Corpse on the Cob

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  Clark was in the garage when we pulled up in front of the house. He waved and walked out to greet us carrying long-handled barbecue utensils.

  Clark watched with interest as Greg deftly swung out of the passenger seat of my rental car into his wheelchair. At home, the wheelchair is stashed behind the driver’s seat of his specially equipped van, and he can complete the act without any assistance. Because of the rental, I had to pull the chair out of the back-seat area and position it for him. It was a lightweight wheelchair, sleek and compact; one made to handle Greg’s active lifestyle.

  “I have a big surprise,” I told Clark with a smile. “This is Greg Stevens, my husband. He flew in this morning.”

  Clark stuck the cooking tools under his left arm and held out his right hand. “Nice to meet you, Greg.”

  “Nice to meet you, too.”

  “Come around back,” Clark directed us. “It will be easier for Greg to get into the house that way.”

  My mother’s house was deceiving. From the outside it looked like a simple two-story bungalow, but inside, it was spacious, extending back into the lot on which it sat. Downstairs there was a large living room, kitchen, and dining room. Just off the kitchen was a den.

  The back yard was a nice size, with half of it taken up by a very large redwood deck. Half of the deck was screened in and contained wicker furniture with plump cushions. On the unscreened portion was a gas grill the size of a Smart Car and two patio tables with chairs. A large sliding door separated the two. The steps up to the deck were low and wide. Greg handled them easily with some help from Willie.

  “I rebuilt the steps a few years back,” Clark explained. “Originally there were just a couple of very steep ones. They were getting difficult for Mom to manage as she got older, so I tore them off and made new ones. These extend out further but aren’t as steep.”

  “Did you build the deck yourself?” Greg asked.

  “Sure did.” Clark beamed with pride. “First it was just an average deck, then I doubled it in size. Next I screened in half. We get nasty mosquitoes out here. We had a large yard that we never used, but we used the porch all the time except in winter. Better use of space, I think.”

  Greg nodded in agreement. “Very nice job, Clark.”

  “Thanks. I love working with my hands. It’s a nice break from the stress of the job.”

  Clark seemed more relaxed today than I’d ever seen him. Perhaps it was because he was at home and in a social situation, or maybe he’d gotten a good night’s sleep now that our mother was back home. Whatever it was, his welcome and chat seemed unforced and genuine.

  Inside, my mother was bustling around the kitchen. The place was filled with the odor of fresh-baked pie. Strewn across the kitchen counters were plates of raw vegetables, bowls of chips, and two pies cooling on racks. My mother glanced up at me. I handed her the bouquet of flowers we’d picked up on the way over. She took them without a word.

  “Hope your cousin likes pie. I made apple and rhubarb. Clark loves rhubarb; Grady, apple.” She got down a vase, added water, and put the flowers in it. “There’s a lemon meringue in the refrigerator. That still your favorite?” With her head down, she set the flowers on the kitchen table.

  “Yes, it is. Nice of you to remember, Mom.” We stood near, but not too near, each other in the big country kitchen. “Though you didn’t need to go to so much trouble.”

  “Nonsense. Some things a mother doesn’t forget.”

  “Like favorite pies and cookies?”

  Mom moved to a counter and started fussing with raw veggies arranged on a platter. “It’s always the little things you remember. Ever notice that?”

  I nodded. “Like Dad always adding a spoonful of sugar to his coffee, followed by just a smidgen more. Never a whole second spoon, or even a half.” I held up my left hand and pinched the thumb and index finger together. “Just a smidgen.”

  My mother gave me a weak smile. “That used to drive me crazy. That second bit was hardly enough to worry over. I used to tell him, Horten, why don’t you just add more to your first spoonful. He used to do that with other things, too. Like jam. He’d slather jam on his toast an inch thick, then before he’d take his first bite, add just a wee bit more for good measure.”

  “He did that right up until he died.”

  My mother stopped what she was doing and looked at me, her face pinched in concern. “How did he go, Odelia?”

  “Heart attack at home. Doctor said it was very quick.”

  “Good. That’s the way I want to go—quick. No fussing. No hospitals. No infernal tubes for days and weeks on end.”

  A thick fog of awkwardness fell between us. I could tell my mother was feeling self-conscious. She went back to rearranging the perfectly aligned carrots and celery. I half expected them to stand up and march off the plate in protest.

  “By the way, Mom,” I said, breaking the discomfort. “I brought an extra guest. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Your husband’s cousin. Clark told me.”

  “Yes, I brought Willie, but I also brought my husband. Greg surprised me by taking a redeye flight to Boston last night. Both of them are out on the deck with Clark.”

  She peeked out the kitchen window at the three men gathered around the grill, no doubt swapping stories about gas grilling versus charcoal briquettes.

  “Clark told me he thought your husband was in a wheelchair.” She continued to stare out the window. “Do you love him, Odelia?”

  “Very much, Mom. He’s my life.”

  “I married two very nice men, both for the wrong reasons. They deserved better than they got.”

  I walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up, Mom. It’s not worth it. Let’s put the past in the past, where it belongs.”

  She turned to look me in the eye. Her eyes were dry; mine were wet. “Can you do that, Odelia? I’m old and set in my ways. If you’re looking for a tearful apology, I thought I made it clear at the hospital that you’re not going to get one.”

  If this were the movie of the week on the Lifetime channel, we’d be dissolving into each other’s arms, surrounded by a puddle of our joint tears. But this wasn’t a made-for-TV movie. This was my life. Correction: our lives. And it was obvious my mother was staying in character to the end. I might have gotten more emotion from a turnip.

  “That’s okay, Mom.” And it was. “I heard what I came to hear yesterday.”

  Our emotional headlock was broken when Cathy, Grady, and Troy came through the front door. Grady was carrying two big bags; Cathy, one. My mother seemed relieved to see them.

  “Thought you’d never get here with the corn.” Fussing like an old hen, she barked orders. “Cathy, Odelia, start shucking those ears. We have to get them on the grill pronto.”

  “I ain’t your kitchen help,” Cathy snapped. “You wanted us here, we’re here.” She pushed past us and went straight out to the deck with her bag. Without saying anything to anyone, she opened it and brought out a six-pack of beer. She took a bottle and twisted the cap off with one angry move, as if wringing the neck of a chicken. Plopping down into one of the patio chairs, she tipped it back until I thought she was going to swallow the bottle with the brew. Grady dumped the corn on the table and joined her, but not before gracing me with a lip-raised look of disgust.

  “We’re dry in this house,” my mother explained. “Cathy thinks it tortures me and Clark when she brings booze. Only one she’s hurting is herself.”

  I was hoping to get a little one-on-one time with Cathy. But while she was somewhat friendly at Buster’s, today she was vile and spitting nails. Guess a night of police questioning could do that to a person, not to mention breaking it to your son that his father is dead. It was anyone’s guess how she was feeling about her ex-husband being gone for good. I decided to cut her some slack, and not just out of sympathy but out of self-preservation. If Cathy Morgan ever got it in her head to launch that beer bottle at someone, I did not want to b
e within firing distance. It made me want to gather up Greg and Willie like chicks and scoot them to safety.

  Instead of following his mother out on the deck, Troy stayed behind in the kitchen. He inspected me with sullen, distant eyes. “You’re the lady from the corn maze, aren’t you.”

  “That’s right, Troy. I’m also Grady and Clark’s half sister, Odelia. I’m visiting from California.”

  Mumbling to herself, my mother started yanking ears of corn out of the bags. The bags were generic plastic shopping bags, not the handled bags I’d seen for special customers.

  “Here, Mom, let me clean the corn.” I turned to the boy. “Troy, want to help?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  If Troy hadn’t been a kid, I might have cut to the chase and asked him about his father and what he saw in the corn maze that day. But even I knew that children had to be handled with care. Troy had just lost a parent. Although it sounded like he hadn’t seen him in a while, Les Morgan was still his father, and his death and the boy’s memory of him had to be respected. I was dying to know if the boy knew it was his father that morning in the maze or if he had found out along with everyone else yesterday. I also wanted to see if I could jar loose any information about who or what he saw that day. But for now, I would have to be content peeling husks from corn and letting Troy get used to me.

  After pushing aside the vase of flowers, we both took seats and began shucking the corn. Troy was an expert at it and finished twice as many ears as I did in the same amount of time. He worked in silence, focusing on the physical task as if it were surgery. He seemed withdrawn and troubled, in a silent battle with internal demons. Little wonder, with what he’d been through recently. It made me consider what his family was doing, if anything, to help him through this ordeal. Or was he simply collateral damage?

  “I’m glad you came today, Troy.”

  He glanced up at me, then refocused on the ear of corn in his hand. “Uncle Clem wanted me to stay with them today.” The words were presented in a mumble.

  I looked around. My mother had left the room and gone upstairs. “Why?” I asked the boy.

  He shrugged and kept shucking. “They don’t like it when I come here.”

  “Your Uncle Clem and Aunt Tara?”

  “All of them. Even Uncle Buster.”

  “But one day your mother is going to marry Grady, and then the Littlejohns will be your family, too.” I finished the ear I was working on and grabbed another. “And so will I.”

  At this last comment, Troy looked up and studied me, his face painted with a frown. “You really live in California?”

  “Yep. Right near the beach.”

  “Could I come visit?”

  “Anytime you’d like, if your mom lets you.”

  With that information tucked inside his head, he went back to work.

  When we were done, Troy, Mom, and I joined the others on the deck. Cathy and Grady drank beer, the rest of us lemonade and iced tea, while Clark cooked chicken and hotdogs on the grill, along with roasting corn and other vegetables. Grady and Cathy remained aloof and silent. Troy bonded with Greg, and the two of them were shooting a basketball at a hoop hung from the front of the garage. Willie made small talk with Clark, discussing the rise in white-collar crime. Talk about cheeky.

  When Grady joined Clark at the grill, I moved over next to Cathy and tried some small talk. “It’s nice that you didn’t have to work today. Who’s minding the stand? I’m sure Labor Day is pretty busy.”

  Cathy took a pull from her beer. “Tara and Clem are running it.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize your sister-in-law was involved. I guess you all take turns.”

  “Usually it’s just me and Clem. Tara does the books.” She glanced at me and rolled her eyes. “About the only thing she does do right.”

  “Buster’s not involved?”

  “He spends most of his time managing the farm. His daughter used to work at the stand until she married a guy from New York with a big uppity job.”

  “I haven’t met Buster yet.”

  “He’s on vacation right now. He and his wife went to London for their twenty-fifth anniversary.”

  Cathy wasn’t exactly friendly, but she didn’t seem to mind my company. I’m sure if it had been Clark or Mom who’d sat down next to her, it would have been a different story.

  “I was very sorry to hear about your ex-husband, Cathy.”

  She didn’t look at me but squinted like she was setting her sights on a bug in the distance. “Why? He was a rotten bastard.”

  “Still, he was your husband at one time and the father of your son.”

  She snorted. “Some father. Left us flat, then years later turns up here dead.” She finally turned to look at me. “Damn police questioned me for hours last night. Troy again, too. Strange thing is, Les hated those mazes. He was a bit claustrophobic. I don’t understand why he was in there in the first place or who could have talked him into going in.”

  I cautioned myself to tread lightly with my next question. “Did Troy know that it was his father that morning in the maze?”

  “No.” The word came out quick and sharp like a switchblade, making me doubt the truth of it.

  Shortly before we sat down to eat, Cynthia Rielley wandered into the back yard. Today she was dressed in navy blue pants with an elastic waist and a floral-print shirt that she wore tucked into the pants. A blue cardigan sweater was draped across her shoulders and on her feet were white sneakers. She looked tidy and crisp and very alert. In one of her hands was a potted purple hydrangea. In her other arm was Coco. He growled at the gathering in general.

  “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Rielley said when she saw everyone. “I didn’t realize you had a houseful of company. I just wanted to drop these off for Grace and see Cathy for a moment.”

  “Not at all, Mrs. Rielley,” said Clark. “Why don’t you join us?”

  “Thank you, Clark, but Mr. Rielley and I are heading to our niece’s for the day. She’s having a cookout for the family, too, and asked me to bring a bunch of Cathy’s corn to her. She loves the corn from the Brown farm.”

  Cynthia Rielley spied me and did a double take, as if she remembered seeing me but took a moment to place exactly where. She took a step closer to confirm what her eyes were telling her head. Her lined face broke into a smile as soon as she remembered. Coco remembered, too, and increased his growl.

  “I see you finally caught up with Grace, Mrs. Stevens. How unfortunate it had to be this weekend, with everything that’s happened.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Rielley, I finally found her.”

  Everyone looked at me with surprise except Clark, Willie, and Greg, who already knew that Mrs. Rielley and I had met the morning of the murder.

  “I came to the house Saturday morning,” I quickly explained. “When I found no one at home, Mrs. Rielley directed me to the fair.”

  Mrs. Rielley held the flowers out to my mother. “These are for you, Grace. Something to cheer you up after that horrible experience.”

  Mom took the flowers from Mrs. Rielley. “Thank you, Cynthia. Seems to be my day for flowers.”

  Mrs. Rielley looked from me to Grace several times. “I just can’t get over how much you and your niece look alike.”

  I glanced at my mother, wondering if she would let Cynthia Rielley assume what she assumed or correct the error. I wasn’t going to, feeling it was my mother’s secret to keep or not.

  After clearing her throat, my mother said, “Odelia isn’t my niece, Cynthia, she’s my daughter.”

  “Your daughter?”

  “Yes, I was married to her father while I was in California, before I came back to Leland.” My mother said the words firmly, without hesitation or emotion, simply clarifying a misconception.

  “My goodness,” was all Mrs. Rielley could say as she looked at the two of us.

  Cathy got up from the patio chair she’d been glued to since she’d arrived. “I have your order in my trunk, Mrs. Rielley. Troy can he
lp us.”

  “Nonsense,” piped up Willie. “Let the boy enjoy himself. I’ll help you ladies.”

  Mrs. Rielley smiled at Willie. “You must be Mr. Stevens, Odelia’s husband.”

  “Actually, he’s my husband’s cousin, Mrs. Rielley,” I explained. “My husband is the one playing basketball with Troy.”

  Mrs. Rielley looked at our complicated family, her face that of a befuddled puppy. “All very confusing, isn’t it?”

  With a chuckle, Willie escorted Mrs. Rielley and Coco off the deck. “But then, aren’t all families?”

  Mrs. Rielley smiled at him. “I suppose you’re right, Mr. … uh, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Willie, ma’am. Just call me Willie. Everyone does.”

  Cathy returned a few minutes later, but Willie wasn’t with her.

  “He said to start without him,” she explained in a deadpan voice. “Mrs. Rielley mentioned something about a drippy faucet, and he offered to look at it for her.” She grabbed a fresh beer before sitting.

  “Quite a handy guy, isn’t he?” noted Clark as he pulled chicken parts from the grill. “Where’s his family?”

  “He’s a widower, no children.” I tried to sound casual. “He sort of looks out for me and Greg, kind of like a guardian angel.”

  Later, after we ate, I had a chance to talk to Willie alone.

  “I talked to Mrs. Friar about using the washer and dryer at the inn. If we’re staying, I’ll need to wash the few things I brought. If you have anything you want washed, just leave them by our room door tonight. I’ll do them in the morning.”

  “You don’t need to be doing my laundry, little mama.”

  “I know I don’t, but I’m making the offer. Didn’t look like you brought much with you yourself.”

  Willie fixed me with a warm smile. “I miss that, you know.”

  “Laundry service?”

  He laughed. “I hire people to do those kinds of things for me.” He sighed softly. “No, what I miss is someone doing them because they want to, not because they’re paid to do it.”

  Willie looked out from the deck over the back yard. Bordering the Littlejohn property in the back was a stand of birch trees. In the silence, loneliness wafted from Willie like the gentle breeze that moved the slender white branches of the trees.