“Jesse!” Winnie rose to her feet and held her empty glass in the air. “Hey! You want some? I can get another glass out of the kitchen.”
“What is that stuff?” Jesse asked as Sophia cocked a brow in her direction and smiled.
“Kool-aid,” Winnie said.
Vivian swiveled around to greet her, seeming very proud of them all. “And white lightning.”
“I think I might wait.” Jesse hoped her face didn’t show how little temptation she felt.
“Are you sure?” Sophia asked, still smiling. “You can have some of mine.”
“Only a mother’s love,” Jesse answered softly with a quick shake of her head.
Vivian laughed, held her glass aloft, and she and Sophia finished what was left in theirs.
“Is that all of it?” Jesse and Winnie asked simultaneously, with Jesse sounding as hopeful as Winnie did disappointed.
“I saved just enough for you to have one more little drink.” Vivian handed the small, unlabeled bottle to Winnie, who cheerfully poured another lethal concoction of Kool-aid and contraband alcohol.
“For Daddy.” Winnie held up the syrupy red drink. “For everything you did for me. I know you did what you did because you love me. And because you’re not really thinking right anymore. I love you, Daddy. And I forgive you, even if nobody else ever does.”
With that, she took a long, last drink, draining the little glass once again. “Thank you, Mrs… I mean, Vivian, for saving me enough to do that. I think it’s only right that the last drink of Daddy’s hooch was for him.” Then she put her empty juice glass on top of the Tupperware pitcher, squared her shoulders and looked straight into Jesse’s eyes. “Now, who the hell was that buried in my backyard?”
Jesse held up a restraining hand. “All in good time. First you have to tell me how you figured out what your dad did.”
Winnie tossed her head as if it was all no big deal. “I heard him on the phone. He told whoever he was talking to that he would meet them out on the highway.” Her voice faded, sounding strained. “And that they could stop looking for the person who shot Roy Lee ’cause he was turning himself in.”
She sniffed and blinked rapidly several times. “I had a pretty strong suspicion anyway. It had to be someone who knew where Roy Lee went fishing. Who knew where he kept his gun. And who could get close enough to shoot him without Roy Lee seeing it coming. And it wouldn’t be one of his brothers. They didn’t always get along, but they were family, you know? Real family.”
Winnie sighed. “He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been getting strange in the head. He couldn’t let go of the idea that Roy Lee was going to mess up my life somehow after he wasn’t there to protect me anymore.” She let out one gulping sob. “Oh, Lord. That’s why he didn’t it, isn’t it? ’Cause of me.”
Vivian and Sophia leaned forward as one, their voices joining together to deny and sooth. Jesse cut through it all with a clear, “No!”
Everyone stopped and turned to look at her, Winnie included, her tears dried with a sniff and the dab of a tissue pressed into her hand by Sophia.
“No,” Jesse said again. “It wasn’t you. It was Roy Lee. Your dad knew who that body belonged to. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t do anything until he finally decided that someone had to do something. And nobody else was going to, because no one else knew the secret the Rogers boys were keeping.”
Sophia gasped quietly. Vivian straightened her back and leaned forward while folding her hands in her lap, readying herself for whatever came. Winnie’s eyes grew round and she made a sound that might have been a whimper.
“Oh, Lord,” she whispered. “It was their mama. How? How did that happen?”
“She died of natural causes. Hansen assured me that she was deeply loved and they would never have hurt her. He was offended by the very thought.”
“So, they’re the ones who buried her in Winnie’s backyard?” Vivian demanded. “Their own mother, they buried in an unmarked, shallow grave, without even a coffin? In somebody’s backyard?!”
“Why?” Winnie asked, more confused than irate, even though she was the one who had had an unshriven body buried just outside her kitchen door. “If it was natural causes, why would they hide it?”
“Money.” Vivian threw the word down like a gauntlet. “That’s the only thing left. They had to do it for money. Was it all three of the brothers?” Before Jesse could answer, Vivian continued, “Of course. It had to be or it would have been discovered. They had to have all been in on it.”
“But she didn’t have any money,” Winnie argued. “She was living off of Social Security and a tiny little pension. Anyone with a job would have earned more than she did!”
“Which was the problem,” Jesse said. “There had been a drought and Hansen’s farm was suffering financially after years of crop failure. His mom had been helping him pay his mortgage from the little bit she had. Averell’s wife had run off, and he was facing the expense of a divorce and property division. And Roy Lee didn’t work steadily and always needed more money.”
“Oh, my God.” Winnie slapped a hand to her chest. The sadness was gone, replaced by a mixture of horror and disgust. “Those vultures!”
“Hansen is quite sure that she would have wanted them to have her money, even if she wasn’t around anymore, and that their need outweighed common decency,” Sophia said.
“So, let me get this straight.” Posture perfect, Vivian leaned forward just the slightest degree farther. “She died of natural causes, but in order to continue collecting her pittance of an income, which I assume they split, they buried her in an unmarked grave on what would have then been Roy Lee’s property, piled a bunch of wood on top of it, and said she’d gone to a nursing home? And they were just going to let this continue until, what, hell froze over?”
“I thought you knew this,” Sophia said quietly. “You’re the one who told Jesse who the bone belonged to.”
“Well, yes, I knew that,” Vivian said indignantly. “And I thought maybe one of her sons had accidently killed her. But I never dreamed was all of her children who had dug a hole and stuck her in it. And then just left her there.”
Jesse cleared her throat, not sure she wanted to discuss the rest of it, but it was only fair to Moss Harkness to explain it all. “I believe that Winnie’s dad figured out what was going on. And I think he was forcing their hand when he put Winnie’s property up for sale. Also when he cleared the wood rack off of the grave. But primarily he just couldn’t stand the thought of someone who would do that to his own mother ever getting near Winnie again. And Roy Lee seemed determined to reconcile. I think that was the final straw.”
“Those bastards,” Winnie said softly. “She was a fine woman. Oh, my heavens! What happened to her after they dug her up?”
“The sheriff’s department has her, uh, body.” Jesse caught herself just before she said ‘bones.’ “Hansen’s in custody, and he and Averell will be facing fraud charges at the very least.”
She turned to Winnie and took her friend’s hands in her own. “Are you going to be okay, kiddo? No one could blame you if you weren’t, but…”
Fire blazed in Winnie’s eyes, cooled only slightly by the tears that were starting to pool. “Can you take me to see my dad?”
“Well, yes, but…”
“I’m glad he killed him. Okay, I’m not glad, but if anyone ever deserved killing, it was that sniveling, belly-crawling, mother-burying coward, Roy Lee Rogers. And I want my daddy to know I am not mad at him. He’s a good man. And a good father…”
Tears dribbled down Winnie’s pink cheeks, and her voice began to quiver. “And I love him, and I want him to know it. I want to hug him. Now. While he can still remember it.” She scrubbed the back of her hand across her jaw and sniffed back tears. “Can you take me to him?”
“Yes.” Jesse straightened and held out her hand to Winnie. “Yes, I can.”
“We all can,” Vivian announced. Gracefully extricating herself f
rom her plastic Adirondack chair, she rose, followed by Sophia.
“I’ll put the Kool-aid away and meet you at the car. Winnie’s things are still in the trunk. Is there anything else you need from the house, hon?” Sophia asked.
“No. And thank you,” Winnie said, looking very much as she had as a little girl, vulnerable, awkward, and with a heart as big all outdoors. “Thank you all, so much.”
Jesse gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll start the car.” Jesse hurried away as Sophia stacked juice glasses and Tupperware onto a tray and started into the house.
Vivian slipped an arm around Winnie’s waist and began to walk with her toward the vehicle that would be running when they arrived. “That’s what family is for, sweetie. That’s what family is for.”
Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mysteries
Murder, Mayhem & Bliss
Murder Most Thorny
More Cozies from Deadly Niche Press
Grace Cassidy Mysteries by Jackie King
The Inconvenient Corpse
The Corpse Who Walked in the Door
TV—Live or Dead? by Olyve Hallmark Abbott
Swamped by Sandy Gingras
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Murder Most Thorny (Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Book 2) Page 25
