by June Shaw
Sure, a corpse lay in her yard, but even that would never have worried Stevie enough to keep her smile away. I was ordinarily cheerful, too, but her smiles usually lasted for days. She often laughed like a hyena that couldn’t catch its breath, and I always feared I’d have to resuscitate her. “You seem so tense,” I said. “All of your movements look nervous.”
She dropped to a chair at her table. Lifted the corners of her lips. Pressed her arms against her sides. “This okay?”
“That smile’s not real. What’s the problem?”
She opened her mouth. Rap-rap-rap sounded from the front door, and two sets of quick footsteps approached.
A sliver of a woman darted in. “The cops came and questioned me.” Her voice was the one I’d heard booming over the phone earlier. I had imagined her to be a larger person. A strong gust could blow her away. She stopped, a mop-headed girl of about three at her side. “Oh, you have company. I thought everybody left,” the young woman said.
“The investigators are outside,” Stevie replied. She gave the child a smile that lit even her eyes. “Cherish, come give Aunt Stevie a big hug.” Stevie wasn’t really the child’s aunt.
Cherish crossed her arms. “I wanted to keep watching Scooby-Doo.”
“You can watch it in my room.” Stevie ran with the child toward the bedrooms and let loose her annoying cackle. The girl’s mom grinned at me and blew a pink bubble with her gum. Cartoon characters screamed. Stevie returned. “That’s my favorite cousin, Cealie Gunther,” she said.
The bubble backed into the woman’s mouth. “Stevie told me a bunch of stuff about you. I live next door. I’m April McGee.”
Her comment surprised me. Stevie and I had had very little contact in years and weren’t ever close. “Nice to meet you,” I said.
“How did that man die?” April asked Stevie.
“Maybe he just walked in my yard and had a stroke or a heart attack.”
“You think so?” April shoved aside a section of her silky all-one-length black hair that dropped over part of her baby blue eyes.
Stevie spread her hands. “Who knows?”
“But why would a stranger pick your yard to come into to die?” I asked.
“Maybe he walked by and started to feel bad. He could have wanted to use a phone to call someone.”
April nodded. “Sounds logical.” She plopped her capri-clad seat down on a chair.
“But,” I said, “he had a cell phone clipped to his belt.”
“Oh.” April zipped her head around toward Stevie, who thrummed blunt fingernails on the table.
“I can’t explain everything.” Stevie shoved up to her feet. “How can I know why a stranger chose my gate to come through when he was ready to die?”
From the TV in her bedroom, a character called for Scooby Doo. Stevie glanced there, looking even more annoyed.
Uneasy, I nudged the newspaper closer. Most ads in this section glared for notice. Not Cajun Delights.
Recently, when we were near Chicago, Gil told me he’d be coming to this area to open another restaurant. I wasn’t sure when. But if he came around this town now, I’d avoid him.
I would.
Stevie opened the refrigerator. She grabbed a canned diet lime drink for April. Then sat, looking calmer, and sipped her coffee.
April swallowed lime drink over the gum in her mouth. “Cops came and asked me things, mainly if I knew that dead man or saw anything strange at your place. I didn’t.” She grinned. “Cherish used the potty again all by herself.”
Stevie laughed. My interest drifted. I’d fought the attraction to Gil, but then a few days ago, gave in.
But no more. I tightly cloaked myself inside my mantra: I am woman! I can do anything—alone! I needed to avoid Gil so that I could rediscover myself.
Still, I recalled our sweet lovemaking. Satisfactory. No, much more than that. With my body spooned against Gil’s, I’d felt like I was in the most natural place in the world. And thinking about Gil comforted me more than considering what was outside or in here.
Women’s voices swirled around me. I peered at Stevie and her neighbor, still discussing Cherish and laughing.
I smiled as though I were invested in their stories. My imaginings drifted to a sweeter scene involving Gil and me twisted together.
April raised a question that snagged my attention. “What if somebody came in your backyard and killed him?”
“Who?” Stevie asked, snapping to her feet. She topped her coffee mug from the decanter and grabbed another diet lime drink for April. “Who knows who could have passed my house or followed that man to murder him?”
April popped her bubble gum. “I do.”
“You do?” Stevie and I asked together.
“Uh-huh, and I told the cops.” She yanked the gum from her mouth, set it on the table, and cracked open her second lime drink. She swallowed some. “I was swinging on my back porch, catching up on The Soap Opera Digest while Cherish played in her sandbox in the yard. I glanced up every time somebody passed. I saw who came behind our houses.”
“Tell us,” I said, ready to solve the mystery. The people who loved that poor man needed to know what caused his death so they could have closure.
Stevie looked like a tent standing beside her miniscule neighbor. “Who’d you see pass by?”
“Those two women who walk together all the time.”
“The ones with white hair?” Stevie asked, and April nodded. “They didn’t kill anyone. Who else?”
“The mailman.”
Stevie responded with an annoyed sound rolling through her throat.
“And then,” April said, returning the used gum to her mouth, “there were those other guys.”
“What guys?” I asked.
“It’s over!” Cherish dashed in. “Momma, I wanna go home.”
Stevie grabbed Cherish and cuddled the child on her lap. “Was your show good?”
Kinky brown curls wobbled with her nods. “I wanna see it again.”
Stevie’s nose scrunched, and her cackles followed. “I don’t have a tape of the movie, but I’ll try to buy one for you.”
“Okay.” Cherish slid down. “Let’s go, Momma.”
“All right.” April held her hand.
I stood in their path. “But who else came around these houses today?”
Bubble gum popped, making me jump. “That guy who walks his dog and the one who checks our gas meters.” April tugged Cherish’s hand. “Tell Aunt Stevie and her cousin bye-bye.”
Cherish gave us a hand flip.
“Come back and see me,” Stevie said, walking them to the back door.
“You haven’t smoked yet?” April asked, and Stevie shook her head. “Good for you.” April looked through the glass on the door. “Oh, they’re still here. Come on, baby, we need to go through the front.”
She and Cherish let themselves out, while I determined what had seemed especially unusual. Stevie hadn’t smoked!
I hadn’t even seen signs of her ashtrays. Normally ashtrays cluttered the house and held mountains of smashed butts that made the place smell like a barroom.
“You quit,” I said, smiling. “When?”
Stevie stared out at all the people still milling back there, her hands shaky against the screen door. “Today.”
“Maybe today’s not the best day to try to quit,” I said.
No wonder she seemed so uptight. Nicotine withdrawals. And the death. That dead man had parents, grandparents, friends, maybe children. And now something or someone had snuffed out his life. Heat built up behind my eyes.
“No time is best to quit.” Stevie’s cloudy gaze told of her longing for the nicotine that had been her best friend and enemy for at least three decades.
“But with what happened today, couldn’t you smoke only a few and then totally quit another time?” I suggested.
She gazed across the top of my head. “You don’t know anything about giving up smoking. Today’s the day my group chose to quit.” Her strange
eyes fixed on glittery objects dangling above her window.
“Oh, you have a support group. Good.” I had no idea how to stop a person from smoking besides saying, “Don’t do it.”
“We met last night and said we wouldn’t smoke today. We’ll meet again tonight.”
“Do you think any of the people April mentioned could have killed that man?”
“Probably not.”
My anger sprang up. I shoved my fists on my hips and spoke with attitude. “So you really made me come over here because you imagined scary things in a stupid deck of cards and some candles?”
Her forehead creased. She looked scared. “Cealie, I really think someone’s out to get me. I—” She flung her hands over her chest and looked pale.
“Are you okay?”
She lowered her hands. “I’m just…really glad you’re here. And I’m not ready to tell the police anything else now.”
I rubbed her arm. “Then here’s what I think we should do. Let’s go on your back porch, watch who passes by, and possibly come up with an idea. Lots of murderers return to check their victims, sometimes because they’re proud.”
“You really think someone killed him?” she asked, voice soft.
“Who knows? But we’d better go and see what we can find out. First I need my things out of my rental car, especially my new friend, Minnie. She’s a cactus.” I grinned, content with all the plant knowledge I’d recently acquired. What I’d learned brought Minnie back from the verge of death.
I’d never kept any type of plant alive before I chose Minnie, and felt pleased with myself for at least learning to care for a cactus. I’d learned about the numerous types of cacti and that I could never teach in a public high school today unless I was allowed to carry something to use to defend myself.
We looked out the back door, where people still milled. The detective who questioned us was searching behind bushes near the porch.
“Detective Renwick,” Stevie said, “did y’all find anything?”
“Nothing definite yet.”
We went through the hall toward the front door. This time I paid more attention since I wasn’t following police. The old house held a mainly comfortable feel. It sported earth tones with an oak floor and walls painted an unusual shade blending yellows with the green of spring leaves. Her living room held sofas and chairs in midnight blue and black, yet felt airy because of lots of glass. The extra large windows, set of stemmed glassware on a glass serving tray, and artwork in shapeless watery colors added to the spacious feel.
“Pretty room,” I mentioned as we walked out.
“It’s my career area,” she said. I looked at her curiously. She explained, “Feng Shui.”
I nodded. I’d heard of the ancient Chinese art of arranging people’s homes to enhance their lives. If that’s what she’d done, good for her.
Stevie crossed her porch, and I again noted the round crystal hanging on a red string about eight inches from the porch’s ceiling. Probably more Feng Shui beliefs. She took off down the steps and reached the sidewalk ahead of me. The sidewalk sloped in front of the house next door. “That’s where April lives,” she said as we walked near. The unassuming brick house resembled Stevie’s—tan brick with green shutters and a front porch. April lived at the corner with a tall wooden fence behind it like Stevie’s. Because they resided on the side of a rocky mountain, there were no neighbors in back, only a wide section of grass and then a road winding up the incline.
“How could April see who was on the street back there?” I asked.
“The land slopes so much, we can see most of it from our back porches.”
We rounded the corner, and I admired the view of lush mountains. Intruding on the scene’s quiet, Stevie kept snapping her fingers. She huffed while she walked. Yes, it was definitely time for her to give up the smokes.
“Weird car,” she said when we reached my PT Cruiser that I’d parked on the grass next to the road behind her house. We eyed the police units still parked near, their yellow tape crossing her gate. We looked away.
“That’s the beauty of renting from a new car lot. You get so many choices,” I said, admiring my Cruiser’s brown side panels. I noted the grass was cut back here, much different from the tall grass I’d discovered in my cousin’s yard.
I popped the doors and the hatchback. “We’re here,” I told Minnie, removing her from the cup holder in front.
Stevie yanked up my suitcase and satchel.
“This is my sidekick.” I proudly held out my little cactus. Minnie’s triangular green stem stood straight again, one of my major achievements. And all of the poufs on her pink head appeared healthy. “She was grafted to look this nice.”
Stevie’s eyebrows wrinkled as she skimmed me and my plant. I tried to take my luggage, but she kept a firm grip, maybe needing to keep her hands busy. We backtracked along the sidewalk without speaking. I listened for cops’ voices, but instead heard April.
“Cherish!” she yelled. “Get back in here! I can’t come out there now.”
“Aw,” the child griped. Their door slammed, probably Cherish going back in.
“April seems especially protective,” I said. “Their yard is fenced, but she won’t let the girl play out there without her.”
“An unexplained death just took place next door,” Stevie snapped.
“But April was watching every person that passed behind their fence even before she knew about the body.”
The hard set of Stevie’s jaw let me know I shouldn’t ask more. The pang of nicotine withdrawal was probably striking.
In her house Stevie brought my luggage down the hall. I set Minnie on a countertop near the kitchen window. “You’ll get some sunshine here. Don’t be bothered by all the strange stuff. You can look at the pretty colors and glittering objects.”
Minnie seemed to lean toward me, and if it were possible for a cactus to grin, I was certain she did. I’d learned that talking to plants was a good thing.
Stevie reappeared. “You’re all set in the guest bedroom.”
I hoped that wasn’t the one with the candles and altar. “So now we’ll go and look for a killer?”
“Right after I straighten up in here.” She set the used mugs in the sink and tossed April’s empty cans and the newspaper in the trash. “Oh, this looked interesting,” she said, retrieving the paper. “A Cajun restaurant opened. Maybe we can check it out later.”
I replied with a noncommittal grin. Stevie didn’t know anything about its owner. I knew so much about Gil. His deep-throated laughter. And hunky body.
Heat rushed through me.
Nope, if Gil was around town, I definitely needed to avoid him.
“Let’s go look for a killer, if there was one,” I said, concerned about the man who had died. That was also the major way to avoid temptation. Catch the bad guy or gal, then hop on the next jet to Acapulco, where I was headed before I detoured to see about Stevie.
“Of course, he could have died of natural causes.” She put away condensed milk and a canister marked Sugar. No wonder her coffee tasted so good. And no wonder she’d puffed up so much. So would I if I kept drinking coffee she fixed. I wasn’t trim now and feared that adding many more pounds might make me resemble a box that a stove came in.
Stevie washed the mugs. I zapped a damp towel across the table and stove, noting a mirror on the rear of the stove and facing the kitchen. “There.” I set my towel beside hers. “Now we can go.”
She grabbed a dry towel, dried the surfaces, and put everything away.
All of this was her usual practice? Or aftereffects from having no nicotine since last night?
Out on the back porch, we sat on cushioned rockers. Police still inspected the gate and parts of the yard. They looked at us. I nodded at them, then stared at the section of sloping road visible beyond the fence. The dead man was gone. I was shaky inside.
“See if anyone out there looks like a killer,” Stevie said, her fingernails going click-click-cli
ck against her chair arm.
Our position gave us a limited view of the road. I stood to see out there better.
A couple of cars and trucks passed. Birds screeched. A boy laughed. Brakes hissed on a heavy vehicle, then it accelerated. “Sounds like a garbage truck,” I said. “But it seems late for garbage pickup.”
“Maybe their truck broke down.”
“Maybe.” I listened to the repeated hiss and pickup with forward motion. A school bus might make similar noise, but it seemed way too late for one to be dropping off kids. “But,” I said, “what if it’s late because the people on it stopped to kill someone before getting garbage?”
Stevie stared at me. Took quivery breaths. Turned away.
“Right,” I said. “A garbage truck would be the perfect body-disposal vehicle, so why would people on it want to drop the body off in your yard?”
She shuddered. “You are so weird.”
“I’m weird?”
People in her yard stared at me.
I huffed a little and decided to let it go. “Who knows about all the people we see often, maybe those who pass our houses every day?” I asked Stevie more pleasantly. “Some of them walk or run. Vehicles drive around us all the time, and we hardly pay attention.”
Blunt fingernails increased their annoying clatter.
“And,” I said, turning to see the white truck braking and men from it picking up trash down the road, “we don’t care who comes in our yards presumably to check our meters or make deliveries. But because people inspect our meters or deliver to our houses, does that mean we can trust them? That they aren’t killers?”
“Nobody guarantees it.”
“And even if someone wears a uniform or drives a labeled vehicle, that person isn’t necessarily a representative of the place. Or the people we shop from could be killers.”
“Grmm.” Stevie’s throat sound was an agreement, mulling, or desire for a cigarette.
Detective Renwick approached. “We’re leaving for now. We’d like that police tape to stay up until our investigation is finished.”
“Can you tell us anything now?” I asked.
“Not yet. Let us know if you think of anything else.” Renwick followed the other officers out the gate. Their cars started and drove off. All grew quiet.
