A Body in the Backyard

Chapter One

Chapter One

Myrtle’s ancient yardman opened up the back door, not bothering to wipe his boots on the mat, and trampled through the kitchen and living room all the way to Myrtle’s front door.

Dusty was completely incompetent as a yardman, but this degree of sloppiness was a stretch, even for him. His wife, Puddin, was equally appalled. She was resentfully slapping a dust rag at Myrtle’s coffee table when she stopped and stared at the red mud tracking in behind her husband. “Hey!” she shouted. “I ain’t cleaning that up, Dusty! You get back here! You can clean up yer own messes.”

Dusty was reaching for the door handle when Myrtle bellowed, “Your shoes, Dusty! And, you haven’t finished the backyard yet! It still looks like a jungle back there.”

Dusty glared at Myrtle, and gave a mumbling mutter in response.

“I wish you wouldn’t use tobacco products on the job, Dusty. For one thing, it means you’ll die and then I’ll have to find myself yet another sorry yardman. For another, I can’t hear a word you say. It sounded like you said ‘dead body,’ for heaven’s sake.”

He scowled at her before carefully pushing the wad of chewing tobacco to the side with his tongue. “Dead body! In yer backyard. Getting Red.”

Dusty yanked open Myrtle’s front door and started loping across her gnome-filled front yard toward Red’s house. Red was Myrtle’s son, neighbor, and chief of police of the small town of Bradley, North Carolina. He was insufferable when it came to getting into Myrtle’s personal business and he wasn’t at all fond of Myrtle’s hobby of crime fighting.

Considering Dusty would have reported the crime in mere seconds, Myrtle had to act fast if she were to investigate this murder in her own backyard before being pushed out of the way.

Puddin was crossing herself, although Myrtle knew her to be a lifelong Baptist. Her white face was especially pasty after the shock of the body outside. She also seemed to be muttering something under her breath—possibly a strange variation of the Lord’s Prayer. She saw that Myrtle was on her way out to the body and hissed to her, “Close his eyes up, Miz Myrtle!”

“Why should I do that? I can’t interfere with the body, Puddin. Red will have my head on a silver platter if I do,” said Myrtle.

“If you don’t close them eyes, he’ll find somebody to take with him on his journey to the afterlife!”

“Puddin, I’m done with your nonsense today. I swear; I never know what foolishness is going to come out of your mouth next. Tell you what. Just for today, you can pour yourself a small drink from my fridge. That should help pull you together enough to finish my dusting. I’ve got stuff to do, okay?” Then Myrtle quickly popped into her backyard.

There, right in front of her azalea bushes and near her birdfeeder was the body. He looked to be a young man. Well, he was probably thirty-five or thirty-six. Was that considered young? It certainly seemed like it to octogenarian Myrtle. He was handsome in sort of a cheap-looking way, aside from the fact that part of his head was bashed in, which clearly was what put him in this predicament of being dead in Myrtle’s bushes.

Most vexingly, about a yard away from the young/youngish man, one of her favorite gnomes lay on his side with a chipped base. It was the Viking gnome with a fierce expression and a sword and who mysteriously held a pipe. Myrtle was certain that the Vikings didn’t smoke. But, the gnome had a lot of personality. Of course, now it was a murder weapon and would probably be taken away and studied. A bad day for the Viking gnome. She frowned. On closer inspection, it looked like the side the gnome had landed on might be cracked and broken. She sighed.

Were there any clues? She saw no footprints but Dusty’s. It looked as though her bushes had been trampled through. Had the murderer hid in the bushes, jumped out, and walloped the victim on the head?

Who on earth was this man?

On the plus side, he appeared to be scaring off the squirrels that kept raiding Myrtle’s feeder.

She jumped as a deep voice called out, “What have you done now, Mama?”

Red. She sniffed. “Not a blessed thing. Although you’d think that I wouldn’t find bodies in my backyard, with the chief of police living across the street. What’s the world coming to?”

Red studied the body. “This guy seems vaguely familiar looking. Can’t place him, though.” He sighed. “So what’s your relationship with him, Mama? He cheat you at Bingo? Call you Sugar? I know how you hate being called Sugar.”

“It’s inappropriate and disrespectful...disgraceful, really...for people to call senior citizens by pet names. And no, I don’t know who this fellow is,” said Myrtle.

“Looks like your gnome took him out,” said Red, nodding at the Viking. “Sure you didn’t have a grudge against the guy?”

“If I did, I sure wouldn’t have used my Viking to kill him. Nor broken it. He’s one of my favorites,” said Myrtle. “Isn’t he one of yours?”

Red said stiffly, “I try not to look at your gnomes, Mama.”

The garden gnomes made their appearance in Myrtle’s front and back yards when Red had done something to drive Myrtle up the wall. This was well known to all in the town of Bradley. Since he disliked the gnomes so much, and lived so close to Myrtle, dragging out a hundred of them was well worth the effort and always made her point perfectly clear. This time the gnomes were occupying her yard because of Red’s insistence that she consider using a walker. There was no need for a walker. Myrtle’s cane worked perfectly.

“Do you have any idea how long he’s been lying here?” asked Red, crouching down on his knees and peering at the body.

The fact that she hadn’t seen any of the drama when it took place in her backyard was giving Myrtle heartburn. “I didn’t notice him. Dusty was the one who found him.” It pained her to admit this.

“Do you think he might have been out in your yard since last night, even?” asked Red.

Myrtle reconstructed the evening. “Well, I was out in the backyard, feeding Pasha, right after it got dark. Maybe around nine o’clock. I don’t recollect seeing a body there then. But Pasha was acting funny. Hissing at shadows, fur up on her back, that kind of thing.”

“Considering Pasha is a feral animal, I’m guessing you didn’t put too much stock in that behavior,” said Red dryly.

“She’s a lovely cat, Red, but yes, sometimes she turns into a wild thing. I blame it on the moon cycles.”

“If that’s what you want to blame it on, Mama. Does the cat have all its shots? It looks like it wants to attack people all the time.”

“Her shots are completely current,” said Myrtle. She frowned. “Can we get back to the body? Have you contacted the state police about this?”

“I put a call out while I was walking over. Didn’t tell them the body was in my mother’s own yard.” Red ran a hand through the red hair that gave him his nickname. It seemed to be getting whiter each time Myrtle saw him. He tried to get back on track with his questioning. “So you didn’t see him on the ground when you fed Pasha.”

“But the cat was acting oddly then,” stressed Myrtle.

Red ignored her interjection. “And you didn’t notice him out the window when you got up this morning. How about the middle of the night? Did you have your usual insomnia last night?”

She had. She’d felt as if it was time to get up for the day in the middle of the night. And she’d gone for a walk down the street. Not that she was going to tell Red that. A stroll at two a.m. would likely mean a renewed campaign for the dreaded walker.

“I was awake last night so I should have heard something. Well, I guess there was a pretty long period of time when I decided to take a hot shower. Sometimes I like to do that to loosen up my muscles and clear my sinuses with the steam. Then after that, I was awake until three. I didn’t see anything, though,” said Myrtle.

There was a discreet, gentlemanly cough behind them and Red and Myrtle turned to see Myrtle’s neighbor, Miles. He looked from the body on the ground back to Red and Myrtle and gave an uncertain smile. “Is there some kind of trouble?”

Red sighed. “I’m just trying to ascertain if Mama finally flipped her lid and killed somebody just to have a crime to investigate. I’m not sure what lengths she’ll go to in order to prevent boredom.”

Myrtle gave him a repressive look. “I’d do no such thing.” She turned to Miles. “Dusty found a body in my yard this morning. We’re trying to figure out who he is, when he died and who was responsible.”

“If Dusty and Puddin are here with all this going on, that might explain why Puddin is in your front yard muttering to Pasha and holding a cross up in front of her,” said Miles dryly. “While swigging sherry, I might add.”

“Oh, Puddin thinks Pasha is a witch. Always utter foolishness from Puddin, you know,” said Myrtle. “I’d go rescue Pasha, but she can stand up for herself.” Pasha was ferocious if she didn’t like you.

Miles shivered. Pasha didn’t particularly like him, either.

Red said, “You don’t have any idea who this fellow is, do you, Miles? And did you notice anything strange last night?”

Miles walked closer, stepping gingerly on the grass as if to avoid tampering with clues. He stopped, leaned in, and then stood up straight. He turned back to Red and Myrtle. “That,” he said, removing his steel-framed glasses and wiping them, “is my cousin Charles.”