A Corpse for Yew Read online

  Ranson snorted. “You’re such a snob! Just because you see some ethnic restaurants and some buildings that aren’t exactly in the best of repair, you want to run back to your safe haven.”

  “I never said that,” Lilla countered. “I only meant that I know Lois lived by a country club in a large estate house. I don’t think we’re going to find that over here.”

  “As a matter of fact, there are several large estates and the oldest country club in the city behind this façade,” Paul told her. “Just wait, and you’ll be surprised.”

  Peggy knew the area well. Several of her friends lived in the Plaza area. She was surprised to see how many people were watering their lawns, despite the drought. The precious crystal droplets shot up in the air across emerald green grass and wet the sidewalk. “They must not know there’s a drought.”

  “They probably have wells like you.” Paul smiled at her. “I know you don’t water the grass, but it’s really no different.”

  “I suppose you’re right, but it seems so flagrant.”

  Her son laughed at her. “I can’t believe you said that! You, who are beyond a doubt the most plant-loving person I know. I’d think you’d be happy to see a little green.”

  “I am. I just feel guilty with what little bit I do at the house. This makes me feel worse.”

  Paul was right about the area opening up into older estate houses set on large, manicured lots. The brick and stone fronts faced the street that led to the Charlotte Country Club, which people needed more than money to join. There were probably more historical pedigrees in that single organization than in the rest of the city.

  Here the crape myrtles were green and healthy. The flowers on the taller bushes were pink, red, and white, as they should’ve been; only it was October and summer was gone. The hot weather had kept those plants blooming when they should have retreated before the autumn breezes.

  “Oh, look at those zinnias!” Lilla said as they pulled into the Mullis’s drive. “What a wonderful display. I wonder who does her gardening.”

  “That may be an imprudent question to ask at this time,” Ranson chastened her. “The woman has been dead only a short while.”

  “She lived here by herself.” Paul turned off the Jeep’s engine and leaned across the steering wheel to look up at the three-story house. “I know that only because I heard some of the guys talking. Chief Mullis was always worried about her being over here alone. His uncle died of a stroke a few years back. He was afraid his aunt would go the same way. Supposedly, she had a bad heart. I guess you never know.”

  They all looked up at the pink granite façade glittering in the light. The front windows were huge, bowing out from the castlelike walls. It was a house created to last many generations. No doubt there would be another family of Mullises who would move in now that Lois was gone.

  Peggy admired the landscaping without shouting her appreciation. The colorful zinnias were only a small part of the whole picture. The design was tasteful, and put together so well that the eye easily followed the clean line from the taller plants and bushes to the shorter ones. The old oak trees that guarded the perimeter were trimmed and well cared for. It was a masterful blend of harmony and function. She wouldn’t have minded if the sign in front said MAINTAINED BY THE POTTING SHED.

  That was a reminder of another thorn in her side. Sam hadn’t gone back to college this fall. Something had happened that made him want to give up becoming a doctor, much to his parents’ consternation. She knew how they felt, since it had been only a short time since Paul had dropped out of college to become a police officer. She wasn’t happy about it, since he’d shown such promise of becoming a great architect. And she’d been sure he’d done it only as a memorial to his father, John. Or worse, to try and find the man who’d killed him.

  She and Paul had gotten through that. Now she felt guilty because Sam had wanted to run the landscaping business full-time. Only there wasn’t enough business right now to make the living he’d envisioned. He’d changed the name for his part of the firm they’d both worked so hard at to TPS ’Scaping by Sam. She’d made him her full partner in a business that might be on the way out.

  As they sat admiring the house and grounds, one of the four garage doors opened. All the members of the Shamrock Historical Society looked out at them like large owls blinking at the light. Paul got out of the car, and the garage door slammed shut.

  “I think you might’ve scared them off.” Peggy got out on her side. “They weren’t expecting the police.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t know they were doing something illegal.”

  “I don’t think they are,” she argued. “Maybe just a little off-color.”

  Lilla walked up to the garage door with Ranson and pounded on it. “It’s all right. He’s my grandson. He isn’t here in his official capacity. He just didn’t go home and change clothes yet.”

  “Don’t say that, Grandma,” Paul hissed. “If they broke into the house, we have a problem. Even though I’m not on duty, I can’t look the other way. Especially since this house belongs to the chief’s family. Don’t promise something I can’t hold to.”

  “Paul, would you please get back in the Jeep?” Peggy asked.

  “Mom . . .”

  “I promise if there are any desperate criminals in here, we’ll let you take care of them. But I think you’ll find these women are as well connected as Lois. You aren’t going to want to arrest any of them.”

  “Especially since we have a key!” Geneva called from behind the garage door. “You tell him we have pepper spray, and we aren’t afraid to use it.”

  Dorothy responded, “Don’t be ridiculous! You don’t use pepper spray on a police officer. Lois hasn’t been dead long enough that she won’t come and get you for the very idea. Don’t forget her family is five generations of law enforcement.”

  “Then what are we going to do?” Annabelle asked. “The fuzz is out there waiting for us.”

  “I’m feeling a little like Butch Cassidy right now,” Grace added. “Only I don’t have a gun to shoot my way out of this.”

  “Let’s all calm down a minute,” Peggy advised. “If you’ll open the door so we can talk, I promise Paul won’t bother you.”

  Slowly the garage door opened, and Geneva poked her head under the bottom of it. “All right. We’re coming out. Or maybe you all should come inside. We don’t want anyone to see us.”

  Peggy glanced at her mother and father. “Okay. We’ll come in there.”

  “I told you that you should’ve told her to come alone,” Grace said.

  “I would’ve, but it sounded too melodramatic. Besides, it’s just Lilla and her husband. They won’t say anything.” Geneva glanced at the Jeep where Paul kept his distance. “I’m not too sure about him.”

  “He’s my son, despite the uniform,” Peggy assured her. “Besides, what are you so worried about? Did you break into Lois’s house?”

  “No!” Mrs. Waynewright smoothed her avocado-colored shirtwaist dress. “We wouldn’t do a thing like that! We had a key. Lois gave it to us in case she lost hers.”

  “And there was that time when we were meeting here and she couldn’t get here until after the meeting started,” Annabelle recalled. “We let ourselves in that day, too. Her housekeeper was off, and we just went in and got some cheese and strawberries and went on.”

  Peggy was impatient with the group not getting to the point. “And why are all of you here?”

  “Because the police won’t listen to us. They keep saying Lois probably had a heart attack or something out there at the lake. But how did she get there?” Dorothy drummed her fingers on the smooth silver finish of a late model Mercedes. “Both of her cars are still here. None of us took Lois there. She wasn’t planning on meeting us out there, with her lumbago and all.”

  “But if she had gone out there,” Geneva started, “she would’ve driven one of these vehicles. How hard is that to understand?”

  “I’m sure the chief has t
aken that into consideration.” Paul’s voice was decisive in the closeness of the garage.

  Geneva let out a startled yelp. “Who let him in here? Why are you here? You’re supposed to be out there!”

  “Look, I’m not here to arrest anyone or give you a hard time.” Paul walked farther into the heart of the group. “I just thought maybe I could explain a few things about our procedures.”

  Peggy smiled as she recognized her son’s carefully modulated crowd voice. No doubt it was the same voice he used when he stopped a speeder. It was strange hearing that tone, the same tone John had adopted so many times, coming out of his mouth.

  “That’s exactly why we asked Peggy to meet us here,” Annabelle told him. “She’s as near to the police as we need right now.”

  “Paul’s right.” Peggy backed him up. “He knows a lot more about this type of thing than I do.” She wasn’t sure if it was true, but she didn’t want them to panic.

  The members of the Shamrock Historical Society who weren’t members of Peggy’s family huddled together, speaking furiously with dozens of hand gestures before Geneva finally turned around and said, “Okay. He can stay.”

  “Thanks.” Paul smiled at them. “Now why don’t you tell me about the problem from the beginning?”

  All the voices began at once. Paul stopped them, and had Annabelle tell the story by herself. “We found Lois dead at Lake Whitley. They think she died from natural causes. But she wasn’t supposed to be there. She couldn’t make it because her back was acting up.”

  “Lumbago,” Geneva interjected with a solemn nod of her head.

  “So there we are, looking for bones and artifacts, and we find Lois. She’s been dead awhile.” Annabelle looked at Peggy. “Wouldn’t you say so? I mean, I’m no expert but people don’t turn that color right away when they die. My husband was dead awhile before he was that color.”

  “I agree with you.” Peggy thought back to Lois’s body. There were several unusual aspects to her death.

  “Anyway, Lois went out there before us, even though we’d been out there since seven-thirty this morning. She went into the mud, where she had a heart attack and died. That’s what the police want us to believe.” Annabelle had a belligerent look on her round face. “Now we want to know, how did she get there? She didn’t drive. Both her cars are still here.”

  “And if she didn’t drive”—Geneva couldn’t keep from butting in—“how did she get there? And how did her car get back here if she drove herself out there?”

  Paul ran his hand across the back of his head. “Have you ladies considered that she might’ve taken a taxi or had a friend drop her off? I’m sure there’s more to this than you know.”

  “I knew he was going to say that!” Dorothy pushed her blue scarf back on her head. “I knew it. I believe I told all of you what they’d say.”

  “Hush, Dorothy.” Annabelle turned to face Paul. “Young man, I know you’re trained to do what you do. But I was Lois’s friend for fifty years. We grew up together. I’m telling you Lois would never take a cab. Not if her life depended on it.”

  “All right.” Paul acknowledged her argument. “What about a friend taking her there? Maybe she changed her mind at the last minute and didn’t want to bother you. Isn’t that possible?”

  Mrs. Waynewright had drawn herself up to her full height of barely five feet, and looked as though she planned to give Paul her take on Lois’s death. At his question, she fumbled for a handkerchief in her pocket, then conceded, “I suppose that could be what happened.”

  “If it is, we’ll find out.” Geneva patted Mrs. Waynewright’s shoulder. “Right, Peggy?”

  Peggy’s head came up fast from her contemplation of the spotless garage floor. “What? I mean, I don’t know what else I can do.”

  “Your mother’s told us about your exploits,” Dorothy explained. “Of course, a few of us remember reading about Mark Warner and poor Park Lamonte. You helped the police with both of those cases, bless their souls.”

  “I did,” Peggy admitted. “But they were accidental. I work with the police now. I don’t know if I can do something like that on the side.”

  “What you mean is that you won’t help.” Dorothy folded her large arms across her chest.

  “Of course she will!” Lilla sailed into the fray and put her arm around her daughter. “Margaret will do everything she can to help us find out what happened to Lois.”

  “Mom . . .”

  “Right, Margaret?”

  Peggy heard her father stifling a laugh behind her. The women stared at her, tears in their eyes. Lilla stared, too, but with an earnest, pleading look that reminded her that her mother was desperately trying to fit into this new environment after spending her whole life in Charleston.

  “All right.” She gave in to the stares and the tears. She knew her mother was trying to impress her new friends. And unfortunately, Peggy could remember what it was like when she’d first moved here with John thirty years ago. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Thank you!” Geneva threw her arms around Peggy, followed by the rest of the society members until they resembled a Carolina Panthers’ Sunday huddle at the stadium.

  Paul shook his head with a look on his face that didn’t bode well for her helping the group. Her father just seemed to find the whole thing hilarious. Peggy ignored them both, trying not to think about her failing garden shop and the fact that she might have to go back and beg for work at the university again.

  “That’s settled.” Annabelle wiped the tears from her face, leaving a long, brown smudge on her cheek. “What do we do first?”

  “I don’t know right now,” Peggy admitted. “I wasn’t prepared for this. You’ll have to give me some time to think about it.”

  “Let me give you my cell phone number.” Grace wrote the number down on the inside of a matchbook she had in her purse. As she did, all the other women found something to write their cell phone numbers on as well. “You’ll let us know when you have some idea of what to do.”

  “I will.” Peggy shoved all the pieces of paper into the pocket of her jeans.

  “If I could say one more thing”—Paul interrupted—“I think I can give you an idea of where to start.”

  The other women looked at him with skepticism and outright hostility, but Peggy was grateful for any help he could give her. “Where’s that?”

  “Since all of you knew Lois so well, maybe you’d be the best people to contact her friends and find out if someone gave her a ride to the lake. And if you can’t find anyone who took her, that would give you something to go to the police with.”

  “What a good idea!” Peggy put her hand on her son’s shoulder. “That’s exactly where we should start. Each of you come up with a list of friends and then cross-reference them. When you have a master list, you can divide it up and contact each person on it. Once we have that information, there may be no need to go any further. If you find someone who took her out there, that might be the end of it.”

  The women nodded slowly, taking it in. “We’ll need your cell phone number, Peggy.” Geneva rummaged in her huge purse until she found some paper. “That way we can call you when we find out.”

  “I have a few business cards with me.” Peggy pulled them from her pocket. They were a little wrinkled and muddy, like her, but they’d do. “Call me as soon as you know something.”

  “What a wonderful idea, Paul!” Lilla commended her grandson. “What would we have done without your help?”

  “Yes, Officer Lee.” A stern male voice interrupted their soft and fuzzy moment. It was Chief Mullis. “And if I’m not interrupting, what the hell are all of you doing in Aunt Lois’s house?”

  4

  Eucalyptus

  Botanical: Eucalyptus globulus (also known as Tasmanian blue gum).

  Eucalyptus can be a tall evergreen, although many plants never grow more than a few feet high. It is native to Australia and Tasmania. A volatile oil is distilled from the leaves of the pla
nt and used medicinally, primarily for its pungent, antiinflammatory effects. The plant is a wonderful gray green color that dries well and can be used in floral arrangements. It is believed to be a blessing, repelling evil spirits, when placed by a door.

  THERE WAS A GREAT DEAL of foot shuffling, and many glances were thrown Peggy’s way. She took a deep breath and prepared to defend their actions, but Paul jumped in an instant before she could speak. “I’m sorry, Chief. I thought it would be a good idea to hear what your aunt’s friends had to say about her death.”

  “So you thought you’d break into her garage to listen?”

  “We didn’t break in,” Geneva enlightened him. “Lois gave us a key.”

  Grace held up the key with an impertinent glare. “She trusted us. We were her friends.”

  Chief Mullis shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’m just surprised to find you here. I was afraid someone had broken into the house. I guess I thought it might help make sense of Aunt Lois’s death if someone was here illegally.”

  “You don’t think it was natural causes?” Dorothy asked.

  “I don’t know what to think yet. And neither do you. Any of you. It was a shock to find her that way. That doesn’t mean she didn’t have a heart attack.” He smiled at the band of women. “I know she loved all of you. She loved your little historical society. We all want what’s best for her now, so let the police do their job. They work very hard to come up with the right answers.”

  Geneva started to speak, but Mrs. Waynewright nudged her with her elbow. “That’s just fine, Arnie. We’ll all go home now. Thank you for tending to the situation.”

  The chief opened the garage door and shook his balding head. “Don’t tell me all of you rode over in that Jeep? I can’t believe you’d encourage that kind of behavior, Officer Lee. That vehicle was made to seat only five. It must have been well over capacity.”

  “Don’t be silly!” Annabelle responded. “We parked our car down the street a little so it wouldn’t be noticed while we were here. Peggy, Lilla and her husband, and this officer came when we called them.”