The Body in the Wetlands

by Judi Lynn

  Gran quit fidgeting, and Samantha—who shared the big, old farmhouse with her—said, “I love ice cream sundaes. What do you want on yours, roomie?”

  A good distraction. Gran’s expression cleared, and she grinned. “A little bit of everything.” The two of them went to fill their bowls.

  Jazzi walked to the end of the line to wait her turn, more worried than she’d been before. How long had the kid been missing? The longer, the worse his odds. She thought about the man’s parents, and that made her think about Noah Jacobs. His adoptive parents had worried, too, when he didn’t come home. And then she, Jerod, and Ansel found him, buried by the septic tank.

  Ansel came to stand behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “Don’t worry until you have to.”

  Right. A good rule to live by. Impossible to follow, but he was right. There was nothing she could do about it, so she shook her gloom away. No one should be dreary when they ate ice cream on a Sunday. Another rule to embrace.

  Chapter 4

  Everyone started for the door at about five. When the last person left, Ansel helped Jazzi with cleanup and then they hit their favorite couches in front of the TV. Sunday was the only day Ansel immersed himself in sports, and Jazzi was happy to read a book and listen to his occasional comments as his favorite teams won and lost. George, as usual, lay on Ansel’s feet at the end of the sofa.

  A few hours later, they were getting a little hungry again, so Ansel made them popcorn. The smell filled the house, and Jazzi went to pour herself a glass of wine to go with it. She carried a beer in for Ansel. He plopped the two bowls on the coffee table when his cell phone buzzed. As he glanced at the ID, his whole face looked like a gathering thunderstorm.

  Jazzi stared, surprised. What could make him change moods so fast? “Who is it?”

  “My brother.” He stalked out of the room.

  Ansel was usually pretty easygoing, but he wasn’t on good terms with his family right now. Feeling no shame whatsoever, Jazzi turned down the volume on the TV so that she could listen to his side of the conversation. He went to the kitchen, sitting in the small grouping of armchairs near the big front window. A bathroom and coat closet divided the kitchen from the living room area, so she couldn’t see him, but she could hear plenty.

  “And you thought this would concern me—how?” His tone was blistering.

  There was some more back-and-forth before he ended the conversation with “Forget it. You wanted me out of the family business. I’m out. Don’t expect me to jump in to help now.”

  Uh-oh, not good. Something drastic must have happened to his family. When he started back toward her, she sat up. He dropped onto the couch opposite her, leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands balled into fists.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “That was my brother Radley.”

  “The younger one?” From comments he’d made, Jazzi thought Ansel liked Radley more than his oldest brother or his dad.

  George moved down the couch to stretch next to Ansel’s leg. Ansel’s shoulders relaxed a little while he scratched the top of the pug’s head. If ever a man loved a dog, Ansel was devoted to his George. “There’s Bain, Radley, Adda, then me. Bain was trying to patch Mom and Dad’s roof three days ago, fell, and broke his leg. He won’t be out of a cast for months. Dad just went in to have knee-replacement surgery, so he’s no help in the barn either. Both the house and barn need new roofs, Radley said. They’ve been leaking for a while, but now they’re worse. They can’t really afford to hire someone to fix them or to help with the dairy right now, so they thought I might want to come back and help with things until Dad and Bain are better.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nothing about my family’s funny.”

  “Your mom can’t milk?” Jazzi thought farm wives could manage almost everything.

  It was pretty nervy of them to ask Ansel. They’d kicked him out the minute he graduated from high school so he wouldn’t get any ideas about working on the farm and living off his share of the profits.

  “Mom’s always been on the frail side. She can’t do heavy work.”

  Jazzi hesitated, unwilling to state an opinion. His family had treated him shabbily, but they were family. Jazzi didn’t want Ansel to regret not helping them if he wanted to. “Jerod and I can manage without you if you want...”

  “I don’t. Not one of them thought a thing about kicking me out.”

  Jazzi took a deep breath. “I know that, but won’t it bother you if they go under? What if your mother...”

  “She had a vote, too. She voted against me.”

  Jazzi couldn’t imagine turning out one of your kids, especially one as nice as Ansel.

  “The only person I care about is my sister, but this won’t affect her. She has a great husband. She’ll be fine.”

  Jazzi let it go. Ansel wasn’t in the mood to forgive his parents and brothers, and she didn’t blame him. But she hated to see him so upset. She reached for her popcorn and gave him a sideways glance. “Know what I’m in the mood for?”

  His blond brows furrowed into a scowl. He was big and broad-shouldered, but he didn’t intimidate her. “What?”

  “A scary movie. You always say they work off negative energy. And I won’t watch one unless I’m plastered next to you. And that always puts us in the mood for...” It was a private joke between them.

  He grinned. “Strenuous exercise. Let me find a movie that will scare the crap out of you. Then you’ll need lots and lots of reassurance, and I’ll have to work hard to make you feel better.”

  Scare the crap out of her? Not exactly what she’d had in mind, but the lots of reassurance sounded like a winner. She drew the line at too much blood and gore, so they chose one of his old favorites—Scream—and when it was over, she was more than ready to hold his hand and head upstairs. As an added bonus, he’d moved past being upset by his brother.

  Chapter 5

  The temperature dipped to the low eighties on Monday. Even better, the humidity was low, too. When Jazzi and Ansel got to Olivia and Thane’s, Thane decided to take advantage of the nice weather and replace the gutters. George sprawled on the grass under a tree to watch them and stay close to Ansel—so devoted, as long as he was comfortable.

  Each of them took a side of the house to work on. They’d hardly gotten started when Jerod gave a yell. “All the wood under the gutters is rotted on my side. We’ll have to replace it.”

  Crap. Jerod was working on the front of the house. They went to study it. Ansel glanced at the beautiful sugar maple halfway between the house and the road, then tugged off the metal downspout at the corner. “Completely clogged. No one cleaned the gutters. Any rain or snow backed up and spilled over.”

  Thane glanced at Jazzi and Ansel. “How were your sides?”

  “Fine.” Jazzi thought a minute. “But it wouldn’t hurt to repaint all the wood fascia boards before we install the new gutters.”

  Thane nodded toward the two-car garage. “I bought exterior paint to touch up the trim. It’s in there. We can use that. Olivia and I bought this place from a widow who had to go to a nursing home. Some things got neglected at the end. That’s to be expected. An old woman can’t keep up with a house and yard this size. The new gutters will be bigger and wider. That should help move more water.”

  Jerod pointed to Jazzi. “Why don’t you paint while we install new boards across the front of the house?”

  Fine with her. She went to the garage and came back with a gallon of crisp white.

  Once they’d tossed all the old gutters into the back of Jerod’s pickup, Jazzi started painting the fascia boards while the guys ripped out the rotted wood and put up new. By the time they’d finished that, Jazzi had finished painting the boards at the back of the house and on both sides, so they could install the new gutters and guards. Hopefully, she could stay ahead of
them.

  She was halfway through the long front board when Thane called for a break. The men started into the house when Jazzi noticed Leo and Cocoa waiting for her. She glanced at Ansel, but he grinned and gave her a thumbs-up before leaving her. Why was it her job to talk to Leo? He wasn’t even her neighbor. But he stood there, looking so ready for company that she trotted toward him.

  “I hope you had a nice Sunday,” she said.

  He grimaced, clearly upset. He was wearing plaid pants today and a lightweight sweater. It must be true that people’s circulation slowed down with age and they were always cold. She couldn’t imagine wearing long sleeves in this weather. “I had a bit of unpleasantness. A neighbor two subdivisions down yelled at Cocoa and me.”

  “Yelled at you?” Why would anyone scream at an old man and his dog?

  “We stopped in front of his yard while he was arguing with his wife, and he got mad.”

  “You just stood there and watched them?” Jazzi could see how that might annoy someone. If she and Ansel ever had an argument, she wouldn’t want an audience. “How mad was he?”

  “Out of control. I wanted to make sure no one got hurt.”

  “Was the man going to hit his wife?”

  “His hands were balled into fists. It bothered Cocoa and me.” Leo reached down to scratch the chocolate Lab behind her ears. “He yelled for us to move on, that the argument was none of our business. So we walked in front of his neighbor’s yard so we were off his property.”

  Good grief! It was a good thing Leo didn’t get punched. “Do you carry your cell phone on your walks?”

  Leo patted his pant pocket. “I could have reported him.”

  For arguing with his wife? Did police respond to that? If he’d hit her...yes. But couples fought. Chad had spewed plenty of vitriol when she left him. Leo didn’t need to provoke someone who was already on the brink of losing control. “Did you ever think the man might fight with his wife, but hit you? That you were pushing your luck?”

  “Cocoa wouldn’t like that. She’s a wonderful dog, but she can be protective.”

  Jazzi bit her bottom lip. She didn’t think Leo understood what he could have gotten himself into. “Husbands and wives get mad at each other. Don’t you and Louisa ever argue?”

  “I don’t make fists,” Leo said. “I’ve watched the news. I know how many women suffer domestic abuse. It won’t happen on my watch.”

  His watch. Leo the Enforcer. That wouldn’t go over well. “Did the wife look afraid?”

  Leo tilted his head, thinking about that. “No, she talked back to everything he said, just kept cranking him up more.”

  “Then I doubt she’s abused.” Didn’t most women who got pounded flinch and cower? Try not to say the wrong thing? Try to become invisible until things settled down or their guy slept it off? She couldn’t imagine living in constant fear. “It sounds like the wife has a temper, too, just kept goading him on. But you took a real risk, Leo.”

  “I was only trying to do the right thing.”

  “You might have cranked him up more.”

  His shoulders slumped. “I see that now. I didn’t think it through. I used to warn Miles about that.”

  “About arguing with people?”

  “He didn’t understand. He was awfully gullible. His whole life revolved around how far he could ride his bicycle and watch people.”

  “Watch people?”

  Leo looked embarrassed. “He didn’t have a life of his own. He worked at the pet shop and lived with his parents. So if people had a barbecue and invited lots of company, it was an event to him. He’d climb a tree and watch them. And he liked to park his bike at night and look in people’s windows.”

  “A voyeur?”

  Leo looked away, bent to pet Cocoa’s head. “A bit of one.”

  Jazzi wondered what else Miles had seen. Something he shouldn’t have? The kid lived through other people. “When he disappeared, did anyone find his bicycle, or did he take off on it?”

  “That’s the thing.” Leo’s voice sounded sad. “A sheriff found it on Highway 114, close to Manchester. Miles would never have gone that far.”

  “Even if he saw something that really excited or interested him?”

  Leo shook his head. “Miles felt safe here, but after the accident, he was almost paranoid. He had so many fears, he could hardly function. He’d never go that far unless he was with a friend.”

  “Did he have a friend?”

  “Not that I know of. He talked a lot about some woman who was kind to him, but it was out of pity, I could tell. When I first heard that he’d disappeared, I thought maybe he’d met someone and was ready to spread his wings. But after I talked to you, I thought about it more. And now I think someone stuck his bicycle in their trunk and dumped it on 114.”

  “And Miles?”

  “I think Miles got dumped somewhere else.”

  Jazzi shivered. It was eighty degrees, but Leo made the boy’s disappearance sound sinister. The sad truth was, she agreed with him.

  Chapter 6

  Upset, Jazzi went in the house to join the guys on their break. She told them what Leo had told her.

  Jerod leaned back on the kitchen stool and stretched his long legs. “Sounds like Miles might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Thane shook his head and spread out his hands. “Around here? What’s to see? Not much happens.”

  Ansel finished his second beer while she started her first. “If the kid was a voyeur, hiding in the shadows to peep in houses, he might have seen plenty.”

  Olivia came out to join them. She must have heard Jazzi’s voice. “Like what?”

  At first, Jazzi was surprised to see her, but this was a Monday, after all—her day off from the salon. Her trendy sister wore her blond hair scraped back in a ponytail, like Jazzi. Leggings hugged her long legs, and an oversized, faded, button-down shirt hung over them. Work clothes.

  Ansel shrugged. “The kid might have watched people undress, couples getting it on, things that are private.”

  Olivia rubbed at a drip of white semigloss splattered on the front of her shirt, smearing it more. “And you think someone would kill him for that?”

  Jazzi frowned. “I thought you and Mom got all of the bedrooms painted.”

  “The ceilings and walls. I’m working on trim today.”

  “That’s always fun.” Painting was one of the jobs Jazzi dreaded, especially trim, but it was a cheap way to make a big difference in how a house looked. And what was she doing today? Painting fascia boards for gutters. Still easier than crown moldings and baseboards—you could just slap it on without worrying about tape and drips.

  Olivia laughed. “I’d rather paint than put up gutters, so no complaints from me.”

  Jerod sipped his beer, wearing his brooding face. Jazzi pursed her lips. “You okay?”

  “I can’t help but think about Miles’s parents. They thought they had their kid raised, in good shape, and then a head injury sent him home. You have to feel sorry for them. And now? They have no idea what happened to him. That’s every parents’ nightmare.”

  Her cousin adored his brood. He was a good daddy, through and through. Having a kid go missing would drive him crazy.

  Ansel’s good mood vanished, too. “My parents sent me away and didn’t much care what happened after that.”

  Jerod tossed him a sympathetic look. “Jazzi said your brother called you last night.”

  “Yeah, can you believe that?” Ansel’s fingers tightened on his empty beer can, crushing it. “To come home, because they need my help for a while.”

  Jerod glanced at Jazzi and Olivia. “We’re all so close, it’s hard for us to wrap our heads around your family. But Aunt Lynda didn’t mind using anyone and everyone to get what she wanted. Your brothers must be like that.”

&nb
sp; “My parents, too.”

  How had Ansel and Adda turned out so nice? How did one or two people in most families turn out so differently from everyone else? Genes?

  Olivia went to the cupboards for a box of fat-free crackers. She took a few and offered the box to the others. When they declined, she left it on the counter close to her. She reached to touch Ansel’s arm. “What did you tell your brother?”

  “I told him not to call me again.”

  “Good!” She finished a cracker and washed it down with water. She kept close track of calories during the day, not so much when she went out to eat. “You guys make it sound like you think this kid who disappeared is dead.”

  “That’s what I think,” Thane said, “or he’d have come home by now.”

  Olivia narrowed her eyes. “We’re not talking another murder, are we? We had enough of that when Jazzi renovated her house.”

  Jerod brought the recycle can over for everyone to toss their empty cans in. “I didn’t think foul play until Leo said the bike was miles out on 114. That worries me.”

  “Why?” Olivia closed the cracker box and put it away.

  Jazzi answered. “Because Miles wouldn’t have ridden that far. We’re guessing someone dumped it there, far away from the crime.”

  “Crime? So you think someone killed him?” Olivia went to stand next to Thane.

  He put his arm around her waist. “This time, at least, we’re not involved. That’s the good news.”

  “The silver lining,” Jazzi agreed. They’d had enough of missing people and murder.

  And with that, they all dropped the subject and returned to work. No more investigations for them. By late afternoon, they were finished. The fresh paint on the fascia boards and the new white gutters made the whole house look better.

  Thane stood back to admire their work. “You guys are the best. It looks great. We’ve done enough for today. There’s no reason to start on the floors. We can do them tomorrow.” He motioned to Ansel and Jazzi. “You’re meeting friends for supper tonight. Why don’t the three of you take off, and I’ll go help Olivia finish painting the woodwork?”