“What’s all the trouble?”
Don looked utterly speechless for a moment. His mouth dropped open and his hand shook uncontrollably as he moved towards the red-faced man.
“Are you out of your mind?” he cried out. “This is a crime scene.”
“Really? Who says so?”
“I say so,” Don spluttered. “What the hell are you doing here anyway?”
“The young lad, Cecil, told me you ladies found a body or some such. I came to offer my assistance in comforting them…”
His eyes swooped over to Hazel and rested on her bottom as she bent down to retrieve her cards, before fluttering back over to Ida May. The two exchanged a look that prompted a tempting smile from Ida May and delighted giggle from Milton. He didn’t pay me any attention – to be honest I didn’t mind.
Ida May took a couple of steps towards him and laid a gentle hand on the arm of his wheelchair.
“Well, that’s very sweet of you. We’ll have to think of some way to repay you…”
I shook my head. “Ida May, really?”
She gave me a small shrug. “I’m in shock. What’s a girl to do?”
Don looked as though he might explode. “You need to leave this crime scene, right now!”
“Right,” I replied, placing a firm hand on Milton’s chair. “Why don’t you come with me, Milton? I’m sure you have some wonderful stories to tell me about my aunt…”
“Ah, well let me see now, I guess I have a few…”
Ida May stepped forward resolutely. “I’ll come too.”
“Someone needs to stay with Hazel.”
I glanced a hinting eye in Hazel’s direction, noticing that Milton’s eager eyes were doing the same. Ida May gave me a knowing smile and stepped passed me, muttering: “Spoil sport,” as she moved past.
I walked alongside Milton as we slowly moved out of the trees and back on to the path. We waited there for a long while as he reminisced about Aunt Ruby, having apparently now forgotten about the mutilated body part twenty odd meters away.
“Of course, she was always so good at bingo,” he mused, letting out a small laugh. “I was never much good at it myself – didn’t have the luck for it. But your aunt? She had the luck of a thousand men, I’ll tell you that for nothing. Once or twice we went down to Vegas – not just us, you understand, there was maybe twelve of us all told. And your aunt, she was on that roulette table and she won every single time, I swear to God…”
‘Sounds about right,” I replied, chuckling a little, even though I didn’t much feel like it. “She had the luck of the angels…”
“That she did. And you know what was really incredible?”
I shook my head.
“I never understood it myself,” Milton continued. “How on earth did she manage to live here all by her lonesome for all those years? The rest of us – we crave attention. But Ruby? Now, she was a woman content with her own company. Absolutely amazing…”
I laughed. “She was a mad old bat.”
Milton’s eyes flickered gleefully. “That she was. But an amazing old bat, I mean truly amazing…”
I laughed again, this time it didn’t feel forced. I laughed so much that finally my mind began to return to the hand I’d plucked out of the well and slowly all jovial thoughts drained from my head. Milton noticed it too. He placed a soft hand on mind and gave it a gentle squeeze. As I looked into his eyes, I could see what Aunt Ruby saw in him – there was a boyish glee hidden behind those eyes and yet, at the same time, his many years of wisdom also.
“It gets easier,” he muttered.
“What does?”
He smiled. “Death. It gets easier to handle. You’re friends come and go. You lose the ones you love. When you get to our age, Death is just something that stalks our daily lives. We embrace it, because you can’t outrun it. At our age, all we have to look forward to is death…”
I let out a spluttered laugh. “Speak for yourself,” I replied. “I think the best years of my life are right ahead of me.”
Milton seemed impressed by this. He nodded a couple of times, reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigar that he proceeded to light. After he’d puffed a few clouds of smoke in my direction he smiled to himself and stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“I like that,” he said. “Live every day like an adventure, right?”
“Something like that.”
“Who knows,” he continued, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. “Maybe you might find out who that unfortunate fellow in the well is.” He opened his eyes and stared pointedly at me. “Maybe you might find out who put him there.”
He closed his eyes again and gently sucked on his cigar. I thought about this for a moment before finally turning my attention back towards the woods where Cecil had just arrived with younger looking man. I watched as Cecil led the man towards the tree line and the two of them disappeared.
Interesting, I thought to myself. How does Cecil know where the well it?
“You know what, Milton?” I said. “Maybe I will.”
Milton’s eyes snapped open. “What? What were we talking about?”
I giggled quietly to myself.
Good old Milton.
Chapter Fou r– The We’re Not Dead Yet Club
It wasn’t long before more police officers arrived. As they trudged their way down the garden, their heavy boots kicked up mud and scattered broken twigs and leaves all across the well-kept flowerbeds. Don, now relieved of his duties by the well, led Hazel and Ida May back to where Milton and I watched as Cecil tried – and failed – to fit in with police crew.
The activity at the end of the garden had also drawn the rest of our party down from the house. As a couple of the police officers crawled on their hands and knees along the lawn in front of us, I became distinctly aware of a familiar presence stood beside me. I turned to look up at the man who, aside from the small, yapping poodle that he carried in his arms, appeared to be the most prim and proper of our whole party. He sneered down at the crawling police officers, reached into his jacket pocket and produced a large handkerchief, which he used to gently dab sweat away from his balding head.
“Disgusting, isn’t it?” he remarked, placing the handkerchief carefully back in its correct pocket. “Such barbarians. Crawling around on the ground like dogs. I half expect them to defecate.”
I glanced up at him and smiled. Percy had been Aunt Ruby’s lawyer and friend for as long as I could remember. A strange man – I had never quite worked out what made him tick – but he was undoubtedly a good lawyer, even if he was one that held cops in the lowest levels of respect. On more than one occasion, he’d been called on to get Aunt Ruby out of some scrape or another with the law – and on each occasion some level of police corruption had been uncovered.
On the other side of me, Milton cleared his throat:
“They are searching for clues, old man. They can’t be expected to find them by just wishing in the well…”
“Why not?” Ida May chipped in. “We did.”
Don shook his head. “They’re just doing their job, Percy.”
Percy laughed to himself. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
I don’t know what Percy meant by it, but Don certainly did. For the next few minutes we remained in absolute silence. Having finally given up buddying up to the police team, Cecil returned to the group, flashing a coy smile to Hazel who, in turn, turned her nose up at him as though some awful smell had invaded her personal space.
“Jasper is just checking in with his colleagues,” he announced, before turning to me, Ida May and Hazel. “He’ll want to talk to you ladies.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Percy butted in, straightening his back and pulling his coat closed as he spoke. “These ladies have been through quite enough. As a lawyer…”
“Retired lawyer,” Cecil corrected gleefully.
Percy’s nose twitched.
“I feel I have a duty to represe
nt these ladies and make sure proper protocol is observed.”
“Listen buddy, you’re an executor for Ruby’s will – nothing more. So drop the attitude. You’re not in the law courts any more.”
Percy opened his mouth to speak. Before he could, I placed a gentle hand on his arm and waited until he’d given me his complete attention.
“It’s alright, Percy – really. We’ve nothing to hide, have we girls?”
“No fear,” replied Ida May.
Hazel nodded vigorously.
“You see?” I said. “Just do your best for Aunt Ruby. That’s all I can ask of you.”
Percy looked as though he might protest, but he seemed to think better of it. Eventually he nodded and swayed back and forth as though attempting to leave before finally, he repositioned the poodle under his arm and addressed us all.
“Given the circumstances, might I suggest that we forestall the reading of Ruby’s will…”
Milton seemed to wake up, spluttering and coughing as he tried to turn in his chair to see Percy.
“What? Say what?”
“Just for the short term,” Percy clarified. “We’ve all had a great shock.”
“I agree,” nodded Cecil – although it seemed that Percy wasn’t particularly glad of his support.
“It’s for the best,” piped in Don.
“Well, I think it’s ridiculous,” Milton spluttered, powering up his wheelchair and spinning around to glare up at Percy, almost running over Ida May’s foot as he did so. “Ruby would want us to carry on regardless.”
“Relax, Milton,” Don muttered as he started to walk away. “You’ll get what’s coming to you…”
“What do you mean by that? Hmmm? Is that a threat?”
With a brief squeal of wheel spin on the soft ground, Milton raced forward and gave chase to the retreating figure of Don as he made his way back up the garden towards the house. Cecil followed in his wake followed by a rather reluctant Percy, which left only Hazel and Ida May to keep me company until Jasper was finally ready to talk to us.
He was a nice looking man, handsome and with something of a chiseled look to his features. We must have been in his early forties, but he had a kind of youthfulness that me and the girls identified with almost immediately. From out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ida May’s wandering up and down his well-kept body and made a mental note that, someday, I should point out to her that she wasn’t being particularly subtle.
Although, now I come to think of it, that may be the whole point…
“Which one of you found the hand?”
“We all did,” Ida May replied instantly.
“But Clara was the one who picked it out of the pail,” Hazel clarified.
Jasper glanced over at me and jotted something down in his notebook.
“And there was nothing odd about the well that you noticed before you found it?”
“No,” I replied. “Nothing really.”
Jasper nodded and wrote something else down.
“We’re not suspects, are we, detective?”
Ida May’s question prompted a slight smirk from the detective.
“I don’t think anyone in their right mind would think you three are capable of something this brutal…” He looked up and, misinterpreting Ida May’s look of disappointment as one of insult, quickly added: “Meaning no offence, of course. I just think you wouldn’t have done such a think. Besides, it’s clear the body has been in the water for a long time…”
“How long?” Hazel asked.
“Difficult to say. It could be weeks, could be months. Could be years…”
“As many as twenty years?”
The question not only prompted a curious look from the detective, but also from myself and Ida May.
“Perhaps,” he replied. “The water was so heavily contaminated with soil and other natural waste that it basically acted as natural preservative – much like bog bodies that are found thousands of years later. We won’t know until we’ve had an autopsy, but it’s possible he could be hundreds of years old.”
I shook my head. “It won’t be that old,” I announced. “That well was working with Aunt Ruby first brought the house. She used to use the water on the plant beds until the arthritis got the better of her.”
The detective hummed, noting this down – he seemed awfully thorough, almost as though everything we said could be a potential clue. After a few minutes he closed his notebook and turned to all of us, giving a small smile.
“Is there anything else you can think of that might be of help?”
Ida May and I shook our heads. Hazel simply stared absently up at the sky.
“Well, if you think of anything that can help, please don’t hesitate to call me.”
We told him we would and, after a brief exchange of pleasantries, we found ourselves walking back up the garden path, leaving the hustle and bustle of the police search behind us. It was Ida May who spoke first.
“I wonder who killed him?”
“What makes you think it was a him?”
Ida May shrugged. “Guessing I suppose. Awful way to go though. Just deposited in a well – it’s not right.”
A little voice crept over our shoulders: “We should do something to help.”
Ida May and I stopped in our tracks and turned back around to face Hazel. There was a strange glint in her eye – almost as though she had some deep secret that she was trying desperately to keep to herself.
“What do you mean?” Ida May replied. “What can we possibly do to help?”
“You heard the detective,” Hazel shot back. “He told us to call him if we found anything new…”
“That’s not an invitation to go poking our noses in where they’re not wanted…”
“Who says so?”
“I say so.”
Ida May turned her back on us. She wouldn’t admit it, but I could tell that the events of today had shaken her up. She put on a brave face – sure – but I doubt she’d ever seen a dead body before – or even part of one for that matter. Hazel on the other hand, seemed to have recovered remarkably quickly after her initial reaction to the severed hand, almost as though she had got rid of all her fear and upset in one foul swoop.
“I bet it was something to do with gambling.”
Ida May turned back around and let out a small “Ha” of laughter.
“Now you’re guessing.”
“I am not.”
“How do you know then?”
Hazel opened her mouth as though to answer but then immediately shut it. She waited for a few seconds before finally asking:
“How did you know I picked the four of diamonds?”
Ida May smiled. “Magic.”
This answer wasn’t good enough for Hazel, who folded her arms roughly and bobbed up and down on the spot a couple of times.
“Well, then maybe I’m psychic.”
“If this is another new hobby…”
I took a step forward. My mind was racing and something in Hazel’s insistence that we investigated had captured my imagination, just as it had when Milton said the same thing earlier.
“It’s an idea though, isn’t it?” I asked, more to myself than to my two companions. “Why couldn’t we investigate ourselves? There’s no law against it, is there?”
“What? You think we can do a better job than the police?”
I shook my head. “No, not better. Just different. Who knows, we might be able to make a difference…”
“Yeah,” Hazel put in, bouncing next to me and beaming from behind her glasses. “We could form a detective club. Give us something real to do with our retirement.”
“I do real things,” Ida May shot back. From behind her mask of distaste, I began to detect the beginnings of a curious smile. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was beginning to become intrigued with the idea. “What would you call it? The We’re Not Dead Yet Club?”
Hazel pondered this for a moment. “I don’t know. It sounds li
ke we’re mocking the poor person a little bit, doesn’t it?”
I felt myself smile. “I like it.”
“Really?”
“Of course. We’re about to do something amazing. I feel more alive than I have done in weeks.”
Ida May hesitated. “I didn’t say I would take part.”
“But we know you’re going to,” Hazel muttered, moving closer towards her friend, peering up at her over her glasses. “You’re as intrigued by all this as we are. You’re just afraid to admit it.”
I think Ida May always thought herself as the clever one – she definitely had a cold, hard logic about her. But in this instance, I think Hazel played her like a prize trombone. In an instant, Ida May straightened her back, ruffled her purple hair and straightened down her clothes. She stared Hazel straight in the eye and said, without a hint of doubt in her voice:
“Ida May is not afraid of anything.”
“Good,” Hazel replied. “Then it’s settled then. Welcome, all of us, to the first case for the We’re Not Dead Yet Club.”
She beamed at both of us, grabbing hold of our hands and swinging them back and forth with such excitement that she reminded me of what Daphne was like when she was growing up. Then, suddenly, she seemed to lose all sense of enthusiasm and, with a worried look crossing her face, she turned to me and asked:
“So, where do we start?”
I smiled back at her.
“We need information. So we’re going to go where everyone else goes to get information – the library.”
We started to head off, except Ida May who fell back a little distance. If I’m not very much mistaken, I thought I heard her mutter:
“Clearly you haven’t looked for information in the last century…”
Chapter Fiv e– Milton’s Grievance
There is a very big difference between deciding to do something and actually being able to do it. In this instance, our trip to the library was delayed somewhat by the large commotion going on inside the Aunt Ruby’s house. As he clambered up the garden stairs, we arrived to find Cecil sat leisurely on the porch, whittling a piece of wood with a small flick knife. He looked up as he saw us approach and slowly shook his head:
Fetch a Pail of Murder (We're Not Dead Yet Club Book 1) Page 3
