Cozy Suburbs Mystery Box Set

by Lisa B. Thomas

  Once inside the building, she walked past several jeans-wearing, t-shirt-clad twenty-somethings, all glued to one electronic device or another. As she waited outside of the editor’s office, her red pumps stared up at her like Dorothy’s ruby slippers, and she immediately began re-thinking her choice of apparel. It looked like she was trying too hard. She tugged on her pants legs trying to cover as much of her shoes as possible.

  Glancing through the office window, she saw Lloyd Pryor, editor-in-chief, talking on the phone. He was wearing a short sleeve shirt without a tie and a pair of khakis. She could just make out what appeared to be a coffee stain on his shirt. Feeling self-conscious, she pulled off her bangle bracelets and slipped them into her purse.

  “Come on in, Deena,” Pryor said and motioned to a chair.

  She walked in quickly and took a seat, hoping he wouldn’t notice her feet.

  “So, you want to work for the newspaper.” He sat down behind his desk, picked up a half-eaten sandwich, sniffed it, and tossed it in the trash.

  “Yes sir. I thought I might try getting off the sidelines and into the game.” She smiled, hoping to impress him with her enthusiasm.

  The weary editor leaned back in his chair and swiveled, glancing down at his desk and then out the wall of windows at his newsroom. “There are easier ways to make a living, you know.”

  “I know. But newspapers are the lifeblood of a democracy and seeking truth is a noble occupation.” The words had flowed out of her mouth without thinking, obviously part of a lecture she had given her beginning journalism students. “Besides, it seems like fun.”

  “Fun? Do these guys look like they’re having fun?”

  She followed his gaze out into the large desk-filled space and watched as reporters typed, talked on the phone, read each other’s notes, and occasionally laughed as they tossed wads of paper in overflowing cans.

  “You bet it does,” she said.

  His lips curled as he eyed her with amusement. “You know we can’t pay you anywhere close to what you made teaching.”

  “Money is not an issue,” she said and immediately regretted it. “I mean, it matters of course, but the main thing is that I want to write. I don’t expect to get rich.” She could only imagine what Gary would think of an applicant who said such a thing.

  “Noble.” He let out a sigh. “As I told you on the phone, the only opening I have now is in ad sales, and I doubt that’s what you’re looking for.”

  “No, you’re right. The last thing I sold was Girl Scout cookies, and I ended up eating most of them myself.”

  “The gal who writes obituaries is going on maternity leave in a month or so, but that would be a waste of your experience.”

  “Ugh, who wants to write about dead people anyway.” Deena couldn’t believe she’d said that out loud.

  “You’d be surprised,” Pryor said, “the obituaries are the most read articles in any newspaper. People also love a good scandal or murder mystery.”

  She began to relax. “If I come across one, I’ll let you know.”

  “I’m not suggesting you manufacture a story or anything, but if you hear of one of your neighbors bilking the PTA or housing a fugitive, you know who to call. The summer is the slowest time of year for juicy news. People are too hot to go outside and water their yards much less commit crimes.”

  Deena laughed. “Got it. Although, you aren’t suggesting you wish the good citizens of Maycroft were less law abiding, are you?”

  “Of course not,” he said more seriously. “I live here too. I have kids. But human nature has a way of balancing the good with the bad. We just want to be able to report on it.”

  “Fair and balanced. I get it.”

  “How about this,” Pryor said, and sat upright. “You spend some time writing for one of the online sites to brush up on your skills and show me what you’ve got. Check back with me in about a month, and I’ll see what I can do. Things get busier around here in the fall.”

  Deena crinkled her nose. “Online sites? You mean like blogging?”

  “No, definitely not blogging. Here’s a list of three pretty good ones. They’re looking for all kinds of articles, mostly informational, for publication online. You could even earn a little money in the process. It’s a type of freelancing. You’ll understand once you look into it.” He jotted down the names and passed her the paper.

  “That sounds great.” She was lying, of course, and shook his hand. “Thanks Lloyd. I appreciate your taking the time to talk to me.”

  “Don’t be discouraged,” he said. “A great story might be just around the corner.”

  She forced a smile and nodded. As she turned to head out the office door, she could feel her spirits sinking. Also, she felt sure he was staring at her stupid red shoes.

  Chapter 6

  Deena sat at her computer, busily typing out the meaningless article that would probably never see the light of day. Her mind wandered. Maybe she could take up a new hobby. There was knitting, yoga, or maybe she could read to the blind. Did the blind still need to be read to? With all the great audiobooks out there, they could probably get almost anything they needed on their own. She jotted herself a note to look up “reading to the blind” for a potential new article.

  Her cellphone rang, giving her a chance for a much-needed brain break. Even talking to a telemarketer would be more interesting than writing this dribble. Yes, I most certainly do want to hear about your new health care plans.

  She answered the phone expectantly. “Hello.”

  “We found Matthew,” the voice on the other end of the line said.

  “What?” Deena’s heart skipped a beat. She had not talked to her aunt, Lucy Lancaster, since Easter. Her voice was raspy but recognizable.

  “We found my brother, Matthew,” Lucy repeated more slowly. “It turns out his remains were found in an old creek bed near here back in March of 1964, about five months after he disappeared.”

  A gasped slipped out of Deena’s mouth as she counted the years. “That was more than fifty years ago! Why did they never contact Gran and Grandpa?”

  “You’ll never believe this. Not in a million years.” Lucy always had a flair for the dramatics. “Back then they identified him as a woman, so they never connected it to Matthew. That’s why Mama and Papa were never called in to try to make an identification of his remains.”

  “A woman?” Deena had vague memories of her Uncle Matthew, mostly from photographs she had seen. “I know he was tall and thin, but a woman?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but that’s what the detective said.”

  Deena shook her head. “Where has his body been all this time?”

  “A few months ago, they found his skeleton in an old storage closet at the sheriff’s department and used the skull to form his face. They put a picture in all the local newspapers.”

  “That was Matthew? I saw that picture in the Tribune, but never made the connection.”

  “That’s right,” Lucy said. “Luckily, someone Mama used to go to church with thought it looked like Matthew. She called us, and Mama called the sheriff’s office. A deputy came up here to Fort Worth and got pictures of Matthew and a DNA sample from Mama. Yesterday they called us and, sure as I’m sitting here, it was a match!”

  “Well I’ll be.” Deena could hardly believe what she was hearing. After nearly fifty years, the Great Meade Family Mystery was finally solved. Her long-lost uncle had been found. Even though Matthew had long ago been declared dead, she knew her grandmother had always held out hope that he’d be found alive.

  Lucy continued. “We are going to have services for him on Saturday in Bingham so he can lay to rest with Papa. I can tell you more about it then. I don’t suppose your mother will fly back here from Hawaii, but will you call her?”

  “Of course.” Deena walked into the den and wrote the information on a memo pad. “So how did Gran take the news?”

  “Not very well. She has been in bed for the past two days.”


  “Poor thing.” Deena promised to be there on Saturday and thanked Lucy for calling. “One more thing,” Deena said before hanging up. “Do they know how Uncle Matthew died?”

  “Bless his heart. He was murdered!”

  Chapter 7

  Russell Sinclair was three years older than his sister, Deena. He was high spirited and well liked. He rarely talked about the time he spent in the army, at least not to Deena, but it was obvious that the experience changed him.

  After he was discharged, he tried to get on with his life, despite the bouts of PTSD. He went to college, but had a hard time concentrating. Eventually, he found work with a buddy from high school who owned an appliance repair shop.

  Deena was afraid the stress of the news about their Uncle Matthew would trigger one of her brother’s migraines, so she was relieved to see his car pull up to the house right on time the day of the funeral.

  “You look nice,” Deena said. “I was afraid you’d be wearing shorts.”

  “I pulled out my ‘good’ jeans just for this occasion.” Russell rarely wore anything other than cargo shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, and flip flops. People said he looked like Jimmy Buffett.

  Deena insisted Russell sit in the front seat so he and Gary could talk baseball and politics on the drive to Bingham.

  Russell turned toward Deena. “By the way, sis, how did your interview at the newspaper go?”

  “It wasn’t really an interview. They don’t have any openings now. He said I should submit articles to online sites to brush up on my writing skills.”

  “Hmm. Anything I should read?”

  “Oh sure,” she said sarcastically. “Fascinating stuff. If you want to know the twenty most popular fireworks shows or how to host a backyard barbeque for vegetarians, just let me know.”

  Russell snickered. It wasn’t long until the front seat conversation turned to sports.

  Deena stared out the window, lost in her memories. When she was growing up, she had loved visits to Gran’s house. She recalled the faint odor of mothballs mixed with the strong scent of Estee Lauder. Green wallpaper with sweet pink roses covered the walls of the bedrooms, even Matthew’s.

  His room was not kept as a shrine, per se, but rather a place where he could walk in any moment and return to the way things were when he went off to join the army. It was always freshly dusted with the bed made and the curtains opened. From what Deena could tell, Gran kept secret treasures in an old cedar chest in the corner of the room. There seemed to be an unspoken rule that no one was to open that chest. As far as Deena knew, it stayed that way even when her grandmother moved in with Aunt Lucy and Uncle Frank.

  Upon the urging of her children, Gran finally had her son declared legally dead four years after he disappeared so she could redeem his insurance policy and stop being bothered by their incessant letters. In Gran’s mind, that was just paperwork, something to satisfy the hunger of the IRS.

  As the years crept by, Gran began giving away some of her prized possessions: her carnival glass punch bowl set, her porcelain figurines, and even her brightly colored Fiestaware dishes. However, she never gave away any of Matthew’s belongings.

  “You’re doing it again,” Gary said, interrupting Deena’s train of thought. He looked at her in the rear-view mirror.

  “Doing what?”

  “Staring out at the road looking for you-know-what.”

  “Actually, I wasn’t this time,” she protested.

  Russell turned in his seat. “Looking for what?”

  Gary chuckled. “Didn’t you know your sister searches the highway for dead bodies?”

  Russell glanced at her over his shoulder. “What, like dogs and armadillos?”

  “No, people.” Gary shot a grin back at Deena.

  “And they call me the nut job in this family.” Russell shook his head in wonder.

  “It’s not like that,” Deena said. “I think I do it subconsciously most of the time. It’s because of Matthew. I hear stories on the news about two drunk fishing buddies hanging out by the lake and, ‘lo and behold,’ they come across a dead body. I want that to be me—the finder, that is, not the body.”

  “Why on earth would you want to stumble across a corpse?” Russell asked.

  “I guess after watching Gran worry and wonder all those years with no answers, I just want to be the one who could bring news and maybe closure to some suffering family.”

  “You should have been a detective,” Russell said. “Remember how you used to spy on me as a kid and then rat me out to Mom and Dad?”

  “Only to keep you from getting into more trouble.”

  “Hey,” Russell said, “maybe you could write about Matthew’s case. Seems like it would make an interesting story. You could include all the behind-the-scenes stuff.”

  “Maybe.” That had been one of the first things Deena had thought of when her aunt had uttered the word “murder.” But would others think she was exploiting a family tragedy? Maybe not. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to poke around a little. See what I can dig up.”

  Gary shot her a look in the rearview mirror. “Not the best choice of words.”

  “Oops.” She leaned back in her seat. Before she realized it, she was staring out the window, searching the sides of the road for anything suspicious.

  THE GRAVESIDE SERVICE was awkward at best. Her aunt, uncle, cousin, and a few neighbors showed up out of respect. Frank Meade, Matthew’s father, had died of a heart attack about eight years after his son’s disappearance, proving it was indeed possible to die from a broken heart. Matthew’s mother, Cora, was the strong one who never gave up hope she would one day find her missing boy. That’s why Deena was worried when it turned out Cora, her grandmother, was too upset to attend the funeral.

  Aunt Lucy had said she would give more information about Matthew to Deena at the services, but she couldn’t. There were no more details to give. Everything her aunt knew matched the article Deena had read in Tuesday’s Dallas newspaper.

  Deena covered Aunt Lucy’s hand with hers as they waited for the service to begin. “You know my heart just aches to think of Gran having to wait and worry all those years when Uncle Matthew’s body had been found just five months after he went missing. We should sue them or something.”

  Lucy nodded and her headful of curls bounced in the sunlight. She had faithfully colored her dark blonde locks despite the passing years. They suited her. She had creamy skin and blue eyes like her mother. “I know, dear. It just doesn’t seem fair. And learning he had been killed like that? Shot in the head? No wonder Mama couldn’t find the strength to come.”

  “If they’d realized Matthew was a man, maybe they could have found out who killed him, at least. And Gran and Grandpa wouldn’t have wondered all that time if their son had just abandoned them.”

  “That’s true,” Lucy said. “You know there were all kinds of ugly rumors about him, like him being a gangster in the mob. Some people even thought he might be in a cult. Dreadful rumors. I know he was my brother, but he was a little odd.”

  Deena leaned away. “I can’t believe you’d speak ill of the dead. Let’s hope lightning doesn’t strike you down.” She looked around at the gravesite. There was no casket, only a raised area under the green Astroturf that draped the headstones of other members of the Meade family. Her cousin Mark had driven up to the Bingham County Sheriff’s Office to retrieve the remains. Apparently, they fit in box the size of an old Samsonite suitcase.

  Uncle Richard, Lucy’s husband, began the service with a series of prayers. Then he invited others to share memories they had of Matthew. There was a long, awkward silence as people fanned themselves and lowered their eyes as if lost in quiet reflection. Finally, Russell broke the tension by telling a funny story about Uncle Matthew taking him to the circus as a young boy. Whether a tall tale or not, everyone laughed and shook their heads in appreciation. A few others offered their own stories.

  These vague recollections shed little light on the man they were memorial
izing fifty years after his death. It was as if they were burying a ghost who had no real form or presence. No one cried, but all took solace in knowing the family was together now in a “better place.” Deena made a point to talk to Gary about where they planned to be buried when their time came. Funerals tended to do that to people.

  Outdoors late June in Texas was no place for the living or the dead. It was the kind of heat that literally left your skin feeling seared, like a piece of raw meat on a sizzling griddle. No one lingered around the cemetery for small talk. Friends and family got on the road, back to their safe existences where people did not disappear without a trace and did not get shot to death.

  Deena, on the other hand, found herself drawn to the gravesite of the uncle she had barely known. She had watched Gran suffer too long to just erase him from her mind.

  After everyone else left, she stood under the awning, sweat running down her face in place of traditional tears, and said a private prayer. As she walked to the car to join Gary and Russell, she had a sneaking suspicion the life and death of Matthew Meade would haunt her.

  She just never imagined, however, it would be so soon.

  Chapter 8

  Something about the urgency in Aunt Lucy’s voice sent a cold chill through Deena. The calm demeanor Deena had witnessed just three weeks earlier at Uncle Matthew’s funeral was gone. A feeling of dread gripped Deena by the throat. “What’s the matter? Is it Gran?”

  “She’s not dead, if that’s what you’re asking. But emotionally, she’s a wreck. I was wondering if you might come for a visit. Richard and I need to talk to you about something.”