Killer Cousins
Authors: June Shaw
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Mystery
Killer Cousins
By June Shaw
Copyright 2013 by June Shaw
Cover Copyright 2013 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Also by June Shaw and Untreed Reads Publishing
Relative Danger
Killer Cousins
June Shaw
Chapter 1
My day would have started much better if I hadn’t tripped over a body.
I didn’t know what it was yet. I’d flown into Gatlinburg, reached my cousin’s house, shoved on the stuck gate of her backyard’s wooden fence, and fallen.
“Stevie!” I cried, lying face down in tall grass. “Ste—vie!”
Her screen door slammed. “Oh, Cealie, it’s you! You came!”
She squatted beside me, and I noticed my hand landed in dog doo-doo. I jerked my hand back. I wasn’t wearing my bifocals but could tell the poop was dry. Still—I swiped my fingers through the grass.
“You didn’t answer your doorbell,” I said, checking my hand to make sure it was clean, “so I came back here. I tripped over something.”
I moved my legs slowly to make sure my stinging knees weren’t broken. So many trees cluttered Stevie’s yard, I figured a thick branch had fallen, and it was the object my shins lay across. “I’ll help you move that thing out of the way.” I pointed back to it.
Stevie didn’t speak. I glanced back to see what brought about this bizarre occurrence.
She stooped near me but didn’t look at my face. Stevie stared at my feet. My cousin blinked bluish-tan eyes so pale they might have been extensions of her cheekbones. I’d never seen her hair this way, gray and long. Her mouth was open. But this time it said nothing. Her chin appeared stuck against her neck. And that neck, like the rest of her that I could see, had ballooned.
I took my time rising. Until I glanced toward where she stared.
“It’s a man!” I yelled, scrambling to my feet. “Stevie, there’s a man in your grass.”
“I knew it.” She looked at my face. “I was afraid something like this would happen.”
The man was on his back with his eyes shut. I scooted farther from him. “Who is he?”
“I have no idea.”
I eyed him, glad I didn’t see blood or gore. I wouldn’t do well with blood or gore. He appeared middle aged, maybe a few years younger than I, not bad looking, and clean-shaven. Ice-blue shirt. Cell phone on his belt. One side of his shirt pulled up, revealing some skin. The edge of what seemed to be a bandage stuck on his back. Grass on his shoes. He might have been asleep, except he hadn’t moved since I’d tripped over him.
“Check his pulse,” I whispered.
“Uh-uh. You do it.”
I tried to conceal my inner cringe. It might be heroic to save a person, but I had little doubt this man was stone cold. I knelt beside him. “Sir, are you okay?”
He didn’t even make an eye twitch.
I laid my hand on his shoulder. Rigid. My hands weren’t. They shook. “Do you need help?” I touched his neck. Much too still. He smelled of vomit. A bluish color tinted his lips.
“What?” Stevie said.
“He’s dead. Call the police.”
She made me think of the Ghost of Christmas Past with her arms raised, a caftan floating around her. I didn’t imagine she could hustle anymore with her age and size. She’d always been the faster runner, but back then she was tall and thin. She was still tall. The yellow caftan with geometric print didn’t conceal her weight, which might have tended toward three hundred pounds. I scrambled to the house behind her.
“There’s a dead man in my backyard,” she said to whoever answered her phone call. She gave directions and said to come through the wooden fence in back.
She hung up. “They’re coming. How about some coffee while we wait?”
“Coffee’s good. It might make me quit shaking.” There was no logic to my statement, but logical wasn’t my first reaction.
“I’ll add whiskey.”
“Great.” I soaped my hands at the sink. “You must have a big dog.”
“I don’t own a dog.”
“There’s dog mess in your yard.”
“Among other things.” She clinked cups and spoons, and a strong whiskey smell overcame the unusual tangy odor in the room. Wind chimes and crystals hung from the ceiling and above the sink. What I surmised were stones, along with glassy items of different shapes, sat on her countertop in various assemblages. They hadn’t been here when I last came, years ago, and probably all had a psychic nature. I knew Stevie practiced psychic mumbo jumbo but had never seen it in action.
She glanced through the back door. I did, too, hoping the man was sitting up and brushing off his knees.
No such luck. He lay as still as the small broken branches in her yard.
Stevie gulped from the whiskey bottle. She plunked down the bottle and carried two mugs, handing me one. We swigged our spiked coffee, which sent a nice burn down my throat. I hoped it would numb me so I’d quit shaking. I hoped the police would arrive soon and tell us the man was just ill.
Now, as always, I found it difficult to focus on Stevie’s eyes. Their translucent irises made me stare at their pinprick black centers. My view expanded to her entire face. It had aged, grown fuller and softened, remaining attractive.
“Who is that man outside? And why did he die in your yard?” I asked.
Stevie’s spooky eyes widened. Sirens screamed behind her house. “Let’s get out there,” she said.
Uniformed police officers and some people in regular clothes bustled in the back gate. A few knelt, checking the man. Others focused on the gate and various parts of the yard. A slightly built man without a uniform headed for Stevie and me.
“I’m Detective Renwick,” he said. He was slightly taller than my five feet two inches, with gray threading his black hair. “And you are?” He eyed us.
“Stevie Midnight. I live here. And this is my cousin, Cealie Gunther. She found that man.”
Oh great, Stevie, this is your dead person. Why aim the investigator at me?
I gave a tight smile to Stevie and a sweet one to Renwick.
“Do you live here, Ms. Gunther?” he asked, not returning my smile.
“No, sir. I just arrived from the airport. I flew in to visit.”
He shoved dark glasses atop his head. “You only came to visit her?”
His gaze sought my attention. All the commotion behind him made it difficult to stay connected. People measured the man, inspected the gate, snapped pictures. My eyes burned, stomach knotted.
“Sir?” I said, realizing Renwick waited for an answer. “Yes, I wanted to visit my cousin.”
The whole truth was that I’d detoured here because Stevie kept sending e-mails saying she was in danger and needed help. That she would die if I didn’t come here and visit with her. She’d scared me for nothing at first, then later convinced me she needed saving. Stevie used to make me cry when we were kids. And why she thought I could protect her now was way beyond my understanding. I owned a copyediting agency. Neither my store managers nor I were detectives.
If Stevie wanted police help now, she’d tell him. Renwick turned from the study of my face to hers. Then back to mine. Maybe searching for resemblance.
“We don’t look much alike,” I said. “She’s older. Her side of the family has paler eyes. And they’re taller.”
“Everything Cealie said is true,” Stevie said. “Except I’m not that much older. Just a couple of months.” She gave me a so-there nod.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, writing on a pad. “Did either of you see what happened back here? Or hear anything unusual?”
“No, sorry,” Stevie said, and I looked at her, curious.
“You, ma’am?” he asked me. I told him what happened when I arrived. “We’ll have to check your rental car,” he said, and I nodded.
“My car is through that door in the garage,” Stevie told the detective.
“Is Stevie your given name?” he asked.
“Yes, given to me by my mother.” She grinned with her joke. “And my father gave me my last name. I never married.”
“Your parents seemed to like similar first names.” He nodded at each of us.
“Oh yes. Stevie. Cealie.” She gave me the first smile she’d offered since I arrived. “Our mothers were sisters. They both wrote great poetry. I can show you some of Mother’s if you’d like.”
“Not today,” Renwick said. “Does anyone live with you?”
Her expression crimped, like she was embarrassed. “No, there’s only me.”
“I’d like to come in,” Renwick said.
“Wonderful. I have fresh coffee. I’ll put on a little more, and all your friends back here can have some, too.”
Good grief. Did she need company that badly?
“No coffee, but I’d like to look around.”
“Come and look away.” She rushed through the door ahead of him. I kept quiet and followed.
In the kitchen Stevie fixed more coffee, seemingly oblivious to the detective. I watched his face when he spied all of her psychic paraphernalia. Renwick sniffed the air, pungent with aromas that might have come from lit candles or netherworld objects. He wrote on his pad.
He moved to other parts of the house, inspecting. I slid nonchalantly behind him, keeping a few feet between us. My shins started to ache. Renwick paused at the doorway of the third bedroom. I saw the bed was gone from it. What resembled a small altar was set up near the far wall. A wide circle of squat, lit candles sat on the carpet. Renwick shook his head.
The phone shrilled in the kitchen, making him glance back. He spied me in the hall.
I gave him my innocent-grandma smile. “I’ll go get that,” I said, pointing.
My cousin answered the phone. Her caller’s voice boomed, “Stevie, there are cop cars all around your house!” The woman sounded young. “Oh, some of them are coming over here. I’ll get back to you.”
Disconnecting, Stevie noticed me. “My neighbor,” she explained.
“She has a loud voice.”
“Especially when she’s excited.” Stevie nodded to the detective returning from the hall. “The coffee’s poured.”
“I’d like to ask a few more questions,” Renwick said.
I glanced through the screen door while he took a chair at the table. Chills spiked up my spine. Yellow tape spread outside the open gate. More people gathered. Men positioned a gurney near the man on the grass.
“Do you know who he is?” I asked. “Or what killed him? Did he die of natural causes?”
“We’ll let you know. Do you visit here often?”
“It’s been a while, probably before Stevie’s hair turned gray.”
“And what color is
yours
now?” she shot back.
“I haven’t had the courage to find out lately. But this shade’s natural burnt sienna.”
“Good shade. But your roots—”
“Okay,” our questioner said, gaze leveled at me, “so you flew in today for a visit with your cousin here?”
“Oh, no,” Stevie said. “Cealie probably never would have come if I hadn’t told her I was in danger and needed help.”
Renwick’s eyebrows scrunched up. “What danger? You were threatened?”
“Absolutely, the signs are everywhere. My tarot cards. The warnings in my candles and crystals.”