Gayle Roper - Caught Redhanded

“Slacker,” Jolene yelled back at me over her shoulder.

And that moment of inattention to the path threw us both into the middle of another murder.

I watched in horror as Jolene tripped and went down flat.

“Jo!” I forced myself to go a bit faster. “Are you all right?”

Now she was gasping, too, the wind knocked out of her. “Fine,” she managed in a raspy voice as I knelt beside her.

She pushed herself onto her hands and knees, still struggling for oxygen, head hanging. Bracing herself on one arm, she held out the other scraped and bleeding palm. We inspected it carefully. She turned it over and breathed a sigh of relief. “No broken nails.”

I’d been more concerned about broken limbs.

She sank back on her heels and held out her other palm. Scraped and slowly oozing blood, too. She flipped the hand over. A broken nail, the middle finger. She said a few of the words that Edie and I were trying to convince her weren’t ladylike. Obviously we had more work to do.

She climbed slowly to her feet, looking down at her knees. More oozing scrapes.

“Now how am I supposed to wear skirts with scabs all over my legs?” she demanded.

“Wear pants,” I said with an appalling lack of sympathy. Now that I knew she was all right, I was back to being disgruntled.

She gave her typical snort, always so surprising from someone who looks like her. Clearly she felt a mandate to share her beautiful limbs with the world. How she had become one of my best friends was still a mystery to me. She was even going to be one of my bridesmaids along with Maddie and Dawn.

“I tripped over something.” Jo sounded as if whatever she had stumbled over had deliberately attacked her. She pushed to her feet with me helping by taking her elbow.

We turned together to see what had brought her low and stared wide eyed at the foot clad in a gray-and-white running shoe protruding from the chicory and wild phlox lining the path.

My pulse accelerated to a rate that far outstripped the hammering I’d experienced when jogging. Oh, God, I prayed, unable to articulate all the thoughts that raced through my mind. I don’t want to look. I must look. What should I do if she needs help? If she needs help? Of course she needs help. She’s lying on the ground and I doubt she’s just taking a nap.

Carefully I leaned over the weeds, following the line of the woman’s body, for it was obvious from the size of her foot and the shape of her ankle that it was a woman. She was lying on her stomach, face turned toward the left, away from us, sleeveless pink scoop-necked knit shirt twisted about her torso.

It was the gaping wound at the back of her head and the bloody weeds surrounding her that made my stomach heave.

I swallowed and then swallowed some more until the urge to be sick subsided.

“Martha!” Jolene said in a disbelieving voice. “It’s Martha Colby!”

I might have known she’d recognize the woman. Jo has lived in Amhearst all her life and knows everyone who lives here—and all their secrets.

I knelt quickly beside Martha, taking care not to step in the blood, and felt for a pulse. As I looked into her open, staring eyes, I didn’t expect to find one. I didn’t. I glanced at Jo and saw she had lost all her color and was swaying slightly. I understood completely. If I felt this shaky and I didn’t even know the woman, how must Jo feel?

“Why don’t you run for help?” I suggested quickly. Neither of us had carried our cells as we ran, but mostly I wanted to get her out of here before she passed out.

“911,” she said vaguely.

“911,” I agreed. “I’ll stay here with Martha.”

Jo blinked at me, nodded, then took off, running with remarkable speed. I felt a maternal pride—or what I think such a thing feels like—in her quick reaction. The last time we faced a body together, she’d fallen to pieces. Of course, it had been her ex-husband’s body then.

I sat down beside Martha’s foot on the path. She looked so vulnerable, so sad lying there. So alone. For some reason I wanted to rest my hand on her foot, on her running shoe. I fought the feeling that she needed attachment, touch, because she no longer did. I was the one who did. Death always brings home the fragility of life.

But if I touched her anywhere, even if I only touched her shoe, I might inadvertently destroy evidence. Who knew what she might have stepped in and what trace evidence lingered on that surface?

I blinked as I realized I was assuming murder. Why?

My eyes swept over the area. There was no limb lying nearby that might have fallen on her. In fact, there were no trees close to the path where we were. Also Martha couldn’t have stumbled and struck the back of her head, nor could the soft earth beneath the chicory and phlox and wild mustard have made that horrid gash.

The scene said foul play as clearly as if the weeds themselves could speak.

So I sat by Martha’s foot, careful not to touch her, feeling she deserved someone acting as honor guard or some such thing, though we were obviously too late to shield her from whomever had harmed her.

Suddenly it struck me that her neck had still been warm when I felt for a pulse. My back muscles contracted as I quickly scanned the edge of the woods that stood back about twenty feet from the trail. Dogwood and mountain laurel, their blossoms now gone, mixed with poplar, beech and oak. Whoever had struck Martha might still be nearby. Maybe they were watching me from behind the thicket of bushes? The summer foliage was dense enough to hide a small army if it chose to secret itself behind the trees. Certainly one murderer could be hiding there easily.

Oh, Lord, if he’s there, make him go away! I remembered my manners and quickly added, Please!

“They’re on their way,” Jo called as she raced back.

I breathed a relieved sigh. Help was coming and there was safety in numbers, even if the number was only two at the moment.

Jo shoved her picture phone at me. “Here, take a few shots before the crime-scene guys arrive and we won’t be allowed near Martha again.”

“I hate this part of being a reporter.” I climbed to my feet and took the phone.

“Mac would kill us if we missed the opportunity.” She heard herself and made a distressed noise as she looked down at Martha. “Poor choice of words.”

“Yeah.” Trying to be the uninvolved newspaper professional, I took several pictures. When the police arrived, I’d take a couple more of them at work and it would be one of those that actually got printed in the paper. We certainly wouldn’t print Martha, so defenseless, lying here. The pain that would give her family was unimaginable. But we would use them as a reference for whatever we wrote.

Jo stayed carefully on the path, but continued to stare at Martha, looking sad. “I went to school with her younger sister Tawny.”

“Tawny? Like the color of a lion?” It’s amazing the strange things your mind sticks on when reality is too terrible to contemplate.

“Yeah.”

“Interesting. Martha is such a traditional name, biblical and all. Tawny is one of those cutesy modern names.”

“Different moms. Martha’s mom took off when she was about three. Left her with her father. He remarried a couple of years later, and Tawny and Shawna come from the second marriage. Martha was four or five years ahead of Tawny and me, but I always thought she was so cool. She was a cheerleader, the real perky kind who does splits and tumbles. Mac was her tosser.”

“Mac?” I squeaked. “Our Mac?”

Mac Carnuccio was our editor at The News, and he was also Amhearst born and bred. He might be many things, but I’d never in a million years have pictured him as a cheerleader. The secrets that lurk in people’s pasts are amazing.