Blessed Is the Busybody Read Online Free PDF Page B

gotten up earlier. What kind of murderer waited until broad daylight to dispose of a corpse? It didn’t make sense. A murderer could have been shielded from our neighbors by the tall evergreen hedge planted halfway down to the road on the other side of our driveway, and shielded from Church Street by a silver maple anchoring the corner of our porch. He might have backed in, taken the side steps, left the body, and screeched away.
    But what if one of us had been close to a front window and gone out to see who had come to visit?
    “If we showed you photos of SUVs, would you be able to pick out the make and model?”
    I knew this was the place where I said “sure,” and found the car on my first try. Impressing this man would be heady.
    “No,” I said sadly.
    “Luggage rack? Bike rack? Clean? Dirty?”
    I scrunched my eyes closed and willed myself to remember. I had barely glanced at it. “Just an impression that it wasn’t brand new or all that well taken care of.”
    “Did you recognize the victim?” he asked.
    I opened my eyes and shook my head. “I’ve never seen her before.” I didn’t tell him Teddy had. Ed would have to report the conversation in the church parking lot from his own perspective.
    He stood, and I did, too. We were finished, but I had a question. “You know, I watch enough Law and Order to remember that head wounds bleed a lot. Hers didn’t.”
    “Not by the time you saw it.”
    “She’d been dead awhile?”
    He shrugged.
    Dead and cleaned up and undressed. Although who knows when that last item had happened in the sequence of events. “Do you have any idea why somebody would do this? Maybe a serial killer who hasn’t made it into the Flow? ” The Flow was our local daily. Emerald Springs Flow, somebody’s idea of clever.
    “I don’t have a thing I can tell you. But thanks for your help.” He shoved his hand in my direction. I took it for a brief, hard shake, but I didn’t let go when he started to withdraw.
    “I have two young daughters,” I said. “I’d like to know if we’re in danger. Please don’t be evasive.” Then I dropped his hand.
    “This is the first murder we’ve had in Emerald Springs this year. As far as I know we’ve never had one that looks anything like this.”
    “And statewide no one’s dumping bodies on the porches of random ministers?”
    “Not to my knowledge. But we’ll know more as we go along.”
    “Will you tell us if we have anything to worry about?”
    “You’ll be the first to know.”
    Judging from his carefully schooled expression I wasn’t reassured.

    Lucy Jacobs was waiting in my kitchen when I returned from talking to Detective Roussos. The yard was swarming with cops, half the Emerald Springs force seemed to be somewhere on the property, but Lucy had found her way inside without a word from anyone.
    “So . . .” she breathed. “So, Aggie. This is too amazing for words. . . .”
    “How did you get in?” Ed was gone. Between his interview and mine he had told me he was taking the girls to stay with the Frankels, church members who had daughters near the ages of ours. He wanted them out of the house until the police departed.
    “I darted from lilac to lilac, then made one final sprint for the kitchen door.”
    “I guess the lilacs really do need to be trimmed.”
    “What—is—going—on?”
    I’m still not sure how Lucy and I became friends. We aren’t neighbors. She lives on the other side of Emerald Springs, an ambitious career woman with no children. She’s not a member of our church. She’s a Reform Jew who would sooner attend a hanging than any house of worship. But we met six months ago in a long line at Krogers. By the time the clerk got to Lucy the ice cream had melted and we were bosom buddies. Sometimes life works out the way it’s supposed to.
    I love a million things about Luce. She’s funny. She has a smile that nudges her ears and wild red Orphan Annie hair. Best of all, she worries about all the