by Jenna Harte
“I like Bunko. He’s the one who shouldn’t play. He shouldn’t judge pie contests either. I think that old wife of his burnt his taste buds away before she died.”
I couldn’t figure out what to say to that. Since we were home, I didn’t have to respond.
I checked my watch and determined I should get my coupons and head out if I was going to get to Marla’s on time. “I’m going to see one of the ladies in my coupon group. Do you need anything while I’m out?”
Aunt Rose picked up the remote and plopped down in her chair turning on a game show. She waved a hand toward me, which meant don’t bother her. I went to my room and grabbed my coupon binder since Marla always let me look through her coupons when I was there.
I made my way to the front door. “I’ll be home in a few hours, then I have my coupon group tonight.”
“Don’t know why you bother with all that Sophie, but if it keeps you out of trouble, then okay.”
Chapter Two
Monticello Heights was a gated community sitting on a hill just outside and looking over Jefferson Grove. The most affluent of the town’s folk lived there. A few homes were weekend escapes for the rich who wanted to get out of Washington, D.C. or Richmond to enjoy the nature of the Blue Ridge and Appalachia. I grew up in this neighborhood, but now an invite was required to get through the guard at the gate.
Marla lived on a cul-de-sac that butted up against the woods. Her street was quiet as most people were at work. A Mason Landscaping truck was parked two houses down from Marla’s. As I pulled into the driveway, Ellie Tappen, Marla’s neighbor, came down her drive toward her mailbox.
As I got out of my car, she called, “Hello Sophie.”
“Mrs. Tappen. How are you?”
“Oh, I can’t complain.”
That was the funny thing about Ellie versus Aunt Rose. My great-aunt had a pretty good life, but always found something to complain about. Ellie and her husband lost money investing with my father in what turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. Fortunately, she was smart enough to stay diversified, so she retained enough of her wealth to stay in her home. But, not long after losing the money, her husband suffered a debilitating stroke, and she now spent her days caring for him.
Despite all the hardship, she was always friendly and in good spirits. She didn’t get out much, nevertheless, she always looked like she was ready for company. Her gray hair was combed into a sleek bob, and her makeup was fresh including bright red lipstick.
She walked up to me after getting her mail and glanced toward the Marla’s house. “You’re good friends with Mrs. Naylor?”
“We’re in a coupon group together.” I couldn’t say we were good friends. I liked Marla, and I’d learned a lot about couponing from her. However, after all the time I’d spent under her tutelage, I didn’t feel I knew her very well. She and her husband moved to the area from Pennsylvania after they won the lottery. I’d never met anyone who won more than two dollars from the lottery. Marla and her husband won enough that they didn’t have to work. She certainly didn’t have to coupon, and yet she did.
Her husband was gone a lot visiting his family back home in Pennsylvania. Apparently, his mother was ill and he had to attend to her. It was odd that Marla never went with him, but you never knew about families.
“Why do you ask?”
“Oh well, it’s none of my business, but she’s so quiet. And that husband of hers is never here. I’ve tried to be friendly, but she keeps to herself.”
That was my impression too. Except for the coupon group.
“And coupons. What need does she have for coupons? She’s got enough money to buy this town.” Ellie’s face squinted into a look of confusion.
“Really? That much?” I couldn’t understand why someone with all that money would decide to come to Jefferson Grove. Sure, it was a nice town, but it wasn’t the Riviera.
“Well, I don’t know the exact amount. Powerballs are usually big pots.”
“I think she just enjoys couponing.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “The challenge of it, maybe.”
“Huh. Did Rose enter a pie in the fair this year?”
I nodded. “Huckleberry.”
“Sounds delicious. I wonder what Carl Jackson will think.” She gave me a little nod and wink.
I laughed. Aunt Rose’s beef with Carl was well-known throughout the county. “Yes, she does have a problem with him. I’m not sure why.”
“Well it’s on account that when Carl left for the military fifty years ago, he and Rose were engaged. When he came home, he had a wife.”
How had I never heard that before? “Really?”
“Oh yes. At least that’s what I heard. No one talks about it. No one wants to get on Rose’s bad side, as I’m sure you know.”
Oh, I know. Now I understood why Aunt Rose was bitter. I hadn’t been seeing AJ for very long, but if he flew home from one of his repos with a wife, I’d be bitter too. Especially if we were engaged. “Sounds like she has a good reason to dislike him.”
“She definitely knows how to hold a grudge.”
I laughed. “Yes.”
“It’s sad too. You know she never married. I don’t think she ever dated even. I think Carl was the love of her life.”
That was sad.
“Now she has you. It’s good that you’re home.” Ellie patted my forearm.
“Thank you.”
“Well, I’ll let you go. Say hello to Rose for me.”
“I will.”
I wanted to ponder the idea that Aunt Rose was once engaged to her nemesis, but that would have to wait. When it came to couponing, I had to put all my focus into it. Granted, it wasn’t necessary to be rocket scientist-smart to succeed at discount shopping; however, couponing did have many moving parts. It was much more than simply saving fifty cents off toothpaste. There was matching, stacking, doubling, and checking the sales circular.
This week’s lesson was going to be on using smartphone apps to save, which I was pretty excited about. I didn’t like cutting, sorting, and culling coupons. I didn’t have a computer or printer to download and print coupons. I especially didn’t like lugging my coupon binder around the store. Not that the apps would replace coupons entirely. At least not in the short run. Still, I wanted all the resources I could get my hands on. My financial situation was tight and unless the library came through with more hours, I was stuck with a dead-end job bartending at the Booty Burgo. When I’d left for college to study folklore, I didn’t have a clear vision of my future career, nevertheless, serving beer at a pirate themed sports bar wasn’t something I’d ever thought I’d be doing.
I walked up the brick path edged with mums Marla recently planted in preparation for fall. Marla had become quite the gardener since moving to Jefferson Grove. She told me once that having money wasn’t as easy as she expected because without work, she got bored. Having grown up with money, I’d always been able to keep myself occupied, so I didn’t quite understand her difficulty.
To fill her time, she continued with her couponing, spending as much as 20 hours a week researching, clipping, matching, and preparing elaborate shopping plans. The rest of the time she gardened.
I knocked on the front door and waited. After a few moments, I knocked again, peeking through the side window to see if she heard me. A lawn mower was cutting grass nearby, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out my knocking.
I rang the doorbell and then peeked again. The house was quiet. Eerily so. I frowned and tried to think of where she might be. Maybe she was in her vegetable garden. That had been her biggest endeavor and it was impressive. She hadn’t bought a single vegetable all summer, instead harvesting her own. Admittedly, home grown were much better than store bought, and I briefly considered starting a garden myself, but I wasn’t sure Aunt Rose would approve of me digging up her yard,
and I didn’t have the kind of free time Marla had to invest in gardening.
I rounded the back of the house and looked over to the vegetable garden. It took up much of the yard running from the other side of the house towards the back woods. It formed a natural barrier between Marla and Ellie’s house.
The tomatoes were dripping off the vines. She had most other salad fixings including carrots and bell peppers. Plus, there was squash, eggplant (yuck), beets (double yuck), and green beans. Not far from the garden she had a few apple trees that were bearing fruit as well. However, I didn’t see Marla.
I stepped onto the back patio and peered through the French doors. The house was dim, with the only light filtering in from outside. The area immediately inside the doors, Marla kept clear. She had told me that she liked to open the doors early in the morning and do yoga in that spot. Right now, it was empty.
Beyond the empty space was a large open living area. The back of a couch faced the French doors, and bookending each side were oak tables. I knew from being there before that there was a coffee table and a matching love seat on the other side of the couch.
I scanned the living area and then strained to see the formal dining room that Marla used as her coupon office. On first pass, I didn’t see anything. I looked again and my eyes stopped on a heap on the floor by her couch. Marla was a meticulous housekeeper, which made it odd to see something cluttering the floor. I squinted to get a better look and realized it wasn’t a heap. It was two feet.
Why would she be laying on the floor in front of her couch? Did she lose something under it? Except, she wasn’t moving. A sick feeling formed in the pit of my stomach.
I knocked on the square pane of the door. “Marla?”
Nothing.
I rapped a little harder. “Marla!”
Again, nothing. I looked to the right and left. I’m not sure why. Maybe to see if the landscaper or Ellie was there to help. I was on my own. I tested the door. It was locked.
“Marla.” I knocked again but there was no movement. I scanned the patio and saw a small shovel like tool sitting on the outdoor table. I picked it up and hit the glass pane just over the door handle. The glass shattered inside her yoga area. I reached through, unlocked the handle and opened the door. I stepped over the glass and hurried toward the couch.
“Marla!” I rounded the couch and my heart stopped.
Blood. Everywhere . . . blood. It looked like someone had turned on a hose and sprayed it all over Marla’s rug and couch. It covered the coffee table and some even made it on the opposite couch.
And in all the blood, Marla lay on the floor, with her coupon sheers sticking out of the side of her neck.
I covered my mouth, either to keep the scream in or my breakfast down. Oh God, oh God, ran like a mantra through my brain.
I poked the bottom of Marla’s flat covered foot with the toe of my shoe, praying that she would open her eyes. In the back of my mind, I knew she wouldn’t. There was a lot of blood. Too much blood.
I staggered back, my mind reeling. It took a moment for me to get my bearings. Finally, I did, and pulled my phone from my purse to call 9-1-1.
Chapter Three
“Let’s go over it again.” Sergeant Lawson Davis scowled down on me as I sat with my head between my knees on the bench in Marla’s front yard.
“Why don’t you ever believe me?” This wasn’t the first time I’d been questioned by Sergeant Scowl, as I called him. He didn’t buy my story then either.
“I just want to make sure I’ve got it down right.”
“Maybe you should record me, so I don’t have to keep repeating myself.” I sat up, discovering annoyance and frustration was an effective remedy to panic and nausea. He was the epitome of a bulldog sheriff’s investigator with his buzz cut, square jaw, and signature scowl.
He ignored my comment. “What time did you get here?”
“Around twelve thirty.”
“She was expecting you?”
“Yes. She was teaching me about coupons.”
“What did you do when you got here?”
I told him what I’d said just a few minutes before. “I knocked on the door. When she didn’t answer, I went around back thinking she might be in her garden. When she wasn’t there, I looked in the window and saw her lying by the couch.”
“How’d you get in?”
“I broke the window because the door was locked.” I was concerned that he’d arrest me just for that, but what else could I have done? She might have needed help.
“Did you touch her? Move anything?”
“I ah . . . yes. I think I touched her foot to see if she was . . . if she’d move.”
“What else did you touch?”
“Besides the door? Nothing.” I always thought it was strange that witnesses couldn’t remember details of what they’d seen. Now I knew why. I couldn’t wrap my brain around this whole situation.
“How about when you got here? Did you see anyone?”
“No one suspicious. I spoke to Ellie, her neighbor, for a couple of minutes. The landscaper was mowing a few doors down.”
Sergeant Scowl jotted in his notebook. “So, you’ve been here before?”
“Yes.”
“Would you know if anything was missing?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe in the living area and the dining room she used as her office. Her husband . . .” I looked up at him. “He’s out of town. Have you called him?”
“Don’t worry about that, Ms. Parker. Would you notice if anything was missing?”
“Like I said, maybe in the living area or her office. Those are the only places I ever saw.”
“Let’s look.”
“Now?” I didn’t want to go back in the house. Marla was still there, although there were a host of law enforcement people as well.
“You got some place to go?”
I wasn’t sure if he was poking at me or asking a real question. “No, I . . . I’ve never seen a dead person before.” Just then, two men wheeled a gurney with a long dark bag on it out the door. I began to shake as I watched them wheel Marla’s body toward an ambulance.
Sergeant Scowl put his hand on my head and pushed. “Put your head down. You’re looking green again.”
“Why would someone kill her?” I managed.
“That’s what we’ll find out.”
The gurney passed by.
“That’s not Mrs. Naylor is it?”
I looked up to the new voice and saw Junior Junior Mason of Mason Landscaping. Junior Junior was nearing forty, and handsome with a deep tan from working outside, dark hair peppered with gray, and a sculpted goatee with moustache. His father, Junior Mason, had started the business, and was now retired leaving it to Junior Junior to run.
“Junior Junior,” Sergeant Scowl said by way of a greeting. “Do you know Mrs. Naylor?”
Junior Junior’s brows drew down and he bit his lip. “So, it is her?”
Sergeant Scowl gave a curt nod. “Did you know her?”
Junior Junior swallowed and nodded. “When?”
“Sometime this morning. Did you see anything?”
He was shaking his head before Sergeant Scowl was done asking the question. “I was here.”
“Here as in the house?”
“No.” Junior Junior pointed to Marla’s other neighbor. “The Tisdales. Tuesdays is the Tisdales.”
“Did you see anything suspicious?”
He looked at me and then back at Sergeant Scowl. “No, sir.”
“Will you be around a bit, Junior Junior? I’d like to talk to you more.”
“Yah sure.” Junior Junior seemed a bit disjointed about the news. I couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t every day you were close to murder.
Sergeant Scowl returned his attention to me. “Now that she’s gone
, I want you to look and see if anything is missing.”
I sat up and blew out a breath. “Yah, okay.” I followed Sergeant Scowl into the house and did my best to not look at the large blood splattered all over her carpet and furniture. I scanned the living room but wasn’t sure I’d be able to notice if something was gone. The stuff of value; her TV and DVD player were still there. She had some figurines and other doodads, but I didn’t know if they were worth stealing. If they were, whoever killed her left them behind.
I went to her coupon office. I knew this area better because I’d spent several hours over the last few weeks at the table learning everything there was to know about coupons. On the far side of the room was a file cabinet filled with coupon circulars. She had a cutting board, a computer, and printer, all dedicated to coupons sitting on a desk. What I didn’t see were the two large coupon binders she owned. I scanned the room, thinking maybe she’d put them on a shelf.
“Her coupon binders are gone.”
“Coupon binders?”
I turned to him. “She organized all her coupons in them. She had two that I know of.”
“Coupon binders.” Sergeant Scowl’s features were skeptical. “Are they valuable?”
I shrugged. “In the right hands, with someone who knows how to use them, they can save a lot of money.”
“How much money?”
“I don’t know.” Although I’d had plenty of time to study Marla’s coupons, I’d never tried to determine how many she had or what they were worth. I scanned my brain in an attempt to do just that. “Couple thousand dollars maybe.”
Sergeant Scowl sputtered. “Couple thousand in coupons?”
“She had a lot of coupons and knew how to get the most bang for her buck. That file cabinet is filled with them too.”
Sergeant Scowl walked over to the cabinet and with his glove-covered hand opened the top drawer. He turned to me. “This isn’t ‘filled’”
I frowned as I walked to the cabinet and peered in. He was right. Most of the contents were gone.
“Normally this is filled with folders that have coupon circulars organized by date,” I explained to him.