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

  “And you seriously think they won’t?” Kylie asked as we finished loading the dishwasher.

  “Well, I tried,” he said. “I told them I’d better not hear about their talking about it at school. And I told them Chief O’Reilly would catch the bad guy, and they didn’t need to worry about it.”

  “Were they worried?” Kylie asked, sounding anxious.

  “No,” Buddy said. “It was like we were talking about a TV show. They were just curious.”

  He grinned at Kylie.

  “I didn’t tell them you fainted,” he said. “I told them that both of you were very brave and strong and did exactly the right thing which was to call 911 and call me.”

  “Everybody at the Flood Festival committee meeting today knew that one of us opened the sofa bed and that one of us fainted,” Kylie said. “I don’t know how that got around so fast.”

  “I do. It was Bradley Tulley from the Emergency Medical Service,” Buddy said. “I’ve told you that before. Anything that happens to anybody, if it’s on his shift, he’s gonna talk about it. He’s not supposed to run his mouth any more than Brenda Breaker is, but he can’t resist. Remember when Sally Turbo thought she had been poisoned that time? He told everybody in town that she had just been drinking tropical wine coolers and dipping hot wings into a jar of cheese dip.”

  “Sounds like her,” Kylie said. “I wonder how she stays skinny. I guess it’s from smoking so much.”

  Being reminded of Sally Turbo made me think I ought to mention Daniel O’Reilly’s visit before it got around to Kate and seemed like something I deliberately didn’t mention. That would lead her to all kinds of wild speculation.

  “Hey, Kate,” Buddy said before I open my mouth. “I wasn’t going to say this in front of the boys, but guess who asked me about you this afternoon?”

  I was prepared for him to say “Daniel O’Reilly,” which would have been a great opening, but fortunately, I feigned ignorance because he said. “Josh Miller. I saw him at the gas station on the way home.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Did he want a character reference or what?”

  “He wanted to know if you were dating anybody,” Buddy said.

  “Hey, great!” Kylie said. “Why don’t we have you two over for Sunday dinner and… ?”

  “No!” I said firmly. “I’m more or less his employee now. He was probably just making conversation.”

  “Ha!” Kylie said.

  “He said you seemed kind of prim and proper and business-like,” Buddy said to me.

  “And what did you say?” Kylie interrupted.

  “I burst out laughing,” Buddy said.

  “And,” I said, after punching Buddy on the arm with my fist, “On another subject entirely, you mentioned Sally Turbo, Well, she’s probably going to be spreading it all over town that she saw Chief O’Reilly coming out of my house today.”

  Kylie pounced like a cat on a palmetto bug.

  “What was he doing at your house?”

  “The same thing Brenda Breaker was doing out here,” I said. “Getting me to sign the statement I made yesterday. I didn’t learn half as much from him as Darlene did from Brenda.”

  “Oh, so he sends Brenda out here, and goes to your place himself,” Kylie said. “What were you wearing? I hope it wasn’t that shirt with the paint…”

  I nodded, and she laughed.

  “Do y’all mind if watch the news?” Buddy said, picking up the remote. “Maybe the Columbus station will have something about River Valley for a change since we had some news for a change.”

  And as it turned out, Chief Daniel O’Reilly was on TV. He was being interviewed about what was already being called “The Sofa Bed Murder.”

  He spoke well. He didn’t give our names, but said, “Two local women…”

  I learned only one thing I didn’t already know, and that was that Miss Meredith Merkle was 69 years old. I had thought she was much older.

  I headed home from the Carsons as the sun was setting—and turned onto Charter Lane just in time to see a muscular man in white shorts running down the sidewalk past my house with a dog the size of a small horse. He slowed down a little, looked toward my house, and kept running. It was Josh Miller.

  Chapter 8

  Maybe it was Darlene’s chicken noodle casserole, or maybe it was just me settling down, but I slept well that night and woke up Thursday morning ready to get a few things done on my own.

  The first thing was to order more Ethiopian coffee online just in case Daniel O’Reilly ever stopped by again. The second was to look at my savings and checking accounts and do a little calculating—adding in what I anticipated earning as a crime and city government reporter.

  When I was satisfied with my financial planning and had set a top price I would spend, I got dressed and went to Ferguson furniture.

  “Let me guess,” Mr. Ferguson said when I came in. “You want to see some sofas.”

  And then he made his best effort not to laugh, and I knew exactly what he was thinking.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, “And I am not interested in a sofa bed.”

  He laughed and said, “You come with me, young lady, and just pick out what you want. A sofa is an important purchase, and you want something you really like. We can work out any kind of payment plan you like and deliver it this afternoon, too.”

  I picked out a wonderful pale blue sofa. Modern, but still comfortable. He urged me to try lying down on it, and it felt like floating on a cloud. Then he showed me the chair that matched.

  I gulped at the price, which was far higher than the top price I had set for myself. I asked him how much he would take off it I paid for half of it right then and put the rest on time. He took off ten percent.

  Then he brought up the subject of coffee tables, and I said, “Mr. Ferguson, after the mattress and this, I’m going to be living on tuna fish. I’m back to yardsaling!”

  I walked back to my car feeling light-headed, and a little anxious. Then the memory of the sofa in the Dabneys’ garage came back, and it struck me that I could very well have developed a sofa phobia if I hadn’t acted decisively.

  “I deserve a nice sofa,” I told myself. “And a chair to match.”

  I got two cups of coffee and went by the library to tell Aunt Verily about getting work with The Register and buying the new furniture.

  She beamed over the job and congratulated me for buying the sofa.

  “It takes all my courage to spend more than $100,” she said. “You know, it was years before I gave up my little black and white television set and let John Robert talk me into buying a color one, and I practically had palpitations.”

  I said, “Kylie’s going to have a fit. She thinks I should buy a second-hand one and get a slipcover.”

  “Which reminds me!” she said. “When were you going to get around to telling me that you and Kylie Carson found Meredith Merkle’s body? I had to hear that from Hester Foley of all people. Of course, she was acting all grieved, but she was like the cat that swallowed the canary, knowing something about you before I did.”

  I said, “Aunt Verily, it was really awful, but we were asked not to talk about it until things settled down.”

  And at that moment, Chief Daniel O’Reilly came in.

  We nodded our greetings, and Aunt Verily said “Good morning, Chief O’Reilly!” and changed the subject deftly.

  “Kate just splurged on a brand new sofa and chair for her living room, and she’s recovering from sticker shock! That’s what they call it now, isn’t it?”

  He smiled, and as much as I would have liked to stay and be nosey, I knew that he was there to talk with Aunt Verily.

  I said, “I’ve been meaning to call you, Chief O’Reilly. I’m going to be the new crime reporter for The Register.”

  “Josh told me,” he said. “The guy who was here before
came in every Tuesday morning at ten. If you want to keep that up, just call Marcie at my office.”

  I left, wondering why River Valley even needed a newspaper if news flew through the air. Then I headed for city hall.

  For one thing, I needed to put my name on the water account, and for another, I thought it might be smart to know a little bit about the council meeting I was attending that night.

  The River Valley City Hall is in a nice old frame house that was probably built by the same carpenters who built my grandmother’s house. It has an addition on one side, a flagpole and a sign out front, a ramp for the handicapped and parking places for a dozen cars so you couldn’t mistake it for somebody’s home.

  The city has built a nice brick public safety building that serves both the police and fire departments, but the taxpayers balked at building a new city hall, and now that I was going to be paying property taxes, that struck me as quite sensible.

  Inside, it had been renovated and modernized, but I was glad to see that the original hardwood floors were still there.

  I got the water bill changed to my name, by a friendly woman who seemed to have known my grandmother and then I asked where the mayor’s office was.

  “Oh, she’s hardly ever here,” the woman said. “You know, we have a city manager now. Mr. Claxton. His office is right up front.”

  Mr. Claxton turned out to be Max Claxton. He had worked at the bank the last I remembered, and was a good-natured man who probably had a mind like a steel trap when it came to money. He seemed to be quite pleased to see me.

  “Josh Miller called and said you’d be coming to our meeting,” he said, “And that’s just grand. Now I won’t even ask you about that terrible business with Miss Merkle,” he said. “I’m sure you’re tired of talking about it. Here, have a seat.”

  “Thank you,” I said, relieved.

  He was true to his word. He didn’t ask me a thing. He proceeded to share his own thoughts, instead.

  “It just boggles my mind,” he said. “How on earth did she wind up there? I don’t believe for a moment that the Dabney boy did it. You know I was his Scout leader, and he was almost an Eagle Scout. He’s been going over fool’s hill the last few years, but there’s not a mean bone in his body, and he’ll get back on track. Personally, if he were mine, I’d make him join the army. It might not be what he wants, but he’d learn soon enough, and the truth is that if you don’t control yourself, somebody else is going to wind up controlling you.”

  I nodded and said something vague about its all working out.

  “That’s what I told Dave and Doris,” he said. “You know Dave is one of our councilmen. Of course, they’re very upset about his being arrested, but our new police chief is a professional, and I’m not getting in the middle of that. Now tell me how I can help you.”

  One thing I know from doing many interviews is that most people enjoy being asked even the dumbest questions about things they know a lot about. I spent an hour with City Manager Max Claxton and left understanding how the city manager form of government worked and what was coming up at the meeting that evening.

  I even learned that the City Manager considered Mayor Rosa Lee Hill to be a “Splendid Ceremonial Mayor,” always available for special events like ribbon cuttings and award ceremonies, so good with words and so gracious to all citizens attending meetings.

  I also now had a list of the council members, a written agenda for the meeting, and a promise that my e-mail address would be added to the list for all notices.

  “What’s this work session before the meeting?” I asked.

  “Oh, that’s when we talk informally about the issues involved at the meeting and hear from the department heads,” he said. “We don’t vote on anything, though. Josh hasn’t usually come to that.”

  “I’d like to come,” I said. “I’m really new to this, and I think that would help.”

  “Of course, of course!” he said. “We are all about transparency and open meetings.”

  I called Kylie when I was back in my car, and said, “There’s something I have to tell you. I’ve bought a sofa and a chair.”

  “I just knew you would,” she said with a sigh. “That’s great if it makes you happy. What color?”

  “Light blue and they’re going to deliver it around two if you want to come and see.”

  “I do!” she said. “And guess who just called Mom! Doris Dabney! You know they’re in the same Sunday School class, and she called saying she wanted to check on me, She said she had been in such a state of shock over Miss Merkle’s being in the sofa that she wasn’t thinking straight, and now she had heard I fainted and all that.”

  “Well, that was nice of her, considering…” I started.

  “I think she mainly wanted to let Mom let that David is out of jail,” Kylie said,” because that’s what she mainly talked about. She told Mom that David didn’t have a thing to do with it and that Shelton Squires had just done a wonderful job representing him. Anyway, it seems that one of his friends showed up and confirmed that David had gone into the house after the party broke up and had been there all night.”

  “That’s funny,” I said. “Why didn’t the friend show up sooner? Was it a girlfriend or a guy friend?”

  “Definitely a girl,” Kylie said. “The way Doris told it was that David was being a gentleman and not telling them she was there in the house with him even though he put himself at risk of being charged with a terrible crime. He’s quite the knight in shining armor.”

  “Do you believe that?” I asked.

  “No!” she said. “Neither does mom, but whoever the girl was, Daniel must have believed her.”

  I drove home wondering what this meant for the investigation

  At home, I went to my computer and started thinking about the mystery of Meredith Merkle’s death.

  I began writing down everything I knew about it, and almost everything I wrote down led to a question or two questions, but it all came back to the same one.

  If it wasn’t David Dabney, who did it?

  Who killed Meredith Merkle and then transported her body at midnight or later to the Dabneys’ property, where they presumably saw the open sofa bed, dumped her on it, forced it shut, replaced the cushions, and put boxes on the cushions?

  Why go to all that much trouble and risk being seen in somebody else’s garage? Why not just leave the body lying in the grass somewhere? Why not drop it in the river?

  And where on earth was Meredith Merkle going in her yellow pants suit? Was she going to meet her killer?

  If it wasn’t David, was this person seeking revenge against the Dabneys or was it somebody else with a grudge against Meredith Merkle—someone seeking to avoid suspicion?

  And did the young woman who gave David Dabney an all-night alibi really tell the truth? I thought she must have been persuasive if Daniel O’Reilly believed her.

  And finally, whatever reason Doris Dabney gave for calling Darlene, I could sense that she was doing damage control, trying to spread the word quickly that her boy was out of jail and had only spent the night there because of his gallantry.

  I saved my notes in a folder called Merkle Murder. Then I went to clear away the clutter in the living room and make it ready for my beautiful new sofa and chair.

  Chapter 9

  Have you ever bought something that just made you happy? After the movers brought my new sofa and chair in, I couldn’t stop looking at them and smiling. I flopped down on the sofa, which was honestly more comfortable than my bed. I got up and tried the chair, which seemed perfect for curling up to read. I went back to the sofa. Then I got up and viewed the room.

  The sofa was right under my painting of the Tybee Island lighthouse, which had that same blue in the sky.

  Kylie arrived with two big plastic bags full of throw pillows (I think she sews things like that in her sleep), and we
tried them out and decided on just two for the sofa in a bold pattern with some white, some yellow, and just the right color of blue.

  Then she found a blue one for the rocking chair.

  “This furniture is really nice,” she conceded. “This is beginning to look like it’s Kate’s place. Now, you need are a coffee table and an area rug, and we’ll look for those on Saturday.”

  “I need more bookcases, too,” I said. “And a standing lamp.”

  “Now, you’re thinking!” she said.

  “So,” I said, “Have a seat on my lovely sofa, and tell me what you’ve been up to. I feel like we’ve either been talking about me or my furniture or Miss Merkle ever since I got here.”

  “Well, I’ve got more orders for my pajama pants,” she said, “but I you know I’m co-chairing the Flood Festival again this year, and it looks like that’s going to take a lot more time than it did last year so I may need to stop promoting the pajamas for a while. ”

  “Why?” I asked. “Is it going to be that much bigger?”

  “It’s not so much that,” she said, kicking off her sandals and stretching out on the sofa. “It’s more that last year I co-chaired with Tonnie Wilson, and she was a real go-getter. If she said she was going to do something, it was as good as done. Now she’s moved on to the Merchantsville Chamber of Commerce, and now we’ve got Sheena Queen of the Jungle…”

  “Who?” I asked, laughing.

  “Oh, that’s what Buddy calls her. I mean Sheena Latrelle, the new director of the Chamber. Well, they call her President, but it’s the same thing. She runs the office and everything. Wait until you see her. I think she cast a spell on the hiring committee. She’s sweet, and of course, she’s really pretty and dresses up from head to toe, but I think everybody’s beginning to realize that she just doesn’t get things done.”

  “So, you have to pick up the slack?” I asked.

  “Well, I would if she’d let go of it,” Kylie said with some exasperation. “But it’s like she’s holding onto it and not doing it. I know it’s still two months off, but last year at this time we had a lot more done.”