Eggs in a Casket (A Cackleberry Club Mystery) by Laura Childs Page A

forma, since you were one of any number of people who were close to Ozzie.”
    “But I’m pretty sure Doogie still doesn’t trust me. In fact, I’m pretty sure he hates me!”
    “Doogie doesn’t hate you, Missy. He barely even knows you.”
    But Missy just shook her head mutely and stood up. Seconds later, before Suzanne could ask any more questions or elicit any responses, she was out the door.
    * * *
    SUZANNE was three blocks from home when she flipped a U-turn in the middle of Hayworth Avenue and gunned her engine. She’d just decided that Baxter and Scruff, her trusty watchdogs, could cool their paws for a few more minutes. Because, for some strange reason, the thought had come crashing into her brain that she should return to Memorial Cemetery. To take another look.
    She didn’t want to. No, she really did not. In fact, Suzanne repeated that negative litany to herself as she threaded her way down Main Street, navigated a residential district known as The Oaks, then finally made her way out of town and up the narrow road to the cemetery.
    And when she drove through the gates, that same jittery feeling she’d experienced this morning came flooding back to her. She drove down the narrow lane between marble tombs and whitewashed headstones. The sun, which had peeped out for all of three minutes this afternoon, was now secluded behind layers of thick clouds, and the chill wind was back. Trees thrashed overhead, low branches
tick-ticked
their skeletal fingers against the sides of her car, and the windshield began to fog. It was like some strange entity was trying to warn her or keep her away.
    Silly girl. Stop imagining things
, she told herself.
    Turning down a muddy lane, Suzanne noticed a few people wandering among the stone markers. Clad in sweaters and jackets, they were hurriedly placing flowers on some of the graves.
    Good. At least I’m not alone here.
    But when Suzanne got to the old part of the cemetery, the part where they’d dropped the flowers and discovered Drummond lying in the grave, she discovered she was quite alone.
    Just my luck. Doesn’t anybody have relatives buried over here?
    She sat for a full minute, engine still idling, defroster sputtering, her hands gripping the steering wheel. Then she drew breath, shut off her engine, and got out.
    Squishing across the grass, her shoulders hunched to the wind, Suzanne headed for the flutter of yellow crime scene tape some fifty yards away. When she reached the grave, she decided it didn’t look all that different than it had this morning. Except now it was just an empty dark hole. There was no waxen-looking Lester Drummond crumpled on his side, only the persistent bad memory of seeing him that way. The town’s tough guy laid low.
    But by whose hand?
    Certainly not Missy Langston’s. Missy may have been harassed by Drummond, but she’d never retaliate with violence. It just wasn’t in her nature. Then who else? Who in this small town, where calm and collegiality were so preciously valued, would do such a terrible thing?
    As Suzanne stood there, shivering, thinking dark thoughts, she was suddenly aware of a low, throaty rumble. Startled, she whirled around, feeling a jolt of panic. But all she saw was a small, dirty yellow Bobcat tractor bumping its way toward her.
    It’s coming to fill in the grave
, she told herself.
A sort of burial without
the body.
    And with that bizarre thought buzzing inside her brain, Suzanne couldn’t get out of the cemetery fast enough.
    * * *
    WHEN she finally arrived home, Suzanne wasn’t very hungry. Somewhere along the line (she wondered where!) she’d lost most of her appetite. So after fixing bowls of kibble for Baxter and Scruff, she made herself a small bowl of tomato soup and grabbed a couple of crackers. She put her meager meal on a tray and carried the whole shebang into Walter’s former office, the spot that was fast becoming her cozy library/den/computer room.
    Setting everything on a small spinet