at our feet.

  I lifted up the object. “Good boy! You found a bone. Want to play fetch?” I raised my arm to throw, but Susan halted my hand midair.

  “That’s a human bone.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Human?” I dropped the bone, but Susan snatched it up before Bogie could. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “Nope.” She was busy examining the bleached object. “I think it’s a metatarsal.”

  “Metatarsal?”

  “Foot bone.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I studied archaeology and went on a few digs back in the day.”

  Digs. I jumped up from my chair and sprinted over to the hole I had dug, with Susan and an excited Bogie right behind me. Bogie tried to burrow down into the hole again, but I held him back, then knelt and peered into the earthy pit he’d enlarged while we’d been engrossed in conversation.

  I saw white.

  Susan, who had also dropped to her knees to peer inside the hole, saw it too. “More metatarsals,” she breathed, as she rocked back on her heels. “That’s someone’s foot.”

  “There’s a dead body in my yard?”

  “More like a skeleton.” Susan got to her feet and brushed off her hands. “We’d better call Chief Beacham.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, I looked up to see a brawny man in a kilt striding across the backyard toward us. Definit
ely not the police chief. “Did you call Braveheart?”

  “Hal must be busy on another call. That’s his deputy, Dylan.”

  “Does he always dress like that?”

  “Only for special events. I think there’s a Celtic festival somewhere nearby today. Dylan’s the best stone thrower around.”

  “Good thing I don’t live in a glass house.”

  “It’s a Highland competition. Like the shot put.”

  “Ah.”

  “Sorry, Dylan,” Susan said as the sandy-haired deputy joined us.

  “That’s okay, business before pleasure.” He smiled and extended his hand to me. “Dylan MacGregor.”

  “Hope Taylor.”

  Braveheart quirked a shaggy eyebrow. “The same Hope Taylor who found Stanley King’s body?”

  “Guilty. Unfortunately.”

  “Bodies seem to have a way of following you around.”

  “Not until I came here. Are you sure the name of this town isn’t Death Valley?”

  “Now that you’re here, we may have to change it.” He grinned.

  Susan handed the kilt-wearing Dylan the bone. “Looks like a metatarsal to me.”

  He turned it over in his hands, closely examining it. “Sure does.” Then he pulled on a pair of gloves, grabbed the shovel, and approached the hole. Fifteen minutes later, he set the shovel down. He had carefully dug out the next two overgrown bushes that formed the hulking hedge and moved them aside.

  Susan and I joined the deputy at the hole, which was now a wide trench, and peered down, where we beheld a mass of white. Bogie began barking and squirming even more, eager to get at the bounty of bones. “No boy, that’s not for you.”

  “Definitely human.” Dylan MacGregor frowned. “I’ll need to call Stu Black.”

  “Do you think the butler did it?” I joked. Glancing back at my bungalow, I said, “Although this place isn’t large enough to require a butler. Maybe it was a jealous husband who did in his unfaithful wife, buried the body, and told everyone she’d run off with the milkman.”

  “Traveling salesman,” Susan murmured.

  “Huh?”

  “Harry Guthrie’s wife left him for a traveling salesman,” Dylan MacGregor said curtly. “Sixty years ago.”

  “Seriously?” I whistled, and squeezed Bogie in surprise. He yelped in protest. “Sorry, boy.” I turned to Susan and caught a dismayed look that she was exchanging with the deputy. “I’m going to take him inside. Be right back.”

  When I returned after placating Bogie with a couple of Milk-Bones, Braveheart was on his smartphone.

  “Is he still talking to the medical examiner?”

  “Nope, an archaeologist who consults with him. She’ll have to come out too.”

  “Why?”

  “This could be a Native American burial site. A Miwok cemetery was discovered down the road about a decade ago, and they’ve found a few smaller sites in the area since then.”

  “Well, that would be better than having my house predecessor be a killer.” I shivered at the thought of a murder being committed in my backyard, or worse yet, inside my house. It was bad enough finding a dead body at church, but having one on my property gave me the creeps.

  “The only person Harry ever killed was me. At dominoes,” Dylan said, overhearing. He shoved his phone into a furry purse-thing with tassels hanging from a chain at the waist of his kilt and stalked off.

  I turned to Susan, bewildered.

  “Harry was like a grandfather to Dylan,” she said softly. “He took him under his wing after his dad died when he was a kid. Watched him while his mom was at work and taught him cribbage and dominoes. Dylan really loved that old man.”

  Way to go, Pastor Compassion. Great way to endear yourself to the local law. I determined to keep my mouth shut from then on.

  The deputy returned from his car with a roll of yellow crime scene tape and some wooden stakes, which he proceeded to shove into the dirt around the grave perimeter.

  “Wait! What are you doing?” So much for keeping my mouth shut.

  Before Dylan could answer, a turquoise tornado enveloped me. “Oh mah dear, are you all right?” Liliane Turner embraced me, wafting waves of Tabu. “We were having brunch at my house and saw the police car and thought maybe something had happened to you, so rushed right over.”

  “I’m fine.” I gently extricated herself from Liliane’s spindly but surprisingly strong arms before the spicy, too-sweet fragrance knocked me out. “But thanks for your concern.”

  “I told you that you were overreacting, Lil,” said Dorothy, whose fuchsia lipstick perfectly matched her button earrings and silk blouse. “Pastor Hope is perfectly capable of handling herself. She’s not some damsel in distress in need of someone to rescue her.”

  Patricia hugged me hello.

  “Love your outfit,” I said, admiring her retro-looking black-and-white polka-dotted dress. “Especially with the red belt. Very Audrey Hepburn.”

  “I was thinking more Sophia Loren,” Liliane said.

  “Thank you. Hal said it reminded him of Lucille Ball.”

  “I love Lucy!” Dorothy said. “Especially the chocolate-factory episode.”

  Liliane giggled. “When they were stuffing all those chocolates in their mouths.”

  “Lucy looked like a tick about to pop,” Patricia said.

  Peals of laughter rang out.

  “If you ladies are finished with your garden party now—” Deputy Braveheart began.

  “It is a party, Mommy! I told you!” Maddie, my almost-four neighbor advanced into the backyard, holding her mother’s hand. “I wanna play!” Then she caught sight of the yellow police tape, which the others had overlooked in their I Love Lucy bonding. “Hey, what’s that?”

  Dylan, Susan, and I closed ranks to block the grave from the little girl’s sight. Catching on, Nikki scooped Maddie up in her arms and turned her back on the police tape. “Hey Maddie-boo, guess who’s going to give someone a zerbert?” She planted her lips on her daughter’s tummy and blew a raspberry, which caused Maddie to shriek in delight.

  “Do it again!”

  Nikki blew another raspberry. Then another, with Maddie shrieking and giggling all the while.

  Susan strode over to the mother-daughter duo with a huge smile. “Hey, we’re going to move the party over to my house. Who wants some lemonade and cookies?”

  “I do, I do!” Maddie said.

  “I do, I do,” Nikki echoed.

  “You funny, Mommy.”

  “There’s plenty for everyone,” Susan said over her shoulder to us as the threesome departed.

  Once the trio disappeared from view, Patricia turned to Dylan and me, hands on her hips. “Now what in the world is going on?”

  The deputy exhaled an exasperated sigh. “We found a skeleton in Harry’s—I mean Pastor Hope’s—backyard.”

  Dorothy and Liliane gasped.

  “So this area is off-limits until Stu Black and Doc Linden arrive to examine it.”

  “The archaeologist?” Liliane asked, peering around Dylan to try to see into the hole.

  He nodded. “Most likely it’s more Miwok bones like they found down the road.”

  “Harold’s going to hate having missed this,” Patricia said. “Two bodies in one week? What are the odds? That’s more crime than Apple Springs has seen in the past decade.” She sent me a mischievous smile. “Thanks, Hope.”

  “What can I say? Some people attract mosquitoes. I seem to attract bodies.”

  The deputy’s furry purse-pouch buzzed. He pulled out his phone and glanced at the text. “That’s Doc Linden. I’m going to meet her out front. Be right back.” He fixed the women with a stern stare. “And stay away from the grave site.” Dylan jogged away, kilt flapping.

  “I declare, that man has the nicest legs,” Liliane said, in full-on Scarlett mode.

  “He has the nicest everything,” Dorothy said.

  “Except temper.”

  “Temper? Dylan?” Pat
ricia sent me a surprised look. “Dylan’s one of the most even-tempered men I know. He rarely gets bent out of shape.”

  “Well, I guess I bent him.” I could feel my face flushing. “Apparently I dissed his surrogate grandpa when I joked that the guy who lived here before me may have knocked off his wife and buried her in the backyard.”

  Liliane and Patricia exchanged looks.

  “Sorry. I was kidding. Some of you may have been friends of his.”

  “Yes,” Dorothy said. “I’ve known Harry all my life. We went to the same school, although he was a couple years ahead of me. He had his faults, like all of us, but Harry was a good guy, especially in his later years.”

  Liliane arched a painted eyebrow.

  “What? Look how kind he was to Dylan when his father passed away.”

  “He sure had a temper when he was young, though,” Liliane said. “Quite the jealous streak too. Remember when he punched Tom Shelton for staring at Betsy?”

  “That was years ago.”

  “Harry and Betsy were high school sweethearts,” Liliane explained. “They were crazy about each other. Everyone knew they were going to get married.”

  “And did they?”

  “Oh yes,” Dorothy said. “Betsy was the love of Harry’s life, and he was hers.” She frowned. “At least that’s what we thought. That’s why it was such a shock when she ran off with a traveling salesman a couple years after they were married. It nearly killed Harry.”

  “Or”—Liliane paused dramatically, eyes wide beneath her thick-mascaraed lashes—“was it poor Betsy who was killed? No one evah saw her leave, and you can bet in a small town like this, someone would have seen something.”

  “Here we go,” Patricia said. “Lady Macbeth in action, resurrecting ancient rumors.”

  “Make fun of me all you like,” Liliane snapped, losing her accent. “All I know is my mother said no traveling salesman stopped at our house the week Betsy disappeared.”