Delia Darling Mysteries Box Set, page 16
part #1 of Delia Darling Mystery Series
“Don’t you—”
“No, I don’t need to attend, and no I don’t need someone to watch my back.” I glanced from him to Betsy. “Least of all someone I don’t think could hold their own in a fight.”
They laughed at the comment. The melodrama in me was coming out. It was a mixture of feelings that had built me up to feel this way, primarily, their belief that I could be lying.
ACT THREE
A Two-for-One Deal
That evening, as planned, Betsy would collect Vera, whether she liked it or not. I’d given her as much information possible to coax her out of her home and into Norma’s for the meeting—including the fact she could possibly find something in her home to gossip about, and if I knew one thing, it was that women like me loved to gossip.
I stayed at my window, watching until Vera and Betsy walked by the house. It was the only way of knowing that everything had gone to plan, and Vera wasn’t home.
On cue, they walked by. I locked eyes with Betsy for a brief second, long enough for her to nod and give me the all-clear. It was the only way to find out what Vera Cooper was hiding, and why Norma Newton would have lied about theft, because it was rare she was wrong about anything.
Streetlights flashed alive as I left the house, headed straight for Vera’s place. The last time it was getting this dark, I found blood pouring out from the back of her car. Most people would have had their curtains drawn and definitely not be looking out of them, I was using the fact people didn’t want to attend the watch meeting to my advantage.
Her car sat in place, nothing but the stones covered the floor.
Her front porch light was on, but as I waited, it flickered off.
What would Doctor Manhattan do? “Find the evidence,” I told myself once again. Where was the best place to store evidence; my thoughts continued to grumble in question. “Bins. Buried.” I hoped nothing would be buried; I’d already dug through Agatha’s garden, the thought still gave me chills—it could have been anything, and I put my hand inside it.
I hadn’t realised my nerves were growing stronger; I had the nerve to do practically anything now.
Slowly, stepping closer to the house, careful not to trip the light. It was funny; I started the neighbourhood watch as a way to keep everyone safe, only to use it at my advantage and sneak off into someone’s home.
At the end of the driveway was a large wooden gate, keeping her even larger gated garden a secret. I’d seen her garden many times, and she had reason to keep it hidden—it was very well kept. But now wasn’t about me praising her or her abilities at keeping a garden from growing out, this was about finding my own marbles and prove I wasn’t going crazy.
A slight push of the gate and it flew open, bashing against the side of the wall. Easy enough. Into the garden of Eden, I went—but I didn’t need to go in too far. Her waste bins were close to the garden gate.
I coughed and sneezed, inhaling a putrid smell into my lungs. I pinched the tip of my nose and pulled slightly on the lid. It was completely hazardous; flies flew out and a low humming drone buzzed by as they dispersed.
“Yeah, she’s out,” a cackle came loudly from the drive. “Let’s see what she’s got.”
The back gate flung shut with the breeze before I could put the face to the voice. In a gasp, I caught a second whiff. The two bins were completely vile. I looked into it again—my fingers tight in a pinch.
A single yellow bag sat atop the mess. I wasn’t a scientist, but I knew yellow wasn’t standard. It meant biohazard waste.
“She’s a sucker,” the voice came again. “Bet she’s got a lot of silverware.”
Was Vera being robbed?
It would soon be an active crime scene if she was.
I couldn’t sit—or stand idly by while someone was robbed, especially when I was standing outside their home. I had to do something or end up part of the narrative and in a jail cell. I glanced back into the bin with my nose pinched. That yellow bag was my proof, it was the evidence I’d been pinning my hopes on finding.
“Just do it,” I grumbled, digging into the bin and pulling it out. It was slimy to the touch—I’d forgotten my gloves. I let go, it landed on the ground with a slop.
I looked in amazement, staring down at the bag of goo on the ground—it didn’t split, but I could see a dark reddish colour taint the yellow colouring of the bag turning it orange.
Grabbing the bag by the handle once again, I held it far from my body. The lid of the bin slammed shut with a loud plastic clap.
“Crud.” A voice called out. “Oh. Crud.”
I hurried up the side of the house, veering toward the back. I was at the back door, the reflection of my face back at me, it was panic and fear, had I been caught? Caught catching someone—this wasn’t the plan. The fingers of my freehand immediately wrestled with the door handle, pushing it down.
Click.
The door opened. A heat hit my face, it was heavy, thick, it rolled out as I stepped inside.
Inhaling the smell of chicken. It was delicious—I gasped, turning my head frantically, left and right—this wasn’t good, this wasn’t real. If anything, this was all human, and I was carrying the remains of it inside this bag.
“Nobody out here,” the voice said, it was close, almost as close to the back door as I stood. “She even left the back door open, she wants to get robbed,” the voice trailed off.
My heart raced hectically, I thought I’d been made, standing with a bag of bloody body bits and at the scene of the crime no less. I let out a sigh as she left and the sound of the gate swinging back in place, catching on the metal clasp.
But she was still about to come in through the front door.
Before I could turn and step away, I noticed a large plastic apron with claw marks cutting through parts of it, some parts stitched up in different plastic patchwork. It was stained red, probably from years of abuse.
I had to leave, I had more than enough here now, I needed to get out.
As I stepped out through the back door, the front door opened, and a cackle came from the woman. I’d never heard anything quite like it, the sound was so familiar, yet, so different. It wasn’t from around here, I knew that much. I wanted to catch a glimpse of them, I wanted to see who this person was, but I figured I’d just call DC Fletc—I couldn’t, he was away on holiday.
There I was, pulling open the garden gate when I saw a figure approaching me from the driveway. My first instinct was to turn back, but instead, I went forward. The figure was a man, balding, chubby in the middle with a stain on his shirt. He itched at the top of his head.
“Vera?” he asked, squinting from me to the bag.
The bag was obvious, a giveaway, something that I wasn’t thinking about concealing. It was bright and yellow, it could be seen from space. “Why? Who’s asking?”
“It’s me, Tony. I can’t really see without my glasses,” he said. “I couldn’t help but notice the leak you had last night.”
“You saw it?” I asked.
“Yeah, I thought your car was going to explode.”
“Did you get a good look at it?”
He chuckled. “Try not to put my face that close to oil,” he laughed. “You should get it checked out by a mechanic.”
I nodded. “Oh, I will.” I cocked my head slightly, trying to keep my distance so he didn’t realise I wasn’t Vera. “Tony, is it?”
“Anthony,” he said.
“Ahhh.” Anthony rarely left his home, this might have been the second time ever meeting him. He never went to any watch meetings, but I was sure he kept a watchful eye over the street, considering he never left his home. “You haven’t by any chance noticed anything weird from inside my home?”
“Weird, how?” he laughed.
I shrugged. “Anything at all.”
“The weirdest thing I heard from your house is when your husband was still around.”
My stomach dropped, and I let go of the bag, sloshing once again to the ground, this time tearing on the small stones, splitting small holes into the plastic. Tony squinted to the ground. He looked at me. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I called out.
“Well, if you don’t get it all, surely the rain will,” he chuckled once again before leaving.
I didn’t know what to say, or ask, or even do at that moment. He’d seen it, he’s looked directly at the innards as they spilt out onto the ground. They were only small.
Small. I gulped.
What had she killed? What was it hiding in her car boot?
“What are you doing?” a voice called out to me.
I turned on a foot to see Vera standing on the front doorstep, her glare directed at me like a spotlight. Her frizzy black and grey hair tied messy into a bun on her head. “Vera?”
“Delia!?” another came, this time from the pavement outside the driveaway. “What on earth are you doing with that?”
Vera Cooper stood at both her front door and the end on the pavement, both watching me. I turned, again and again. Their faces looking at me, both of them walking in my direction. I panicked, I was going dizzy.
“Linda! Explain yourself!” Vera, walking up to the driveway shouted in the direction of the front door.
“Both of you, explain yourselves,” I said.
“Delia!” a panicked cry came from behind Vera. It was Betsy, hurrying as fast as her body would take her. Out of breath, we weren’t the type of women who could run away from trouble anymore. “Delia.”
“Explain myself?” Vera scoffed. “You’re the one rummaging through my bins.”
“Because you had blood all down your drive,” I said.
A breathless Betsy finally spoke. “Vera told us all,” she said. “She has a twin. Norma got the wrong one.”
We turned to Linda, the woman at the door, a large grimace on her face. “It was just a couple magazines, some ham, a little cheese,” she said. “Nothing major. Not like I’m being accused of murder.”
“Murder?” Vera laughed. “I’ve never—”
“These are organs,” I said.
Betsy wretched from the back of her throat. “Oh, Delia.”
“No, no, no,” she said. “These are from the chicken. I’m making pie.”
“Why?”
“Yeah, why?” Betsy agreed, placing a hand over her mouth.
Linda scoffed. “Didn’t she tell you about her late-husband?”
“The one you killed?” I asked.
They both began laughing. “Kill?” Vera asked. “He was a butcher. If anything, he’s the killer.”
“Where is he now?” Betsy asked.
“Divorced.”
It hit both our ears unexpectedly. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know what she wanted to hear. There was a lot of things going on and I didn’t know how I could compute them all with an adequate timeframe. Vera had a twin and she was divorced.
“Explain the blood then!” I commanded.
“Blood?” she laughed. “It was from a leak in the boot.”
“So, it was blood?”
Betsy gasped.
“If I wasn’t arrested, I might have been able to get the meat to the fridge before it started to defrost and yes, it was blood, but it was almost a little oil too.”
“Well—” I sighed. I was right.
“I only use the car about once a fortnight to collect the meat,” she said. “So, yeah, sometimes it leaks. It would cost me a fortune for it to be fixed.”
“That’s dangerous!” Betsy gasped.
Linda laughed. “See, you’re the dangerous one.”
“Shut up,” Vera shouted back. “I’ll deal with you in a minute.”
I wasn’t being stupid at all, I had really seen blood. It wasn’t a murder, she was perfectly innocent; that was the part I felt silly about.
“It’s been a blast,” Linda said, walking slowly toward her sister. Ding. “Air kisses,” she said, pressing her face into the air and kissing upward.
Ting.
Glinting in the little light coming through the trees, silverware dotted the ground in a path following Linda’s footsteps. With each step she took, another item dropped out from her trouser leg.
“Linda!” Vera called. “If they’re mine, I will have no issues in calling the police.”
“Vera!” she called in shock. “They’re mine,” she said. “I found them. They were sat idly by, doing nothing but collect dust, and I figured the owner must have lost them.”
Vera snapped her fingers. “As the older sibling, I’m telling you, I’ll do this for your own good.” She snapped them again. “If you’re doing this for that good-for-nothing man you married, I’m writing you out of my will.”
In the instant, Linda was down collecting the cutlery from the ground. “He needed the extra money,” she said. “There’s a big business opportunity to invest in.”
“Another pyramid scheme?” she rolled her eyes.
We’d clearly interrupted something here. Linda and her sister were clearly not done sorting out something they had already been through. I quickly rushed to Betsy’s side, leaving behind the mess on the ground. “Let’s go,” I said to her, wrapping my arm around hers.
“I told you it was blood,” I said in a whisper.
“It was also oil,” she replied.
“And there were organs in her bin.”
“Giblets.”
“Whatever,” I said, waving a hand. “I still wouldn’t get on the wrong side of her.”
She laughed. “I don’t think anyone does—you should have seen Norma’s face.”
I didn’t want to see anyone’s face. “Well, I solved the mystery,” I said. “Her husband isn’t dead, and she’s not a murderer.”
Betsy gave me her side eye. “You think it was a mystery?” she laughed.
“Doctor Manhattan would say everything is a mystery,” I reminded her.
The End
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ABOUT JESSICA LANCASTER
Jessica Lancaster grew up with a love for reading whodunnit and murder mystery novels, curled up with a cup of tea and the family cat. She lives with her silver shorthair tabby and continues to devour mysteries whole.
Named after Angela Lansbury in “Murder, She Wrote”, Jessica Fletcher; she dreamed of a day to be her own sleuth in a series. This sparked Gwen in the Crystal Café Cozy Mystery series and Evanora in the Midnight Witch Cozy Mystery series, and a whole host of characters you’ll soon meet.
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