A Body in the Bargain: A Kate & Kylie Mystery Read online

  It was Chief Daniel O’Reilly himself with a clipboard in his hand.

  I had time to run my fingers through my hair before I sighed and met him at the door.

  “I just needed to change clothes,” I said apologetically. “you can see why.”

  “Sgt. Breaker gets a little carried away at times,” he said in a surprisingly gentle voice. “And this is her first homicide investigation. I overheard her ordering you around, and I’m here to apologize. It’s just a transcript of your statement yesterday morning, and I’ve brought it for you to sign. May I come in?”

  I opened the door, and he offered me the clipboard and a pen.

  One thing I’ll say for myself is that even when I look ridiculous and smell like paint thinner and am talking to a good-looking police chief, I do not sign things I haven’t read.

  “Come on back to the kitchen,” I said. “And be careful where you step. I need to read this before I sign it. ”

  “I fully expect you to,” he said, following me around the mess.

  I offered him some coffee, which he accepted, and I began reading my statement. I was relieved to see that I had mostly spoken in complete sentences and sounded like an articulate and sane person, despite the fact that I had just seen the mortal remains of my high school English teacher pop up out of a sofa bed.

  “This is very good coffee,” he said at one point.

  “It’s Ethiopian,” I said, off-handedly.

  “Excellent,” he said. “I’ve never had it before.”

  I realized he was trying to be a nice guy. That was good.

  I signed the statement with my best artistic signature, dated it, and handed the clipboard to him with a smile.

  “Miss Marley,” he began.

  “Oh, please call me Kate,” I said. “Nobody calls me Miss Marley. And not Katie, either. Just Kate.”

  “Daniel here,” he said. “Not Dan or Danny.”

  “And thank you for bringing this over,” I said. “She really was sort of bossy over the phone, but I guess we’re all stressed.”

  He nodded and said, “You know, if you’ve got a few minutes to talk, I’d like to get a better understanding of Meredith Merkle. Just consider this unofficial. She was your teacher at one point, right?”

  “High school English for two years,” I said, cautiously. “I think she meant to hold us to high standards…”

  “It’s really okay to speak ill of the dead during a homicide investigation,” he said with a slight grin. “Would you mind just telling me what you thought of her? Everybody’s clamming up, or saying things like ‘Poor Miss Merkle’ but at the same time I get the impression that nobody was close to her, not even her brother, and that some people disliked her intensely.”

  “Well, if you want the truth,” I said, “She a very rigid woman and I always thought she had a mean streak. She poked people’s dogs with her umbrella. She was a terrible teacher. Maybe David Dabney had trouble with her because he wasn’t really good at English. I was really good at English. It was my best subject, and I dreaded her class every day. She hadn’t changed, either. I saw her just the other day—I mean Saturday—and I tried to be pleasant, and she said ‘Yes, you’re the one who fancied herself a writer and an artist.”

  “Wait,” he said. “You saw her on Saturday?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Twice in fact. She was at the Cadbury’s yard sale looking through some old books and magazines. That’s when I spoke to her. Then we saw her walking in the rain. I guess she was heading home. Kylie offered her a ride, but she wouldn’t take it. But she didn’t so much as smile. You know, she had to get in her two miles of walking every day, rain or shine.”

  “Two or three people have told us we can rule out her getting into a car with anybody,” he said, “and her walking every day is turning out to be a kind of problem for us. People were so used to seeing her walking that they think they might have seen her on Monday afternoon, but they’re not sure. You know, it could have been another day, and she apparently walked a different route every day.”

  “Well, if it was Monday afternoon,” I said. “Wouldn’t she have been wearing that mustard yellow suit she had on when we found her body? Can’t you ask what she was wearing? Wouldn’t that help?”

  “I tried asking what color she was wearing, and they didn’t remember,” he said. “That sort of thing doesn’t seem to stick with most people. You call that mustard yellow?”

  “Dijon mustard would be closer,” I said. “A really bad color. Nobody can wear that color. When I saw her on Saturday, she was wearing this shiny maroon outfit. I believe she used to teach in that.”

  He grinned.

  “You probably knew all the colors in the crayon box,” he said. “Kylie said you didn’t like that sofa because it was moss green.”

  “Olive green,” I said. “Maybe it was moss green to start with and just got yellowish with age. Anyway, I pay attention to colors because I’m a painter. Or maybe it’s the other way around. But you know, if you really want to learn more about Miss Merkle, you ought to talk to my Aunt Verily at the library. They were in the Literary Society, together.”

  “There’s a literary society?” he asked.

  “It’s been around for generations, and they’ve got a website now,” I said. “Those ladies are more likely to know about Meredith Merkle than anybody else, and Aunt Verily would probably know which one she would have been on the friendliest terms with.”

  “What about her brother?” he asked. “Do you know him?”

  “Not really,” I said. “I mean I know who he is, but I didn’t even know he was her brother until Aunt Verily mentioned it. She said they got along pretty well when she first moved here, but in recent years, they’ve been, hmmm, estranged.”

  I wondered if I sounded like Miss Marple.

  “Maybe they made up,” Daniel said. “He didn’t mention that. He didn’t seem to have a key to her house, though. As far as I can tell, nobody did.”

  “Was her house messed up?” I asked. If he was going to ask unofficial questions, I was sure going to ask them, too. “I mean, did it look like something happened there? Were there signs of a struggle? Did somebody abduct her?”

  “You must read a lot of murder mysteries,” he said, laughing. “Sorry, but the place was neat as a pin.”

  I made a face at him.

  “Well, was her umbrella there?” I asked. “She always took it with her, rain or shine. She used it as a weapon.”

  “She had several umbrellas,” he said. “And she had several purses, too, but there wasn’t one with keys and that sort of thing in it. To answer your question, I don’t think she was abducted from her home, but I’m not saying anything more on that subject.”

  He smiled and got up to leave. I glanced at my watch and realized that I still needed to clean up for my interview with Josh Miller, and I didn’t have much time.

  As we went through the living room, he looked around.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to file a complaint about those people who took your furniture?” he asked. “Buddy Carson told me about that.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s kind of a family argument. My grandmother married their grandfather when they were both in their late sixties, and they got along fine, but the two families didn’t. They were upset when their grandfather left all his money to my grandmother, and I think they’d probably argue that some of the furniture was his. But, basically, I don’t like those people, and I don’t want to have some long dragged out thing with them about a few pieces of old furniture. There was really only one piece I really liked.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” he said. “They were trespassing, and they knew it. They got away with just clearing your house out. People who do things like that need to have a visit from law enforcement. Even if you don’t get all the stuff back, you could cause them some grief.”r />
  I told him I’d think about it.

  He stopped to look at my painting of the Tybee Lighthouse.

  “I like that,” he said. “Is that your work?”

  I said yes and asked if he knew where it was. We talked about Savannah and Tybee Island as I walked out onto the porch.

  As he headed to his car, I noticed Sally Stevens Turbo looking out her front window.

  Now that, I thought, glancing down at my bare legs below the oversized t-shirt, would give her something to talk about. I turned around and headed for the shower.

  The River Valley Register is in a row of downtown businesses. They had a printing press years ago and did all kinds of extra printing, but now they get the printing done out of town.

  Josh Miller was a surprise. He was younger than I had expected, maybe in his late twenties, and handsome with golden brown eyes almost exactly the same color as his hair, wearing a short sleeved striped dress shirt that showed decidedly muscular arms.

  He looked wholesome, and he looked married to me—as if he would have a wife named Misty and two adorable children.

  He suggested we sit in his office, and glanced through the portfolio of clippings I had brought.

  “You’re way overqualified for us,” he said. “Have you ever covered city government and crime.”

  “Nope,” I said. “I’ve mostly done advertising copy, and feature writing and magazine pieces.”

  “Well, it’s easy compared to that,” he said, leaning back in his swivel chair. I noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding band, but that didn’t mean anything. “I mean, they have a written agenda for the meetings, and you just have to write down how they vote and make sure you get everybody’s name spelled right. And the police, well, all you can write is what Daniel O’Reilly tells you anyway. There’s something going around about their finding a body this morning, but he’ll probably send out a statement.”

  I reminded myself that the chief had asked us not to discuss the details of the murder, and I must have looked uncertain because Josh said, “Hey, you can do it! I’ll give you some old copies from when Jake Bishop was here, and you can read his stories and see the style. He was pretty good and won some prizes.”

  “Now about that murder,” he added, “I’ll need for you to follow up on that for next week’s paper. Maybe they’ll have an arrest by that time. The deadline for front page stories is Wednesday at 9 a.m.”

  Josh was already talking to me as I were hired, so I backed up and said, “You do understand that I just want to write on assignment? Can I do the writing at home and e-mail it in?”

  “That’s fine with me. You can do it any way you want to if you can meet deadlines and I don’t have to rewrite your stories,” he said. “The City Council meeting is tomorrow night, so you have lots of time to write that.”

  We talked about the money, and it was little better than I expected, so I accepted. He agreed to pay me each week after I explained to him that a few magazines had waited months and I didn’t want to have to send him bills.

  “No problem,” he said. “I’ll just write you a check when I do the payroll each Friday.”

  Then he got me some copies of the former reporter’s stories and gave me a battered copy of the Associated Press Stylebook, and a stack of little narrow notebooks that he said all reporters used.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” he said. “How’s your photography?”

  “Pretty good,” I said.

  “Great,” he said. “Mine aren’t. Take a lot of pictures. People love them, and they take up a lot of space on the page.”

  Then we chatted with Anna James, an owlish middle-aged woman who seemed to be the main computer person. I remembered her as a Sunday School teacher. She said that she’d love it if I e-mailed things already typed, that she had so many people who still brought handwritten stories in, and then complained if she made a typo.

  “And we’ve got a good sports writer,” Josh said waving toward an empty desk. “Jabari Hill. He’s still in high school, but the kid can write.”

  I left thinking that maybe I could make a contribution to my hometown. And besides that, I liked the idea of buying a sofa that didn’t have any surprises in it and having an excuse to see more of Chief O’Reilly.

  Kylie had left two messages, so I called her back from my car.

  First of all, I told her about my new part-time job working from home, and she said, “That’s wonderful. How did you like Josh?”

  I said, “He seemed nice,” which meant, “No comment,” and she knew that. If she hadn’t had other things on her mind, she probably would have persisted. Instead, she jumped to another subject.

  “Sgt. Brenda Breaker has been out here,” she said. “They had typed up what I said yesterday, and she wanted me to sign it. But that’s not the main thing. I was off getting the kids from school when she got here, and Mom gave her some iced tea and a slice of pound cake and got her talking. Brenda told her that the sofa bed was open when the officer on patrol stopped by the house on Monday night. David and some of his friends were sitting on it, having beer and pizza. They’re still holding David, and they’ve got backup investigators. They’ve interviewed all the kids who were there, and they’re going to go door to door in the neighborhood.

  Darlene, it seemed, had learned more from Brenda Breaker than I had from Brenda’s boss.

  “So,” I said. “Miss Merkle’s body was definitely put in the sofa bed after the party was over.”

  “It looks like it,” Kylie said. “Mom said Brenda was thinking that maybe David went out after his friends were gone and went to Miss Merkle’s house and killed her and then hid her in the sofa because he figured the junk man was going to take it away.”

  “That’s not how it happened,” I said. “Remember how she was dressed? Miss Merkle would have been in bed in her nightgown by that time.”

  “Well,” Kylie said. “Maybe she didn’t get her two miles in, and she went to walk in the middle of the night, and he just happened to see her.”

  “I’d like to know the time of death,” I said. “I think they can usually pin that down.”

  Kylie didn’t answer for a moment. Somebody else was talking to her. She said, “Just a minute. Hang on.” and I hung on. Then she was back on the phone.

  “Mom wants to know if you want to come out and have her chicken noodle casserole with us.”

  I said. “Yes, I love that casserole. When?”

  “Come on now, “ she said, and then she lowered her voice.

  “And we’re not talking about Miss Merkle’s death around the boys,” she said.

  “Agreed,” I said.

  Chapter 7

  Darlene King’s chicken noodle casserole is pure comfort food—big pieces of chicken, lots of mushrooms (which William carefully removed to his father’s plate), some sort of creamy sauce that only she knows how to make, and whatever pasta Darlene has just bought a case of.

  Besides that, there was corn on the cob, broccoli salad, and homemade biscuits. Mark ate his broccoli salad under threat of not getting another biscuit until he did.

  Family dinners with the Carsons mean that the kids are part of the conversation. I helped with that by agreeing to help the boys with their entries in the Flood Festival poster contest for kids. I told them I’d show them how to do a good one, but they had to come up with their own ideas and do the work.

  “And the good news is that we’re going to end with a big fireworks show his year,” Kylie told Mark and William. “It’s so close to the Fourth of July that we’ll be celebrating that, too.”

  Buddy had his mind on something coming up much sooner: the Kiwanis Club Fish Fry—an annual fundraiser that involves fried catfish, hushpuppies, and coleslaw. Some people get takeout trays, but many always enjoy making an outdoor picnic of it. I had gone with my parents when I was a kid.

  “It’s Fri
day afternoon starting at six,” Kylie said. “I’ll pick you up.”

  Darlene said that the dates had been set for the First Baptist Vacation Bible School, and asked if I could get that into the paper since I was writing for the paper now.

  “Right!” Kylie said. “And we ought to put you on the publicity committee for the Flood Festival, too. The paper didn’t do half enough last summer. I’m so glad you’re going to be writing for The Register. A lot of people will be.”

  “Wait! Wait!” I said, “It’s just going to be on assignment, and he’s just paying me to do crime and city government. You know I’ll help you, Darlene, and I’ll help you, Kylie. You know that! But please don’t volunteer me to anybody else.”

  Halfway through his dessert, William asked, “Have they caught the bad guy who killed that old lady and stuffed her into the sofa?”

  Darlene looked at the ceiling, and Kylie looked at Buddy. They have some secret code for deciding who handles what.

  “Where’d you hear all that?” Buddy asked.

  “At school,” Mark said. “One of the fourth graders was talking about it. He said his mom is a police lady, and she was talking about it to his dad last night. I think she’s the same one who came to see mom this afternoon. Anyway, this fourth grader said the old lady was hit on the back of her head with something hard that had two sharp points.”

  “POW!” William said, “He said it was like a pick-axe. And then the murderer hid her inside a sofa and some ladies found it.”

  Kylie flinched.

  I studied my pineapple-upside-down cake.

  “Dear Lord,” Darlene said. “Can we not talk about this over dessert.”

  “Hush, boys!” Buddy said. “I’ll tell you about it after supper.”

  They hushed.

  “Of course, I told them the whole thing,” Buddy said later after he had talked to the boys and they had run outside to jump on their trampoline. “We should have told them yesterday. And I told them not to go running to school tomorrow and telling everybody their mother was the one who opened up the sofa bed…”