Undertaking Irene

by Pamela Burford

  Apparently, picking the lock and digging him out of the cave-in counted as two separate heroic gestures. I must be one hell of a gal.

  “I can’t hog all the credit,” I said. “If SB hadn’t snuck up on Jonah and startled him into dropping that syringe, you and I would still be down there, taking the big dirt nap.”

  His features grew serious. Quietly he said, “Thank you for saving my bacon twice, Jane.”

  “You’re welcome.” I couldn’t help adding, “But a text, Padre?”

  Another shrug. “We were busy. I knew you’d figure it out once you got here.”

  We started walking again. “You did a fine job raising Lexie. She’s terrific,” I said, and meant it.

  He smiled softly. “If I did one thing right in my life, it’s that girl.”

  “The mermaid brooch looks beautiful on her.”

  “She belongs to Lexie now,” he said. “A link to her great-grandparents. Lexie was two when Grandpa died. I wish Grandma could have met her.”

  We walked in silence for several minutes. Finally I asked, “Did you know that Sten had the funeral home hold on to Irene’s body after the autopsy?”

  “I thought she was cremated right after.”

  “So did I,” I said, “but he had a feeling she might have more to tell us. Turned out he was right.”

  “In other words, the pathologist missed something the first time around,” he said.

  I nodded. “In the tunnel, Jonah basically admitted to me that he killed Irene by injecting something. So Dr. Huang examined her body again and found an almost invisible needle mark. Apparently they can be difficult to spot, especially in loose and wrinkled skin like Irene had. Plus Jonah had deliberately used a tiny needle.”

  “Were they able to discover what drug he used?”

  “Epinephrine,” I said. “It can trigger a heart attack, especially when the victim is taking digoxin, like Irene was. The thing is, the human body naturally produces epinephrine, so when they did the initial toxicology test, there were no red flags.”

  “So how did they find it?” he asked.

  “Once Dr. Huang discovered the injection site, she tested that patch of skin and there it was.”

  After a moment he said, “Angel of death.”

  “There was nothing angelic about Jonah Diamond. The cops are looking into his past to see if they can link him to any other unexplained deaths.”

  We paused and gazed back toward the tent, now a distant, glowing oasis amid endless rows of grapevines. The western sky had turned dusky plum, with one lingering streak of fire at the horizon. The breeze picked up and I shivered. Martin shrugged out of his suit jacket and settled its delicious warmth over my goose-bumped shoulders.

  A gallant gesture. Just when I thought I had him figured out.

  He said, “They’re going to send a search party after us.” Reluctantly we reversed direction and headed for the tent.

  I studied his profile in the semidark. “You tried to tell me something in the tunnel.”

  “I did?”

  “When it looked like we weren’t going to get out. You said you wanted me to know something in case we didn’t make it.”

  Martin was silent for long moments. “Did I say that? I don’t remember.”

  I smiled at the lie. “Well, maybe it’ll come back to you.”

  ###

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  Preview of Uprooting Ernie

  Book 2 in the Jane Delaney mystery series

  “Engaging and hilarious, Uprooting Ernie is the perfect summer read with its Long Island setting, light (but not trite) prose and very human humor.”

  — Tamsen Schultz, best-selling author of the Windsor Series mysteries

  “Uprooting Ernie is an intriguing murder mystery, full of twists and turns, interesting characters, and hilarious escapades you don’t want to miss.”

  — Angel Sefer, best-selling author of The Greek Isles Series

  “Oh what a fun read!... There are some seriously superb ideas in this book! The names especially—I mean, how not to love Sexy Beast, the most adorable, lovable purse-sized doggie in the world, who just happens to be a millionaire, owning a mansion for his house. And his human, the Death Diva (aka Jane Delaney)? Come on, admit you’re smiling at this point... Yeah, lots of good chuckles, a bit of nail-biting suspense, a love triangle of sorts, or at least a good dilemma in the subject—all my faves when it comes to a good cozy mystery!!! Really entertaining book!!! Two thumbs up!”

  — BookBug’s World

  “This is a fun, quick read on a summer day... I enjoyed the humor—Jane is a funny, funny lady.” — It’s Not All Gravy

  ◊

  Death Diva Jane is simply going about her business, which in this case requires her to empty a three-liter spigot box of cheap rosé on a grave, when she and her furry sidekick Sexy Beast make a grisly discovery in the town cemetery.

  The victim was murdered three decades ago, but memories are fresh and old grievances fresher as facts come to light and fingers start pointing. Naturally Jane must investigate. Well, what would you do if one of your best pals turned out to be Suspect Numero Uno?

  Meanwhile, between her amorous ex and a sexy bad boy who keeps popping up in the most distracting way—not to mention the (creepy? bizarre? pathetic?) guys she’s meeting through a dog lovers’ dating site—her love life has never been so (creepy? bizarre? pathetic?)… interesting.

  Chapter 1

  Nothing to See Here, Folks

  IF I WEREN’T so darn honest, I wouldn’t have been the one to find him. And then I’d have been spared all the messy stuff that happened afterward.

  Or not. Messy stuff seems to seek me out. I’m the trailer park to its tornado.

  And okay, as for honesty, I admit I’ve been known to bend or even sucker-punch the truth, but only when the occasion really warranted it and the white lie was for the better good and all that. But when it comes to my paying clients, I’m practically always sort of mostly very honest. If I tell you, This is what I’m going to do for you and this is when I’m going to do it, you can take that to the bank. I mean, in a business like mine, you have only your reputation, right?

  Which is how Sexy Beast and I found ourselves squelch-squelching across the sodden turf of Whispering Willows Cemetery on that windy midsummer afternoon, slogging through drenched leaves, willow limbs, and other post-storm detritus. Yeah, I know dogs aren’t permitted in the graveyard, but I was the only idiot willing to venture outside so soon after the monster nor’easter that had just pummeled Crystal Harbor and environs, and I do pick up after him, so no harm no foul. Plus, Sexy Beast—SB to his nearest and dearest—being the high-maintenance, neurotic toy poodle he is, doesn’t even qualify as a real dog in the eyes of many of our neighbors, so I figure it’s, you know, okay to bend the rules a little.

  Just driving there had been a white-knuckled obstacle course around downed branches and live wires lying in the streets. But I had a job to do. In more than two decades I’d never failed a client. Well, okay, once, but she’d come to an untimely end before she could learn that I’d let her down, so that didn’t count, did it?

  Anyway, I’d made my perilous way to the local boneyard because of that reputation thing I mentioned before. Plus I’d already spent my client’s prepaid fee on a one-year membership to dog-loving-singles.com, and issuing him a refund would have stretched my anemic budget past the breaking point.

  Chip Wentworth, a local golf pro who’d relocated to Austin a few months back, had paid me a hundred bucks to empty a three-liter spigot box of white Zinfandel on his mother Dorothy’s grave on the occasion of her third birthday in heaven. Dorothy had been fond of cheap rosé—perhaps too fond from what I hear. And I hear a lot. People tell me things. It’s a mixed bles
sing.

  That honesty thing meant my doing this particular job on this particular day as required by the client, nor’easter or no nor’easter. I’m like the post office that way—neither snow nor rain, yadda yadda.

  “All right, all right, hold your horses,” I muttered as SB strained at the leash. I unhooked him. “Stay near Janey.”

  We were crossing one of the cemetery’s open rolling lawns, dotted with graceful weeping willow trees and stone benches. At some point in the future, when they run out of room where bodies are currently being planted, this unused space will become occupied, as it were. For now, it’s corpse-free, a necropolis-in-waiting.

  The sky was clearing, but the wind was still strong enough to whip long strands of my reddish blond hair into my face. I yanked the hair tie from its usual spot on my wrist and pulled my hair back into a messy bun.

  Sexy Beast began high-stepping through the sodden debris, sniffing up a storm—hey, it’s not that bad a pun!—as his gazillion olfactory cells catalogued every drowned bug and damp, irritable chipmunk hunkered in its burrow. We crossed the cobblestone footpath separating the sprawling lawn from the neat grid of tombstones. The cemetery’s map was permanently etched into my brainpan, so it took me no time at all to locate Dorothy’s final resting place.

  I set the wine box on the spongy ground, lifted a whippy willow limb off the grave, and used it to rake wet leaves and blades of grass from the polished granite stone. I’m a full-service Death Diva—an unfortunate but durable nickname long ago bestowed by the locals here in Crystal Harbor, the well-to-do town on the North Shore of Long Island where most of my clients reside. It doesn’t hurt to do a little basic grave maintenance whenever my assignment takes me to a cemetery.

  Okay, I know it’s killing you, so let me get this part over with right now. My name is Jane Delaney and I make my living performing tasks for paying clients. Those tasks involve loved ones who have gone on to their final reward. A typical workday might find me delivering flowers to multiple gravesites (I take Memorial Day reservations months in advance), tossing ashes out of a hired plane, choosing an outfit to coordinate with a satin-lined casket, or inventorying the contents of a deceased person’s home—not to mention running the tag sale, sprucing up the house, dealing with the broker, and arbitrating the inevitable family skirmish over inheritance rights to, in one recent case, Grandma’s deep freeze crammed top to bottom with T.G.I. Fridays Cheddar & Bacon Potato Skins.

  The list of Death Diva assignments is endless. What’s the most bizarre death-related chore you can think of? Oh please, I was doing that before I could vote—use your imagination! All right, that’s more like it. I’ve done that. Come to think of it, I’ve done that more than once.

  I stood back to examine Dorothy’s neatened-up grave. “So what do you think, SB? Will it pass muster?”

  The apricot poodle’s dark little eyes flashed to mine. He licked his lips. I didn’t need the Dog Whisperer to read his one-track mind. Did you say mustard? Where are the hot dogs?

  I gave him scritches and a small cube of cheddar from my shoulder bag. “Don’t worry, this shouldn’t take long. Then we’ll be back home and you can have a nice Vienna sausage.”

  He responded by lifting his leg to mark a neighboring headstone before I could stop him. Oh brother. I glanced around to double-check that we were still alone, then squinted at the words etched into the befouled stone. “Sorry, Mr. Parmentier,” I muttered to the gentleman who’d reposed in that spot since May 15, 1955.

  “Let’s get this over with before you take a dump on the poor guy.” I opened the spigot and held the heavy box of rosé over Dorothy’s grave.

  Sexy Beast yipped at the sight of the pink plonk watering the grass. This was the most exciting thing that had happened to him all day, since he’d snored peacefully through the roaring, window-rattling, power-outaging, record-rainfall-dumping nor’easter. Cautiously he inched his way toward the sweet-smelling stream.

  “Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.” I tried to block him with my foot, but he’s an agile little brat when he’s motivated, and he managed to wet the tip of his tongue before I could shoo him away. “You’re going to regret it,” I warned him. Some things, one had to learn from grim experience. I knew that better than most.

  SB licked his lips, thought about it a moment, then shook his head violently and sneezed.

  “Like I said.”

  He made a dainty hacking noise, sneezed again, and perched on his haunches to observe the action from a safe distance.

  I tilted the box, hoping to speed things up. No such luck. I studied the curved top of Dorothy’s headstone and debated the wisdom of balancing the wine box on it to give my arms a rest. The rosé would, after all, be aimed more or less at her mouth, and wouldn’t that be a nice plus?

  But that would be cheating. Don’t ask me why, it just would. So I stood there and held the box high as it gradually lightened and the wet ground underfoot became even wetter. Meanwhile I stared across the footpath to the normally manicured lawn I’d crossed minutes earlier, now looking like a prom queen after a rough night and rougher morning.

  I squinted into the distance. I frowned. Was one of the willow trees tilted? It was hard to tell because of the wind whipping its dangly limbs. None of the dozen or so willows on that lawn had ever been tilted. I knew those trees by heart, had sat under them countless times, contemplating mortality, the infinite, and insanely adorable Youtube sloths.

  Yeah, that’s right, I finally got a smartphone. Are you proud of me? Irene McAuliffe had bequeathed a bunch of money to me so I could support her beloved Sexy Beast in style, and I used an infinitesimal fraction of that dough to buy the phone. No, it’s not cheating! The thing’s GPS and web access and all those fun gadgets will help me better care for Irene’s precious pet. Like, um, if I have to find my way to the animal emergency center or, um, order SB’s dog-breath biscuits (they don’t work, alas). And yes, Sten Jakobsen approved the purchase. If Irene’s lawyer and executor said it was legit, who was I to argue?

  But I wasn’t thinking about Irene or Sten or my new electronic toy at that moment. I was thinking about that one willow tree on the open lawn about thirty yards off that was definitely, no doubt about it, listing like a drunkard. I almost expected to see it stumble and right itself. As I watched, it gradually leaned farther, ever so slowly.

  “Holy cow,” I breathed, “that thing’s going to fall.”

  Sexy Beast picked up on my mood and began barking in alarm. I stared dumbfounded as the tree continued to lean. That’s when I saw the emerald turf behind it start to bulge as the roots lifted.

  I gasped and SB went on high alert, all six pounds eleven ounces of him, prepared to protect me from any and all sources of danger. He followed my wide-eyed stare and the ominous creaking sounds, clearly audible over the sustained wind. In a flash he took off toward the doomed tree.

  “SB, no!” I dropped the wine box and sprinted after him, screeching at him to come!—a command he usually obeys. Not this time. He turned on the juice, leaping gazelle-like over downed limbs and other obstacles while I struggled to catch up. In no time at all, he stood directly in the path of the killer tree, tail raised, barking as if his life depended on it.

  Which it kinda did, since those long, wind-whipped branches soon swept the ground, obscuring his tiny form. I could hear him, but I couldn’t see him. My sandaled feet kept slip-sliding on the wet leaves, causing me to waste precious seconds imitating one of those inflatable waving tube men you see at car dealerships.

  I thought about the flowers I still delivered every Sunday to three little graves at the Best Friend Pet Cemetery—in perpetuity, as dictated by Irene in her last will and testament. The beneficiaries of those memorial arrangements were Sexy Beast’s deceased poodley predecessors: Dr. Strangelove, Annie Hall, and Jaws. I had no intention of adding a fourth bouquet anytime soon. SB was only three years old, and he was going to live to be a crotchety old canine if it killed me. Which, I reflected, it ver
y well might.

  The toppling tree gained speed as Sexy Beast continued to scold it from somewhere inside that mass of greenery. The heaving ground behind the tree swelled alarmingly as if an interred corpse had decided that on second thought, he’d rather not spend eternity in that particular spot. Of course, I knew no bodies were buried under this broadloom lawn, but SB’s plight sent my imagination into overdrive.

  The creaking turned to rapid-fire cracks, each one a gunshot aimed at my darling, dumb little Sexy Beast. I raced to reach him in time, watching the carpetlike sod stretch, then split in a rough semicircle behind the tree as its root system broke free, stealing the trunk’s last anchor to the earth. I called on my deepest reserve of strength, diving headlong directly into the path of the collapsing tree.

  My body coasted on the wet ground as if I were sliding into home plate, my eyes squeezed shut against the lashing limbs. I made a blind grab toward the sound of SB’s frantic barking and snagged a handful of curly poodle fur. Taking advantage of my forward momentum, I tucked Sexy Beast to my chest and rolled away from the center of impact as the percussive energy of the crashing tree shook the ground.

  I lay in a gasping heap on the wet grass, clutching SB while my heart did its big drum solo. The dog barked like a maniac. It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. I kissed his damp, furry head.

  I managed to make it to my feet, wet, wobbly, and covered in scratches. Sexy Beast gave himself a vigorous shake. He yawned. Just another day protecting his alpha female. Said alpha female saw things differently.

  “You know,” I grumbled, plucking a willow leaf from my lip, “I almost got killed rescuing your pathetic little butt.”

  Which demonstrates how much that pathetic little butt means to me, considering the fact that once SB ascends to Doggie Heaven, I’ll be free to sell the huge house in Crystal Harbor that Irene willed to me, plus the valuable artwork and furnishings, and to keep what remains of the million and a half smackers she left for the upkeep of the house and her cherished Sexy Beast.