Nobody's Sorry You're Dead: A Hadley Pell Cozy Mystery

by Jeri Green

  Ruth instructed Hadley and Maury to put the food from the Spoon in the break room.

  “Thanks, gals,” Ruth said. “I really appreciate you thinking of me like that.”

  The two sisters jumped in to assist in the feeding frenzy going on around them. And what a menagerie, they fed: squirrels, baby foxes, smiling opossums, owls, raccoons, and box turtles. When they got to the snakes, Hadley held the volunteers spellbound with her tale of the rattler on the old settee in Eustian’s house.

  After all the animal, birds, and reptiles had eaten, Hadley, Maury, and Ruth went to the break room to chow down. The fare from the Spoon was delicious. Now, it was time for cleaning the beds, nests, and cages to maintain a good environment for healing and regaining strength. Everyone had put in a good day’s work.

  Walking back to the car, Maury noticed a ball of black and white fur half hidden in a brown paper lunch bag.

  “Oh no, Hadley,” she said. “Is that a kitten? I’ll bet it’s been abandoned. You know everyone around here knows about Ruth’s place here. It’s probably scared to death and has curled up in this bag to take a nap.”

  She bent down to pick up the animal. Its coat was black, irregularly spotted with white and totally irresistible. Suddenly, the creature unfolded itself, revealing a thick fluffy tail.

  “Yikes!” Hadley exclaimed as Maury clutched the bag in her hand. The kitten tumbled out of the bag and stood on its back legs, stamping its front feet rapidly up and down.

  Unlike her sister, Hadley knew what was coming. She started to run away.

  “Move, Maury!” Hadley yelled, but it was too late.

  An arching spray of yellow liquid streamed from the animal. Maury was in shock. She hadn’t moved a muscle, and she was in the direct line of fire. A strong rotten egg smell saturated her, and Maury started gagging.

  “Hadley, it’s a skunk!” Maury screamed. “How could something so cute smell so AWFUL!”

  “Well,” said Hadley, eyes tearing, “I don’t know. But you’ll survive. That much I can be sure of. On the other hand, I don’t know if the interior of my car will ever be the same. I’d force you to ride home in my trunk, but I don’t think it will make much difference. Get in. Let’s get you cleaned up before the health department condemns you, me, and this stinking car we’re riding around in!”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Bill’s face wore a dark scowl. His mood was even blacker. This whole mess was turning out to be one gigantic problem after another. As soon as the key was in his pocket, he’d gone out to Eustian’s and tried to search the place more thoroughly. It was hopeless.

  With all the junk Eustian had piled up inside that old farmhouse, it would take an army at least a year to do the job right. And here he was, Bill Whittaker, an army of one.

  Shoot, he thought, where should I start?

  He picked his way through the tiny path Eustian had left among the stacks of garbage to the kitchen. This was where he’d found the dead man. He walked over toward the table and looked at the spot where the old man’s body had lain. Something was bothering him. Something. If he could just get it to fester in his brain and come to a head, maybe he could figure out what it was.

  It had started out as a perfectly normal day and had only gone downhill from there.

  The morning Eustian failed to appear in court, Bill knew something was wrong. Bad wrong. He had a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t get them often, but when he did, they were usually right. He couldn’t explain it.

  Maury said when he felt that way it was the leftovers from last night’s supper. But that wasn’t it. It wasn’t gas. It felt more like a premonition.

  Bill had never known Eustian Singlepenny to miss a court date. Ever. The old man was obsessed with the legal system and having his day in court was akin to starring on network television. Eustian was always so pumped on those days, he arrived an hour before the courthouse was unlocked. But nobody had seen the old man, and he was scheduled to appear before Judge Marr in fifteen minutes. Bill made a quick check of the bathrooms and the lobby.

  Eustian was a no show. He had missed this morning’s hearing. That was the reason Bill was driving out to the Singlepenny place. The man was unpleasant and as ornery as the day was long. He was a major nuisance and a cranky goose. But he was old. Anything could have happened to him, and as sheriff, Bill felt it was his responsibility to make sure Eustian was all right. If he wasn’t, maybe the sheriff could get him some help. Get him to the hospital or the doctor’s office, if need be.

  He pulled up to the house and got out. The place was quiet. With all the no trespassing signs Eustian had nailed about the place, Bill expected the front to be bolted shut and locked. It was not.

  The sheriff entered the house. It was like walking right into the county dump. With all the trash Eustian had heaped to the ceiling, there was no use to lock the doors. What had he been doing all these years? It looked liked a pack rat on steroids in the old house. You could hardly move for all the old magazines, books, and just old junk piled high in every nook and cranny. Bill navigated the path Eustian had left in the center of the rooms, cramped, winding paths down the center of the rooms. He called out the old man’s name as he wandered throughout the maze of litter.

  He found the old man a few minutes into his search. Eustian was on the floor near the kitchen table. A single kitchen chair was resting on its side. Bill ran up to the still figure, but it was plain the old man was dead. He got in his car and radioed the office.

  “Call Finley Eubanks,” he ordered Myra, the secretary.

  Finley Eubanks was the Hope Rock County Coroner. Bill waited outside on the porch until Finley arrived.

  “He’s in the kitchen, Fin,” Bill said. “Be careful. It’s like a jungle of junk in there. I think Eustian’s been stockpiling every piece of trash he could find for the last fifty years. Just watch your step. I don’t need two bodies on my hands.”

  “I hear ya,” said Finley.

  They carefully made their way through the maze of debris. The two men stood in Eustian’s kitchen quietly talking.

  “It’s probably a heart attack,” Finley said.

  “He looks awful,” Bill said. “And he smells funny. Then again, this whole house stinks.”

  Finley bent down for a closer inspection of Eustian’s body.

  “I gotta admit,” Doc said, “I don’t smell much of anything, Bill, but my nose ain’t what it used to be. Old age, I think. But I can declare ’em dead. And that’s all this job requires.

  “I ain’t no doc. But in this office, you don’t have to be. Dead is dead. He ain’t breathin’. But he died out here alone and while a court case was pending. I don’t think it’s suspicious, but I’m only a county coroner. Just to be on the safe side, I’ll send him to Bowey Hill. We’ll let the medical examiner tell us for sure if it was the old guy’s ticker or something else.”

  “Yeah,” said Bill, “an ounce of prevention.”

  “Right. I don’t think this old coot is gonna have any kin or friends clammering for his body. He ain’t one of the ones I’d be likely to think was on the roster of saintly and good souls. Eustian probably has more enemies in this county than any other fellow whose ever lived here.”

  “I know,” said Bill. “He could stir up more trouble than an army of troublemakers.”

  “You said it,” said Finley. “I know Eustian was a pain in the patoot, and it probably is a heart attack that killed him, but elections are just around the corner. I don’t wanna take no chances. It’s probably just gonna come back as natural causes, but I wanna be sure I do this right.”

  “I ain’t arguing with you, Finley,” Bill said. “Until they stick me and you with the bill for the autopsy. Then, I might start moanin’ and groanin’ a little.”

  “That’s probably how this will play out. Heart attack, just like I said. But, we’ll see.”

  “Yeah. I’ll get in touch with Stiggy. Get him to bring the meat wagon over here.”

>   “Okay, Bill.”

  Eustian Singlepenny became Case #0486939 at the Bowey Hill medical examiner’s office.

  Bill looked around the lonely kitchen. The house was quiet. Too quiet. He wondered if Eustian ever noticed the eerie stillness. Did it ever bother the old man? Probably not.

  Bill’s tensed. Something moved. He’d caught it out of the corner of his eye. He took his flashlight and moved it about around the room. The beam lit the beady eyes of a little mouse. Bill smiled. Spooked by a three-inch fur ball.

  Better quit daydreaming and get back to work.

  The light was fading. He’d have to move fast. He flicked his flashlight here and there. All it did was light on piles and piles of rubbish. He didn’t really think he’d find anything. Still, it was worth a shot.

  He examined the spot on the floor where Eustian had died. Nothing. On top of the table. Under the table. The beam hit upon a small plastic bottle. Strange, he thought. Or was it?

  Few areas in this house were free of litter. Had this little bottle been there for a few years or not?

  Eustian had kept the floor under the table clear. Probably did that so he could sit down to eat in peace. Bill got down on his hands and knees, grunting. Maury was right, he thought. I need to lay off the sweets. Cut back the portions on my plate. Get more exercise. I’m not as limber as I used to be.

  Reaching out, he picked up the object with a gloved hand. It was a small, plastic bottle. Gold-plating solution. Cyanide-based. On the bottle was a picture of a 50- cent piece with the portrait head gold plated.

  Sandy Miller worked with deadly poisons daily at his shop, but his cyanide was kept in large metal baths. But Sandy Miller had not phoned him back that day of the flea market, Bill remembered. A disturbing and new development in the case was staring the sheriff right in the face. Bill hurried to his car and sped back to town.

  Poisoned.

  The word kept circling around in Hadley’s brain like a dog chasing its tail. Round and round. An unending loop.

  It was still early, but the library should be opened. That is if Anna was not out joyriding in her new plane. No, not Anna. She was too good at her job. Hadley grabbed her purse and car keys.

  The library was open, just as Hadley had guessed. Anna was surprised to see her friend out and about at that hour.

  “Hadley,” she said, “I hope I didn’t scare you too much on our joy ride. Are you here to beat me with a big, bad stick for taking you up in the plane?”

  “Not at all. I really liked it, once I got used to it,” Hadley said. “It was fun. And I looking at our little community with a bird’s eye just gives me a greater appreciation of how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it. Now, what brings you here,” Anna asked. “If I can help you find anything, just let me know.”

  “Thanks. If it’s okay, I’ll just shop around a while in the card catalog and see what I can find.”

  “Oh, we got rid of that a few years back,” Anna said. “Come over here, and I’ll show you how to look up books on the computer.”

  “I’m not much on computers, Anna,” Hadley said. “I can turn one on and off. I can probably blow one up or crash it, or whatever it is you guys say, better than most. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion I’d have a hidden talent for breaking one in a heartbeat.”

  “Oh, Hadley. So many people feel that way. It’s just a matter of getting used to something that’s foreign to you. That’s all. Don’t be intimidated by them. They’re not that hard to use. It seems like a lot at first, but once you get the keystrokes in your head, it’s a matter of using those same keystrokes over and over again. We all start at the same place. Square One. Come on over here. I’ll have you up and running and searching for the books you want in a matter of minutes.”

  “Okay,” said Hadley. “But if you suddenly hear a loud noise, that’s me cursing by the way, and see smoke, you know I’ve crashed your baby faster than a meteor drops from the sky.”

  “You won’t hurt the computer,” Anna said. “You’ve got the best instructor, remember?”

  Anna showed Hadley the ropes. After a couple of false starts, she seemed to have mastered the book search option.

  “If you run into any problems, just call me. Nobody is born knowing how to work these things, Hadley. All it takes is a little practice. And don’t worry about the typos. Everybody makes them. Just be patient, and cut yourself a little slack.”

  “If I need you, I’ll holler,” said Hadley. “And thanks. It’s not as hard as I imagined.”

  Anna had left Hadley a cheat sheet to refer to whenever she got stuck. It really helped ease some her Hadley’s anxiety.

  Anna left Hadley to help another patron. Hadley typed a few letters, made a mistake, and stuck her tongue out at the screen.

  Sighing, she started over. Success! She found what she was searching for and made a bee line to the shelves. She pulled a few choices, skimming the first few pages. If the book read like a chemistry treatise for a science guru, she discarded it in search of another.

  Hadley knew Sandy worked with some powerful poisons in his sheet metal shop. She looked up that topic, too.

  “Well,” Anna said, “you planning on starting a new hobby, Hadley? Should I be worried that you’re plotting your revenge against me because of the plane ride?”

  “No. Just trying to broaden my horizons,” Hadley said.

  “Well, how about a lighter topic like gardening?”

  “Would put me to sleep. No, these will do for a start,” Hadley said.

  “Okay,” said Anna, taking out her little ink pad and rubber stamp. “These are due back in a couple of weeks.”

  “I’ll mark my calendar,” said Hadley. “Wouldn’t want to break the bank on overdue fees, again.”

  Hadley took her books and drove straight home.

  Poisons.

  There were so many. She never knew how many natural and manufactured toxins there were. They were everywhere, she found, appearing as manmade chemicals or occurring naturally in the food and in the earth.

  Hadley mumbled to herself.

  “It’s impossible to know where to begin.”

  She opened a book.

  C is for Cyanide. She began to read. She knew that cyanide was the poison used by Adolph Hitler in World War II to kill all those poor people.

  Zyklon B.

  Horrible. Horrible.

  She continued to skim the pages.

  Found in food and plants. In limas. In limas! I love limas. In the seeds and pits of fruits like apples, peaches, apricots. Oh good. The edible parts have much lower amounts. In cigarette smoke. Probably the major source of exposure for people not employed in industries that use it.

  “I’d better remember not to stand downwind of Delta,” she muttered.

  Cyanide has been utilized in the extermination of pests, in pesticides and fumigants, plastics, electroplating, and mining. It is used in dyes and drugs.

  After a few of hours of intense reading, she had a pounding headache and tired eyes. It was late. She decided to call it quits for the night before her head exploded from the vast amount of information she had tried to process and before she needed new glasses.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Rayna,” Hadley said, “are you sure you want to help out with this bazaar? With everything going on?”

  Hadley had driven out to Rayna’s to discuss the bake sale and bazaar.

  “Pixies has some pretty good sales this week,” Hadley said. “A 25 pound bag of flour is 10 percent off the normal price. They’re running a lot of things buy one and get one free.

  “And coffee’s on sale, too. You grind your own coffee, like me. I’m going to stock up. I don’t know about you, but to me, there’s nothing better than freshly ground beans. Makes greeting the day that much more special.”

  Rayna smiled.

  “Rayna,” Hadley said, “I live for good coffee. Maury is always trying to convince me that thos
e twigs and leaves she brews is as good for you. Better than coffee, but I don’t buy it.”

  “Me either. At our last ladies’ meeting, she served peppermint tea,” Rayna said.

  “Stuff was as bland as dishwater,” said Hadley. “But poor Maury’s culinary skills are right up there with Juanita Hide’s.”

  “Don’t I know it!” Rayna said. “I told Juanita not to fix a bunch of dishes last year. Nobody ever buys hers. No matter what fancy names she calls them, they always taste like ditchwater.”

  “Oh,” said Hadley, “I feel sorry for her, but you’re right. That woman has a green thumb, but she can’t cook worth a lick. All those casseroles! She insists on cooking them every year and bringing them to the bazaar. Then, poor Fred has to tote them home. He’s gotta' have a cast iron stomach or no taste buds on his tongue to digest all that awful food she’s cooked during their marriage. He’s got to eat her cooking or have a stash of food somewhere in a work shed or out building. I mean, he looks healthy enough, and he’s not skin and bones. But I really don’t know how he does it. If I had to live on Juanita’s cooking like Fred has, I’d have starved to death about two weeks into the marriage!”

  “I think they call that true love, Hadley,” Rayna said. “Fred still looks at Juanita the same way he did when they were teenagers.”

  “It must be. I don’t know,” Hadley said. “But you’d think that with practice, Juanita’s cooking would have inched along toward edible. I mean she’s been cooking for a long time, now.

  “It’s sort of sad when nobody buys her casseroles at the bake sale. She dressed up her table so pretty. People pass by her dishes and don’t even give them a second glance. They know not to chance it.

  “And by the end of the day, Juanita marks her four- or five-dollar dishes down to little or nothing. Still nobody will fork over the money to buy one.”

  “I know,” said Rayna. “It’s like watching the same rerun on television. It never changes from year to year.”