Murder by Decay

by Suzanne Young

  Once the door closed behind her and she heard the soft snick of the lock, Edna paused. Slowly buttoning her coat, she glanced down the hall at Gordon’s office, trying to come up with an excuse to drop by. If Charlie were there, maybe he’d tell her how the investigation was going and what, if anything, they’d discovered about the dead man.

  “Miz Davies?” A voice at her shoulder caused her to spin around.

  “Oh, Officer Nicholas.” Recognizing the policewoman, Edna put a hand over her heart in a gesture of relief. “You startled me. I was off gathering wool.”

  The young woman smiled in seeming understanding. “Get that tooth fixed?”

  Edna nodded before changing the subject. “I didn’t expect to see you this morning. Have you been here all night?”

  Rita Nicholas shook her head. “Nah. I went home for a few hours’ sleep, but I wanted to get back and see if Nancy’s found anything out of place.”

  “I understand she is in, but only to cancel appointments.”

  “That’s right. We’ve also asked her to check for anything out of the ordinary.”

  Using the timely encounter to find out what was going on in Gordon’s office, Edna fell into step beside the policewoman. Rita didn’t object to her company, and the two women walked down the hall and into the dentist’s waiting room.

  Edna glanced from the empty receptionist desk to the police woman, but before she could ask, Rita said, as if reading Edna’s mind, “She’s probably in one of the back rooms.”

  Edna was going to ask if they knew the dead man’s identity when Charlie appeared in the archway, and after they all exchanged morning greetings, she seized the opportunity. Charlie surprised her by shaking his head. Wondering if he was being coy because Rita was standing near, Edna frowned. “You don’t know who he was or you won’t tell me?”

  With a short laugh, the detective explained. “I’d tell you if I could, Edna, but there was no ID on him. No wallet, no nothin’. We’re having to run his fingerprints. Should have a name sometime soon.”

  At that moment, Nancy walked up behind the detective. “Charlie?” It sounded like a question as she tried to grab his attention.

  Gordon’s assistant was a petite brunette in her mid-thirties. When the Davieses first began going to Jennings Family Dentistry, Edna had learned from Mary that Nancy was the mother of two middle-schoolers and had been a patient of the dentist since her first teeth appeared. When Nancy’s husband had been laid off four years earlier, around the same time as Gordon’s hygienist retired and moved to Florida, Nancy had taken the job with the understanding that it would be temporary, only until Carl found another job. That was fine with Gordon, since, at the time, he thought he also might retire soon. Nancy could take over running the office and do the bookkeeping while Gordon handled both the hygienist’s duties and his own until he decided when to take his permanent vacation. Eight months later, Carl went back to work about the same time that Gordon’s wife was diagnosed with cancer. Mabel Jennings died within six months. The difficulties they’d both endured had brought Gordon and Nancy closer together. She’d become the daughter he and Mabel had never had. The dentist and his office manager also discovered that they worked well together, so time slipped by and Gordon had yet to decide when he would close the office for good.

  “I found something, Charlie,” Nancy said now as she strode into the waiting room. Edna noticed the young woman wore surgical gloves. “Oh, hi, Edna,” she greeted. “I heard what happened last night. How are you feeling this morning?” There was true sympathy in the woman’s hazel eyes.

  “Better,” Edna slurred through numb lips. “And grateful that Gordon got Doctor Resnik to see me this morning.”

  “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m sure glad you found that body last night. I would have been really creeped out if I’d walked in on something like that this morning.”

  Before Edna could respond, Charlie interrupted. “What do you have for me?”

  Rita also acted at nearly the same time, making Edna wonder if the officer had received a signal from Charlie. “You’d better go so we can get on with the investigation.” The words were said not unkindly as Rita gently laid a hand on Edna’s shoulder.

  Before she turned toward the door, Edna said quickly, “You’ll phone when you can, won’t you, Charlie?” She didn’t know if he heard her or not or even if he understood her garbled speech as he followed Nancy into the nether regions of the suite.

  “There’s a file out of order,” the office manager was saying. “I sure wouldn’t have filed a K in with the P’s.”

  Edna heard no more as the two disappeared through the doorway to a back room.

  “Will you be okay getting to your car?” Officer Nicholas asked. Then, as if she thought she might have been too obvious, added swiftly, “I mean, you’re not woozy from your recent procedure, are you?”

  Taking the hint, Edna smiled at the woman. “I can manage, and you probably want to see what Nancy’s found.”

  Rita Nicholas returned the grin and farewell as Edna slipped into the corridor. She had just passed the door to Resnik’s office and the small elevator next to it, her mind on the possible importance of Nancy’s find, when she heard her name.

  “Miz Davies?” The voice was quiet, barely above a whisper, as if the person were hiding and didn’t want anyone else to hear.

  She turned to see a slender figure emerge from the stairwell. So quietly did the man approach, he seemed to glide rather than step. As he came closer, she noticed his thinning brown hair that probably made him look older than he was. A few years shy of thirty, she guessed and wondered if the two-day-old-stubble look that men seemed to favor these days was an attempt to make up for the lack of hair on his head. He held a business card out to her. “Jason Lyneman, Attorney at Law,” he said.

  Edna frowned, taking the card that was practically shoved into her hand. “I don’t need a lawyer,” she said, taking a step back. The man had slipped into her personal space.

  “You can never be sure. You’re the one who found a dead body last night, aren’t you?” His question sounded like a statement.

  Edna felt her temper rise at his arrogance. “How do you know that … or me? How do you know who I am? I’m certain we’ve never met.”

  Without taking his eyes from her face, Jason tipped his head in the direction from which Edna had come. “Heard the policewoman speak to you when you came out of Pieter’s clinic.” Edna didn’t like the gleam in his eye when he added, “The person who finds a dead body is nearly always a prime suspect, you know. You’d be wise to retain me.”

  Scowling at the young man for several seconds, she decided to ignore his comments and dismiss him as inexperienced in the social graces. Instead, she said, “Your office is upstairs.” Reading the business card, she remembered having seen his name on the building’s directory.

  “That’s right.” Excitement lit up his face, and she realized he’d taken the remark as encouragement that she might accept his offer of counsel.

  “Were you here last night?” she asked. As his face morphed from anticipation to confusion, she hurried on, “I saw cars in the lot when I arrived and I think one of them belongs to someone in the building. Is it yours?”

  At that moment, her attention was distracted by a clattering at the front doors. A workman was entering the building, carrying the painter’s ladder that had caused the commotion by knocking against the glass. A large man, he clutched a tool belt in his other hand. The visor of his baseball cap was pulled low over his forehead, but Edna placed him closer to fifty than forty. She stepped aside, out of the way, and returned his silent nod of greeting as he strode past her and continued down the hall. When she turned back to get an answer from the young lawyer, he was no longer there and nowhere to be seen.

  Odd behavior and definitely aggressive, she thought of the young man, absently dropping his card into her tote and pushing through the glass doors. At once, her attention was drawn to the re
porters who were still in the parking lot. Again, she hoped neither the TV nor the newspaper reporter would know it was she who’d found the body. Lowering her head, she hurried down the walkway to the street, the strange young attorney wiped from her mind.

  Chapter 5

  As soon as Edna reached home, she found the newspaper on her stoop and unfolded it. GRIZZLY DISCOVERY IN DENTAL OFFICE shouted the headlines. She winced but less from pain this time. Scanning the article, she looked for mention of her name as the person who had found the body. When all she read was “local woman,” she thought, Thank you, Charlie. She was certain he was responsible for her name being withheld from the news hounds. In the house, she sat at her desk and had just begun to read the article more slowly when the phone rang.

  “Have ya eaten?” Mary said. Without waiting for an answer, she went on. “Carol’s on her way over. I’m makin’ brunch.”

  Although her tongue felt as if it were five times its normal size, thanks to the Novocain she’d been given, Edna admitted to being famished. Leaving the paper for later, she walked across the lawn to her neighbor’s house. Entering Mary’s back hall required the usual greetings with head rubs for Hank and ear scratches for Spot who was in his bed atop the radiator next to the door. Charcoal, Snowball and Auntie Bea also came scampering down the back stairs demanding their share of attention.

  Once Edna hung her coat on a wall peg, paid due diligence to the pets and finally got to the kitchen, she found Carol James leaning with her back against the kitchen sink, a coffee mug warming her hands. The young woman who was both an award-winning photojournalist and a freelance investigative reporter reacted as expected. As soon as she spotted Edna, her brown eyes widened as she leaned forward with excitement. “Mary told me you’re the one who found that body in the dentist’s chair last night. Oh my gosh. How did you feel?”

  Mary, extending a cup toward Edna, spoke at the same time. “Did ya get your tooth fixed?”

  Edna looked from one neighbor to the other, not certain which question to answer first, when the other women laughed at each other.

  Carol was the first to ask again. “What was it like? Were you scared? Did you worry that the murderer might still be there?”

  “Whoa,” Edna managed to plead around her numb tongue. “Too many questions.”

  Carol looked sheepish. “Sorry. I should know better. Guess I’m out of practice interviewing witnesses.”

  “Let’s let Edna have some coffee before we start grillin’ her,” Mary said, still chuckling.

  Slurping some of the much-needed brew from the unhampered side of her mouth, Edna nodded in silent agreement. When her young neighbor kept staring expectantly at her, Edna finally said, “I’ll tell you about it when some of this Novocain wears off, but right now, I don’t feel much like talking. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to? I haven’t seen you for weeks.”

  At that moment, Mary was called back to the oven by the buzzing timer. Quiche was on the menu this morning and it smelled wonderful, Edna thought.

  “Haven’t been doing much of anything,” Carol said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, and then proceeded to elaborate. “I was just telling Mary that I need to find a good story and earn some money. I don’t feel I’m pulling my weight around the house since Codfish has replaced me as Gran’s sous chef. And then, the two old friends are so busy reminiscing about their school days, they’re only about halfway through testing the recipes for our cookbook. Gran insists I can’t publish it until every printed page has passed her inspection.”

  “What’s Gran preparing today?” Edna was as enthusiastic about the neighbor’s project as everyone else who had come to know Carol and her grandmother since last fall when they’d bought the house across the street from the Davieses. As Carol’s diminutive for her grandmother stuck, Joanna Cravendorf had quickly become “Gran” to everyone who knew the pair.

  Carol pushed a few stray tendrils of her long, medium-brown hair back behind an ear. “She’s making a huge breakfast this morning, so Codfish is tasting several dishes. I bet he won’t be hungry again for a week.”

  Initially, researching authentic New England recipes had been a cover for Carol to hide out in Rhode Island when she’d been hunted by killers because she’d taken photographs that placed the two thugs at the scene of a crime. The recipe idea had blossomed into a cookery book to include a blurb on the origin of each dish and snapshots of nearby historic landmarks.

  Edna’s daughter Starling, herself a professional photographer and amateur historian, had assisted with locations, but Carol had taken most of the pictures and would be responsible for the final layout and verbiage. Gran was an old Yankee from Westerly, Rhode Island, whose love of cooking dated back to when she used a stepstool to work beside her own grandmother at their kitchen counter. Having a sizeable collection of menu items, Gran contributed the majority of the recipes and was hard at work making certain that they had been printed accurately. Codfish McKale, another old Yankee from Westerly had been a local fisherman until arthritis had forced him to give up the sea. As a rather feeble excuse to court his old flame, he had volunteered to taste-test each creation for final approval.

  “Anyone hungry?” Mary interrupted, leading the others to the adjacent dining room where she had already laid out place settings. Carrying the pie plate carefully with hot pads, she placed the quiche on a trivet. After several enthusiastic “oh’s” and “ah’s” while the women settled themselves, silence ensued as they dug into the bubbling ham, cheese and egg creation.

  Once appetites had been somewhat sated, Edna picked up the conversation. “I take it Gran and Codfish aren’t tired of each other yet?” she said with tongue in cheek.

  Joanna Cravendorf and Walter “Codfish” McKale had been high school friends whose interest in each other had begun to spark about the time Codfish decided to further his education at sea instead of in classrooms. When he took a job on a fishing boat, the two teenagers eventually lost touch. Recently reunited, they’d discovered the old embers still held some warmth. Now, in their eighties, the lovebirds were nearly inseparable.

  “Not hardly.” Carol laughed. “They’re so happy, I almost can’t stand it.” Her pleasure seemed to fade when she added, “It makes me miss my boyfriend all the more. I hate it when he goes undercover and I don’t hear from him. When I have nothing else to occupy my mind, I imagine the worst is happening to him. I think that’s why I’m so edgy and bored recently. Besides beefing up my finances, I need a distraction from worrying about him.”

  “So your work on the cookbook is done, including the cover art and layout?” Edna asked as both curiosity and a wish to edge the topic away from troubling thoughts.

  Carol nodded. “For now.” Then with visible effort she brightened and her eyes sparked with an excitement that Edna took as professional rather than ghoulish. “Can you talk now about what happened last night? Who’s the guy you found?”

  “He didn’t have ID on him.” Mary spoke up, taking control of this change in the conversation. “No one knows who he is.”

  “How do you know?” Edna frowned at the redhead. “I just heard that from Charlie this morning. Who told you?”

  Mary grinned, sitting back in her chair. “Called dispatch last night and learned most everyone had gone to the scene, so I drove over. Talked to some of my friends who were there,” she added with a touch of conspiracy in her voice. She leaned forward, too keyed up by her news to act nonchalant. “You should have seen all the people there, I mean besides the cops and reporters.”

  “News travels fast in this town, even in the middle of the night,” Edna agreed.

  “So who told you nobody’s ID’d him yet?” Carol asked, casting a look of intense interest at Mary.

  “A friend.” To Edna’s knowledge, Mary never mentioned a name when admitting to finding out information from someone. Nobody knew for certain, either, but everyone assumed whoever confided in Mary worked at the police department. The lanky crime jun
kie turned her quizzical green eyes toward Edna now. “You were there this morning, so you must know the latest. What’d you hear? Any scoop on the man?”

  Edna shook her head. “I ran into Charlie in Gordon’s office, but he said they won’t know anything until later today. They’re waiting for a fingerprint report.”

  “Hmmm,” Carol murmured. “Very mysterious. An unidentified corpse found in a dental chair.” She sat up straighter and frowned. “Who would go to the dentist without his wallet? Did it look like he was robbed?”

  Reluctantly, Edna pulled the memory from her mind and mulled it over for a few seconds before shaking her head. “He had an expensive-looking gold watch on his wrist. I noticed because it was only partially covered with the duct tape. If he’d been robbed, whoever killed him certainly wouldn’t have left it.”

  “Sounds like the killer was in a hurry if he didn’t even stop to remove the man’s watch,” Mary cut in.

  Carol nodded in agreement, then raised her eyebrows. “Suppose our mystery man didn’t carry a wallet. Why would he visit your dentist with no identification on him?” She glanced from Edna to Mary. “Do I sound desperate to sink my teeth into a new investigation?” Edna made a show of wincing as Carol snickered and added, “Pardon the expression.”

  “Careful what you wish for,” Mary warned, ignoring her guests’ antics. “Remember what happened last time you went after a story.” Her brow wrinkled as she continued, “That’s the type of guy who wouldn’t carry identification … a hit man.”

  Edna gasped, then shook her head. “I think we’re getting much too carried away. The poor man’s wallet was probably stolen and that’s the end of it.” She was beginning to feel queasy remembering the scene from the previous night.

  Acknowledging Edna’s comment with a nod, Carol focused on Mary and seemed determined to defend herself against Mary’s warning. “Yes, you’re absolutely right about my wanting to follow another crime story, and I will admit I didn’t much enjoy being hunted by a couple of goons …” She paused and gave a short laugh, looking from Mary to Edna and back. “But the good news is that I ended up living across the street from you … and so did Gran.” She grinned mischievously at her companions who laughed appreciatively. “Seriously though, I’ve been out of work long enough. My editors are going to forget me, if I don’t submit something substantial soon, preferably with photos.”