#SampleSunday: My Cozy Mystery THE CORPSE WORE GINGHAM

The Corpse Wore Gingham: A Piper & Bill Robins Mystery, Book #1 by Ed Lynskey.

NOTE: I'm finishing the final edits to book two, THE CORPSE WORE POPLIN. Look for it by the end of 2015.

Chapter 1

The wall telephone rang, and Bill Robins, frowning, picked up the handset. He’d just finished removing the last coffee mugs from the top rack of the dishwasher to put away on the cupboard shelf. He recognized Emily Davenport’s nasal voice from when she’d called him on previous occasions. Her octogenarian mother Anna, who lived one house down the street from the Robinses, had not answered Emily’s repeated phone calls or recorded voicemail messages over the past two days.

“I’m concerned about her,” Emily said. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Just name it, Emily,” he said.

“Would you mind going next door and check on her? She may have tumbled down the stairs and broken her leg or hip.”

“I hope not, and I’ll be glad to do it,” he said while shaking his head to mean he was anything but that. It was bad enough he went over to do the handyman tasks and sort of look after her. “I’ll call you right back as soon as I know something. Talk to you later.”

He hung up, grumbling to nobody in particular. Emily was about the only caller using the landline phone, and he regretted not getting rid of it. The Robinses were probably the lone holdouts on their city block to still have one.

“Quit grumbling,” Piper said from the kitchen doorway. She looked up at her husband who never put on any pounds. They dressed in cotton, hers the summery shade of beige and his taupe. “You sound like a sixty-eight-year old grump,” she said. “Who called us?”

His short, slim wife’s sudden appearance surprised him. “Who called us the last time on the landline?” he asked. “Who leaves me grumbling?”

“Just tell me.”

“Emily Davenport from Bakersfield, California, requested me to visit next door and see how Anna is faring.”

“Why? Isn’t she answering her phone?”

“You know she’s half-deaf and refuses to wear her hearing aid. Emily said she has been trying for the past two days to reach her with no success.”

“Did you agree to do it?”

He was annoyed. “Reluctantly, yes, I said I would like I always do.”

“Then we have no other choice but to take out five minutes and pop over to see what’s what.”

He pushed in the dishwasher’s top rack and lifted the door to close it. “Do you know what happened to the house key she lent me? She won’t hear our knock.”

“Didn’t she give it to you the last time you went over? Wasn’t it the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend? We’d just gotten home from the city parade.”

“I slipped the house key into my pocket, and after that where it went is anybody’s guess.”

“I know it didn’t fall out of your pocket during the washer’s spin cycle.”

“Let’s go on anyway. She seldom remembers to lock up despite all my reminders.”

“Has she grown so absent-minded? I hardly bump into her anymore for our chats. You’d better tell Emily her forgetful mother doesn’t keep her house secured.”

“The next time Emily and I talk, I’ll be sure to bring it up. For now, we have just enough time to touch base with Anna before we have to be off.”

“Noreen won’t mind hanging loose if we don’t arrive on the stroke of twelve noon.”

“Let’s still make it snappy.” He cut out of the kitchen, and she followed him.

The brilliant force of the June sun blasted them, leaving Bill to squint and wish he’d worn his sunshades. Piper led them across the ankle-high grass (he’d been lax on his mowing schedule) to Anna’s trimmed grass (she used the lawn care service he insisted they didn’t need).

Her dusty rose-colored brick and vinyl siding split-level followed the near-identical model design of their 1970s subdivision called Beverly Park. The real estate agents described it a “nice neighborhood,” meaning, among other amenities, the kids lived close enough to walk to middle school.

Anna’s door used a brass woodpecker for a door knocker. He’d installed it for her. Silly old lady, he thought again while he clacked it. They waited. He noticed her welcome doormat lay flipped over, a sign of bad luck. Three rounds of clacks with no responses later, he opened the unlocked door, Piper entering first.

She saw Anna’s step-down family room featured a well-appointed décor. The myrtlewood end tables flanked the three-piece sectional couch, cider brown with its nail-head trim and fringe skirt. Piper liked it.

The pair of overstuffed armchairs was comfortable for sitting in and staying awhile. There was no TV set. The baby blue Princess phone, once the rage, sat on the shiny, black marble top of the coffee table. It needed Lemon Pledge and a dust cloth.

He put the handset to his ear. “I get a dial tone,” he said.

“Even after her stroke, she never got a cell phone,” Piper said.

“She was too stuck in her ways.”

“You should know. I only hope she’s all right.”

“Anna! Are you home? It’s Piper and Bill from next door. Emily just called me, and we are worried about you.”

Only the foreboding silence filled the pause.

“She can’t hear me. I could bellow my fool head off, and she’d never respond.”

“She’s got to be upstairs taking a nap or reading.”

“I’m getting a bad feeling.”

“Should we go upstairs?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” His sight landed on the disturbing article. “See her bathrobe on the sofa arm?”

“Anna slipped off her bathrobe and forgot she left it there.”

“Are you wearing your contact lenses?”

“Of course I am. Without them, I’m blind as a bat.”

“Then take a closer look at her bathrobe and tell me what you see on it.”

After walking to the sofa, Piper looked down at the gingham bathrobe draped over the sofa arm before she switched on the end table lamp to brighten the spot. She saw the petite Anna wore a blue gingham bathrobe with a zip up front.

“Did she spill cranberry juice down the front of her bathrobe?” Piper asked. “I’d soak it in cold water and hand soap then try using a dab of hydrogen peroxide to get it out.”

“I only wish it was cranberry juice.”

“What is it then?”

“It’s a bloodstain.”

“Why is there so much blood on it?”

The shudder tracked up and down his back. His voice fell flat. “The blood is Anna’s. I believe she is upstairs where the killer stabbed her before taking off.”

Piper narrowed her eyes, gray and hard as granite, on him. “Why do you make such a lurid claim?”

“No other explanation makes as much sense.”

She wagged her head. “No, Bill, you are wrong. It can’t be. You’re jumping to conclusions. There are no bloodstains anywhere else.”

“The murder occurred upstairs, and the killer used her bathrobe to wipe off the blood.”

“How did the killer get in?”

“The same way we did, by turning the unlocked door knob.”

“We should have paid closer attention to her.” Piper used the resigned tone of acceptance. A surge of shock followed by sadness swept through her. “How did this happen under our noses?”

“Come on, we did the best we could for her,” he said.

“Who killed Anna Davenport, and why on earth would they?”

“I know as much as you do.”

The next emotion seizing Piper was moral outrage. Her blood pressure shot up fifty points. A lady’s home was her sanctuary. How dare a stranger break into Anna’s home. Right there, Piper resolved to take charge and do something positive and impactful about it. She sought a way to persuade Bill to assist her.

“An evil presence lurks around us.” He tried to fend off the next shiver. “Can you feel the creepy vibes I am?”

“You’re too superstitious for your own good. It’s just a split-level constructed of vinyl and brick.”

“The police should be in it, not us. We’re out of here.” He did an about-face to retrace their route to the door.

Piper whipped out a hand and snagged him by the shirttail. Her tone returned to crisp and decisive. “Slow down, Roadrunner. I’m not ready to leave. We’ve got work to do.”

Incredulous, he stared gape-mouthed at her. “You better explain,” he said.

She wiggled her nose. “I’m growing nosier by the second about the circumstances surrounding Anna’s murder,” she said.

He gave a headshake. “I’m growing leerier by the second hearing you talk crazy.”

"You love to figure out things as much as I do.”
“Like what?”

“You fix broken stuff.”

“Repairing a broken toaster or steam iron is far different than unraveling a murder mystery.”

She pointed at the bloodstained bathrobe. “Your discovery of the first clue has gotten us started.”

“Anna’s house is a crime scene, and we aren’t supposed to be muddling around in it. We are supposed to be getting with Noreen for lunch.”

“Just buzz her and say we’re running late. A murder has come up and detained us. She’ll understand.”

“Piper, have you lost your mind?”

She thought about it for a moment. “No, I’m quite sane.”

He was shaking his head. “Nothing should detain us. If we stumble over a corpse, we’re obligated to report it to the police. Murder is a capital offense, so it’s a police matter and not a Bill and Piper Robins matter.”

“It’s straightforward. Emily asked you—by extension, she asked us both—to look in on her mother. She’ll ask you for the details about what happened to Anna.”

“Emily can glean the details from the homicide detectives and police report. We’re the next-door neighbors who while doing a good turn found the dead body, and we alerted the cops. After that, we bowed out and exited the stage.”

Piper, her hands on her hips, stood between him and the door. “If it was me up there”—she jerked her head toward the stairway—“instead of Anna, you’d demand answers PDQ. Am I right or not?”

“Naturally, I’d never rest until your killer was behind bars. Remember Anna was our neighbor and not our loved one.”

“We owe it to Emily. Didn’t you promise her as much?”

“That’s a loose interpretation of what I said.”

“Be that as it may, a promise made is a promise kept. That’s one of the golden rules you taught Leif.”

Leif was the Robinses’ deceased teenage son. Just in the last year, they’d converted his old bedroom into a home office. Piper had donated what she could of his belongings, but she’d held on to his school yearbooks and swimming trophies.

“I meant I’d help Anna if she’d toppled down the stairs,” he said. “Not if she’d been left murdered.”

“You’re splitting hairs and wasting our time.”

“All right, have it your way. How do we begin? I’ve never tried my hand at following the trail of a murderer.”

Pleased he was in better step with her, Piper nodded in the same direction. “Go upstairs and check. If we are correct, then we notify the police.”

“You better steel your spine. It won’t be a pretty sight.”

“Stop trying to discourage me.”

“Piper, have you ever known me to discourage you from doing something once you’ve dug in on it?”

“I commend you for your sage wisdom.”

“I wished I’d had the sage wisdom to junk our landline phone. We’d be off to see Noreen and not poking around at a murder scene.”

“Nobody likes a grump for company.”

“Sorry I can’t be Mister Sunshine right now. Just be careful not to touch or disturb anything.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

He gestured with an outstretched hand to the stairs. “I’ll go after you, milady.”

“Who says chivalry has gone out of style?” Piper said, encouraged how his dry sense of humor had returned.

He let her get in the last word before they crossed the point of no return by following the killer’s route. His white-knuckled fist gripped the wrought iron railing as they filed up the steps to take a firsthand look. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach neither of the Robinses would forget it.

If only Anna had kept her doors locked as I told her, Bill kept thinking.

End of Chapter 1 to The Corpse Wore Gingham: A Piper & Bill Robins Mystery, Book #1
by Ed Lynskey.

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