“Man, Tinkie, all that dancing, look at your cankles. They’re bigger than your knees.”
She threw the covers over her feet. “You’re cruel, Sarah Booth.”
“Cruel to a bed thief who wakes me up at the butt-crack of dawn? I think not!”
We all laughed and I scuttled down the hall to get coffee for the three of us. When I ran into Donna in the kitchen, she asked what we wanted for breakfast.
“We’re good with whatever. I think I should wake Cece and Hans. I’ll ask if they have a preference.”
She pointed to the clean dishes in the drainboard. “Thanks for doing that, but it wasn’t necessary. And your friend Cece already checked out. She said she had to get on the road early. She sure was focused on getting out of here, too. She was in too big of a hurry to even let me fix her something to eat.”
“Her boss wants to chew her out for being gone.” Cece hadn’t said a thing last night about cutting out this morning before breakfast. “I’ll wake Hans.”
“He left, too. Same time as your friend. Said he was going to Memphis to search for office space. He was going to follow Cece part of the way home.”
That made perfect sense. “Okay, thanks. Don’t make breakfast a problem. Tinkie will be hungry, I know, but at the rate she’s going, she’d eat an old shoe. We’ll have whatever you’re making. And Erik Ward is here again.”
“That man needs to rent a room or stay home,” she said, though she didn’t actually sound upset.
“Yes, he does. I honestly think he may need to spend a night or two in jail to reset his priorities.”
“Most men need a night or two in jail.” She pulled a dozen eggs out of the refrigerator. “I’m thinking sweet pepper, fresh asparagus, and soy sausage frittatas. In about forty minutes?”
“Perfect.”
Erik took his coffee to the porch and Tinkie took hers back to her room so we could get dressed and ready for the day. As the hot spray of the shower washed over me, I thought about Cosmo. Erik was right to be worried. Where would Cosmo go? His car was still at his place. He didn’t have any friends that I knew of. So where was he? And was he hiding from someone who wanted to hurt him or hiding from the consequences of his actions?
I went to the porch to talk to Erik while we waited for Tinkie. I was torn between taking Erik to the sheriff and thereby washing my hands of delivering him or of checking to see what I could glean about Cosmo’s disappearance. I might need Erik for that. “Let’s head over to the gardens first thing.”
“You think something has happened to Cosmo, don’t you?” Erik seemed really worried.
“I hope not, but I think we can’t rule anything out. We’ll eat fast and get over there. Should I call Daniel Reynolds to check around the area?”
Erik shook his head. “Think about this. How is the killer getting past that one-eyed dog to dump the bodies?”
He had a point. An excellent point. “Good thinking.” I liked Daniel Reynolds, but that didn’t preclude him from being a psychopathic killer. And while Erik didn’t have an alibi, I wondered if Reynolds did. He was married, but wouldn’t a wife back up her husband’s alibi?
“Do you know if Reynolds was being sued by Perry Slay for any reason?”
Erik’s eyebrows jumped up. “There was some talk last year that Slay had turned his ankle on a tour of the gardens. He was telling everyone in town that it was from Reynolds’s neglect.”
“Very interesting.”
“What’s interesting?” Tinkie had joined us.
I filled her in on the latest revelation about Slay’s possible suit against the miniature Holy Land.
“That’s bull,” Tinkie said. “Reynolds would never be held responsible for someone turning an ankle on a nature trail. No jury in the world would view that as Reynolds’s fault or responsibility. They would see that Slay was just a scammer. He’d pinch a penny until Abe Lincoln screamed.”
It was a nuisance suit for sure, but sometimes, getting rid of a nuisance might be worth a little poison.
“Time for breakfast, Tinkie. Then we have to get busy.” I followed her to the kitchen, and Erik followed me. We had a lot to do before the sun set.
* * *
Daniel Reynolds was in his office when we arrived at the gardens. Brutus lay on a soft mat outside his door. The windows were open and I could hear Reynolds typing away.
Brutus raised his head and looked at us, and then went back to sleep. He wasn’t the best watchdog I’d ever met. Brutus looked fearsome, but he was a pussycat.
I knocked on the door and entered. “We’re going to take a look around the gardens again, if that’s okay.”
“Help yourself. I got a nibble from a publisher about my book.” Daniel Reynolds pointed at his computer screen. “I think it’s because of the murders.”
Now that was a benefit of being a body farm that I hadn’t anticipated. “What’s the book about?”
“History, geography, and fiction. It’s actually a murder mystery.”
“Based on the murders here?”
“Oh, no. I’ve been working on this book for several years. It’s actually set in the 1900s, when the railroad first came through this area.”
That was a relief. I’d heard authors might do crazy things to get a book published. “Have you seen Cosmo?” I looked out the door to see Tinkie and Erik heading down the trail. They’d obviously gotten tired of waiting for me.
“Now that you mention it, I haven’t.” He grinned. “Which is a relief. He’s always ragging on me about something I’ve done that’s environmentally damaging.”
“Tinkie, Erik, and I are going to scout around the gardens looking for him. It seems someone broke into his place and tore it up. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
He searched my face as if to read my intention. “No.”
“Cosmo may have pertinent information to the murders, too. We need to talk to him.”
“If I see him, I’ll be sure and let him know, though he doesn’t take too kindly to anything I try to tell him.”
I had one other question. “You haven’t seen a woman in her late fifties or early sixties. Wiry red hair. Glasses.” That was the last description of Gertrude Strom that I had. Since I’d last seen her, she could have had plastic surgery for all I knew.
“My wife said some woman stopped by yesterday morning. I was in town, so I didn’t see her.”
“Did your wife say what this woman wanted?”
“She was asking about you. Said she wanted to hire your PI agency for a case.”
Not likely. She wanted a chance to take another shot at splattering my brains across the highway. “If you see that woman again, call Sheriff Glory, please.”
“Why?”
“She’s trying to kill me.”
Reynolds slowly got out of his chair. “Wow. That’s one bold would-be assassin.” He realized what he’d said. “I’m sorry. My wife told her where you were staying.”
Gertrude probably knew all of that anyway. She was nothing if not thorough. “If you see her again, call the sheriff and try to keep her distracted until Glory can arrest her.”
“Why does she want to kill you?”
“Long story, but the short version is that she’s not mentally right. Did she say where she was going?”
“I’ll talk to my better half and see if she can remember any of the specifics. We see a lot of people here at the gardens, you know. But check back here when you come by the office. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to hear the long version of why she wants to kill you. You know, motive is everything in fiction.”
“Sure.” I had to catch up with Tinkie and let her know Gertrude had been here. I should have done that sooner. We had to use extra caution now that we knew she was stalking us. I had no doubt Gertrude would kill Tinkie to hurt me or just out of sheer damn meanness.
I found Erik and Tinkie at Golgotha, looking at the miniature tomb with the stone rolled away.
“Life is very h
ard,” Tinkie was saying. “Without the hope of the resurrection, some people might quit trying.”
“All religions have a resurrection story at their heart,” Erik agreed. “The Greek and Roman theology is rife with gods and demigods that return to life. One of my favorites is Persephone, who brings spring when she returns to Earth from Hades.”
Jitty came quickly to my mind. Her appearances always had a purpose. Always. Resurrection. I had to put my thinking cap on about that. I stopped down the trail where I could see and hear Tinkie and Erik. They were chatting like old friends, and I paused to enjoy how open they were with each other as they explored their own beliefs. Why did some people find it so hard to hear about a different belief system?
“Sarah Booth!” Erik spotted me. “While we’ve been waiting for you, we searched the area around the Dead Sea and there’s no sign of Cosmo. I thought if he were in the gardens, he’d be here because of the water issue he’s been having with Reynolds. I’ve called him several times and he still doesn’t answer.”
That didn’t bode well for Cosmo, but I kept my lips zipped. “Let’s get busy.”
We decided not to split up, even though we would cover more ground that way. With three of us searching for footprints, cart tracks, and any disturbed areas, we could search more thoroughly. While we walked, I told them both about Gertrude.
“Why can no one catch her?” Tinkie asked. “It’s almost like she’s a ghost.”
“She’s no ghost.” I sighed. “She’s devoted her life to harming me. Time is slipping away from her. She could change her name, settle somewhere with a great climate, and have a decent life. Why doesn’t she? I’ve never hated anyone enough to destroy my life trying to make them suffer.”
“And that’s the difference between you and a psycho would-be serial killer,” Tinkie said, grabbing my hand. She laced her fingers through mine and we swung our hands in time with our steps just like we’d done when we were ten.
We’d just rounded a turn in the trail and I saw a sign that read SODOM AND GOMORRAH. The story of Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt was one of my all-time favorite Old Testament tales. God did have a sense of humor in that story. It was also a reminder of the danger of living in the past, of clinging to what has already slipped through your fingers.
“Why did Lot’s wife look back?” I asked Tinkie.
She shrugged. “Curiosity?”
I had a sudden sense that we were being followed. It came over me as quickly as a cloud can cover the sun. “Get down!” I grabbed Tinkie and pulled her into my arms as I rolled to the ground and into an azalea bush. Erik did the same on the other side of the path.
“What the hell?” Tinkie was indignant. “We’re not schoolkids, Sarah Booth. I’m pregnant.”
As if I didn’t know that already. She said it about fifty times a day. “Someone was following us.”
I’d used my body as a soft landing for her and she eased off me and crept out from under the azalea to scan the path. “I don’t see anyone.”
“Maybe I’m just unnerved by Gertrude’s reappearance.” I’d been certain that someone was behind us, following slowly, watching. But I was edgy.
“Better safe than sorry.” She started to get to her feet when she stopped. “There is someone!”
I reached to pull her back down into the cover of the bush but she dodged me. “It’s only Brutus, Reynolds’s dog. He’s guarding us.”
I got to my knees and then my feet as Erik did the same. The big dog came up to us, tail wagging and tongue lolling. He flopped over for a belly rub, which Tinkie gave him.
The dog then hopped to his feet and took off down the sloped grassy hill to another body of water, which I assumed was the Mediterranean Sea. Geography was not my strong suit.
“Brutus! Brutus!” Tinkie went after him and I smiled as she ran through the wildflowers that nodded yellow, pink, lavender, and blue in the spring sunshine. Daniel Reynolds had created a small slice of paradise on the property.
I started after her when I saw something lying in the grassy wildflowers. Something deep coral and turquoise. Something that, on closer observation, looked a lot like a dead body.
25
I knelt beside the body of a young woman that had been dumped in the sloping field that eased downhill to the Mediterranean Sea and automatically felt for a pulse. To my surprise, there was one. “She’s not dead! Call an ambulance! Call Reynolds! Call Glory!” I erupted in a series of orders because I didn’t know what to do to help the woman.
Erik knelt on her other side and checked if she was breathing. Tinkie was immediately on the phone, calling the necessary help.
The woman’s color is ghastly, and her features are badly swollen. “Do you know this woman?” I asked Erik. I figured she was another local. I could only hope she had no connection to Erik.
“I do. It’s Betsy Dell, and she’s barely breathing.”
He began administering rescue breaths, and I rocked back on my heels. “The woman who is accusing you of murdering Johnny Braun?” She was so badly bloated I wouldn’t have recognized her.
“That would be her.”
“I thought she lived in Mobile.”
“She does, as far as I know.”
“What in the hell is she doing here, off in the middle of the woods?”
“I don’t know. If we can keep her alive, you can ask her.” He kept giving rescue breaths every few seconds. “Check her pulse.”
I did as he asked. “I don’t feel a pulse!” I listened for the sound of help arriving. Betsy looked dead already. Her skin was a bluish tint, and white foam had begun to form at the corners of her mouth. Watching Erik work on her to keep her from dying, I felt my opinion of Erik changing yet again. If he’d meant to kill her, why work so hard to keep her alive?
“I think she’s been poisoned.” I wasn’t a doctor, and it was just a guess. One that followed the pattern of other deaths in the miniature Holy Land. Erik seemed to agree.
He pushed his hair out of his eyes and started chest compressions. “She needs immediate medical attention. I’m worried that she won’t make it ’fore the paramedics get here. I’m going to be accused of another murder I didn’t commit.”
“What can we do to help?” I asked.
“Get the cart from the garden shed and get Daniel. We need to move her now. If we can get her to the office area, the ambulance can get her to the hospital quicker.”
He was right about that. “Tinkie, let’s go get the cart and Daniel.”
Brutus had returned to watch over Betsy, while Erik continued chest compressions. Tinkie and I took off through the woods like scalded dogs. I was in paddock boots and Tinkie wore only three-inch heels, a concession to her swollen feet and the baby weight. But she could still keep up with me.
“Don’t slow down,” Tinkie said. “I don’t want to run up your back.”
I went to the garden shed for the cart and Tinkie went for Reynolds. We’d need his strength to load Betsy into the cart and then haul her back here. The path was sandy and up and down hills. It was going to take some muscle.
The shed probably had a light switch, but I didn’t know where it might be. And I didn’t have time to look. I stumbled into the small, dark enclosure and tripped on something on the floor. “Dang it!” I wanted to say worse, but I was too close to the miniature Holy Land to risk cursing. I fumbled at the wall until I found a switch. Light flooded the small room and I saw what had nearly broken my neck. Legs. Two legs in worn jeans and tied around the ankles with a rope, to be exact.
I stepped around a generator and felt the throb of a wicked headache begin. Cosmo Constantine lay on the floor, trussed up, and in a pool of blood.
* * *
It seemed an eternity passed before the ambulance and Sheriff Glory arrived. I checked Cosmo’s pulse, which was thready and irregular. I didn’t try chest compressions because I didn’t know how that would impact his head injury, which looked as if he’d been whacked with a ball-pee
n hammer. Confirming my assessment, Tinkie found a hammer with blood on it tossed behind some cardboard boxes full of gardening supplies.
I took photographs of Cosmo, because I realized that under the circumstances, we weren’t likely to get copies of the same from Sheriff Glory. Erik was her number-one suspect, and we were his agents. He’d been in the area last night—again without an alibi until he’d shown up in my room. The evidence continued to pile up against him.
At last the medical experts arrived and Tinkie and I cleared out of the little shed to wait. We didn’t discuss what had happened, but we were both keenly aware that Cosmo might have brain damage from the blow he’d sustained. Sheriff Glory was photographing the shed. When she finished, she came over to us.
“Show me what you touched,” she said to us. We pointed out the exact places we’d been and what we might have left trace evidence on. “We came in here to get the cart to transport Betsy Dell for easier ambulance pickup,” I explained.
“I get it.” Glory was not happy. “How many bodies does this make that you’ve ‘stumbled’ on?” She used air quotes to emphasize her sarcasm.
“These two aren’t technically dead.” I was pointing out the obvious, not trying to be a smart-ass, but Tinkie put her blunt little heel onto my big toe and shifted her weight until I squealed. At last, Glory gave Tinkie a nod of approval. My toe had been sacrificed to regain a civil relationship with the sheriff. I wondered if it would be worth it, down the road.
The paramedics brought Cosmo out of the shed on a stretcher. He was pale and unconscious, but he was still breathing regularly on his own.
“He needs an immediate scan,” one paramedic said. “We have a specialist on the way. We’ll meet them at the hospital.”
I was shell-shocked by the unexpected carnage and the swift turn of events. My head was throbbing. The discovery of two bodies—though both were alive, as far as I knew—had sent me into a fight-or-flight state. I didn’t want to talk to Glory, I wanted to find the person responsible for this mayhem and end it. On top of all this, I wanted Gertrude Strom behind bars or in a grave. I didn’t care which.
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