Cut to the Corpse

by Lucy Lawrence

  “Nothing,” Brenna said.

  “Nothing because he doesn’t know, or nothing because you told him to mind his own beeswax?”

  “He’s out of town for a few days,” she conceded. “Not that it matters.”

  “Uh-huh,” Matt said. “Why are you so interested in this murder?”

  “Because I was there,” Brenna said.

  “Try again,” Matt said.

  “He’s very clever,” Brenna said to Tenley, who nodded and said, “I know.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere,” Matt said, but Brenna could tell he was pleased.

  She decided to put all of her cards on the table. “Okay. I don’t think Tara did it, but I do think she will get blamed because she’s not from around here, and I want to see if I can help.”

  “We’re not that narrow-minded,” Matt said.

  Brenna just looked at him. Tenley coughed into her fist.

  “Oh, all right, some townspeople might be narrower than others,” he said. He took a long sip from his coffee. “You know Clue was working his way through every bedroom in town.”

  “Not mine,” Tenley said. They both looked at her. “I just wanted that clear.”

  Matt grinned at her, and Brenna had to stifle the urge to groan.

  “Ahem, yes, well,” she said to get his attention. “Was there anyone he had any sort of a relationship with?”

  “A few lasted longer than others,” he said. “Bonnie Jeffries from the post office was his first real love, but she dumped him when he cheated on her with her mother.”

  Brenna and Tenley both winced at the same time.

  “Then there was Lisa Sutton,” Tenley said. “Remember, they used to circle the town green on his motorcycle until Mayor Ripley threatened to have it impounded for violating the noise ordinance.”

  “Yeah, but she ran off to be a chef in Boston,” Matt said. “He did go with Julie Harper for a while.”

  Brenna sat up. “Julie over at the salon?”

  “That’s the one,” Tenley said. She spooned in more sugar and stirred. “I heard it was a pretty bad breakup.”

  “Yeah,” Matt agreed with a shudder.

  Brenna suspected this was a vast understatement. “What happened?”

  “Well, she didn’t go all Fatal Attraction and boil a bunny or anything,” Tenley said. “But Clue did have a restraining order out on her for a while, something about stalking.”

  “Great,” Brenna said. “Maybe I’ll start with the one who got cheated on first.”

  She noticed that neither of them offered to ride shotgun. That couldn’t be good.

  “I did stop by for another reason,” Matt said. “I was hoping to treat you two to dinner at the Fife and Drum. Our chef is trying out a new entrée, Ahi tuna steaks with wasabi, and I knew you’d had a rough day and thought you could use a good meal.”

  Brenna was touched, truly, but she already had a date.

  “I can’t,” she said. “I’m watching Hank for Nate, and I really don’t think I want to be late in feeding him his dinner. It might bode ill for my cabin.”

  “Another time then?” Matt asked.

  “No, don’t put it off on my account,” Brenna said. “Tenley can go. She has no plans.”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t,” she said.

  “Yes, you can,” Brenna said. “In fact, I insist. Matt, take her to dinner and I’ll lock up the shop tonight.”

  “But . . .”

  “No buts,” Brenna said. She stood and gathered their mugs. “Be sure to order seconds of the amaretto cheese-cake for me.”

  Matt stood with a smile. “Well, if that’s an order, shall we?”

  “Well, okay, I guess,” Tenley agreed.

  Funny, for someone who sounded so reluctant, she looked pretty happy about this turn of events.

  Brenna locked the door behind them with a wave and a smile. She had been hoping to shove them together at some point, as it was obvious they still liked each other, and it was equally obvious that neither of them had any idea what to do about it. She was pleased to help out, even if it meant skipping a free dinner.

  She drove home with the windows down, letting in the warm evening air and the musical chirp of the spring peepers, small frogs that inhabited the woods around Morse Point Lake. She was looking forward to seeing Hank. There was a little part of her that wished she were going home to Nate, too. But if she couldn’t have the man, she’d happily take the dog.

  Hank bounced in circles of canine delight when Brenna pushed open the door of her cabin. He jumped up and licked her chin, her ear, and her nose. She laughed as she wiped off the doggie slobber with her sleeve. Dinner would have to wait. Hank needed some playtime.

  She grabbed two of his tennis balls and they headed to the lake. She threw one in a high arch and Hank launched himself off of the bank, landed with a big splash, and dog-paddled out to the ball. He retrieved it with his mouth, and Brenna could swear he was grinning. He climbed ashore and shook out his shaggy mane, making sure to splash her—at least she was pretty sure he’d planned that.

  She threw the ball again and watched as he dove for it. The late June evening was cooling and the breeze off of the water felt good on her skin. She glanced up and saw her neighbor Twyla leaving her cabin with a beach towel over her arm.

  Twyla skipped across the grass toward Brenna. She said skipping kept her young. She was somewhere in her late fifties or early sixties, although she didn’t look it, and Brenna believed her.

  Twyla was a sculptor, who worked primarily with metal. Behind her cabin, a field of wind sculptures was growing. With rounded shapes, some looked like big steel flowers that spun when the softest breeze captured their metallic petals. Others looked like long, curving spirals, and wound their way from the ground up into the sky. Brenna liked to go and walk amongst them on windy days and feel the power of nature and steel combined into a beautiful form.

  Twyla joined Brenna by the water’s edge and handed her the towel. “You’re going to need that.”

  “Thanks.” Brenna dabbed at her face and shirt.

  “Nate always forgets to bring a towel, too,” she said. “But usually he goes fishing afterward and lets Hank air dry.”

  “I’m not going fishing,” Brenna said.

  “I figured,” Twyla said. She tossed her thick gray braid over her shoulder and brushed a hand over her iridescent green, broomstick skirt. “So, I heard you were the one who found Clue Parker with an axe lodged in his head.”

  “There was no axe,” Brenna spluttered. “And his head was intact. Honestly, how do these rumors get so out of control?”

  “But you did find him?” Twyla asked.

  “Yes,” she admitted. Hank jumped onto the bank and shook himself from head to tail. Brenna took the ball he dropped and threw it as far as she could.

  “Are you okay?” Twyla asked. Her eyes were round with concern, and Brenna was grateful.

  “I will be,” she said. “Better than Clue at any rate.”

  “It’s a bad business,” Twyla said. “First the mayor and now this young man. What do you suppose is happening to our sleepy little Morse Point?”

  “I wish I could say,” Brenna said.

  Twyla said nothing but remained silently beside her. She had an inner serenity from her metalwork that Brenna understood. She felt the same way about her paper work. Taking cutouts and a beat-up old piece of furniture and marrying the two into something beautiful made sense to her, as if she could create order out of chaos.

  There was no sense to be made out of Clue’s murder, however. She could still see him, lying in the bed in a pool of blood, dead. But who had killed him and why?

  The sun dipped lower and the breeze blew colder. To Brenna it felt as if the ghost of the recently departed passed through her on the way to his next stop. But maybe she just needed to go get her sweater.

  Chapter 7

  Brenna did not need any stamps. She had bought the Liberty Bell Forever stamps the last time they�
��d been offered, and she’d bought a lot of them. Still, she didn’t have any packages to mail or bills to post, so buying stamps was the best excuse she could come up with to pay Bonnie Jeffries a visit.

  She didn’t know what to expect, but the cute little red-head at the counter sure wasn’t it. She was allover petite, from her tiny upturned nose to her dainty little feet. She wore her hair in a short cap of strawberry curls, freckles were sprinkled liberally over her skin, and her eyes were the brightest blue, almost as if they were lit from the inside, that Brenna had ever seen.

  She loitered by the display of packing materials, waiting while Mr. Portnoy mailed his sister in Illinois a big block of cheese and again while Mrs. Hutchins tried to figure out what was cheaper, first class or priority, on a wedding gift for her sister in Florida. It was a sister that she wasn’t particularly fond of, and it was her third wedding, so she ended up mailing it book rate, figuring her sister would probably be divorced again by the time it arrived anyway.

  When it was just Bonnie and her in the small office, Brenna approached the counter.

  “May I help you?” Bonnie asked.

  “Hi, I’m . . .” she began, but Bonnie cut her off and said, “Brenna Miller, who works at Vintage Papers for Tenley Morse, who solved the mayor’s murder last April and who found the body of Clue Parker yesterday.”

  “That’s me,” Brenna confirmed. Apparently, Bonnie had a little bit of firecracker in her.

  “And I’m betting you’re here to ask me about my relationship with Clue Parker and try to figure out if I was angry enough at him to want him dead, like every other busybody in town?”

  So much for trying to loosen her up with small talk. Bonnie was as direct as a hammer on a thumb.

  “Or I could just be here to buy stamps,” Brenna said.

  “Stamps, right.”

  She opened a drawer in the desk in front of her. She began sorting her stamps. She laid a few sheets out on the counter for Brenna to look over.

  “He slept with my mother,” Bonnie said. “He was an immoral tomcat who destroyed anyone who got close to him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brenna said.

  Red splotches bloomed in Bonnie’s cheeks, and Brenna couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or anger.

  “It’s been three years since I’ve spoken to either him or my mother. Did he deserve to die? Yeah. Did I do it? I only wish.”

  “So, you haven’t spoken to him?” Brenna asked.

  “No,” Bonnie said. “And I told Chief Barker the same thing.”

  “Do you know anyone else who was angry with him?” Brenna asked. She picked up a sheet of the mother and child stamps and studied them. They would make a lovely accent on some of the Italian papers Tenley had bought for the store.

  “Any woman he took to bed and then dumped,” Bonnie said. “Which is probably what happened with little Miss Moneybags.”

  Brenna met Bonnie’s gaze and asked, “What do you mean?”

  Bonnie let out a pent-up sigh. “Simply that if Clue got it in his head that he was going to have her, she didn’t stand a chance.”

  “But she’s marrying his best friend,” Brenna protested.

  Bonnie gave her a look that said she was too dumb to cross the street without parental supervision.

  “Jake and Clue have been attached at the hip since first grade. Jake has always looked out for Clue and kept him out of trouble. How do you think Clue felt about losing his wingman to the spoiled princess?”

  Brenna was again reminded of the look she’d seen on Clue’s face when he looked at Tara on the night of the bachelorette party. He hated her.

  “Not happy,” Brenna said.

  “Yeah,” Bonnie agreed. “Clue was a master manipulator, and I’m guessing he maneuvered her into bed, convincing her that he was really the man for her, not Jake. Then when she found out that he did it just to ruin her marriage to Jake, she stabbed him.”

  “Whoa,” Brenna said.

  The door opened and Mr. Portnoy rushed in.

  “Bonnie, I thought about it, and I want to put tracking on that package to my sister,” he said. “I can’t have two pounds of cheese going astray.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Portnoy,” Bonnie said and then looked back at Brenna. “Are we finished here?”

  “For now,” Brenna said. She handed Bonnie the cash for the stamps and put them in her purse. “Have a good day.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Brenna stepped out of the post office into the bright morning light. The air was warm already and promised to be steamy by midday. The post office was on the opposite side of the town green from Vintage Papers, and Brenna could see that Tenley had already turned the Closed sign to Open on the front door. It was time to get to work.

  She’d have to track down Clue’s other girlfriend, the stalker, later. She had a sinking feeling, though, that the information would be the same. And it made sense. If Clue was a womanizer, why wouldn’t he use his prowess on Tara and wreck her marriage to Jake, thus saving his friendship?

  Because Jake would never forgive him, she thought. So, he wouldn’t be saving his friendship at all but destroying it for good. Why would he do that? Unless he was angry with Jake and feeling abandoned by him and figured he had nothing to lose.

  Ugh. Her head was beginning to hurt. Brenna crossed the street and took one of the cobbled walkways that led across the green. She inhaled the scent of the freshly mowed grass and tried to calm her mind. She could hear the tweet and twitter of the songbirds up in the trees, and the flower beds around the gazebo were a profusion of purple, pink, and white petunias.

  It was a lovely day. Too bad Clue Parker wasn’t here to enjoy it, and if Tara was locked up for his murder, she wouldn’t be enjoying it either.

  “Did you talk to Bonnie?” Tenley asked as soon as she stepped through the front door.

  “Yep,” Brenna said. “She thinks Clue wooed Tara to break up the marriage and then when she found out the truth, she stabbed him.”

  “Grisly,” Tenley said.

  “Too grisly,” Brenna said. “I just don’t see it.”

  “Me either,” Tenley agreed. “So, what next?”

  “You tell me how dinner went with Matt,” Brenna said.

  Tenley flushed a deep pink and Brenna clapped her hands.

  “It went great, didn’t it? Are you going to see him again? Did you kiss him? Come on, dish!”

  “He was a perfect gentleman,” Tenley said. She sounded annoyed by it. “But he did ask me if I’d like to do it again sometime.”

  “And you said . . .”

  “Yes. I said yes,” Tenley said.

  “Good girl!” Brenna cheered.

  A chime sounded from her purse. She flipped the top of her black backpack purse open and fished around for her cell phone.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  “So, how much obedience school is Hank going to need when I get back?”

  “Hi,” Brenna said. She felt her own face grow warm at the sound of Nate’s voice. “I’ll have you know, I’ve been working on his table manners and other than his resistance to using a fork, he’s doing quite well.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yep, the lack of an opposable thumb is a disadvantage, but he’s got the napkin on the lap thing down and even asks, well barks, to be excused.”

  “Next you’ll have him doing dishes.”

  “And if I succeed, you can’t have him back.”

  “Is that Nate?” Tenley asked loud enough to be heard on the phone.

  “Tell Tenley I said hi,” he said.

  “He says hi,” Brenna said.

  “Don’t forget to tell him about the murder,” Tenley said, leaning over the table and yelling into the receiver.

  “Murder?” Nate asked. “What murder?”

  “And that you found the body,” Tenley added.

  “Brenna, what’s going on?” he asked. “What’s Tenley talking about?”

  “It’s been a busy
few days here in Morse Point,” she said.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, better than Tara Montgomery in any event,” she said. She tried to ignore the fluttery feeling she got at the sound of concern in his voice. Of course he was concerned. She was his tenant. There had been a murder in town. He’d have to be a rock not to be concerned.

  “Tara? The girl we saw holding hands with Jake Haywood on the green?” he asked.

  Brenna was surprised he remembered, but then she realized not much got by Nate Williams and those piercing gray eyes of his.

  “Yes, I found her in bed with Jake’s best friend Clue Parker, who was dead, stabbed in the chest. She was holding a knife.”

  “Whoa,” Nate said. “Did Chief Barker take her in?”

  “I believe she’s been questioned but not officially charged,” Brenna said.

  “Oh, no,” he said.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You’ve got that tone of voice again,” he said.

  “What tone of voice?”

  Tenley broke out in a grin as if she knew Brenna was about to get lectured. She turned her back on Tenley to lean against the table and stare at the wall.

  “That tone of voice that says you don’t think Tara did it and you’re going to prove it.”

  “I don’t think you can get all of that out of a tone of voice,” she said.

  “It’s the same voice you used on me when you decided I was innocent and you were going to help me whether I liked it or not.”

  There was a pause while Brenna considered her words.

  “I was right about you,” she said.

  “You almost got yourself killed,” he countered.

  She was silent. He was right, but she wasn’t about to admit it.

  “I’ll be home the day after tomorrow,” he said. “Promise me you won’t do anything until I get back. I’ll even help you.”

  “Where are you?” she asked. She didn’t mean to be intrusive: it just slipped out. To her surprise he answered right away, “Connecticut.”

  “Oh,” she said. Now, of course, she had a million more questions, but no idea how to get them out without being rude. Sadly, Nate didn’t give her the chance.