War of earth the element.., p.6
Murder in the Graveyard, page 6
“Is she?” I prodded him.
“Is she what?” he asked defensively.
“Is she around? To get us checked in. My friends and I would like to have our cocktails and a snack out on the porch to watch the sunset.”
“Oh!” He nodded his head so vigorously I thought what little brains he had in there would just fall right out onto the parquet floor. “That’s a great idea. Right. The porch. Lyla had to go out. For things. She’ll be back.”
“We’re very hungry,” I said, trying to muster as much patience as possible. “Will you be bringing us the cocktails? We told Lyla we’d like the Tasty Goode Lemon Lavender Zingers. And she said something about a platter of meats and cheeses. I can’t stress enough how hungry we are. None of us had lunch.” I wanted to ask him when dinner would be served in that fancy dining room we saw on their website, but I didn’t want to short out his already overloaded circuits with multiple questions. I decided to wait until we got our cocktails and appetizer.
He did that staring blankly thing again. I thought I’d lost him somewhere between lemon and lavender. I was strongly considering the idea of slapping his face to wake him out of whatever coma he’d slipped into, when he blurted out, “Join your friends on the porch. I’ll … serve you there.”
Honestly, the way he said those last four words creeped me out, but I didn’t dare let on to Roz and Peggy that I was worried. He was probably just confused. He didn’t expect our arrival, his wife managed that side of things, yada, yada, yada. I figured I was really concerned for no reason.
I ventured to ask one more question, praying it wouldn’t task him to his cognitive limit. “Can we just leave our bags here?”
He nodded an affirmative. Phew. Success. I thanked him and joined Roz and Peggy, taking a seat in the lovely cushioned wicker chair beside Peggy. “Cocktails and food are on the way,” I said, with far more certainty than deserved.
The three of us sat quietly just taking in the view as the sky changed from orange to purple.
“I’m on the verge of getting hangry,” Roz said. “When is our food coming?”
“I crossed over the verge about ten minutes ago,” I countered, tapping my foot nervously.
“Then why is my stomach louder than yours?” Roz asked looking around Peggy at me.
I shrugged. “Just a more delicate person in general, I guess.”
Roz and Peggy’s instantaneous uproar of laughter indicated that they did not consider me so delicate. My feelings would have been hurt if I wasn’t so weak from lack of nutrition.
“There you are!” Derek said as he appeared on the porch, seemingly out of breath, as if he’d been searching for us all over.
Was he really surprised to find us on the porch? After I specifically told him, we’d love to take our cocktails and snacks on the porch? More bizarre than his apparent confusion, was the tray he had lowered down for us to see in a very waiter-esque manner. The tray itself wasn’t odd, the items on it were: three itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, little somethings that might have been a food. It was really hard to say. We didn’t have to wait long for clarification.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll be bringing your drinks and antipasti soon, but first, a little pre-snack if you will.”
I stared at the tray. A magnifying glass would have been very helpful. If I squinted really hard, it was possible they looked like open-faced turkey sandwiches fit for a baby mouse. “You want us to eat those?”
He laughed an uncomfortable, gurgly kind of laugh. “It’s an amuse-bouche. Small piece of sourdough bread topped with avocado, a thin slice of turkey, and sliver of cabbage.”
So basically, what it looked like. And it definitely was not amusing how small it was. Did they expect this to satiate any part of my hunger? A hummingbird would have sent that back to the kitchen demanding a bigger portion. The guy was odd, but nice. Expressing my displeasure felt mean, so I smiled weakly, took my wee piece, and popped it in my mouth. “Yum.”
With similarly plastered grins on their faces, Peggy and Roz ate their micro-appetizers.
“Mm,” Peggy said.
“Very … delicate flavor,” Roz said.
I knew Roz speak. That meant it had no flavor. And she was right.
Derek seemed completely unaware of that our responses were barely mediocre. In fact, his smile beamed so brightly, you’d think we’d just awarded him a Michelin rating. “I’ll be back with your drinks.”
He was on the move fast and that worried me. “And the antipasti,” I said quickly. “Don’t forget the antipasti.”
“I won’t forget,” he said as he disappeared through the door back into the house.
The sun had set below the horizon, and the sky was darkening quickly. The more time that passed without food, without Lyla showing up, without other guests arriving, the more I grew concerned that this weekend gal pals trip was turning into a gal pals fiasco. Given our track record for murder-riddled vacations, Lyla probably wasn’t “out getting things,” but rather out cold, as in, dead cold. Maybe a lover’s spat gone lethal. I wondered if I should share my fears with Peggy and Roz.
“What the heck was that … what did he call it again?” Peggy asked. “A moose boot?”
“Amuse-bouche,” Roz said with a sharp tang of hunger-induced annoyance. “It’s a little appetizer that isn’t on the menu—sent out as a little gift of sorts from the chef to the diner before the meal begins.”
“Well then there’s hope,” Peggy said. “That the meal will begin.”
Fifteen minutes later, when Derek didn’t show, not even with three more cabbage slivers just to tide us over, we got proactive and went in search of sustenance and hydration on our own.
“Find me their refrigerator,” Roz said, on the move, with purpose. She was definitely in a Defcon Level Two of hanger, coming dangerously close to a Level One. I’d seen her in a stage one before and nobody in a twenty-mile radius wanted to see that happen again.
The porch was accessible from two different doors—the door we’d used from the foyer, and a second that was just beyond the empty wicker chair next to Peggy. Derek had come and gone from that door, so we figured it was the fastest way to the kitchen. It led to a comfortably furnished and pleasantly decorated parlor. Any other time, we might have taken time to peruse the many aged books in the floor-to-ceiling bookcases or examine the framed antique family photos on the walls. But this wasn’t any other time. Instead, we zeroed in on an archway at the far end of the room which, we learned, led to the dining room. Assuming the kitchen must be close to the dining room, we pushed through a set of swinging louvered doors only to land ourselves in a long and narrow pantry. On the other side of the pantry was another set of louvered doors. We pushed through those and arrived in a desperately old, dimly lit, and oddly barren kitchen.
No appliances on the cracked and yellowed Formica countertops. Not a single pot or pan on the rusting stove. The difference between the parlor and this kitchen was shocking. Where the parlor was obviously freshly renovated, furnished, and decorated, this kitchen was practically crumbling before our very eyes. And it definitely wasn’t capable of producing any meal, much less our promised evening dinner.
“Where’s the chef?” Peggy asked, which, given the state of this rattrap, seemed a silly question to be posing.
Roz went straight to the scratched and dented 1950’s era refrigerator and yanked the door open. She stood in front of it, silently fuming. “It’s empty.”
“Empty?” I asked. “Not even a few sourdough crumbs or a slice of turkey?”
She pulled out a can. “One diet soda. Warm. This fridge doesn’t even work.”
“Derek?” I shouted loudly, needing some answers as much as I needed food. If this turned out to be some kind of scam, Roz and Peggy would never let me hear the end of it. Derek did not respond to my call. I yelled louder. “Derek?”
I was about to head through another door that I thought might take me back to the foyer, but I stopped when Peggy made a discovery.
“The back door is ajar,” she said. “Maybe he’s outside.”
“Peggy, you check out back,” Roz said, like a lead cop on a case. “Barb, go search the rest of the house. I’ll stay put in case he comes back through here. We’ll find this guy and force him to go out and get us a pizza if necessary.” From her many years serving as president of different PTAs, Roz knew how to bark out orders and get things done. She’d get her food, and she’d get it fast.
My mystery door did not lead to the foyer or any other part of the house where Derek might be hiding. It led to another large walk-in pantry with floor to ceiling open shelving on two sides and a countertop height cabinet on the third. The shelves were bare and the only item on the countertop was a mostly eaten sandwich on an open wrapper—sourdough bread, turkey, and avocado—and a small plastic container with the watery remains of coleslaw in the bottom. The “amuse-bouche” was suddenly explained and my stomach felt queasy at the realization. I scooped up the wrapper with the sandwich remnants and stomped back to the kitchen to find Roz standing in the middle of the room with a dazed look on her face and every single cupboard door open.
“What’s going on in this place?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“The cupboards are bare,” she said. “This is not a working kitchen. How did they think they were going feed us?”
“That’s another pantry through that door and it’s completely empty too. Except for this.” I held out the wrapper.
She stared at it, wide-eyed. As the truth dawned on her, I could almost see steam coming out of her ears, like Elmer Fudd realizing he’s been duped by Bugs Bunny once again. “He. Fed. Us. Sandwich. Scraps?”
Peggy poked her head through the back door. “Um, ladies, I think you’re going to want to see this.”
We followed her out onto a small deck that looked out over a wide yard. With the dark of night upon us now, it was hard to tell how far back it went. The back porch light didn’t illuminate anything that I warranted “wanting to see.” Peggy took the steps down onto the grass and motioned us to follow. “That graveyard is just a few yards back here. Watch your step, the ground is uneven.” She tapped on her phone flashlight.
“Did you think you were going to find Derek or our food in the graveyard?” Roz whined.
“Peggy,” I urged, taking careful baby steps forward. “This had better be good. Roz is about to blow like Mt. Etna. And I may not be far behind.”
We reached a short black wrought-iron fence with a small gate that hung open and hanging tilted on just one hinge. Peggy continued on through the gate with Roz and me on her heels.
“I like graveyards,” she said, “so I just wanted to take a quick peek. And yes, Roz, I did find Derek.” She stopped and pointed to the ground in front of a pitted and moss-covered headstone.
Actually, she wasn’t pointing to the ground so much as to the dead man on it.
“Well,” I said, “I guess he won’t be going out to get us pizza.”
Having found my fair share of dead bodies, I took the lead and touched his wrist, feeling for a pulse. When I didn’t detect one, I double checked his carotid artery. No luck. Derek had definitely served his last amuse-bouche.
Peggy was using the flashlight on her phone to illuminate his body, which did not appear to be injured in any way.
“Do you see any blood?” I asked Peggy and Roz.
“None,” Roz said. “Peggy, put more light on his face and then the top of his head.”
As she did so, I was overwhelmed with the heavy scent of cigarette smoke. I looked up to see a small circle of red light floating in the darkness. Soon, a man stepped out of the shadows. He wore an old-fashioned fedora hat, and his gray trench coat hung loose, open, and unbelted. The red light glowed brighter as he took a drag before pulling it away with two fingers and blowing a hefty amount of smoke in our direction.
“Sad chump is worm food now,” he said.
He lifted his hat with one hand while scratching his head with the other, the cigarette still lit. His hair was thin on top, fuller on the sides. He replaced the hat on his head.
“No need to run—I’m friend, not foe.” He opened his trench coat wider for us to view the inside. “Not packing, see?” He nodded down to Derek’s body. “Won’t find any tomato sauce on that poor boob. He was given the squeeze. Check the neck. Purple as an eggplant fresh off the vine.”
“Who is this guy?” Roz whispered to me.
He responded. “My ears aren’t made of stone, sister. I hear you loud and clear. Name’s Rake. Rake Lopper. Private Dick.”
This guy sounded like he’d slipped himself one too many mickeys. “Mr. Lopper—”
“Call me Rake.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Rake. Listen, I’m a huge fan of noir detective films. Watched the Maltese Falcon at least twenty times. But honestly, who uses that term anymore?”
“I do, sister.” He took a long, dramatic pause worthy of an award for Best Cheesy Actor in a leading role. “I do.”
There was really no way to argue with his logic. But this guy was definitely registering in the red zone on my bizarro-meter. I felt like I’d just met Jim Carrey playing Sam Spade.
Peggy had her phone light shining on Derek’s neck. “He’s been strangled.”
Rake cocked his head. “Like I said, squeezed till the wind said ‘sayonara, Señor.’”
“You’re mixing languages,” Peggy said. “That’s Japanese and Spanish.”
“Sue me.”
Peggy didn’t seem satisfied. “I still don’t understand why you’d think we’d find tomato sauce on him.”
“Please don’t keep saying words that are food,” Roz pleaded.
“I think he meant blood,” I said. “You know, since we’d been looking for blood.”
“Did you dial nine-one-one?” Roz asked Rake.
“Not following, sister.”
“Did you call the police?”
“You see a blower around here? Besides, the local blue coats and me are about as chummy as a pack of hyenas at a lion party.”
Roz was hitting her limit, I could tell. Even in the dark, I could tell her face was beginning to go red.
“This man is impossible to understand,” she muttered under her breath. She patted her sweater pockets then let out a huff. “I left my phone on the porch. Peggy, you should call it in.”
Peggy nodded and started dialing.
“That’s my cue to make like a Houdini and vanish.”
“You can’t go,” I said. “You’re a witness.”
“Sister, I live in the shadows. Have to in my line of business. Here’s the dirt for Johhny Law, feel free to quote me: this dope comes out from the house up there. Sounds like he’s talking to himself, but I see he’s holding something to his ear. I move closer for a better look, but soon enough, from behind me comes some Jane and a galoot. The Jane is about this one’s height,” he pointed to Peggy, “and a flame-top too, only she’s not carrying as much extra luggage, if you catch my drift. Svelte, like Hedy Lamarr.”
Peggy had pulled back further into the yard to make her call, which didn’t seem to be going so well. “I don’t have reception out here,” she called out. “Also, did he just call me fat?”
“Hey, sister, it’s a compliment. I prefer my dames with curves like Sunset Boulevard.”
“Go on,” I said, growing more annoyed by the second. “A thin redheaded woman and a galoot. What did he look like?”
“Tall and wide. Square head. This one sees them, drops whatever he’s holding and starts to beat it, but Square Head is faster than he looks and catches him by the collar, then strong arms him back to the dame.”
“Did you hear her name?”
“Cadaver-to-be called her Ella.”
“His name is Derek.”
“Sorry Kemosabe, that’s not what I heard. That there is Bo. He said, ‘Ella, I didn’t expect you so soon,’ and she said, ‘Bo, you’re out of time. Where’s my money?’ and he said, ‘I’m working on it. Give me another hour,’ and she said, ‘Why don’t I believe you, Bo?’ and that’s when she gave Square Head the signal. A minute later, Bo was no more. Adios, Antoine.”
I felt an urge to laugh, but a serious question needed to be asked. “They didn’t see you?”
“Call it a gift. When I want to be invisible, I am.”
Roz looked ready to pull her hair out. “So, you just sat there, hiding, and watched it happen?”
“I wasn’t sitting, sister.”
She fired back. “Why were you even here to begin with?”
“Why is anyone here?”
I threw up my arms. The slippery and sly PI act was hard enough to take, but now he was going all existentialist philosopher on us. “We need to report this. I’m going back into the house. We should have reception there.”
“What if Ella and Square Head are in there?” Peggy asked.
“You can put that panic back in your pocket, Doll. They took off the way they came. Figure they’re long gone. Laying low.”
“Finally,” Roz huffed. “Some words that make sense.”
“Let’s go,” I said.
Rake lifted his hat up slightly and tipped his head in a sort of been-nice-talkin’-to-you way, that cigarette between his index and middle finger oddly no shorter than it was when he first showed up. After taking one more long drag, he flicked it to the ground, turned and disappeared back into the darkness. Something about that cigarette didn’t seem quite right, but the temperature was dropping, a murder needed to be reported, and we desperately needed to find food.
Roz, Peggy, and I marched back across the grassy yard that was badly in need of a mowing, climbed the steps to the deck, and turned around to look back out. We could barely make out the form of Derek’s, or I guess maybe Bo’s, body lying on the ground. No sign of Rake Lopper. Not even the dimmest little red glow of burning tobacco on the ground.
“If he’s a licensed PI,” I said, “the police will be able to find him and question him.”
“Do you think it’s too much to ask them to stop at a McDonald’s on their way?” Roz asked.
