Better Off Read

by Nora Page

  “Receptions and wakes are often festive affairs,” Cleo said, feeling she should stick up for Mary-Rose, despite feeling a similar unease.

  “Yes,” Dot agreed. “But celebrating’s appropriate when remembering a loved one and good times, knowing they’re on to a better place.”

  A few of the ladies said, “Amen” and glanced nervously toward Krandall House. From where they stood, Cleo could see a bit of mossy white pillar through the chopped cypress trees.

  One of the women turned away. “How Mary-Rose must have dreaded that man, lurking up there, always looking. It’s no wonder…”

  Cleo didn’t like the insinuation. “Yes, it’s no wonder Mary-Rose got those lovely peacocks. Mr. Krandall had a touch of ornithophobia, so he never came down here. Mary-Rose had the situation under control. Such an easy, peaceable solution. That’s Mary-Rose’s way.”

  A cheer and clapping arose over by the band.

  Dot and her friends looked rightfully doubtful. “It hardly seems under control,” Dot said. “A killer roving free. Missing persons. And Cleo, we heard you were attacked in your own backyard. Are you all right? Why didn’t you call me right away? What is Catalpa Springs coming to?”

  Cleo repeated she was fine. Henry suggested a stroll around the spring.

  “It’ll be quieter,” he said after they were away. They walked to the far side of the natural swimming pool and rested on a swinging bench with a view of the mill and party. Beast snouted in the weeds a few yards away, and little Zoe was making her way toward them in a dizzying string of cartwheels.

  “This is a good spot. We can see everyone and who they’re interacting with,” Cleo said. She’d come prepared for such a view. She extracted a small pair of birding binoculars from her purse. She didn’t need them to see who was who across the spring, but she liked to read expressions.

  “Whatcha looking for?” Zoe asked, skipping over, face flushed.

  Cleo answered with what they could be doing. “We’re watching for wildlife. Egrets, ibis, turtles.”

  “And wolves in sheep’s clothing,” Henry said.

  Zoe plunked down between them, sending the bench swinging. “Ooh … I know where one of those is. Want to see?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Cleo and Henry exchanged a look over Zoe’s red curls. Zoe might know something. Or she might be caught up in imagination, the realms of reading and fantasy. Zoe had spent her final year of preschool pretending she was a fire-breathing triceratops who danced ballet and commanded an army of alligators. Zoe’s mom—Mary-Rose’s tightly buttoned daughter-in-law—worried whether triceratops could be admitted to kindergarten. Fortunately, the public school and library were happy to encourage both dinosaurs and dancing. In other periods, Zoe claimed personal access to magical doorways to Narnia and Hogwarts and King Arthur’s court and other faraway lands, like Antarctica, Mumbai, and San Francisco.

  “Ah,” Cleo said. “So you know of one, do you? What kind of wolf is this?”

  “Secret kind,” Zoe declared, kicking up purple sneakers with flashing lights in their soles.

  Like secretive grandmother, like granddaughter, Cleo thought, ready to write the wolf off as a fantasy.

  Cleo kicked up her feet too, enjoying the sway of the bench. She checked the crowd across the water. Dot and her friends were tidying the buffet tables. Desiree, the waitress, was manning the pie table. Kat stood on a makeshift crate/podium, holding a microphone, her voice carrying. She requested “memories of Buford. Bad preferred. Good if you have ’em.” Gabby hovered intently in a shady corner. Kat handed the microphone over to the florist, who launched into a nice story about how much Buford loved flowers. “Irises, especially. But do you know what he loved the most? Prying! Let me tell you about the time I caught him in the dumpster behind City Hall.”

  The tale carried on amidst cheers and laughter. Glasses were raised heavenward and more drinks poured. Vernon Givens, bless him, got up next and launched into a more proper eulogy, remembering Buford as a good man of “strong character.”

  “Strong bad character!” yelled a heckler, sounding an awful lot like Maybelle. More toasts were raised.

  “So? Don’t you want to see?” Zoe asked, vexed. “The wolf? He wears a sweater.”

  Henry and Cleo again conferred silently over Zoe’s head.

  “Of course,” Henry said. “We’d love to see. As long as this wolf isn’t too far away.”

  “It’s close. No one else knows.” Zoe hopped up, bouncing on her flashing shoes, anxious for Henry and Cleo to catch up. “I’ll go ahead and see if the wolf wants visitors.”

  “What do you think it is?” Henry said, mustache twitching over a smile. “An odd-shaped tree? A dog?”

  “Invisible?” Cleo guessed with a grin of her own. She wouldn’t mind if Zoe’s discovery was make-believe. It felt like a small adventure to go into the woods. Zoe was leading them toward the not-so-secret trail that ran behind Krandall House. Generations ago, the trail had been a gravel road, connected to the Tallgrass River and flat-bottomed barges laden with sugar cane for the mill. The last time Cleo had hiked the trail—more years ago than she wanted to count—vegetation had overgrown all but a thin sliver of chalky limestone gravel.

  The forest was so dark that Cleo had to remove her sunglasses. Ducking under a web of vines, she recalled her grandmother’s tales of ghosts and spirits, particularly those that lingered after a “bad death.” Granny Bess didn’t necessarily believe in ghosts, but that didn’t stop her from telling a good tale or scaring her listeners. There were always signs in her grandmother’s stories. Omens. Cleo looked up and spotted one. High in a tree, a lone buzzard stared down at them. A single buzzard was bad luck in Granny Bess’s stories, unless it flapped its wings—then it was good luck. Cleo stopped and waited, feeling silly but needing to know which way the buzzard would say.

  “Come on!” Zoe’s voice called, breaking the spell. The warty-headed bird lifted its wings and soared. Cleo couldn’t recall if soaring counted as flapping. She reminded herself she didn’t believe in ghosts or prophesies by birds.

  “We’re right behind you,” Henry said. He looked back to Cleo with concern. “Everything okay?”

  “Just bird-watching,” she said, truthfully.

  When they caught up with Zoe, she waved her hands like a game show hostess. “Ta-da!”

  What she was showing them was real, but not alive: a life-sized dog carved from stone and dressed in a faded, ragged sweater. Whirligigs on sticks were stuck all around, unmoving in the breezeless heat. It took Cleo a moment to get her bearings. She realized they were behind the Krandall family cemetery, with Buford’s backyard, drill, and vine-smothered home beyond.

  “I’ve never seen this before,” Cleo said. “You did find a secret place.”

  Henry was rubbing his beard and looking as if a bad omen had crossed his path. “I think it’s”—he lowered his voice and leaned toward Cleo—“a grave.”

  Cleo read the inscription on the stone pedestal. The date was about ten years back. “Buford used to have a massive shepherd dog,” she recalled. The dog was a mix of some kind, with weird yellowish eyes and the watchful, feral face of a wolf.

  “The wolf in wool clothes,” Zoe declared.

  “Good. Lovely. Great job,” Henry said briskly. “We should get back to the reception now.”

  Cleo smiled sympathetically. She couldn’t fault Henry for feeling unnerved when she’d gotten edgy about a common vulture. The place was eerie, but also touching. Buford had loved his pet. It was another thing she had in common with the man.

  “Yes, let’s get back,” Cleo said. “Zoe, let’s all of us promise we won’t come out here again. It’s not your grandparents’ property.”

  “Whose is it?” Zoe demanded.

  “Good question,” Henry said. “Maybe someone back at the party will know. Come along.” He started back down the trail toward the spring and mill.

  “Are you scared?” Zoe asked, catching up wit
h him.

  “Just eager to get back to that dessert table,” he said, his hearty joviality sounding strained. “How about we all get some of Miss Cleo’s lovely peach cobbler or caramel cake?”

  “Brownies,” Zoe said. “Chocolate cake and ice cream and pie and spinach dip with baby carrots and pretzels and…” She ran ahead.

  Henry turned to Cleo just before they reached the opening to the sunny gardens and sparkling waters of Pancake Spring. “That girl’s too perceptive. I did feel spooked. I can’t even say why now. It’s a lovely day, a pretty forest, nothing to worry—”

  His words were cut off by footsteps pounding down the trail. Cleo’s mind turned to Beast and Kat. Were they out here again? No, Kat was just at the microphone. Cleo stumbled quickly off the path. Henry did too. The sound of panting preceded the runner.

  Cleo realized with a start, it wasn’t the dog. It wasn’t a ghost either.

  Ollie might have sprinted straight past them if Cleo hadn’t called his name and reached out.

  “Gran!” He came to a breathless stop, his eyes wide and wild. “Gran. I have to get help. Don’t go to Krandall House. Get out of here!”

  “Ollie, Ollie, Ollie!” Zoe came running back, delighted to see her favorite honorary big brother.

  Ollie uttered an oath under his breath, scooped the little girl up, and ran, yelling for Cleo and Henry to follow.

  * * *

  “What’s going on?” Gabby Honeywell had an eye for trouble. She sprinted toward them, hand on a small strappy purse Cleo suspected held a gun. Henry and Zoe stood back by the trailhead. Ollie was pacing and gasping for air. In between, he was talking gibberish.

  “Dead!” he cried, ignoring Cleo’s attempts to soothe him. “No, no, no. She can’t be.”

  Cleo hurried to Zoe. “I have a very important job for you. Run back to the Pancake Mill and find your grandmother. Now, this is the most important part: you have to stay there with her, okay? Stay there.”

  The little girl was already running.

  Gabby had taken Ollie by the shoulders. For a second Cleo thought she might slap him. The dear boy was still talking in garbled outbursts. “The scarf. Too tight! I loosened it. I tried!” His words dissolved into moans. “Dead,” he said again, coldly clear this time. “Someone killed her.”

  “It’s okay,” Gabby said, her expression and voice admirably calm. “Ollie, take a breath. Who’s dead?”

  Cleo knew. In the ache in her hands and clench of her stomach, she knew before he said it. She and Henry had sensed something earlier, the bad feeling.

  “Whitney,” Ollie said, gulping back a sob. “By the drill. On the ground. I tried to help her. I tried CPR. I couldn’t feel her breath or her heart. That awful scarf was choking her.”

  Gabby procured a cell phone from her purse and called for help, waving her other hand high as she did. “No, Tookey, look to the northeast of the spring. The other side. Yes. Find the chief, call the EMTs, get them here fast. I have Oliver Watkins here. He’s saying he just found Whitney Greene. He says she’s deceased.”

  Within minutes, Tookey and the chief were chugging their way. So were most of the other guests. In the background, the band played on, a jaunty swing version of “Jailhouse Rock.”

  The chief ordered Gabby to hold back the gawkers. “You!” he said, pointing to Ollie. “You’re coming with us. Lead the way.” He turned to the crowd. “Any doctors in this party?”

  Three men identifying themselves as a pediatrician, a podiatrist, and a chiropractor, respectively, stepped up. Angela pushed through the crowd, followed by a fretful Fred. She positioned herself defensively in front of Ollie.

  “I’m his lawyer. He’s not going anywhere without me.” Her tone allowed no protest from the chief or from her husband. She firmly sent Fred to keep an eye on the twins, who were planning to go inner-tubing in the spring.

  Cleo watched as, one by one, the police, doctors, Ollie, and Angela pushed through the leaves and disappeared. Like a magic door, Cleo thought, but not to a nice place.

  Under Gabby’s stern direction, the crowd headed back to the Pancake Mill, with Kat adding encouragement of free drinks. The party organizer sounded shaken.

  A small, redheaded figure stayed behind. Zoe.

  “Are Ollie and the police going after the wolf?” Zoe asked. “I think it’s a good wolf. I don’t think it means any harm.”

  “I think you said you’d wait at the Pancake Mill,” Cleo said kindly, torn between concern for her honorary granddaughter and the grandson swallowed up by the forest.

  Zoe frowned. “You said to find Nana and make her stay by staying with her, only I couldn’t find her so I couldn’t make her stay, and everyone was running over here, and I thought if—”

  “You’re right,” Cleo said. “You did the right thing.” Cleo was worried about Mary-Rose too. Where was she? How had she missed the commotion? Cleo prayed that Mary-Rose hadn’t gone for a walk in the woods like Ollie, both for her safety and for how it might look. If Whitney’s death was another murder, Mary-Rose would be a prime suspect again. So would Ollie.

  “Why’s Ollie upset?” Zoe asked.

  Cleo thought fast. “He’s worried about a friend,” Cleo said. “Listen, I am too. I have another important job for you. Mr. Lafayette here needs a piece of pie. Could you help him?” She caught Henry’s eye and hoped he’d understand why she was sending him off.

  “I certainly do,” Henry said. “But which flavor? I’ll need your help choosing. Maybe we should each have a piece. Or two.”

  Zoe brightened. “Okay. There’s cherry and coconut and…” She skipped off, the list of flavors sailing along with her.

  Henry lingered a moment. “I’ll keep her safely inside and look for Mary-Rose too. But what are you planning?”

  Cleo raised her voice for Gabby to hear. “I think I dropped my keys back on that trail. Silly me—I’ll have to go back and look for them. Maybe Gabby will escort me.”

  “Oh,” Henry said knowingly.

  “Uh-huh,” Gabby said, her tone more skeptical. She joined them. “Keys, eh? Let me guess, Miss Cleo. You conveniently lost them somewhere with a view of the presumed crime? You want to go have a look.”

  Cleo didn’t want to look. She wanted to help, and she needed to know that Ollie was going to be okay. “We don’t know if it’s a crime yet,” Cleo pointed out. “If we took a little stroll, maybe we’d both know more.”

  “About your keys, right?” Gabby said.

  The band was playing, and the lyrics “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog” floated across the crowd, with Beast howling the refrain. The dancing, however, had dwindled. People clustered in groups, heads together. Cleo could practically feel the gossip and speculation vibrating in the air.

  Gabby shot another glance toward the trees. “Okay, I’m curious too. But we can’t get too close.”

  “If the chief spots us, you can say I sneaked in, and you were escorting me back,” Cleo said. They made their way up the trail to Zoe’s stone wolf. Cleo didn’t need her binoculars to see Ollie and Angela, sitting on Buford’s back steps, both staring at their feet.

  “See anything?” Gabby whispered. “I mean, those keys?”

  Cleo was almost relieved by what she couldn’t see. Whitney. Careful of vines and graves, Cleo picked her way to the edge of the Krandall family cemetery. She gasped. Behind the drill, she could see feet and legs and a cluster of people huddled around them. The broad, bent-over backsides of Tookey and the Chief blocked much of the prone body. That poor girl. Whatever Whitney was wrapped up in, whatever she’d done, she didn’t deserve this.

  The chief straightened, stretching his back and suspenders, turning their way. Gabby ducked behind a grave. Cleo backed into a palmetto.

  “Let’s go,” Gabby said. “This was a bad idea, Miss Cleo.”

  Gabby was right. They should leave. What had Cleo accomplished other than risking getting Gabby in trouble and feeling like an awful ghoul? Then Tookey moved, and
Cleo saw yellow. Bright yellow. A scarf, and a familiar one at that. She raised her binoculars to be sure.

  “Look at the scarf,” she said, handing Gabby the binoculars. “Ollie said it was too tight. He loosened it. It’s probably the murder weapon.”

  Cleo stepped back, tripping on what she thought was a root. Looking down, she realized she’d stepped on a gravestone, furry with moss. Her Granny Bess would have seen that as an omen too, definitely a bad one.

  Gabby was still staring through the binoculars. “If that is the murder weapon and Ollie messed with it, it’s not good for him.”

  Cleo focused on the scarf. “Will the chief and Tookey recognize that scarf? Do you?”

  “Looks like caution tape,” Gabby said. “Looks familiar—wait, is that…?”

  “It’s Priscilla Pawpaw’s signature scarf.” Cleo said. “She gives them out to promote her books.” Her books on murder. An idea took form. “Priscilla thought Buford was her biggest fan. What if she believed Whitney killed him? A revenge murder?”

  Gabby groaned.

  Cleo wanted to too. Chief Culpepper was striding toward Ollie, handcuffs swinging.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Catalpa Springs was going about its Monday-morning business. Birds sang, church bells announced the time, and residents were heading to work, opening shops, sweeping off doorways, and dissecting murders.

  The town looked the same, but Cleo sensed an edge. People were worried. So was she. Without her bookmobile or library to fill her schedule, Cleo had roused Rhett and headed to Dot’s Drop By for company and supplies. Their walk took them by the library, where they both stopped short. The sad scene was only getting worse. The lawn needed an industrial mower or a herd of weed-hungry goats. The blue roof tarp was askew, and a rude graffiti scrawl marred the already ugly plywood over the reading room window. Decay spreads quickly, Cleo thought. She sniffed and caught the whiff of skunk in the air. She was glad Rhett had on his harness.

  Rhett wasn’t happy. He pouted up at her. When he caught her eye, he promptly fell to the sidewalk.