Aurora 03 - Three Bedrooms, One Corpse by Charlaine Harris Page A

me.”
    “You don’t have a feel for the business, do you?” Mother said reluctantly.
    “I don’t think so,” I said with equal regret.
    She reached across her desk and patted my hand, surprising me for the second time today. We are not touchers.
    “Excuse me,” Debbie Lincoln said from the doorway. “That woman wants you, Miss Teagarden.”
    “Thanks,” I said. I retrieved my purse from the floor and fluttered my fingers at my mother.
    “See you tomorrow night, Mom, if not sooner.”
    “Okay, Aurora.”

    That night, after I’d taken my shower and wrapped myself up in a warm robe, something that had been picking at the edges of my mind finally surfaced.
    I looked up a number in the little Lawrenceton phone book and dialed.
    “Hello?”
    “Gerald, this is Roe Teagarden.”
    “My goodness, girl. I haven’t seen you in a year, I guess.”
    “How are you doing, Gerald?”
    “Oh, pretty well. You know, don’t you, that I’ve remarried?”
    “That’s what I heard. Congratulations.”
    “Mamie’s cousin Marietta came to help me clean out her stuff after Mamie—died, and we just hit it off.”
    “I’m so glad, Gerald.”
    “Is there anything I can do for you, Roe?”
    “Listen, I heard a name today and I’m trying to pin a case to it. Think you can help me?”
    “I’ll sure give it a shot. It’s been a long time since I’ve read any true crime. Mamie getting killed kind of made my interest in crime fade ...”
    “Of course. I’m being so stupid calling you ...”
    “But lately I’ve thought about taking it up again. So what’s your question?”
    “You were always our walking encyclopedia in Real Murders, Gerald. So here’s the question.
    Emily Kaye?”
    “Emily Kaye ... hmmmm. A victim, not a killer, I remember that right off the bat.”
    “Okay. American?”
    “Nope. Nope. English ... early this century, 1920s, I think.”
    I kept a respectful silence while Gerald rummaged through his mental attic of old murder cases. Since Gerald was an insurance salesman, his interest in wrongful death had always seemed rather natural.
    “I got it!” he said triumphantly. “Patrick Mahon! Married man who killed and cut up his mistress, Emily Kaye. There were pieces of her all over the holiday cottage he’d rented; he’d tried several methods to dispose of the body. He’d bought a knife and saw before he’d gone down to the cottage, so the jury didn’t believe his excuse that she’d died accidentally. Let me flip open this book, Roe. Okay ... his wife, who’d thought he was fooling around, found a ticket to retrieve a bag from the train station . .. and in the bag was a woman’s bloodstained clothing. She told the police, I believe. So they backtracked Mahon and found the body parts. That what you needed to know?”
    “Yes, thank you, Gerald. I appreciate your help.”

    “No trouble at all.”
    The early Emily Kaye was certainly a far cry from the present-day Emily. I couldn’t imagine the Emily I knew going to a cottage for an illicit vacation with a married man.
    So a little niggling point had been settled. I knew where I’d heard the name.
    But there was no one I could share this fascinating bit of information with, no one who would appreciate it. For the second time in one day, I regretted the disbanding of Real Murders. Call us ghouls, call us just plain peculiar, we had had a good time with our admittedly offbeat hobby.
    What had happened to the members of our little club? Of the twelve, one would go on trial soon for multiple murder, another had committed suicide, one had been murdered, one had been widowed, one had died of natural causes, one had been arrested for drug trafficking (Gifford’s unusual lifestyle had finally attracted the wrong attention), one was in a mental institution ... on the other hand, LeMaster was still busy and prosperous with his dry-cleaning business, presumably, though I hadn’t seen him since Jane Engle’s funeral. John Queensland had married my