The Fashion Hound Murders (29 page)

Alyce’s doorbell rang. She looked out the front window. “It’s the UPS man. I hope it’s my roasting fork,” she said.

It was. Alyce opened a long box and took out a heavy steel fork more than a foot long. “That should lift a turkey,” she said with satisfaction.

“It should lift a buffalo,” Josie said. “Do you need a license to carry that?”

“While we’re talking about lethal weapons, Josie, please tell me you aren’t going to poke around in Jonah Deerford’s murder. It’s too dangerous.”

“I can’t let Ted go to jail for a murder he didn’t commit. The Wildfern police aren’t going to do anything.”

“So you’re going back to see Josh at Has Beans? You’re playing with fire, Josie. Is that your only choice?”

“I can try one other thing,” Josie said. “If I can find the woman who can alibi Ted for the time Jonah Deerford was murdered, that would clear him. But Ted won’t give me her name. He says she’s been hurt enough.”

“Such a gentleman,” Traci said, and sighed. “You don’t find men like him anymore.”

“What about that Nedra person?” Alyce asked. “Didn’t she used to work with Ted at People Are Animals, Too?”

“Her name is Nedra Neosho. She might know the woman’s name, but Nedra says Ted has distanced himself from the PAT group. I saw her this morning.”

“Still, to save his life, she might help,” Alyce said. “After all, he is a mammal.”

“Good thing, because she’s antireptile. But she might help. Edna said she was a good person. I’ll give her a call. It’s worth a try before I see Josh again and open old wounds.”

But visions of dangerous Josh danced in her head—exciting visions Josie couldn’t ignore. To make them disappear, she dialed the PAT office.

“Good afternoon. People Are Animals, Too. This is Jennifer speaking.”

“Hi, I’m Josie Marcus. I was in this morning talking to Nedra Neosho. May I speak with her?”

“She’s not here,” Jennifer said. “Perhaps I could help you?”

“No, I really need to speak with Nedra. When will she be back?”

“She volunteers one morning a week,” Jennifer said. “You’ll have to wait another seven days until she comes in again. Sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry.

Josie hung up, discouraged. “That’s that,” she said. “No way to talk to Nedra for a week.”

“Not quite,” Alyce said. “See if her home address is in the directory.”

The St. Louis phone book seemed to shrink every year. But for once, Josie had some good luck. Nedra was in the white pages. “She lives in the perfect place for an animal rights activist,” Josie said. “Dogtown.”

“You’re joking,” Traci said.

“No, it’s a real neighborhood on the western edge of St. Louis. Dogtown used to be the Irish section. It has some cute older houses. I have enough time to stop by and see her before I pick up Amelia at school—if I leave now.”

“Take her a cinnamon roll,” Alyce said.

“She won’t be able to resist,” Traci said.

“Yap!” said Snowball.

Josie left, loaded with leftover cinnamon rolls and good wishes.

Nedra lived in a neat, white vinyl-sided house with crisp green trim. The home had a striped awning over the front door, rambler roses next to the porch, and a fenced backyard. The front lawn was being dug up and reseeded. About half the yard was yellow-brown clay soil. The rest was straggling brown weeds.

Nedra’s concrete drive ended in a narrow one-car garage. The garage door was up. Josie saw, parked inside, a brown Subaru plastered with bumper stickers: DON’T EAT THE DEAD—GO VEGETARIAN and I’D RATHER BE CAMPING. Josie hoped the car in the garage meant Nedra was home.

After several minutes of Josie’s energetic knocking, Nedra came to the door, wearing the same outfit she’d had on at the PAT office. She had sleep wrinkles in her right cheek.

“I hope I didn’t wake you up,” Josie said. “May I come in? Ooh, it’s your little puppy.”

Bruiser was hiding behind Nedra’s skirt. Josie bent down to pet the pup’s ear. She was in.

“Uh,” Nedra said.

Josie stepped into a clean, small room with white curtains and mint green walls. Long, brownish things were in shadow box frames on the walls. Leaves? Old lace? The room had a dark couch, a chair, and a long, narrow table against the wall by the door. A bushy green vine trailed down the edge.

Bruiser, Nedra’s pound pup, was now gnawing on a flat shoe near the table.

“Hi, cutie,” Josie said to the pup, getting down on the floor. Bruiser dropped the shoe and started chewing on a book cover. Josie reached over to rescue the book from Bruiser’s puppy teeth and heard a dry rattle, like dead seeds in a gourd.

She was eye level with the cruel face of a tan and black rattlesnake. The reptile coiled and uncoiled in a long, closed tank on the table. Josie backed away and dropped the book with a thud. The pup yelped and ran under the couch. The book was
Venomous Snakes of the World
.

“Looking for your boyfriend’s picture in the book?” Nedra said.

“I thought you didn’t like snakes,” Josie said.

“I lied,” Nedra said. “Just like your vet friend lied. Ted said he wasn’t serious about anyone. But he was serious about me, until you came along. So I guess I’m nobody.” The bitterness in Nedra’s voice was like snake venom.

“It was you,” Josie said. “You put that coral snake skin in Ted’s clinic.”

“It was my snake skin,” Nedra said. “I went to the clinic when he was out with the mobile pet van and left the snake skin behind his couch.”

“But he’s being railroaded for murder,” Josie said.

“Ted deserves to be in trouble. Just like Jonah deserved to die. The world is better off without both of them. Ted was right—snakes are useful.”

She smiled. The snake could have learned a few lessons about scary from Nedra.

Josie looked at the closest brown item on the wall. A snake skin.

“The coral snake skin was a souvenir of our trip to New Mexico,” Nedra said. “We visited PAT’s headquarters there. At least Ted let me keep that.”

“That’s where you found the coral snake, isn’t it?” Josie asked.

“I found it when Ted and I went camping there. He wanted to leave the coral snake in the wild. He said we were disturbing its home and that wasn’t fair. Fair! To a snake! I hid the coral snake in a minnow bucket in my trunk. It survived the trip back to St. Louis.”

“And this snake in the tank here is the one Ted found in Traci’s garage?” Josie asked.

“Maybe.” Nedra smiled a death’s-head grin. “Ted wanted to set it free in the woods. He asked me to go with him. He said it had to be released near where it lived. That was the day he met you. All the way to the site, he talked about you—how cute you were, where you lived, your darling daughter, and your stupid, constipated cat! He was too dumb to know it, but I figured it out. Ted was in love with you.”

“He was?” Josie was strangely pleased.

“He dumped me three days later. Oh, he was nice about it. Ted said we could be just friends. Hah! They all say that. Ted didn’t even know if you liked snakes. I was the only woman he ever dated who did.”

“Uh, you have a lot in common,” Josie said. “I brought you these. They’re vegetarian.” She dropped the bag of cinnamon rolls on the couch and started backing toward the door.

“Ted took me to a rock ledge where some fifty timber rattlesnakes were brumating. That’s a light hibernation, except this was a sunny day and the snakes were sunning themselves. Those fat suburbanites in Wood Winds would have a fit if they knew a den of rattlesnakes lived so close to their silly gated subdivision.”

“I never liked subdivisions,” Josie said. She started edging toward the front door, but Nedra and the snake tank still blocked her way. Another five feet and she would be out of there.

“I sacrificed my beloved coral snake to a good cause,” Nedra said. “I put it in Jonah’s truck. I parked my car at the end of that awful road, hiked up, and left the snake in his truck. It was unlocked. The next day was warm, and the snake did its job. Jonah died.”

“Why not kill him with a rattlesnake?” Josie said.

“Because a rattler would have warned Jonah,” Nedra said. “If he got to the hospital in time, an adult could survive the bite. But a coral snake is quiet. Dead quiet, you might say. Most people don’t know they’ve been bitten until it’s too late. And coral snake antivenin isn’t made anymore. But I missed my pet, so I went back to the timber rattlesnake den and brought that beauty home.”

“Glad you’re not lonely,” Josie said. She slid another foot toward the front door.

Quick as a striking snake, Nedra grabbed an odd reaching device off the long table, opened the top of the tank, and stuck it inside the tank. The rubber-lined jaws caught the rattlesnake behind the head. It writhed and undulated. Nedra expertly removed the snake from the tank.

“Well, thanks. Better go,” Josie said.

Before she could get out the door, Nedra thrust the snake tongs at her. The snake was close enough that its long tongue nearly touched her shoulder. It hissed and lunged, but Nedra hung on to the snake tongs and kept the snake millimeters from Josie.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “There’s no poison in a snake tongue. But if it sinks those fangs in you, it’s bye-bye. Now go outside through the kitchen, or I’ll drop the snake on your neck. It will bite a carotid artery and nobody will be able to save you.”

The muddy-colored snake bared its fangs and gave a warning rattle.

Josie backed slowly through the kitchen, looking for something to use as a weapon. She started to reach for a kitchen chair.

“Don’t even think about it,” Nedra said. “And don’t bother going for the knife by the sink, either.”

They were through the small kitchen now. Josie was backed up against the side door. Only one short step separated her from the garage. Nedra pressed a button on the kitchen wall and the garage door rumbled shut.

Josie opened the shed door slowly, blocking her escape into the backyard.

“Get inside,” Nedra hissed. She was starting to sound like a snake.

“I am inside,” Josie said.

“I mean in that toolshed. Move or I’ll let him sink those fangs in you right now.”

Stall for time, Josie told herself. Maybe there’s a weapon on the garage wall. Then you can hit her with it and bolt down the drive.

There was barely room for Josie, Nedra, and the rattlesnake in the cramped space between the car bumper and the toolshed. One escape route was blocked by trash cans and recycling bins. Nedra held the snake carefully and threw open the shed door. That blocked the other way out.

“Get in,” Nedra said. “The snake is pissed and so am I. Congratulations. You’re about to become a statistic—one of the few Missourians killed by a timber rattlesnake.”

Josie’s terrified brain took in four stacked sacks of mulch and a big bag of grass seed. There was no sign of a shovel, rake, or hoe. They must be out on the lawn.

“I’m running out of patience,” Nedra said. “Get in. Now.” The snake writhed, hissed, and rattled. “In!” Nedra screamed, and held the snake close enough that Josie could see its mean little eyes in that deadly, triangular face.

Josie slipped into the shed. “It’s awfully small,” she said.

“It’s big enough for you and the snake.” Nedra threw the snake inside and slammed the door.

Josie screamed and climbed atop the stack of mulch bags. The snake rattled again and struck at the lowest bag. Josie whimpered and clung to the walls. Wood splinters pierced her hands. The shed was black as the inside of a cave. She felt along the wall and found something silky and sticky in the closest corner. A spiderweb? There were no spiders this time of year, were there?

Josie heard the snap of a padlock.

“Nedra,” Josie said, “how are you going to explain the padlock to the police?”

“I’ll just say I saw the shed was unlocked when I came home and locked it again. Imagine my surprise when I opened it days later and found you dead.”

Chapter 35

Josie heard that fatal rattle and stayed perfectly still. A thin band of light from the garage filtered under the padlocked shed door. She could see the snake, now that her eyes were adjusting to the dimness.

The rattlesnake was coiled in the opposite corner on the bag of grass seed. There was enough light to read the writing on the bag:
50 pounds grass seed, 49% Kentucky blue-grass, 20% perennial rye, 29% creeping red fescue.

The snake was one-hundred-percent creepy. The predator’s flat, triangular head had terrified humans for centuries. The colors—the yellow-brown of spring mud and the black of decaying leaves—were cruel tricks.

Now Josie could see she wasn’t standing on four bags of mulch. These were fifty-pound sacks of corn gluten organic weed control—
Prevents and eliminates weeds. Stops crabgrass, spurge, dandelions, bent grass, and other common weeds. Safe for kids and dogs.

Trust Nedra to go for the greenest lawn, in all senses of the word.

The coiled snake stretched its jaws and sank its fangs into the bottom sack. An evil stream of venom shot out and trickled down the bag.

Just three feet higher, Josie thought, and I’m dead.

She pounded on the shed walls. “Let me out! Let me go! I have a daughter.”

“Shut up, Josie,” Nedra said in a bored voice.

How could she sound bored when I’m locked in with a killer reptile? Josie wondered. No wonder the woman likes snakes. She is as cold-blooded as they are.

If Nedra wouldn’t listen, a neighbor might hear her shouts. “Help!” Josie screamed. “Somebody help me!”

“Forget it,” Nedra said. “The Hendersons next door are both at work and the old lady on the other side is deaf. No one can hear you. Except the snake. Oooh, is that another rattle? Isn’t that sweet? Snakes don’t drop in on people in the middle of the afternoon. This one announces his visit. You can learn many valuable lessons from our friend the snake.” Nedra gave a mocking laugh.

Light! Josie needed more light. She had to escape. The walls felt like they would close in and crush her. Josie ran her hands along the wall for a light switch. Nothing.

She searched blindly with her hands for a ridge, molding, or small shelf along the top of the shed. If she found something, Josie could hang on to it while she pushed the fifty-pound sacks on top of the snake. If two hundred pounds of corn gluten weren’t heavy enough to kill the rattler, the sacks might immobilize the snake until help came.