Saturday Night Cleaver (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #4)

by Cantwell, Karen

  Technically, the walking path I traversed wound along behind my house, but a person would have to trudge through some dense woods and briar bushes then, if nimble, climb down a long and steep incline to arrive there. The neighborhoods in Rustic Woods aren’t like typical cookie cutter suburban sprawls, hence, the name. Houses sit on three-quarter more acre lots that are usually heavily wooded on the backend.

  I always opted for the easier route to the walking path—a thin, mulched trail that ran from White Willow Lane along the edge of the Perkin’s property. Mr. and Mrs. Perkins lived on just the other side of our neighbors the Penobscotts who Colt had mentioned. Howard walked me from our driveway to the mulched trail. As we passed the Penobscotts’ house, I noticed something interesting.

  “Well I’ll be,” I said.

  Howard peeked around me. “What are you looking at?”

  “White rocks in that flower bed.”

  “Against policy?” He was referring to the rigid rules set forth by the illustrious and ever-enforcing Rustic Woods Home Owners Association. Rules and regulations that kept most residents quaking in their boots, wondering if a hefty fine was waiting in their near future for something as simple as painting their door the wrong color or installing an outdoor light fixture that didn’t match the style of the house.

  I shook my head. “Colt just asked me if the Penobscotts used white rocks when they re-landscaped.”

  “Really?”

  “He’s way more observant than I give him credit for,” I said.

  “He has to be, it’s how he makes his living.”

  “But why would that interest him?”

  “Heck if I know.”

  We’d reached the mulched trail. He kissed me sweetly on the lips. His were warm and soft and made me want to run with him back to the house for some long and passionate morning delight. That would be exercise, right? Except we hadn’t been doing a whole lot of that since the accident. In fact, we’d done a whole lot of none of that since the accident, which, trust me, was completely out of character for my usually-horny hubby. Heck, two hours after his vasectomy, with his family jewels swollen to the size of cantaloupes, he was practically begging for some nookie time. Any attempt on my part, though, to discuss his recent lack of interest, was immediately shut down by him. Attributing the issue to post-traumatic stress, I tried to be understanding and wait things out, but despite the fact that “low sex drive” was one of my thirty-four symptoms of menopause, my desire hadn’t ceased to exist entirely.

  “Do you have your cell phone?” he asked.

  I nodded, thinking more about how I wanted another kiss. “And my mace.” I patted the pocket that also held the grocery bags just to be sure I could still feel it there. Check. If Puddles’ glass-shattering yips and yaps didn’t scare a would-be attacker, a handy shot of pepper spray would.

  As Howard limped his way back home, I strode the twenty or so paces to the macadam-paved walking path. Once there, I had the choice of turning to my left or to my right. The previous two days, I had gone right. Today, for some strange reason—let’s call it pathetically bad luck—I decided to go left instead. The paths were long and winding, much like that road in the Beatles song, so my strategy was to walk for thirty minutes, then turn around and walk back, giving me the prescribed one hour. Two minutes into the regimen, I realized why I hadn’t brought the dog along before. It’s very hard to get any momentum and heart rate up when your companion needs to sniff everything in sight and then pee on it for good measure. Thank goodness humans don’t mark their territory the way dogs do, or we’d be living in a very, very wet and smelly world.

  The air temperature seemed to be going down rather than up. I could see my breath now, and even the mittens, which I had eventually resorted to, didn’t keep the bite away. I tugged at Puddles a few more times in an attempt to pick up some speed and warm up, but I was losing interest real fast. My watch told me we’d been at it for fifteen minutes and I was about ready to call it quits when Puddles started barking wildly at a pile of leaves beside a rotting tree trunk. His nose was inches from the pile and as he managed to pull himself closer, he barked even louder.

  Who knew what was under that pile. I assumed a dead animal—a squirrel maybe—but didn’t really want to find out, so I bent down to lift Puddles up with the intention of carrying him back home. As it turned out, that was the wrong thing to do, because too much slack went into his leash. With the ferocity of a lion after a kill, Puddles dove headfirst into the pile and sent leaves spraying.

  “Puddles!” I hollered, heading back in for another attempt to scoop him up. In the process, my foot landed on something that squished, then cracked. If it had just cracked, I would have thought ‘twig’. It was the squish that caused me to step away and look closer.

  After brushing a few damp leaves away, I gagged instinctively. Four dirty fingers, one thumb. Gray fingernails. Chopped at the wrist.

  Meanwhile, Puddles was going to town on that pile of leaves.

  Having just stepped on a human hand that did not have a body attached, my mind reeled at what the dog might have discovered. I yanked hard on the leash, not even caring about poor Puddles’ neck. He barely noticed. He just growled and shook the prize in his mouth like it was his chewy toy at home. In fact, when I focused more closely, it kind of looked like his chewy toy. The one that’s shaped like a sausage but squeaks like a lab rat on mind-altering drugs.

  I was still working to hold back the strong impulse to unload my morning’s portion of organic, honey-sweetened oatmeal when I realized what Puddles had discovered.

  That friends, was another body part.

  A male-only body part, if you catch my drift.

  And unfortunately, even if the male to whom it had once belonged was alive and could get it back, he’d probably say, “No thanks,” since Puddles was...how should I put this? Finding it awfully tasty.

  Welcome to the world of Barbara Marr. I’m a wife, friend, daughter, mother-of-three, and apparently, I’m unusually prone to stumbling upon the messy remnants of lurid crime scenes.

  Chapter Two

  Ultimately, I didn’t throw up. I didn’t scream either. I didn’t even cry. In fact, I dialed 911 with an amazing and almost eerie sense of calm. Once I separated Puddles from his morning snack, that is.

  Grisly discoveries had become far too common lately. Was it me, or was it Rustic Woods? Maybe I should have followed Roz’s example and hightailed it out of town months ago. Of course, that was all twenty-twenty hindsight sort of thinking, since I was now sitting in the back of a police cruiser wrapped in a blanket and sipping a hot cup of coffee thanks to my friend who I liked to call Officer Brad.

  Officer Brad’s real name was Erik Lamon. Or Officer Lamon, to those who hadn’t had the intimate experience (like me) of jointly bringing down a ring of misfit Mafia goons who’d been dealing in pharmaceuticals. Really. It happened. In any event, Erik looks a whole lot like Brad Pitt, thus the nickname. When he became a good friend of the family, however, I resorted to addressing him by his given name—it’s easier and less embarrassing for both of us. He’s one hunk of policeman, let me tell you. And a nice guy to boot. Not every cop would run out and get a cup of coffee for a freezing woman who’d just uncovered a man’s pogo-stick in a pile of leaves.

  Erik stood talking with three other uniformed, gun-toting lawmen. Several others, many of them gloved and masked, climbed in and out of the woods. The flashing blue and red lights had attracted a gaggle of neck-craning onlookers.

  When his conversation ended, the handsome policeman strode my way. “How’s the coffee?”

  Yes, I had broken down, dismissed Dr. Sadistic’s list of forbidden beverages, and savored that steamy cup of java like a smoker two hours late for cigarette break. “Perfect,” I said with a smile. The cool air made my warm breath visible. “Nothing like roasted b
lend after a brisk morning walk and close encounters of the revolting kind.”

  He chuckled, but turned back to business. “We have everything we need from you now. Do you need a ride home?”

  “Howard is on his way.”

  “How is he doing?” When word got to Erik about Howard’s accident, he had been extraordinarily helpful to all of us, but mostly to Howard.

  “Walking with a cane and generally better overall.” I sneaked a sip of my brew, then added, “A little grumpy sometimes.”

  “You can expect that for a while. A buddy of mine took a bullet in the spine during a routine traffic stop. He was not a nice guy until he decided to turn over a new leaf and found a different job.”

  Puddles was beside me on the seat barking, panting, and going all dog-crazy. I rubbed his head to calm him down. “What’s your friend doing now?”

  “He’s a barista at Cappuccino Corner. Brewed that cup you’re drinking.”

  “He’s happy?”

  “Happiest I’ve ever seen him, actually.”

  My phone jingled in my hip pack. I pulled it out, expecting to see Howard’s name on the ID, but saw Peggy’s instead. I took the call.

  “Did you give Dandi your pumpkins?” I asked, bypassing the traditional “hello.”

  “Marla Hepple just showed up and said that Sweet Birch Road is crawling with emergency vehicles. I figured you must be in trouble.”

  I felt irrationally peeved that flashing squad car lights in Rustic Woods were taken as evidence of another Barbara Marr commotion.

  “I’m not in trouble.” This, I would argue, was not a lie.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I’m just warming myself up with a cup of coffee after my walk.”

  “Coffee? I thought that wasn’t allowed on your diet.”

  Just then, the police radio crackled and a dispatcher’s voice squawked something in code. I cringed.

  “I heard that!” Peggy shouted. “You’re in a police car, aren’t you?”

  Dropping the happy-go-lucky act, I laid into her. “It’s all your fault. If you’d come with me, I wouldn’t have brought the dog. So when you read about this in the paper, just remember, you’re the reason why.”

  “What happened?”

  “No way, Jose. I’m not telling you with half the Tulip Tree Elementary Rumor Brigade listening in.”

  “Are you okay? Should I come over?”

  Her offer tempered my mood. “You’d do that? What about Dandi and your pumpkins?”

  “Boy, you’re not going to let that go, are you?”

  I spotted my white Grand Caravan pulling behind the cruiser. “Howard’s pulling up now. We’ll probably be home in five minutes or so.”

  “See you soon.” She clicked off.

  My husband, ever the FBI agent, hung around for several minutes talking to Officer Lamon and his associates. No one seemed to mind that he no longer carried a badge. I didn’t dare complain that I was cold and wanted to go home because he looked more engaged than I’d seen him in months. Even resting on the cane, you could tell he was back in his element. Howard, I thought, would never be happy brewing coffee and chai lattes.

  “So,” Howard said suppressing a smirk as he buckled in for our drive home. “You can’t just pick up discarded soda cups and water bottles like normal people?”

  “It wasn’t me, it was your dog.”

  His mouth tugged into a playful grin. “Now he’s my dog?”

  “Hey buddy, I’ll admit I’ve grown to tolerate, and maybe even care a little for that yappy mutt, but he’s always been your dog. It’s bad enough that his yowling can give a banshee nightmares, now he thinks he’s a bloodhound.”

  He looked both ways for traffic, then made a U-turn to head back home. “Lamon said he’d keep us informed when they learn more about the victim.”

  “No!” The shout that escaped my mouth surprised even me. “I don’t want to be informed. I want to remain blissfully ignorant. Like that chubby guy in Hogan’s Heroes. You got it?”

  He smiled. “You aren’t even curious? Not everyone finds a pe-”

  I put my hand in front of his mouth, preventing the “p” word from escaping before it hurt my ears. “Don’t say it. You know I hate that word.”

  It’s true. There are a few words in the English language that affect me like fingernails on a blackboard, and the moniker for a male member is one of them. Others include booger, kumquat (don’t ask me why), and when George W. Bush says “nuc-u-ler” instead of “nuc-lee-er.”

  I’m not a prude, don’t get me wrong. I have no issue with the actual item itself, just the name. It probably stems from an experience with sex education when my mother decided to relay the story of the birds and the bees. Only, she didn’t call them the birds and the bees, she called them “Mother” and “Father” and provided a very graphic slide show presentation to assist me achieve perfect understanding. They weren’t home pictures or anything like that—my mother considered herself progressive, but not that progressive. No, these were detailed drawings of both male and female organs as well as images of the act itself, all provided by the kit she had purchased, “Talk Sex Now, Avoid Pregnancy Later.” The problem was, I was only three years old, and I’m pretty sure the kit was intended for presentation to children ten or older. At the time, I thought she referred to that dangly thing hanging on the daddy as a “peanut.” Well one day, while sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, a young boy near me kept pulling at his pants. It seemed a little odd, so I whispered to my mom, “Why is he grabbing on his peanut?”

  My mother became very irritated with me, and huffed loud enough for the entire waiting room of patients as well as the world to hear, “It’s a pee-nis, Barbara.” She emphasized the NIS. “Pee-nis. I’ve told you before. That little boy is grabbing on his pee-nis.”

  Just retelling the horror story causes me to feel faint and I can only imagine the therapy that little boy has had to endure later in life.

  I’ve adopted the Swahili word uume—pronounced oo-may. I find it much more appealing, thank you very much. And a little more masculine, quite frankly. You know, sort of like, “Oh, my.”

  “What’s the word we use?” I reminded him.

  He shook his head and I detected the genesis of an eye roll, but he stopped himself. “I don’t remember.”

  Men, they can’t remember anything. “Uume. I found an uume. There was a hand, too, if you recall. And no, I’m not curious.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Fine, I’m curious, but that’s as far as I’m taking this. No more adventures for me. No Mafia, no bank robbing fugitives, no paranoid, corrupt politicians and their henchmen, and no vengeful wives with sharp kitchen knives bent on dismembering their cheating husbands.”

  He threw me a look. “Why do you assume it’s a cheating husband?”

  I covered my ears with my hands. “I’m not listening.” I began singing “The Star Spangled Banner” loudly enough to make my point and didn’t stop until we had pulled into our driveway.

  In the house, Puddles lapped up every last drop in his water bowl, then crashed in his doggy bed as if he’d just run a marathon. He’d had a pretty exciting morning for a little gray poodle.

  As for me, I showered immediately.

  Somehow, scrubbing for ten minutes didn’t seem to wash away the vivid image of blue, dirt-crusted fingernails or the ravaged male organ. When I returned downstairs, hair dripping wet, I found Peggy and Howard laughing at the kitchen table. This was something new. I hadn’t seen him laugh that heartily since July. He might have chuckled here or there, but no genuine laughter, despite my best efforts.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked, hoping they wouldn’t say it was me.

  “I was just telling Ho
ward about my step-uncle’s third cousin on his mother’s side, Joe Junior the Third. He didn’t have any hands—I can’t remember why. Boating accident, maybe?” She brushed her hand in the air. “Something with propellers, I think. Anyway, he qualified for this experimental hand transplant operation, where they gave him the hands of some guy who had just died in the hospital. He was so excited to have hands that he told the doctors he wanted to meet the family of the man who gave him a normal life again. So when he was being discharged, the doctors introduced him to the donor’s parents in a lounge—they’d planned this whole affair with cake and local reporters there and everything. Well, much to his shock and dismay, it turned out they were the parents of his sworn enemy—Hugo.” She stopped and reconsidered. “No, it was Hector.” That didn’t seem to work for her either. She tilted her head in thought. “Harold?...something with an H. Once best friends, but now, even though Hector or Harold was dead, Joe Junior hated him worse than cold grits in January. I don’t know what that means, but that’s what he always said. And if I remember right, the feud was actually about grits. No, no, it was about mutual fund investments. Well, he was so upset that right there in that lounge in front of the parents, the doctors, the reporters and everyone, he ripped his left hand right off, then stomped on his right hand until it broke clean off.”

  That was probably Peggy’s craziest family story to date. “First,” I said, grabbing a mug from the cupboard, “I don’t believe anyone could just rip a hand off even if it had just been sewn on. But more importantly, I don’t know why it’s funny. That’s just plain creepy.”

  “That wasn’t the funny part,” she explained.

  I found it hard to believe there was a humorous ending to this story, but I had to find out anyway. “So what’ the funny part?”