A Corpse for Yew Read Online Free PDF

the back storage area and took off his gloves. “You guys have all the fun up here while I’m in back shoveling manure.”
    “I guess Jerry came through with that delivery.” Peggy tried hard to change the subject. Selena was right. It was as though dead bodies were attracted to her. Of course, some of that was because of her work with the police. The few times she’d been involved in situations that required her to see a dead person had been out of her control.
    “Oh, no”—Selena held up one hand—“you’re not getting away that easy.”
    “She found another one.” Sam shook his golden blond hair away from his face. “What happened this time?”
    “I don’t want to talk about it,” Peggy said. “I came here to get away from it.”
    “Well, I want to talk about it.” Her mother took a deep breath to do just that. “It was a terrible experience.”
    Selena grabbed a Coke from the minifridge and settled Lilla on a bench near the pond. “You poor thing. Sit here and tell us all about it.”
    “They just want to hear the lurid details, Mother,” Peggy told her. “Please don’t indulge them.”
    “Hey! We’re like the Scoobies,” Sam protested. “We’ve solved a few mysteries with you, Peggy. You can’t just cut us off this time.”
    “There’s nothing to cut off,” Peggy said. “A poor old woman died in a bad situation. Case closed. Nothing to solve. Could we get back to work before I fire both of you?”
    Sam smiled, deep blue eyes twinkling in a perpetually tanned face. He was a giant of a man with a large chest and muscled back from his years working as the head of landscaping for the Potting Shed. “You can’t fire me, partner. We have a contract made unbreakable by my attorney-sister.”
    “You could fire me , I suppose.” Selena scratched her head. “But I don’t think it’s very likely. So step aside if you don’t want to share the gory details. Spill it, Mrs. H.”
    Lilla fanned herself with a large seed packet she’d taken from the shelf beside her. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. The poor woman was out in that mud for God knows how long. People poked her because they didn’t know what she was. Who could deserve such a fate?”
    Peggy excused herself from the drama. Sam and Selena moved closer to hear everything.
    It wasn’t that Peggy couldn’t handle what she saw, and possibly had seen worse. It wasn’t necessarily that she felt so bad for Lois. At the moment, she felt worse for herself. Maybe it was selfish, but it had just been that kind of day. Seeing the dead face in the mud amid the hundred-year-old bones of villagers made her feel old and tired. No doubt some time alone and a cup of peach tea would put things in proper perspective. But right now, Selena’s laughter was more than she could handle.
    She walked through the shop, checking on her plants. Some of them were growing on shelves under ultraviolet light beside their boxes and packages. There were also hydroponic pumpkins and cucumbers spiraling down from the ceiling with their roots above the tender, green vines. The sight of them never failed to impress a customer. She was thinking about adding a few flowering vines, but couldn’t let herself use any more water for the shop than she was already using. She recycled and used whatever water would’ve been wasted, but she felt guilty using more than her share.
    The bell on the courtyard door to the Potting Shed rang as it opened. She knew it had to be someone familiar, since the three by the pond never moved or stopped discussing Lois’s death.
    “Hi, Grandma!” Paul’s voice rang through the shop. “Where’s Mom?”
    “She’s back there sulking,” Selena told him. “Did you hear she found another dead body?”
    “I heard.”
    Peggy came from the back of the shop and smiled at her son. Paul was tall and lean like his father, John, who’d died while answering a domestic violence call more than two years ago. That was where their