The Body in the Backyard

by Hollis Shiloh

  "I'm all right," he promised. "It was a surprise, that's all. But they're not blaming me, at least."

  "Lock your doors," said Abe, twisting his hands together, staring at Gregory pleadingly. He desperately wanted Gregory to be all right.

  Gregory gave him a faded smile that was still soft and kind. "I'll take care," he promised. "Good night, Abe."

  "Good night," said Abe, feeling somehow that there should have been a goodnight kiss in there somewhere.

  Then he rebuked himself for being so foolish.

  IT WAS AFTER DARK WHEN Abe finally remembered to get his mail. He felt uneasy, wearing his pajamas and slippers, strangely vulnerable. The night didn't usually scare him, but the thought of a murderer hanging around...

  Still, it was not a good idea to leave his mail out. There could be bills there; there could be work.

  He hurried out, grabbed it, and dashed back inside, nearly running, his heart pounding as if he was being chased. Ridiculous! Still, he knew he wouldn't sleep soundly till the murderer had been caught.

  It was unpleasant to think of Clarence once owning this house, cluttering it up with his nasty personality. How he'd enjoyed hurting others! Did that ruin a house?

  Dreadful man. I wish he'd picked somewhere else to be murdered.

  After double-checking that he'd locked the front door and that all the windows were shut and locked, and the back door as well, he checked through the mail quickly. He'd just been heading to bed but could put it off a bit longer, especially the way his heart was still pounding. He really needed to get his mind off the murder. Perhaps a movie?

  He stopped.

  Staring up at him was a three-by-five card, no address or stamp on it, just words.

  TREAD CAREFULLY POIROT, read the note, written in garish red ink. He shuddered and shoved it away from him. Poirot. Mary had called him that. Oh, dear. They weren't back to Mary, were they? Or had he called himself that in front of her?

  Heart pounding, he tapped his forehead, trying to summon thoughts. No, he'd called himself Poirot, and talked about investigating the murder. Mary had been there, and so had Henrietta, and...Lorraine.

  Lorraine. He shuddered. He'd talked about investigating in front of the woman who could easily have been involved in the murder! And now she was threatening him. Or someone was. Had he used the term around anyone else? Had the ladies spread the comment?

  It would be easy for the phrase to reach the entire suburb's ears, as he well knew. The gossip train was a serious thing. If so, it could be anyone. It could even be someone who hadn't heard the exact phrase, simply that he was looking around. Poirot was a common name to think of regarding detectives. They could be mocking him. Warning and mocking him.

  He wanted to tell someone but was a bit frightened to. If he told the police and they took it seriously, they'd want to speak with all three women about the note, just in case. It would be a great deal of bother, and Abe had promised himself not to throw light on Mary as a suspect. Really, it was just a note. He didn't think there were going to be fingerprints. It might even be someone's idea of a sick joke.

  All the same, he wanted to call Gregory over and hide in his big strong arms.

  And that way lay madness. He sighed, resigning himself to a night with little sleep, and went to curl up in front of the television.

  Maybe he wouldn't watch a mystery. For once, they felt just a bit too close to home.

  HE STAYED UP LATE, and then ended up rising early as well. There wasn't a great deal of restful sleep in the middle. He'd doubted his decision to ignore the warning note. It was preying on his mind something fierce; he had to speak with someone.

  So, before even starting breakfast, he headed over and tapped at Gregory's door.

  "Out back," called Gregory. "Couldn't sleep."

  He was athletically digging a trench of some sort, working hard already. Abe stood and watched for a moment, feeling useless and decorative.

  "I had difficulty as well. I really need to talk to you. Perhaps over breakfast? My treat?"

  Gregory looked up and smiled.

  Over eggs, coffee, and toast—simple fare that Gregory had no criticism for—Abe showed him the note, safely sealed in a Ziploc bag, and told him what he'd thought. Last night, he'd thought it would be foolish to tell the cops, or make them suspect Mary, the one person he never wanted to. But now? Now, he was just unnerved and didn't know what to do.

  "People shouldn't be sending you notes."

  "I agree. Do you think it is from the murderer, or from someone who doesn't want me digging into their past? I haven't even done all that much digging, have I?"

  "You've done enough to get a warning. I've done enough to have someone planting evidence in my shed. I'd say we're already pissing them off—and I'm very much displeased with whoever it is, trying to incriminate me and frighten you."

  "I was frightened—that's the worst of it. I knew they only meant to scare me, but I am scared. If I tell the police, will the killers do something worse? Will they decide to kill one of us next?" He shuddered.

  Gregory watched him closely for a moment. "You seem very sure it's more than one killer. Is there a reason for that? You seem to have good instincts about this. I'm more inclined to listen to them than my own, which say to go over there and punch Larry Lockwood in the face for scaring you. Because, really, I still don't know if it's him or not."

  Abe finally began to calm down. It was good to get this off his chest. "Let me see." He got up to put more toast in the toaster, and for a moment he thought, I almost don't want this to be solved. I won't have an excuse to spend so much time with Gregory. He banished that thought as it deserved.

  Gregory crunched his toast and watched Abe. He had a big appetite. Of course he did; he worked hard. He had some sort of job as well, Abe knew, but he still seemed to spend most of his time at home, digging and planting and being masculine in the backyard paradise he thought he was constructing.

  "I don't know," Abe finally admitted. "It just doesn't seem like a one-person job. It took planning, coordination, nerves of steel—and a certain amount of strength, however far the body was dragged. I mean, I'm not surrounded by bodybuilders here." He smiled at Gregory. "Present company excepted."

  "Thank you." Gregory accepted the compliment, flashing a grin.

  "I just think it's far more likely to be two people. A couple. And if it's a couple, I wonder if one of them is having their nerve crack or something now? I mean, we really haven't discovered anything much. Except that he lived here—and we didn't tell anyone we knew that."

  "Only your friend Ollie," said Gregory significantly, raising an eyebrow.

  "I'm telling you, Ollie has nothing to do with it."

  "Awfully protective," said Gregory in a displeased tone. Then he rose and put his dishes in the sink. "No, let me wash up. You did everything else."

  "If you really think it's Ollie, feel free to investigate. I'd just like to focus on more likely suspects, that's all. I don't want to suspect any of my friends, but I will if I must."

  "Then Mary's on the list?"

  "Oh, dear. Don't make me answer that."

  "All right. Hey, what about that other person who visited you? When you said the Poirot thing? There were three ladies. Who was the other, again? Mary, Lorraine, and...?"

  "Henrietta. Oh. I haven't suspected her at all."

  "Well, why not? Both she and her husband were there. Remember? She dragged Henry along—or at the time we thought she dragged him along. If they were old neighbors, there's no reason they wouldn't both be interested in seeing what Clarence was like now. If he'd gotten any better, or any worse, perhaps."

  "That's something I never thought of," Abe admitted. "He was rude about the blackberries, but was there anything else? I can't recall." He sat down, wrinkling his brow in a way that was sure to make him look old before his time.

  "It doesn't matter if we heard anything. The simplest remark from him could hold decades of poison, for all we know. No,
the important thing is: could they have done it?"

  "I never think of them as enough of a team to do anything together."

  "And yet, they're always together—sniping or bossing, they're still together. He comes with her to garden club. And I've seen her with him in the hardware store, even though she looks bored to tears. They do almost everything together. I think they'd murder together, as well. That takes care of one of your items: a couple who did it. What about the others? Have they lived here long enough?"

  "Yes, I'm sure of it. Henrietta was telling me something about what the neighborhood was like in the eighties a few weeks ago. That's more than long enough. They don't strike me as particularly murderous, but we both know that's not enough to go by."

  "Okay, if they lived here long enough to know Clarence, then it could be. Possible motive. How about opportunity?"

  "They live about three houses down."

  They stared at one another.

  Gregory's smile twisted. "You've let yourself be blinded by the blackberry wine. You never even considered them."

  "No, I didn't." Abe paused. "Let's walk down and see how hard it really would be to take a body from there to here in the dark."

  "Ask to borrow their wheelbarrow," suggested Gregory.

  Abe laughed. "No, I couldn't!" He took another quick bite of toast and hopped up.

  "Give me that plate," instructed Gregory. "Let me finish these."

  After he had done so, they shared a leisurely walk down towards the Heatons' place.

  Abe was in a thoughtful mood. "You know how they say the most likely explanation is usually the correct one? There's a term for it, I forget what. But what do you think the most likely explanation is?"

  "The most likely?" Gregory considered it. "Honestly, it all seems unlikely to me. Murdering someone over a garden competition. Or planning ahead so weirdly and circuitously just to put blame on the gardeners."

  "But someone did kill him."

  "Yes, but what I mean is, normally, if someone's killed, it's because there was an argument that got out of hand, or something like that. Most people really don't go around planning cold-blooded murder and how to leave the corpse in a strange place."

  Abe frowned. "So, you think putting him in my garden—his old garden—was because they'd fought, and it was the best place they could think of to dump him?"

  "Yes, don't you? I mean, it's all very well to imagine some sort of criminal mastermind, a fiend hiding behind a normal face, but if you'd killed someone, you'd have to be panicking, wouldn't you? Whether it was an accident or a fight that got out of hand, or even if it was all planned out ahead. Anybody who's not a career criminal, a multi-lifer, has got to be really scared. They'd probably make a few mistakes."

  "So, you're saying it's more likely that leaving him on the zinnias was convenient, rather than a message or something about sending him back to the suburbs where he belonged?"

  Gregory replied, "I'm saying I don't think our murderers are as clever as we think they are. And they've got to be scared. The police are closing in. Why else are they trying to throw suspicions on me and threaten you away?"

  "But we haven't really done anything."

  "No, we haven't. But the murderer is frightened of us. He or she—or they both—think we can hurt them. Just by nosing around. Just by asking a few questions or going into the city for the day."

  Gregory looked at Abe, and Abe stared back, frightened.

  "You think we're in real danger?"

  "I don't know. But I hope you keep all your doors and windows locked."

  "Oh. Yes." Abe shuddered. "I'm not sure how well I'll sleep tonight. The note was bad enough. But to think—" He broke off. "We really should say something to the police, shouldn't we?"

  "About your note? Sure, if you want. I honestly doubt it will get them anywhere, but I suppose it can't hurt."

  Abe frowned. "Maybe handwriting analysis?"

  "Maybe, but it was all in huge capital letters. That wasn't actual handwriting."

  Abe pouted. He thought the note was a spectacular clue, as much as it had frightened him last night. Now, Gregory made it sound almost as though he'd be wasting police time if he showed it to them.

  "And we'll have to admit we've been nosing around, if we tell them. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just wondering if it's worth another few hours talking to the police." Gregory sighed. "They never tell us anything—they just ask."

  Despite himself, Abe liked being an 'us' with Gregory. Reminding himself sternly to behave, he said, "All right, well, let's just look at the Heatons' home first. I'll decide later whether it's worth the trouble to report it."

  He tried to think. Who knew he'd been planning to nose around, perhaps with Gregory's help? Just Mary, Lorraine, and Henrietta? Or had it reached the entire neighborhood by now? Someone would have word of them driving off together. He hoped Gregory wouldn't be offended if the rumor said they were dating, but he suspected even the rumor mill wouldn't be that optimistic on his behalf. It was a pretty wild theory, to imagine Gregory going for him.

  So, they would have thought the two were investigating together, which was the truth. And they must have found that a credible enough threat to try different ways to neutralize them. A murder weapon hidden on Gregory's property while they were out for the day, and a threatening note to Abe.

  I suppose they thought I would scare easily while the police would start going after Gregory and keep him occupied. But they seemed to have the wrong end of the stick about that, at least. What would the murderer try next to scare them away? Or was he or she busy enough with other things at this point? The murderer had to know the real threat came from the police, not two nosy neighbors.

  "Look at that," murmured Gregory, touching Abe's arm lightly.

  For a moment, he couldn't think. He wanted someone to grow old with. Someone to care for him, to care as much as he did, to have his back and not betray him. Someone to love and cherish till death did them part. He wanted something real. And that was far too awful of an insight to have just now, wishing it could be this man.

  "Oh, yes, I see," he replied at last.

  The Heatons' house, though technically only a few doors down from Abe's, did not have a direct route to his garden. There were fences in the way, so anything heavy lugged along would have to go down the wide, empty road, past staring windows. Even with a wheelbarrow to help, that would be a huge risk to take.

  And right beside their home, another place was having major construction done. A large blue dumpster sat next to it, waiting for the trash. It would have been the perfect hiding place for a body—and might have hidden it for longer. After all, nobody would've looked for Clarence right away. He wasn't married, he was soon moving to a new part of the country, and he didn't seem to have any commitments that couldn't have waited for a day or two. By the time people started to worry about him—if he had anyone in his life who would worry—they would perhaps start looking, but not immediately think of the suburbs where he'd gone to judge a gardening competition, or that he might've been murdered.

  If it had been the Heatons, they'd been remarkably idiotic. The dumpster would have been the perfect place to put a body, buying them time to hide evidence and perhaps even make a run for it, if they knew they'd be incriminated once he was found. Not lugging him down the street and dumping him where they couldn't hope he wouldn't be found in the morning.

  "It's not them, then." Abe breathed a sigh of relief. "Even if it might have been difficult to get him into the dumpster, I'm sure they could have done it—at least, it would have been easier than wheeling him down the street and into my place."

  "Yes, I'm sure of it," agreed Gregory. He touched Abe's arm again. "Come on, let's go."

  As they were walking away, Henrietta stepped out of her kitchen door and stood on the porch, shielding her eyes. "Abe? Gregory? Oh, hello, there! I almost didn't recognize you. You were walking like a couple." She smirked. "Would you like to come in and have some blackberry wi
ne? I know it's a bit early, but I won't tell if you won't." She gave a girlish giggle. "And we can talk about the murder."

  They exchanged glances. Should we? Abe's asked silently.

  I'm game if you are, Gregory seemed to reply. We've got to talk to someone, and they knew him.

  They headed indoors after her.

  Chapter seven

  Abe felt a bit uneasy about accepting the blackberry wine. Wasn't there something about not taking food or drink from murder suspects? But he really didn't suspect her anymore, and Gregory was accepting it without a qualm. When she poured herself a glass as well, he quit worrying about it.

  "Why didn't anyone tell me that Clarence used to live in my home?" asked Abe.

  "Didn't they?" She looked interested. "I'd have thought you already knew. Well, I suppose it was a while ago. I'm not sure anyone who lived near him really wanted to remember it." She laughed. "I don't know why I thought he'd have changed. Sometimes, he seemed quite pleasant, and on the television—but he had a mean streak, even back then. He had these little ways of digging the knife in and twisting. It was all words, and sometimes you managed to convince yourself afterwards that you'd imagined it. But after I saw him at the judging—and especially how he treated you—I knew that nobody had ever imagined it. That was who he was—mean, right down to the core."

  "But mean enough to be killed over it?"

  Henrietta laughed, awkward and uneasy. "I'm not sure he was killed for anything he said."

  "You can tell us," said Gregory. "Go on. Was it an old feud or something like that?"

  She pursed her lips. "I'd rather it didn't go any further than you two." She hesitated. "Or if it has to, don't say it came from me."

  "Okay," agreed Abe. Anything to get her to spill the beans!

  "I hate to spread ill will about a neighbor, but...well...when he used to live here, there was something in the way he acted. I always had the feeling he was, well, having an affair with either Lorraine or Winona. You know how, at the time, Winnie had that dreadful husband? He was a big brick of a man, and he had mean eyes. Even before we found out he cheated on her, he wasn't a favorite. Too curt, and, well, he sort of looked down on people, like any human weakness disgusted him. I suppose he seemed like the worst of the neighbors at the time, even though everyone liked poor little Winnie."