Charlaine Harris: Three Bedrooms, One Corpse

“Episcopalians have a reputation for being generally liberal,” Martin Bartell remarked out of the blue.

“I know, but Aubrey is an exception if that really is true,” Mother said, and my heart sank. “He is a wonderful man- I’ve come to know him since I married my present husband, who is a cradle Episcopalian-but Aubrey is very conservative.”

I felt my cheeks turn red in the cold room. I ran a nervous hand under the hair at my neck, loosening the strands that had gotten tucked in my jacket collar, and tilted my head back a little to shake it straight.

Thinking about Tonia Lee Greenhouse was preferable to feeling like a parakeet that is extremely excited at the prospect of being eaten by the cat.

I thought about the loathsome way Tonia had been positioned, a parody of seductiveness. I thought about the leather thongs on Tonia’s wrists. Had she been tied to the ornate wooden headboard? Old Mr. and Mrs. Anderton must be turning in their graves. I thought about Tonia Lee in life- tall, thin, with teased dark hair and bright makeup, a woman who was rumored to be often unfaithful to her husband, Donnie. I wondered if Donnie had just gotten tired of Tonia Lee’s ways, if he’d followed her to her appointment and taken care of her after the client had left. I wondered if Tonia had been overcome by passion for her client and had bedded him here in the invitingly luxurious master bedroom, or if she’d had an assignation with someone she’d been seeing for a while. Maybe the house-showing had been a fictitious cover to let her romp in one of the prettiest houses in Lawrenceton.

“Mackie brought her the key yesterday,” I said suddenly.

“What?” asked my mother with reproof in her voice. I had no idea what they’d been talking about.

“Yesterday about five o’clock, while I was waiting for you in the reception room, Tonia Lee called your office and asked for the key. She said she’d been held up-if anyone was getting off work, she’d be really obliged if they could drop it off here; she’d meet them. I handed the phone to Mackie Knight. He was leaving just then, and he said he’d do it.”

“We’ll have to tell the police. Maybe Mackie was the last one to see her alive-or maybe he saw the man she was going to show the house to!”

Then Jack Burns was in the doorway, and I sighed.

Detective Sergeant Jack Burns was a frightening man, and he really couldn’t stand me. If he could ever arrest me for anything, he’d just love to do it. Luckily for me, I’m very law-abiding, and since I had come to know Jack Burns, I’d made sure I got my car inspected right on the dot, that I parallel-parked perfectly, and that I didn’t even jaywalk.

“If it isn’t Miss Teagarden,” he said with a terrifying affability. “I declare, young woman, you get prettier every time I see you. And I always do seem to see you when I come to a murder scene, don’t I?”

“Hello, Jack,” said my mother with a distinct edge to her voice.

“Mrs. Teagarden-no, Mrs. Queensland now, isn’t it? I haven’t seen you since your wedding; congratulations. And these must be our new residents? Hope you don’t feel like running back north after today. Lawrenceton used to be such a quiet town, but the city is reaching out to us here, and I guess in a few years we’ll have a crime rate like Atlanta’s.”

Mother introduced her clients.

“Guess you won’t want this house after today,” Jack Burns said genially. “Ole Tonia Lee looked pretty bad. I’m sure sorry you all ran into this, you being new and all.”

“This could have happened anywhere,” Martin said. “I’m beginning to think being a real estate agent is a hazardous occupation, like being a convenience-store clerk.”

“It certainly does seem so,” Jack Burns agreed. He was wearing a hideous suit, but I’ll give him this much credit-I don’t think he cared a damn about what he wore or what people thought about it.

“Now, Mr. Bartell, I believe you touched the deceased?” he continued.

“Yes, I walked over to make sure she was dead.”

“Did you touch anything on the bed?”

“No.”

“On the table by the bed?”

“Nothing in the bedroom,” Martin said very definitely, “but the woman’s neck.”

“You notice it was bruised?”

“Yes.”

“You know she was strangled?”

“It looked like it to me.”

“You have much experience with this kind of thing?”

“I was in Vietnam. I’ve had more experience with wounds. But I have seen one case of strangulation before, and this looked similar.”

“What about you, Mrs. Lampton? You go in the room?”

“No,” Barby said quietly. “I stayed on the landing outside. When Miss Teagarden opened the doors, of course I saw the poor woman right away. Then my brother told me to go downstairs. He knows I don’t have a strong stomach, so of course it was better for me to go.”

“And you, Mrs.-Queensland?”

“I came up the stairs just after Aurora opened the bedroom doors. I actually saw her swing them open from downstairs after I started up.” Mother explained about the Thompsons and her delegation of me to open the house for the Bartells. “Excuse me, Mr. Bartell and Mrs. Lampton.”

“You’re his sister,” Jack Burns said, as if trying to get that point quite clear. He swung his baleful gaze on poor Barby Lampton.

“Yes, I am,” she said angrily, stung by the doubt in his voice. “I just got divorced, my only child’s in college, I sold my own home as part of the divorce settlement, and my brother invited me to help him house-hunt down here out of sheer kindness.”

“Of course, I see,” said Jack Burns with disbelief written on every crease in his heavy cheeks.

Martin Bartell’s hair might be white, but his eyebrows were still dark. Now they were drawn together ominously.

“When was the last time you saw Mrs. Greenhouse, Roe?” Jack Burns had switched his questioning abruptly to me.

“I haven’t seen Tonia Lee to speak to in weeks, and then it was only a casual conversation at the beauty parlor.” Tonia Lee had been having a dye job and a cut, and I’d been having one of my rare trims. She had tried the whole time to find out how much money Jane Engle had left me.

“Mr. Bartell, had you contacted Mrs. Greenhouse about looking at any homes?” Jack Burns shot the question at the Pan-Am Agra manager as though he would enjoy beating the answer out of him. What a charmer.

I could see Martin taking a deep breath. “Mrs. Queensland here is the only realtor I have contacted in Lawrenceton,” he said firmly. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, Sergeant, my sister has had enough for this morning, and so have I. I have to get back to work.”

Without waiting for an answer, he got up and put his arm around his sister, who had risen even faster.

“Of course,” Burns said smoothly. “I’m so sorry I’ve been holding you all up! You just go on, now. But please, folks, keep everything you saw at the scene of the murder to yourselves. That would help us out a whole bunch.”

“I think we’ll be going, too,” my mother said coldly. “You know where we’ll be if you need us again.”

Jack Burns just nodded, ran a beefy hand over his thinning no-color hair, and stood with narrowed eyes watching us leave. “Mrs. Queensland!” he called when Mother was almost out the door. “What about keys to this house?”

“Oh, yes, I forgot…” And Mother turned back to tell him about Mackie Knight and the key, and I walked out into the fresh chill of the day, away from the thing in the bedroom upstairs and the fear of Jack Burns.

And right into Martin Bartell.

Over his shoulder I saw Barby was in the front seat of the Mercedes and buckled up already. She was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. She’d waited until she was outside to shed a few tears; I admired her control. I felt a sympathetic tear trickle down my own face. One way or another, the morning had been a dreadful strain.