Edit to Death

by Elizabeth Spann Craig

  Wanda gave her a small smile that seemed a bit pitiful. As if maybe she knew what this future conversation with Red would hold.

  Miles said, “All I’m saying is that usually there is a body directly in front of us when we make our call to Red. This is more of a hypothetical body.” He held up his hands as if to ward off an onslaught from Myrtle. “Hypothetical to Red, at any rate.”

  “He’d jump on any credible information that he can at this point. It’s very likely tied into his current investigation,” said Myrtle with a sniff.

  Miles glanced at Wanda’s emaciated form, still covered with brightly colored afghans as if he wasn’t at all sure how credible her information would appear.

  Wanda croaked at Miles. “Sorry ‘bout the horoscope.”

  Miles’s eyes widened. “The horoscope? About the germs? The horoscope was . . . incorrect?”

  “It was an out-and-out lie,” drawled Wanda, looking down at the floor. “But didn’t need you to go to the doctor with Myrtle and me. Woulda messed the order of everything up.”

  Miles and Myrtle exchanged looks as if not at all sure what exactly this meant. Did everything really have a cosmically prescribed order?

  Myrtle said, “Well, thank goodness we don’t have to worry about Miles getting contaminated any longer. And now I’m calling Red.”

  Red stared at the scene in front of him. Wanda was still swaddled in blankets and shivering. Miles had pulled out more food, this time of the carbohydrate variety, and lined it up in front of Wanda in a sort of salty buffet. Myrtle had her arms crossed, appeared to be on at least her third cup of coffee, and was staring at him with a ferocious expression.

  “What’s going on here, y’all?” asked Red in a deliberately patient voice. “Mama, you said you had information about the case.” He sat down across from Wanda at the kitchen table pulled out a small spiral notebook and a stubby pencil and looked at the assembled group expectantly.

  “It ties into the case. There’s a small difference,” said Myrtle. “Wanda has something to tell you.”

  Red turned to Wanda and said with a forced smile, “Wanda?”

  Wanda took a deep, shuddering breath and looked at Myrtle.

  Myrtle said, “Wanda is having a hard evening. The fact of the matter is that Wanda knows where Tara Blanton’s body is.”

  Red dropped the notebook and absently picked it up from his lap. “Tara Blanton. From thirty-odd years ago.”

  Myrtle gave a stiff nod. “That is correct. One of your classmates. And I was very glad to hear that you hadn’t attended the big party at the Epps house.”

  Red gave a big sigh as if to try and calm himself down. “I doubt the Epps family has been in a partying mood, Mama.”

  “The party the children had when you were in high school. Pay attention, Red!” scolded Myrtle.

  Red turned again to Wanda. He said gently, “So you’re saying that you have some sort of information about Tara Blanton. That she didn’t run away. That she’s actually dead. And that you know where her body is located?”

  Wanda nodded, looking away from Red. She grated, “In their yard.”

  “Whose yard?” pressed Red.

  “Them kids. Boone and Rose.”

  Red put his notebook and stubby pencil on the table and rubbed both hands over his face. “And how did you come about this information, Wanda?”

  Myrtle snapped, “How do you think she did, Red? She has a gift.”

  Red stared at her and then repeated, “Wanda, how did you come about this information? It’s been quite a long time since Tara disappeared. I was in high school and I’m pushing fifty now.”

  Wanda said with weary resignation, “Had a vision, Red. Sorry.”

  Myrtle stood up impatiently. “What are we doing here at the house still? We should be on the way over to the Epps house.”

  Red said, “Right. We’ll just head over to see grieving Hubert Epps and tell him we’re bringing in a team to dig up his yard to look for a girl who disappeared thirty years ago. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear that.”

  Wanda shrugged. “It’s true.”

  Red stared at her again for a few moments and then said, “Did you know the Epps family, Wanda? You’re roughly my age.”

  It was hard to nail down Wanda’s age, actually. She could either be very old or very young. The only thing that really stood out was the damage that life had inflicted on her.

  Wanda gave him a small, sad smile. “You know I didn’t go to school, Red. Didn’t know them kids.”

  Myrtle said fiercely, “Why are you wasting our time, Red? Let’s bundle Wanda up and take her over to Hubert’s house and have her point out where Tara’s body is. I won’t have you continuing to badger her and make insinuations.”

  Red sighed again. “I’m not happy about this. I really don’t know how I can explain this to Lieutenant Perkins.”

  Miles said, “Perhaps you could say that an anonymous informant has given you a pertinent tip?”

  Red pointed at him. “That might work. Okay, that’s what we’re going with. But in that case, we don’t need to bring Wanda along with us.”

  “Then how will the police find the body?” demanded Myrtle. “They really would have to dig up Hubert’s entire lawn.”

  “The state police have cadaver dogs,” said Red.

  Miles’s eyes widened. “They can even find . . . bones?”

  “They sure can. I can’t explain it . . . well, any more than I can explain Wanda’s weird hunches . . . but that’s what they do. Lemme make a phone call.”

  Red stepped into the back of Miles’s house to make the call. When he came back out, he said, “They’re going to be here a lot sooner than I thought. They’re already a county over responding to a missing person at a state park. I’m going to go over and talk to Hubert. It would be best if he could give permission for us being on his property, otherwise we’ve got to get a warrant. Hoping he’ll just cooperate.”

  Myrtle stood up and Red shook his head. “Nope. Y’all need to stay here.”

  “Stay here?” Myrtle waved a hand around the room as if to indicate that Miles’s small, tidy home was a horrific dungeon.

  “That’s exactly right. Or stay over at your own house if Miles needs his back. All I need is for Wanda to be out there shivering in the dark and me trying to explain why she’s there to a bunch of guys from the state police. No way.” Red picked up his keys and headed for the door. “I’ll be back later and give you an update.” His voice was firm.

  Waiting for the update became rather tedious. First, they turned on the television, but the only things on were some sport teams no one knew and game shows with hyperactive hosts. Then they tried to sit and read. Miles was a poetry fan and Myrtle had pulled out his Edna St. Vincent Millay, but Wanda was sitting very listlessly since she wasn’t exactly a reader.

  Finally, Myrtle said, “Let’s play a game.”

  Miles winced. “Myrtle, I can’t handle any Scrabble right now. And I’m not sure that would be Wanda’s forte, either.”

  Myrtle said, “No, no. We’ll play cards. You have cards here, I know. Wanda, you like playing cards, don’t you?”

  Wanda shrugged a thin shoulder. “Don’t reckon I know any games. I only handle tarot cards.”

  “It’ll be easy. We can teach you canasta,” said Myrtle briskly.

  Miles was already shaking his head. “Too complicated, Myrtle.”

  “All right then, hearts.”

  Miles shook his head again. “We’d spend half the time trying to explain the game. And I might need a refresher on hearts, myself.”

  “Fine! Although I have to say that you have no sense of adventure whatsoever. We can do crazy eights, old maid, or go fish. And don’t you dare tell me that those are too complex. Little Jack can play those like a card shark and he’s only in preschool,” said Myrtle.

  Myrtle pulled out the cards and shuffled them thoroughly. She started dealing them out and Wanda watched her as she did. Miles reluc
tantly sat down at the kitchen table. “We might need more coffee,” he muttered. “So what game are we playing?”

  “Crazy eights. It’s mindless,” said Myrtle. “Wanda, the eights are wild.”

  Wanda gave Myrtle a baffled look.

  Miles added, “You can make the eights anything that you like. So hearts, diamonds, spades, etc.”

  Wanda looked worried. “What are them?”

  “Did you never play cards, then?” Myrtle looked stunned. “That’s a pity. All right, watch Miles and me play for a while. Sit where you can see my cards and I’ll whisper to you what I’m trying to do and what my strategy is.”

  Miles said, “Or we could just do an example round and put both of our hands on the table so that she can see them.”

  “But that takes the fun out of it! I’m trying to beat you . . . that’s the fun.” And Myrtle rapidly did, explaining the game to Wanda all the while and pointing out the names of the different cards.

  The next game Wanda decided hesitantly that she might want her own hand. She did and won.

  “Beginner’s luck?” asked Miles, looking surprised. “Was she dealt a hand of eights?”

  Myrtle said, “Wanda catches on fast.”

  After Wanda won the following three games, Myrtle said, “Now Wanda. You know I have to ask this question. As a psychic, you’re not able to know what our cards are, are you?”

  “That ain’t the way—” started Wanda.

  “I know—the way the sight works.” But Myrtle still gave her a suspicious look.

  Miles the Peacemaker said, “It’s time for more snacks.”

  Myrtle snorted. “At this rate, we won’t be able to leave your house, Miles. You’ll have to roll us out of here.”

  Still, she acquiesced. And so, when Red finally returned after some time, they were all still in the kitchen with the remains of a sandwich buffet of ham, tomatoes, and peanut butter and jelly in front of them.

  “Well, tell us!” said Myrtle imperiously as they stood up. “We’ve been waiting here forever.”

  Red shook his head, seemingly having a tough time finding the words. “The dogs found her right away.”

  Myrtle put a hand to her heart. “That poor girl.”

  Miles still seemed to be having a tough time wrapping his head around it all. “So, they went right to it?”

  “I was going to lead them right to the area Wanda described, but the dogs got there before I could even do that,” said Red.

  “And it’s definitely Tara?” asked Miles.

  Red said with a shrug, “I reckon. I mean, the state police will have their guy take a look and identify. But with what Wanda here said, I can’t figure it could be anybody else. Of course, the state guys were real keen for me to tell them who I thought the anonymous informant was.”

  He gave Wanda a hard look, and she gave him a tired one in return.

  Myrtle said fiercely, “Well, you can’t. They’ll never understand, the Philistines. Besides, it doesn’t matter how she was found, it only matters that she was found. I suppose you’ll be giving her poor parents some closure with the news.”

  He sighed. “Once we track them down. They left town some time ago.”

  “How on earth were they able to keep this a secret for so long?” asked Miles. “Wouldn’t someone have noticed a big dug-up area in the yard? Or is the entire Epps family in on it?”

  Red said, “I hadn’t remembered this myself, but one of the neighbors who came out to see what we were doing mentioned that around the time Tara disappeared, they were installing a sewer line on the street.”

  Myrtle said, “So they just chucked the body in there? And no one ever noticed?”

  Red shrugged, “I guess they were finished with that section. The fact of the matter is that it would have been really loose soil. It wouldn’t have been much effort to dig some dirt back out, conceal a body, and cover it back up.” He gave Wanda a serious stare. “You’re absolutely sure that you don’t have any other information about this?”

  Wanda looked down at her scuffed shoes and silently shook her head.

  Myrtle asked, “What did Hubert say?”

  “Well, he wasn’t any too pleased about us bringing dogs in. But let’s face it—he thought he was settled in for a quiet night with a six-pack of beer and a couple of TV shows. Instead, we discover a body on his property. And right away,” said Red.

  “Was he cooperative?” asked Miles.

  “He seemed pretty stunned when we told him we’d found a body and that we thought it was Tara. Then he shut up real quick.” He looked at his mother. “Now, I know that you have some sort of theory about all of this. I have the feeling that you’re not even all that surprised that Tara’s body was at Hubert Epps’s house.”

  Myrtle hesitated. She never liked sharing information with Red, but she didn’t mind bragging just a little about what she’d found out so far. She said cautiously, “Well, I’m not really. I’ve heard that Boone was dating Tara and Rose was arguing with Tara. And they had that big party and I suppose things got out of hand, although I’ve no idea who’s actually responsible for the poor girl’s death.”

  Red frowned. “Boone was not dating Tara.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  MYRTLE SAID, “I HEARD that he was.”

  Red said, “Well, I remember that they weren’t. Boone wanted to date Tara. Honestly, if it were today and he was hounding her like he was, she’d probably have put some kind of restraining order on him.”

  Myrtle sat back in her chair. “Is that so? And I thought he was supposed to be some sort of heartthrob. That all the girls wanted to go out with Boone.”

  Red shrugged. “That might be the case overall, but Tara sure didn’t want to. And she didn’t have to! She was a beautiful girl and she could have gone out with anybody that she wanted to. But the truth of the matter is that, looking back, she simply wasn’t ready to start dating. And that only seemed to make Boone more determined than ever to go out with her. In fact, he was going around spreading rumors they were going out.”

  Miles asked, “He was pursuing the one thing he couldn’t have?”

  “Exactly. He was sort of spoiled, I always thought, both by his daddy and his mama. Rotten. And he got away with it because he was so charming when he got caught out. You know they found out about this party that was going on,” said Red to his mother.

  Myrtle said, “So there was a party.”

  “There was. Again, one that I didn’t attend,” said Red, rolling his eyes.

  Myrtle said, “Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that I’d raised you well. You knew that I wouldn’t have wanted you to go to a party when the parents weren’t in attendance.”

  Red said dryly, “I’m happy you’re ascribing my absence there to my wonderful upbringing, but the fact of the matter is that I had a football game to play in.”

  Myrtle felt somewhat deflated. “Oh. Okay, so tell me what happened when Hubert and Pearl came back into town.”

  “From what I’d heard at the time—and we’ll be covering all this again in interviews—Boone and Rose did their best to clean up the house and the property. There were beer bottles and plastic cups and cigarette butts and things like that everywhere. Plus, folks had pulled out food from the fridge, eaten on it, and left it in various degrees of going rotten,” said Red. “They worked hard cleaning it all up.”

  Miles said, “To the extent that they or a party guest also cleaned up the evidence of a body and concocted a story about Tara running away.”

  “Well, somebody did,” said Red.

  Miles said hesitantly, “May I ask a question on a completely different subject, Red?”

  Red raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Well, sure thing, Miles. You look like you have something on your mind.”

  “It’s just—have you seen Elaine this evening? I mean, before all the finding-Tara business happened? I know you’ve been busy with the case,” said Miles.

  Myrtle snorted. “I have a feeling I kn
ow what this is regarding.”

  Apparently Red did too, because his face lit up with a big grin. “As a matter of fact, I surely did. And she showed me some delightful pictures from a soiree you hosted earlier today.”

  Myrtle said, “It’s not a soiree if it isn’t at night. It was simply . . . a rather rowdy gathering.”

  “Well, I could tell that everybody was having a lot of fun, that’s for sure. And to think that I believed book club was a stuffy group! I never knew what y’all were really up to. I thought everybody was discussing literature.” Red chuckled.

  Myrtle said, “We rarely discuss literature unless Miles or I have been able to choose. What Elaine pictured today was a very unusual club meeting.”

  Miles cleared his throat. “What I was wondering is, if she and Sloan were planning on running those pictures in the paper. That is, I thought perhaps the events tonight might preclude lighthearted photos from being published.”

  Red crinkled his brow. “I think the paper’s policy is to run all sorts of stories each day. Some sad stories, some purely informational, some that would qualify as fluff pieces.”

  “Book club would definitely fall under the fluff category,” said Myrtle.

  Miles said, “Maybe it will just run on the social media site.”

  Wanda croaked, “Runnin’ in the paper.”

  Miles looked startled. “You mean that . . . you know that? You saw it in some sort of vision or something?”

  Wanda shook her head tiredly. “Nope. Done talked to Sloan on the phone earlier. He tol’ me then.”

  Miles slumped in his chair.

  Red stood up. “All right. I’d better head out. Now I’ve got a cold case and a couple of recent homicides on my hands.” He glanced over at Wanda. “Wanda, I’d be happy to drive you back home.”

  Myrtle said, “I’ll drive her back.”

  Red raised his eyebrows. “I don’t care how well you fancy you drive, Mama. The sun is going down and you are in a loaned car. Loaned, as a matter of fact, by a suspect in a murder investigation.”