The minute I stepped along the slim path to the front entry, the tangy scent of pine trees and pungent swamp water activated my sinuses, making me sniffle. No one had planted flowers or shrubs to add a feeling of life to the grass out front. No music or noise came from inside. Drapes were shut.
“Can’t tell if anyone’s home,” Eve said.
I rang the doorbell. Maybe Daria was in her house. Possibly not alone. I shoved the bell once again. No sound or ruffled curtains. In case the bell didn’t work, I pounded on the door. We waited. Not even the whisper of a footstep.
“Let’s check the windows,” I said.
Eve followed to the left. A picture window in front of the house may have led to a den, but the drapes remained tight. Other windows with closed curtains would probably lead to bathrooms and bedrooms.
“Maybe we should go home,” Eve said. “We really shouldn’t intrude.”
Was she thinking this recently-widowed woman might really be in a sexual situation?
“But she might have killed him.”
Eve wrinkled reddish-brown eyebrows and shook her head. Still, she didn’t look certain. We’d both always enjoyed adventure with a little anxiety added to the mix.
A thicket of wild swamp vines and hackberry and cypress trees hemmed in the backyard, enclosing the large pond twenty feet behind the house that took Zane Snelling’s life. I felt a tug at my heart while I stared at the brown water where two geese decoys floated, knowing a man died in its depths. If Zane and his wife lived here almost three years, why would he fall into the pond this week, when no one was near? She supposedly shopped at the mall forty miles away, returned, and found him floating face down.
“Nice job with the pavers.” I nodded to the left of the pond. “Sorry I couldn’t finish them with you.”
“When you had achy joints and high fever?”
I shrugged. We’d dug the grass from that space and laid sand and crushed stone. I’d been using a pipe to screed the sand when chills and a hundred-and-two-degree fever struck. She sent me home. Eve returned the next morning while I shivered in bed, waiting for pain relievers to make my body feel half normal. My flu lasted six days.
“Those red-charcoal pavers were a good choice.”
“I think it came out all right. Except he fell right there.” The skin outside Eve’s eyes crinkled, and her eyes misted. She looked ready to cry, which I never ever would do again. She stared at the hard knees of the cypress trees that grew beside the seating area we created. Smooth ground around it sloped to the water.
I gripped her hand. “You told him a clearer spot would be better. He wanted it right there. It wasn’t your fault. Or mine.”
She turned her head away as though unable to stand seeing where he died any longer. “Look, a light’s on in the house.”
I moved close and peeked in a window. The refrigerator and square table with four chairs sat inside a brightly-lit kitchen.
“She could have gone out and left a light on,” Eve said, a sad touch of guilt remaining in her eye.
“You want an excuse to leave.” Seeing the site where he died surely made her uncomfortable, as it did me. “The woman might have killed her husband, who was your friend. Let’s just check,” I whispered.
“But suppose she did kill him. She could kill us.”
“She wouldn’t have a reason to. We won’t say anything that would let her know we considered she might be a killer. The police can check that. I just want to give her what’s rightfully hers.” I tapped my pocket. “The final remains of her husband.”
Eve shook her head. “But what if she had the urn buried? What’s she supposed to do with those other parts of him? Sprinkle them around his grave?”
“That will be up to her.” I rushed to the backdoor and rang the bell. We waited and looked at each other. Nobody answered. A small stack of leftover pavers stood near the door. I rang the bell again, knocked, and tried the knob. The door opened.
“Bells Will Be Ringing” ripped up my throat.
“What’s wrong?” Eve rushed behind.
The mistress of the house was right inside, blood covering her floor and head.
Chapter 4
Daria’s open eyes stared. She didn’t flinch or do a thing but lie still.
“Get away from here.” Eve held her phone to her ear and shoved against my arm. “The 9-1-1 woman can’t hear me with you singing so loud.”
Sucking in breaths, I stomped from the door and slunk around the water, struggling to squelch my violent trembles. The bloody body of the woman lying inside the doorway tried to jerk me back to the most horrible day when my life violently changed. Shaky, soft lyrics spewed from my throat.
I tried to stop thinking of death and blocked out approaching sirens. I stepped across the pavers Eve had laid near the pond, lowered myself to the oak bench Zane had probably bought from a craftsman, and submerged myself in right now.
Even if the pavers occupied a fairly large area, two people wouldn’t fit on his bench. He’d told Eve he wanted this space to sit alone and drink beer. No shed, no barn, barbecue pit, or table back here. If he worked for an oilfield company, his job might have kept him inside. Most southerners enjoyed their yards, especially those with ponds, and stocked them with fish. No small swirl indicated bream or bass near the surface. No tiny head of a turtle poking up, either. The geese on the water turned with the strong breeze that pushed against my back as it swept in from the east. Long strings of algae snagged small branches along the water’s edge. Some tendrils may have captured Zane Snelling after he fell in.
What surprised me were tiny green balls growing on tips of some of the cypress branches. I’d never noticed them on cypresses before. Standing, I broke the end of a small branch. I sat again and forced my mind to study it. A slight pleasant bark scent. Pale green feathery leaves. Ridged balls that could decorate a little Christmas tree.
Sound forced itself to my mind. Sirens stopped blaring, letting a mourning dove’s coo touch the air. A car door slammed, keys jangled, and what may have been a leather holster slapped a runner’s legs. This young man in uniform flashed a badge at me. “I’m Officer Legendre. You called about a possible homicide?”
I pointed to the door. He dashed there, looked at Eve and back at me, his face registering that we are identical. His attention riveted on Daria, lying right inside her kitchen door.
“You found her like this?” he asked Eve.
“We did. This is awful.” Eve stepped away to let him do his business. She came and stood next to me, clutching my hand. “You okay?”
“No.”
She squeezed onto the seat beside me, snaked an arm around my shoulder, and held tight.
More sirens came. They silenced, and people with and without uniforms rushed near, glanced at us, seemed to decide we weren’t threats, and dashed toward the mistress of the house.
An older cop with lips most women would kill for walked toward us. His tree-trunk legs stepped so firmly his shoes sank into grass, slowing him. I’d seen him in town. Read his name in the paper.
“I’m Detective Wilet with the Landry Parish Sheriff’s Department.” He showed his I.D. and whipped out a pen and pad. “And you are?”
“Sunny Taylor,” I said.
“You can see that I’m her twin. Eve Vaughn.”
“Yvonne