Fit To Be Dead (An Aggie Mundeen Mystery Book 1)

by Nancy G. West

  It was wonderful living next door to a pack rat. Grace dragged out boxes from the storage closet in the girls’ old bedroom. We’d started rifling through containers when the doorbell rang. Grace answered the door and returned with Elmore Moseley carrying an armload of books.

  “You know Elmore, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” I managed to smile. “We met out front one day.”

  “Hello, again. I thought I ought to bring these back, Grace, before I take any more.”

  She smiled lovingly at the old sneak while she retrieved books from the top of his pile. “Elmore loves science. He’s been enjoying the girls’ collection.”

  My blood started to boil. SAPD had encouraged the old snoop to dig through her daughters’ books? I wanted to throw them at him. It was smarter to see what titles he found so interesting: Basic Chemistry; Plants and their Properties; Chemical Compounds in the Workplace; Fabrics with Panache: The History and Components of Textiles....

  “You’re interested in science?” I smiled sweetly.

  “Yes. As a business major, I studied only basic science. Now I’m satisfying my curiosity.”

  The old busybody.

  “We have more books in the closet,” Grace said.

  “I have enough for now. I’m reading their research papers. With Linda studying chemistry, and Kim studying textiles for interior design, I’m learning a lot. It’s a good thing they had the computer for writing papers.”

  “You have their computer?” I asked.

  “I never use it,” Grace said. “Elmore enjoys it, and I got the ugly machine out of this room.”

  I bet he enjoyed it, the meddlesome old coot.

  “Let’s think of something to do on Friday, maybe drive to the hill country.” He winked at Grace. “I’ll let myself out.”

  Cozy. Maybe Grace would get lucky and Elmore would tumble off a hill. The more I thought about Elmore’s invasion, his pawing through books and documents that belonged to Grace’s children, the madder I became at Sam.

  After he left, Grace and I resumed sifting through her keepsake garments. Her clothes were exactly what I needed. Even Charlie’s clunky boots fit me pretty well. The whole dowdy outfit was perfect.

  Grace attached Boffo’s leash, and he strained for the door.

  “I’m going to let him sniff around our yards before we take off. After I bring him back, I’ll take your clothes home and try them on, if it’s all right.”

  “Sure. That’s fine.”

  Grace was at the piano when we left. While she warmed up playing scales, I took Boffo around the outside of her backyard and took off his leash beside the fence. Just as I’d hoped, he wriggled under her fence and dug into his escape hole. Grace, oblivious to us, sang joyously.

  When he burrowed into his cavity, I heard a varmint squeal. Grace was right: a rat lived in the underground hole. I scratched open the outlet in my yard and heard Boffo chasing the critter toward me through the tunnel. Poised at my end of the passage with a doggie treat, I leaned over the exit hole so my voice would carry inside.

  “Addison alert. Addison alert,” I called. The earthdog article said to repeat the same phrase to train the dog.

  When the rat surfaced, I dropped the doggie treat. It almost hit Boffo on the head. He screeched to a halt, glanced at the escaping rat but went for the treat. He chomped and gazed at me lovingly while I re-attached his lease. We were bonding.

  From there, the mutt and I sprinted to the front curb where he peed on my bush near the street. I used the opportunity to give him another treat and lengthen his leash. Then I ran him back toward the house where I’d stationed Addison in his cage, just outside my front door. Boffo sniffed and pointed his ears. He had spotted the quarry.

  “Addison alert,” I chirped.

  Addison twitched, and Boffo lunged. When his nose was about four inches from Addison’s cage, I yanked Boffo’s leash taut. With his tongue hanging out, he sniffed and strained, circling his prey. The more he sniffed, the more excited he got. I gave his leash more slack. He barked louder, becoming more and more aggressive. Fortunately, Grace played and sang too loudly to hear him. Addison put his tiny feet over his eyes, balled up and rolled to the corner of his cage.

  With the rat immobilized, Boffo appeared to lose interest. I’d attached a rope to Addison’s cage and hidden it in the hedges, so I grabbed the end and gave the rope a yank to stir up Addison. “Addison alert. Addison alert.”

  When Addison rolled across the cage, Boffo went wild. I tightened his leash to keep him from biting the cage. When I yanked the rope again, Boffo strained harder against the leash and made frantic digging motions on my concrete porch. I let him bite the cage a couple of times, hoping Addison wouldn’t die from fright. When I thought Boffo’s feet might be getting a little sore from scraping cement, I tossed him a tidbit to distract him from the cage and pulled his leash toward the west side of my house. He bounded toward me. The pooch was getting the idea.

  We charged around my house toward the back. When we stopped, he gazed at me, probably expecting another treat. I tossed him a stuffed mouse I’d purchased as a roommate for Addison. Boffo growled with glee, shook it, bit it a thousand times and wrestled the imposter to the ground. When he paused, panting, I flipped him another chewy morsel. He bathed me with grateful eyes. When I reached down to pet him, he rolled over so I could scratch his stomach. He had expended his aggressive behavior. Perfect.

  I led him back to the street. We strolled down Burr Road at a respectable pace while I fumed over Elmore Moseley’s sniffing through property that belonged to Grace’s children.

  After attacking, eating and running, Boffo panted hard. Every ten or twelve feet, he flipped around and lunged for my feet, but having nearly captured real prey, his heart wasn’t in it. When I yanked his collar and chastised him, he resumed walking like a normal dog. By the time we got back to Grace’s house, Boffo had logged in a month’s worth of exercise.

  “He might be pretty tired,” I told Grace.

  “It’s good for him.” When she gave him a dog cookie, I failed to mention he’d already consumed a handful. He burped and plopped in the corner.

  Grace handed me her vintage clothes. “I loved playing the piano without Boffo jumping up and down, howling at me. Take him anytime you’re going for a walk.”

  “Okay.” I’d already planned to extend Boffo’s exercise program. “By the way, I almost forgot. I hear there’s a fabulous 8:00 a.m. breakfast concert at the Sunken Garden Theater in Brackenridge Park tomorrow morning. I can’t go, but you and Elmore might enjoy it.”

  “We’re both early risers. I’ll give him a call. It’s my turn to pay for something.”

  Thirty-Two

  After romping with Boffo, I nourished myself with leftovers from the fridge. I brought Addison’s cage inside and gave him water and a few treats. After I showered and flexed my arms in front of the mirror to check my tumors, I tried on Grace’s clothes to make sure they fit.

  While Meredith pondered whether to go to the club on Friday, I had to spend Thursday afternoon with Dr. Carmody at University of the Holy Trinity. When it was almost time for class, I dressed in a cotton sweater and faded jeans to look like a student, while I tried to remember what I’d read about exercise and aging.

  I drove to the university and slid quietly to my seat. My mind was so full of plans, I didn’t intend to contribute much to the discussion.

  Carmody launched into the benefits of exercise. It was difficult to endure his proclamations with him in such lousy shape. My silence seemed to make him uneasy. Every now and then, he glared at me, probably expecting an interruption. Although stress and loathing emanated from his beady eyes, he was apparently resigned to endure me. He didn’t have grounds to expel me. His satisfaction would come at the end of the semester when he’d try to issue me the lowest grade possible.

  He blabbed about muscle mass: “Without exercise, muscle mass declines twenty-two percent between ages thirty and seventy.” I calcul
ated that my puny biceps had already shrunk five and a half percent. If I made it to age seventy, without exercise I’d resemble spaghetti.

  Carmody didn’t look like he had any muscles. Soft and pliable, he appeared to be composed of tendons covered with rubber. My classmates gazed out the window.

  “Exercise,” he droned, “prevents losing muscle mass. Tufton University conducted a study where ninety-year-old residents of Nebraska’s Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the Aged increased leg muscle strength by one hundred seventy-five percent and muscle size by nine percent after only eight weeks of weightlifting.” It appeared I’d have to return to Machine Mecca.

  Carmody said bone loss could be prevented by eating foods rich in Calcium and Vitamin D: dairy products, dark green, leafy vegetables, salmon, which I loved, and tofu, which made me gag. Three students dozed.

  He quoted Getting Fit for Life, an article from the National Institute of Health: “Lack of physical activity and not eating the right foods, taken together, are the second greatest underlying cause of death in the United States. Smoking is number one.”

  That assumed no one succeeded in bumping you off at the health club.

  “Exercise helps older people feel better and enjoy life,” he announced. “No one is too old or too out of shape to be more active.” How could the bloated bird make that statement with a straight face?

  He shot me a warning glance and launched into statistics: “A National Long-Term Care Survey reports disability among older Americans declined dramatically from nineteen eighty-nine through nineteen ninety-six, and the percentage continues to fall. Moreover, two hundred thousand fewer people live in nursing homes.”

  That was good news. I didn’t want to escape being murdered at Fit and Firm just to register at the nursing home. He said many older people enjoyed a satisfying sex life, no matter their age. This combination of data reinforced my belief in a vitally important heath issue: Sam and I should get together.

  To wake up the class, Carmody made us read, What’s Your Aging IQ? and take a test. It was simplistic, but I learned a few things: the fastest growing segment of the American population, people over age eighty-five, was expected to grow five times larger within the next fifty years. The Census Bureau predicted that by 2050, more than a million people in the U.S. would be over a hundred. I could look forward to being one of the younger members at Fit and Firm.

  When Carmody repeated the obvious—keeping an active mind, eating well and staying physically active helped people remain alert—I could no longer remain silent. I knew I was on shaky ground, having endured only two weeks of the long spring semester.

  I felt compelled to quote my findings from a Yale University’s study: “If a person has passion...a cause, a purpose, that gets him or her up, out and going,” I said, “that person stays young.”

  “You go, girl!” a student bellowed. “Ahl right!” another shouted.

  One kid actually clapped.

  While Dr. Carmody smoldered, I stood and turned to acknowledge their enthusiasm. As a gesture of courtesy, I attempted to contain my glee. My test grades would be too good for him to fail me. Carmody and I were fated to tolerate each other through May.

  Age was teaching me patience. Nodding respectfully to my professor, I dashed out the door before the old curmudgeon exploded.

  Thirty-Three

  Having added Dr. Carmody to the growing list of people who’d like to see me dead, I hopped in my Wagoneer and drove off campus fast. My outburst was partially due to agitation about what I planned to do on Friday morning.

  On the drive home, I tried to recall details of what had happened before and after the gas attack. I couldn’t remember what preceded the chaos, except that I was pleased with the celebration, ready to shower and perturbed by the thin partitions protecting us from voyeurs. Once the gas erupted, I panicked and couldn’t remember anything except that I’d heard Harry bellow. I saw Mindy and Knobs, a few instructors, and Sam, Mickey, Ned and Sheldon before techs hurled me into the ambulance.

  When I arrived home, I threw my notebook from Dr. Carmody’s class on the sofa, grabbed my Big Chief tablet and thought about Mickey Shannon. I pictured him enjoying Holly’s delicate beauty contrasting with his masculinity. Consorting with Holly would accentuate his height, muscles and strength—everything he cherished. He wouldn’t like it if Holly jilted him, especially when she chose Ned Barclay over him. Mickey would assume he controlled their relationship. I thought about the note in her shoe. I couldn’t imagine Mickey writing he was “sorry to be possessive” or admitting that he “cared.”

  Mickey possessed a terrific ego, which was understandable since he was a drop-dead-gorgeous Irish-Greek god. But his ego would get tiresome. One could never seriously discuss anything, or disagree, or joke with him about his idiosyncrasies. His ego would block you like a concrete fullback. I doubted Holly really cared about that. She probably just got bored. When Ned came along, she found him an attractive new challenge.

  Women flocked around Mickey. I doubted he’d ever suffered rejection. He was probably the one who decided when a liaison ended. I doodled on the page. Could a jilted Mickey be a dangerous Mickey, furious enough to kill? I ripped off my doodle page to start a fresh sheet.

  Mickey Shannon

  Pros

  Hunk not used to rejection.

  Could not control Holly.

  Temper, temper.

  Cons

  If jailed as a murderer, has to give up women.

  I put down the tablet and realized I was getting hungry.

  Then I thought about Ned Barclay—dear, considerate, serious Ned. Sarah was probably right. Holly and Ned fell in love, and she became pregnant.

  That’s when she stopped going to the health club. It seemed to me Ned Barclay would love someone truly and consistently, forever. If Holly told Ned she was pregnant, he’d be overjoyed at the thought of their having a child. He’d want to marry her immediately to spare her embarrassment.

  What if Holly didn’t want to marry? Didn’t want to be a mother? Maybe she was having too good a time, dating all the available men and wondering who she’d missed. Her attitude would have hurt Ned terribly. He might plead with her. What if he became controlling and demanded she marry him and have his child?

  I thought about the note again: “Sorry to be possessive. I know you hate restrictions. It’s just that I care.” Those words sounded like something Ned would write.

  The memory of what Holly said came back to me. She told me the baby’s father had denied paternity. She thought DNA testing was useless because he was completely disinterested in fatherhood. That didn’t sound like Ned Barclay.

  I laid my tablet aside and tromped to the kitchen for a Coke. I popped popcorn in the microwave and put butter in a cup to melt.

  The other possibility was that Holly had lied. Her sweetness and vulnerability made me feel sorry for her—sorry enough to convince me she spoke the truth. What if she were merely a flake who played around, a girl who didn’t see any difference between men like Mickey, Sheldon, Ned, Pete or Harry Thorne because she didn’t really care? Suppose deep down, she hated all men, beginning with her father, Billy, and continuing through her conflict with Harry and Arnold. I poured butter over the popcorn, blended it in with both hands and licked my fingers.

  Suppose Ned pleaded with Holly, pushing her farther and farther away. I scooped popcorn into my mouth. Suppose she declared she’d never marry him. She’d give away their baby, and he’d never see his child. He might erupt. Pushed to the limit, Ned Barclay might, in a fit of anger and despair, run Holly over. I crunched popcorn, handful after handful, until the bowl was almost empty.

  Saving a few juicy kernels, I carried the bowl to the sofa, cleaned my fingers with a napkin and picked up my tablet. Had Ned flipped out? Did he try to kill me because I tried to help Holly? Did he discover, somehow, that I’d also given up my child? Ned’s hatred, like his sadness and embarrassment, ran very deep. I started writing:

&nbs
p; Ned Barclay

  Pros

  Loved Holly but she flew the coop.

  Holly gave up his baby.

  Devastated, he flipped out.

  Temper, temper.

  Cons

  Could he kill girl he loved?

  Too sensitive to commit murder?

  There was one sure way to find out who killed Holly and wanted me dead. I would confront the men with what I knew. If one of them was the killer, he’d make his move.

  I scrounged in the bowl for the last of the popcorn. Sam wouldn’t approve of my plan, but I didn’t intend to tell him about it. When the club opened Friday morning, the regulars would be there including Sheldon, Ned, Mickey and Pete.

  Mindy, Doorknobs, Patricia and Sarah might be there, too, although I couldn’t imagine a motive the women would have for killing Holly. I knew Mindy, Doorknobs and Patricia didn’t like me, and I could imagine Patricia Drexel giving me a shove down the stairs. It was harder to picture her as a murderer.

  Harry Thorne would definitely be at the club. The other men would probably arrive early on Friday since they hadn’t been able to exercise for days.

  Sam said Harry had placed newspaper ads to reassure current and prospective members that Fit and Firm had reopened and was better than before. I’d have to confront the suspects before Sam showed up.

  I finished the popcorn and carried my bowl to the kitchen. With the club offering discounts to the first people who signed up, the facility would be bustling with activity Friday. That would make my job easier.

  Thirty-Four

  By 8:00 a.m. Friday, I’d packed my satchel, a larger version of the gym bag I’d used to pilfer toiletries. Still in my nightclothes, I scurried to the hedges near the street, hid the bag and scooted back to my house. My Garfield sleep shirt fell six inches above my knees. I ruffled up my black hair until I looked thoroughly frowzy and waited for Sam’s police officer snitch to cruise by. Before long, he came creeping along my curb in his patrol car, squinting at my bungalow like he was casing a nest of Columbian drug lords.