“Let’s check online to see if Royce owns that property now. If he does, and he can hurry and sell it and move, that would be wonderful.” The thought of that happening anytime soon wasn’t realistic but gave me great hope that we wouldn’t need to be apprehensive with him so near. We hurried to the office down the hall, and she sat at her computer. She did a search on various sites that told who owned property in town. All of them showed Mrs. Clara Wilburn as the sole owner of the land next door.
“Did you ever know of a Mr. Wilburn?” I asked.
“No. I’ve gotten a few pieces of her mail, and all of them said Mrs. Clara Wilburn or Clara Wilburn.”
“Nothing for Royce?”
“Not even one bill.”
I pointed to listings on her computer. “And none of these sites show Royce or any other children she might have as co-owners of the property, so Royce might need to wait until a will is read or a succession is open that would pass the land down to him. Or his siblings, if he has any.”
“Darn it.” Eve’s face pinched up.
I ran my mind through various scenarios. “She’s probably listed in the obituaries today. That should tell us about any other children and also about her services. I’d like to go.”
“Me, too. We need to pay our respects to her.”
“We do.” An ache sat in my heart for this mother dying. And she was murdered and stuffed in a trash bag. I couldn’t imagine how horrible that would make her child feel.
Eve checked the online edition of our small local paper. The obituaries showed four people, none of them her and, thank goodness, nobody else that I knew. Eve turned off her computer and lifted her cell phone. Maybe she was calling a person who would know something about Mrs. Wilburn. “We need to see how Dave is doing.”
Yes, I wanted to know.
“Hello, this is Eve Vaughn. Is Dave there?”
I watched, heart racing, while she waited and then spoke.
“How are you? Sunny and I are worried about you.” She listened briefly, took steps away, turning her back on me, said a few soft words, and hung up. “The police told him he’s under suspicion.”
My heartbeat jumped a notch. “Where is he?”
“He’s at work and really busy, trying to keep up with jobs and focus on them.”
“But he’s innocent, so they can’t prove he did anything.”
“Right.” She placed her hands on the desk and pushed herself up. “Okay, I need to get my head on straight so I can think about trying to discover a killer.” She looked at me. “We need to help find him, right?”
“Of course. Mrs. Wilburn was dumped at Dave’s camp. She lived close to you. We were there and found her. The police are surely looking into what happened and probably getting a heck of a lot more information than we could, but we can’t just sit back and do nothing about finding who actually did it.”
Eve nodded, eyes hooded, face sad. “What can we do?”
I wasn’t sure. “Don’t you have line dance classes this morning? You could clear your mind there and might find out some things.”
“I quit going to them.” She walked toward her art room. In her state, she probably would paint. The color she’d use would not be a bright one.
“I’ll let myself out,” I called. “And maybe you’ll come up with ideas while you’re being creative.” Before I stuck my head through the back doorway, I found myself pulling back. A carol grabbed at my throat, but I willed it to stay there. I anticipated that Royce could be standing right outside, hammer above his head, ready to slam it down on either of us who stepped out.
I peeked out and found no sign of him, locked the door from inside, and slipped out. This is no way to live, I told myself walking toward home. We, or more hopefully the police, would find the killer soon so that all of our lives could get back to normal.
A splash came from beyond the wooden fence on the right, followed by a woman’s giddy laughter. The couple who’d moved in back there barely looked twenty years old. The woman must be enjoying a cool dip in their pool. That couple had surely been questioned about Mrs. Wilburn, but I doubted they or any other neighbors knew much about her. I wondered whether anyone did.
Mrs. Hawthorne, my friend and former customer from Fancy Ladies, was normally working with flowers in her front yard two doors down from me but wasn’t out there today, so I would wait to question her about the death.
Making a decision about what I might do, I jumped in my truck and drove to the only funeral home in town. A one-story gray brick, it provided much parking space that I was pleased to see only partially filled. I hoped the only people inside worked there and weren’t in mourning and wanting to inquire about their services. Possibly I would find Royce and a sibling inside making arrangements for his mother’s funeral. Oh, but maybe that wouldn’t work well. If he was there, he might yell at me and accuse me again of killing her.
That consideration made me pause. Perhaps I shouldn’t go in.
I glanced back at the parked cars but didn’t see Mrs. Wilburn’s sedan. Maybe she would already be laid out. If so, I might learn more from someone who worked there. I pulled the door open and walked inside.
No one was in the wide foyer. The straight lines that crossed each other in the low-pile tan carpet let me know it was newly vacuumed. A fresh mint scent hinted that air freshener covered up the cloying smell of the many funeral flowers often displayed here on coffins. A paisley-print sofa and pair of chairs with matching prints waited for visitors to sit on them. The podium that normally held prayer cards and an open book for the deceased’s visitors to sign held only a long white pen in a white holder.
The doors to the office I had been in once and also Viewing Room Two at the far end of the hall were shut. The door to the largest viewing room was left open. Perhaps they were setting up Eve’s neighbor’s casket in there.
I walked to the room, peeked in, and was disappointed to find no person or casket.
A hand laid on my shoulder made me jump. “May I help you?”
I turned to find a man wearing a gray suit with a sad expression that he probably always wore when a person entered his business. That expression quickly turned to annoyance. His lips and chin tightened. His eyes pinched closer together. I imagined, “Oh, it’s you” ready to blast from his mouth when he saw me. What assuredly stopped him was an awareness that I might have a newly deceased that I wanted to have displayed here.
“Hello, Toby.” I put my hand out to this undertaker who I’d had a run-in with.
He gripped my hand and placed his opposite hand on top of mine. Surely he did this with potential clients and not people like me who only wanted some information he wasn’t always happy to give.
“I don’t have a body to bury.” The minute I said it, I squeezed my mouth shut. The words I’d used came out so wrong.
His hands pulled away. “But,” he said, “you wanted to know more about burial vessels?” He drew his shoulders back. Veins in his neck stood out.
Yes, I had once come to ask him about adhesives for urns, which he didn’t seem to appreciate. But now when I shook my head, Toby’s shoulders relaxed. “I’d like to know if you have someone here who isn’t laid out yet.”
His jaw muscles worked and tightened. “You can check the newspaper to find out anything you want to know about deceased locals.”
“Okay, here’s what happened. I know someone from town who died yesterday, and I haven’t seen her death listed yet.”
He watched me and waited instead of filling