Never Buried: A Leigh Koslow Mystery (8 page)

Maura took a deep breath, but her voice was still strained. "You just don't get it, do you?
It's not your job
! You are merely a bystander, do you understand? You leave the investigating to me from now on, or I swear—"

Maura broke off as Cara slipped quietly into the hall. Leigh knew her cousin had been listening to the whole exchange, undoubtedly with some glee, but at least she had the decency to intercede before the real violence started.

"Oh, hello, Maura," Cara said graciously. "You have wonderful timing. We were just about to have some rather excellent homemade spaghetti marinara. Please join us."

Maura looked from Leigh, the picture of innocence, to Cara, the picture of sincerity, and gave up. "Hi, Cara," she answered calmly. "That sounds great. Thanks."

***

The spaghetti marinara had not been falsely advertised. When it was gone, Cara passed around a bowl of fruit salad. "Well, now," she said in a well-polished hostess' voice, "You ladies have been rather quiet. I was hoping we might have a nice, animated conversation over dessert. Shall we?"

Leigh shot a warning look at Cara, and Maura shot one at Leigh. Both were ignored. "All right, fine," Cara continued. "I'll pick the topic. Today's topic is corpses, specifically those that reappear at a previous place of residence. Oddly enough, I happen to have been party to just such an occurrence. I was told that, for the sake of the baby of course, I should not trouble myself over the corpse's motives. So naturally, I haven't. However, it would appear that
someone
—again, not me—has been possessed by the spirit of Miss Marple and has been doing some investigating herself. Am I right? Would anyone else like to comment?"

Leigh sat with her arms folded. Maura's eyes darted from cousin to cousin.

"All right," Leigh said, resigned. "Yes. I have been doing a little sleuthing. But I shouldn't have, as you clearly overheard earlier. And I'm done now, so there's no point in belaboring the issue. The Avalon police can handle things just fine without either of us getting any more involved."

Maura laughed sarcastically. "A lovely speech, Koslow. I'll believe it after I get a tracking device embedded in your neck."

"No, really," Leigh insisted. "The body has been identified, but there's no real reason to think that anyone is—" She broke off, realizing she was at cross purposes with herself. She wanted to protect Cara from the more unpleasant details, yes. That seemed logical since the doctor had told her to take it easy. But if they really were in any physical danger, Cara had to know the facts for her own protection.

"All right," Leigh sighed. "It's like this, Cara. I was worried that the body wasn't left here as a random prank, so I decided to speed things up a little. You know, help Maura out." Maura started to open her mouth, but Leigh gestured for her to be patient. "I wanted to know if we really should be alarmed. The note did concern me."

Cara perked up instantly. "What note?"

Maura looked at Leigh with surprise. "You didn't tell her about the note?"

"Well, no," Leigh said, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, "not right away."

Cara's eyes blazed. "
What note
?!"

***

By the time Leigh had completed her confession and Maura had filled in the details she left out, all three women were on their second cup of coffee.

"Well," Cara was insisting, "it seems to me that the next step ought to be taking a good look at Paul Fischer's life. We need to know what might be in this house that someone else could want badly enough to steal a corpse."

"Not just any corpse," Maura pointed out. "This person got hold of Paul Fischer's corpse. Now that either happened totally by coincidence—he ran into some necrophile and offered to buy it off him—or else we've got to assume he stole it ten years ago with some particular purpose in mind."

"If that's true," Cara reasoned, "this is the first time in that ten years that the house has been regularly occupied. Maybe that's what he was waiting for. Or she."

"But what would be the point?" Leigh wondered out loud. "If there was something in the house this person wanted, why couldn't they have taken it out while no one was here? Why wait for someone to move in first? Unless they want the house vacant for some other reason..."

Maura rose and stretched. "You two keep brainstorming all you want. But your main goals should be to keep your security system running and take the extra precautions we discussed. Leave the investigating to the police, okay? Nobody needs to get hurt trying to do our job." She looked purposefully at Leigh as she stressed "our."

"Leigh will behave herself," Cara said with a devious smile. "I'll watch her."

Maura headed for the door. "That was a fabulous dinner, Cara. Thank you again."

"Hey!" Leigh interjected. "I got down the garlic."

"Don't make me laugh, Koslow," Maura snorted, opening the door for herself. "I'll never forget that time you tried to make chili in a hot pot—" she broke off the sentence and turned around. "And by the way... how
did
that 'roast in the oven' turn out?"

Cara looked questioningly at Leigh, who shrugged and held up her hands. "You can't believe everything you hear, you know."

Chapter 7

At first, the sounds echoing into Leigh's bedroom brought on pleasant dreams of sea gulls and sand. But as the screeching caws intensified, reality took over. Puzzled, she woke reluctantly. No one was watching a Hitchcock movie. Why the racket? She swung her feet onto the plush carpet and crossed over to one of the two windows that faced the Ohio River.

In the dawn light, she could see smoke from Neville Island curling above the trees while the river flowed peacefully below. Considerably less peaceful was the collection of birds clustered around the patio. At least a dozen black crows squawked and fought as they picked at some unidentifiable mess on the concrete. She turned and shoved her feet into a pair of slippers. It wouldn't be the first time she had picked up scattered garbage.

She moved into the hall, and as she passed her cousin's bedroom door, it opened. A groggy-looking Cara slipped out. Even half awake and seven-months pregnant, she managed to look elegant in a pale silk gown. "Are those crows?" she asked, stifling a yawn.

"Yeah," Leigh answered with equal enthusiasm. "In the garbage. You go back to bed, I'll take care of it."

Leigh started down the stairs, and Cara, ignoring the offer, followed. When they reached the back door, Leigh banged on it with her hand to scatter the crows while Cara turned off the security system. The birds grudgingly flew away from the patio, only to resume squawking from the nearby trees.

Leigh unbolted the back door and swung it open. She was right, the crows were picking at garbage. She just wasn't sure whose garbage it was.

"Cara," Leigh asked with a yawn as her cousin joined her outside, "When did you throw out fish?"

Cara stepped over to investigate the assortment of fish and fish portions scattered over her patio. "I didn't," she said matter-of-factly. "I hate fish, especially lately."

Leigh raised her eyebrows. Cats were prone to dragging in their kills, but even if Mao Tse were allowed outside, which she wasn't, the odds of her catching half a dozen fish in the Ohio river were not worth contemplating. Furthermore, no other pet she knew made fishing a regular pastime. Perhaps a dog dragged someone else's garbage over?

Cara stooped and poked at a nearly whole fish with her toe. Her eyes narrowed. "Leigh," she said intently, "look at this."

Leigh walked to her side and squatted down for a closer look. The fish was missing one eye and a good bit of brain tissue, but its scaly side was intact, marked with red paint. She squinted at the red streaks. "It looks like a U," she announced.

Cara grabbed a stick from the grass and picked at the edge of another fish to flip it over. "And here," she said, "this one is marked, too. It looks like somebody tried to make a six, or a G." Leigh and Cara exchanged a brief glance, then began gathering the fish and turning them paint side up.

There were five fish in all, but thanks to the crows, several were no longer in one piece. Leigh undertook the anatomic reconstructions while Cara puzzled over the red markings. When fish number five had most of its body reoriented, the women stood back.

"We have two T's, a G, a U, and an E." Cara announced. "Lovely. Any ideas?"

"Well," Leigh said intelligently, trying to pretend she was looking at a puzzle book rather than a bunch of mutilated fish, "how about GUTTE? Maybe that means 'gut me' in French?"

Cara laughed. "I'm afraid not. Try again."

"TUTEG?" Leigh hypothesized. "UGTET?"

"Maybe it's two words," Cara said thoughtfully. "Like EAT GUT without the A." She raised her head and her eyes met Leigh's as a new possibility struck them. Wordlessly, they began searching again. After a few moments, Leigh found the majority of a sixth fish under a shrub.

"Well," she announced, pushing it next to the others with a stick. "It's not an A, it's an O."

Suddenly, her blood ran cold.

GET OUT.

Get out of my house
.

Leigh said nothing as she tried to decide whether to share her thoughts. But Cara soon sighed in disgust and dropped into one of the patio chairs. "You know," she said in a tired voice, "this is really getting on my nerves."

Leigh looked at her questioningly.

"Oh, please!" Cara said with a wave of her hand. "Don't pretend you don't know what it means! You're the word-game master, not me."

Oddly, Leigh couldn't think of anything to say. How exactly should one respond to a threat spelled out in fish?

"Of all the idiotic wastes of time," Cara continued, glancing at the newly risen sun. "I could have slept in this morning."

Leigh's eyes widened. "You don't sound as though you're taking this too seriously."

Cara laughed and spread out her hands. "You call this serious? Painting letters on fish? I call it...well..." she faltered, searching for the right word. "I call it just plain stupid!" She put her hands by her sides for leverage and rose from the chair. "I'm going back to bed."

Leigh blinked. "Cara," she said maternally, "you can't tell me you don't find two threats in three days a little disturbing."

Cara stopped momentarily in her progress toward the back door. "Disturbing, yes. Convincing, no. Although I must admit the tactics are original."

Leigh dropped her shoulders in disbelief. Was she the only person in the world who knew when to be scared? "Cara, you can't just forget that, for whatever reason, someone wants you out of this house."

Cara stopped with a sigh. She really did look tired. "So, someone wants me out of this house," she began calmly. "Well, tough. I happen to want me
in
this house. I've spent a lot of time dreaming about it, not to mention a lot of money and energy buying it, decorating it, and furnishing it. If some wacko thinks it's worth his time to steal corpses and paint fish to get me out, fine. I'll play. I'm going to find out who this person is and what it is he wants. Then I'm going to keep it."

Speech finished, Cara shuffled to the back door and went inside. Leigh watched her retreating form. She knew from a lifetime of experience that Cara was not an easy person to intimidate. Bravado was all well and good, but somebody had to be reasonable.

She collected the fish in a empty shoe box and set the mess down by the back door. Mao Tse made a break for it as soon as the door opened, but Leigh swept her up with a well-practiced gesture and carried her back inside. "Sorry girl. Chain of evidence and all that."

The cat was not appeased. "Okay, okay. How about some of the gourmet stuff as a compromise? Ocean perch in aspic, perhaps? I'm sure I brought some from the apartment..." After a half hour of rattling around Cara's kitchen feeding the cat, the finches, and her caffeine habit, Leigh had developed a plan. As soon as a more respectable hour of the morning approached, she would take the fish down to the police station. Maura could lift fingerprints off the scales—or whatever. Then she would find out what the heck Mrs. Rhodis had been babbling to Cara about.

An answer to an old mystery? Maybe. Leigh was skeptical. Crimes of passion were well and good in the movies, but reality was usually more predictable. Avarice was the root of all evil. They had evil. The money must not be far behind.

Chapter 8

Leigh was dressed and ready to head for the police station when the phone rang. She eyed it suspiciously. It had only brought her bad news so far. She crossed to the kitchen counter and picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hello!" rang a cheerful tenor voice, muted somewhat by static. "Leigh, is that you?"

Leigh allowed herself a smile. It was Cara's husband, and it had been a while since she had heard his voice. "Yeah, it's me. How are you, Gil? And where are you now, Istanbul?"