BM03 - Crazy Little Thing Called Dead Read Free Page B

him.” When you break up with a girl you need to have some common courtesy and not keep showing up at her house.
    Beau: “Everything would have been fine if you hadn’t turned into that woman that’s always finding dead bodies.”
    Me: “What are you talking about?” You think I want to find dead bodies?
    Beau: “You know, that girl in the books who’s always finding dead bodies.”
    Me: “You’re changing the subject.”
    Beau: “Obviously.”
    Me: “I am not that dead body girl.” Oh God. I’m the dead body girl .
    And then, the first time he had to go out of town, he’d left Beans home alone at his house with food and water and called me from the plane to ask if I’d check in on the little Chihuahua. Beans had been living with me ever since. And I’d gotten him a tag with my address in case he got lost. But he was not my dog. However, I treated him like my dog. It only seemed fair.
    The dogs followed me into the barn to feed my pony and Max’s horses. Max is a supposed-to-be-retired farmer who lives up the hill from me with his wife, Mary. Only he hates not working. He keeps his horses on my farm and we trade off chores. He keeps an eye on the farm when I’m at work, and if the animals get out he rounds them up. It’s a good partnership and I don’t ever come home to discover my animals in someone else’s vegetable garden. I can’t tell you how comforting that is.
    I fed the bunnies and noticed the chickens’ grain was getting low. I really should be charging my neighbors for eggs, organic feed is not cheap. Stripes, the skunk that thought he was a dog, was hanging around outside the chicken fence.
    “No eggs for you,” I told him. “I put your tuna in the storm drain.”
    Stripes followed me to the house, which still made me kind of nervous. He hadn’t sprayed in a long time, but the potential was still there. Diesel, the boxer ran over to Stripes, they sniffed noses and Diesel rolled the skunk over and snuffled his belly. Thank God skunks can’t spray when they’re on their backs.
    Annabelle Cat hopped down from the porch rail as I came up the stairs and followed me into the house with the other dogs. I inherited my house from my grandma. My brothers got money, which made them happy, and I got the farm, which made me happy. I’d done a little remodeling, mostly putting in a bunch more windows, painting walls and tossing a bunch of furniture.
    I grabbed a Greek yogurt with honey from the fridge and ate it leaning with my back to the sink. I’m great at compartmentalizing but now that my chores for the day were done, the body in Planet Hair was on my mind.
    It was just so unlikely. Why dump a body there? I could see the benefits; Planet Hair was situated out of the line of site from the Green, the New England equivalent of the town square. Because Planet Hair was at the end of the building and the porch didn’t extend past the door, no one could glance in and see the body. But still, it didn’t make sense to me.
    I set aside the body as ‘unanswered questions’ and rooted around in the fridge for something else to eat. I grabbed an apple and a soda, heading to the living room to hang out on my couch. I truly did mean to watch TV, go to bed and forget about the murder, but questions kept cropping up in my mind. Like, why diapers? And why not just dump the body in the river? So I turned on the lamp, got a pad of paper and a pen, and started taking notes. I’d find the facts if it killed me.
     
    ***
     
    There are certain perks to working over the main drag in town. Food is one of them. Unfortunately, when I walked into the café to pick up my grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of tomato soup, I spotted the front cover of the Valley News . While I was waiting I bought the paper and opened the News and placed it on the counter next to The Star . My article had more detail than Lucy’s, and thankfully Randy hadn’t signed a release for the News , so we had the only photos of the dead body,