Three Bedrooms, One Corpse(3)

“I’m sure we shouldn’t cover her up,” I said wist- fully. For once, I was wishing I hadn’t read so much true and fictional crime, so I wouldn’t know I was not supposed to adjust the corpse.

Martin Bartell’s light brown eyes looked at me very thoroughly. They had a golden touch, like a tiger’s. “Miss Teagarden.”

“Mr. Bartell . . . ?”

His hand emerged from his pocket and moved up. I tensed as though I were about to be jolted by electric- ity. I lost the technique of staring at his chin and looked right at him. He was going to touch my cheek.

14

~ Charlaine Harris ~

“Is the body in here?” asked Detective Lynn Liggett Smith from perhaps three feet away.

Downstairs, at least thirty minutes later, I had recov- ered my composure. I no longer felt as if I was in heat and would rip Martin Bartell’s clothes off any minute. I no longer felt that he, out of all the people in the world, had the power to look underneath all the layers of my personality and see the basic woman, who had been lonely (in one particular way) for a very long time.

In the “family room,” with my mother and Barby Lampton to provide protective chaperonage, I was able to collect all my little foibles and peculiarities back to- gether and stack them between myself and Martin Bartell.

My mother felt obligated to hold polite conversation with her clients. She had introduced herself formally, gotten over her surprise on finding out that Mr. Bartell’s companion was his sister, not his wife, and had established the fact that Martin Bartell had re- ceived good impressions of Lawrenceton in the weeks he’d spent here. “It’s been a pleasant change of pace af- ter the Chicago area,” he said, and sounded sincere. “Barby and I grew up on a farm in a very rural area of Ohio.”

Barby didn’t seem to enjoy being reminded. He explained a little about his reorganization of the local Pan-Am Agra plant to my mother, a born man- ager, and I kept my eyes scrupulously to myself. We waited for the police for a long time, it seemed. I

~ Three Bedrooms, One Corpse ~

1 5

heard familiar voices calling up and down the stairs. I’d dated Lynn Liggett’s husband, Arthur Smith (before they married, of course), and during our “courtship” I’d become acquainted with every detective and most of the uniforms on Lawrenceton’s small force. Detective Henske’s cracker drawl, Lynn’s crisp alto, Paul Alli- son’s reedy voice . . . and then came the sound I dreaded. Detective Sergeant Jack Burns.

I turned in my chair to group myself protectively with the other three. What were they talking about now? Martin Bartell had said he’d been at work every day of the three months he’d spent in Lawrenceton, and had invited Mother to tell him about the town. He couldn’t have asked anyone more informed, except perhaps the Chamber of Commerce executive, a lonely man who worked touchingly hard to persuade the rest of the world to believe in Lawrenceton’s intangible ad- vantages.

I listened once more to the familiar litany. “Four banks,” Mother enumerated, “a country club, all the major automobile dealerships, though I’m afraid you’ll have to get the Mercedes repaired in Atlanta.” I heard Jack Burns shouting down the stairs. He wanted the fingerprint man to “get his ass in gear.” “Lawrenceton is practically a suburb of Atlanta now,” Barby Lampton said, earning her a hard look from my mother. Most Lawrencetonians were not too pleased about the ever-nearing annexation of Lawrence- ton into the greater Atlanta area.

“And the school system is excellent,” my mother continued with a little twitch of her shoulders. “Though I don’t know if that’s an area of interest—?”

16

~ Charlaine Harris ~

“No, my son just graduated from college,” Martin Bartell murmured. “And Barby’s girl is a freshman at Kent State.”

“Aurora is my only child,” Mother said naturally enough. “She’s worked at the library here for what— six years, Roe?”

I nodded.

“A librarian,” he said thoughtfully.

Why was it librarians had such a prim image? With all the information available in books right there at their fingertips, librarians could be the best-informed people around. About anything.

“Now she’s thinking about going into real estate, and looking for her own home at the same time.” “You think you’d like selling homes?” Barby said politely.

“I’m beginning to think maybe it’s not for me,” I ad- mitted, and my mother looked chagrined. “Honey, I know this morning has been a horrible experience—poor Tonia Lee—but you know this is not something that happens often. But I am beginning to think I’ll have to establish some kind of system to check on my female Realtors when they are out show- ing a house to a client we don’t know. Aurora, maybe Aubrey wouldn’t like you selling real estate? My daughter has been dating our Episcopalian priest for several months,” she explained to her clients with an almost-convincing casualness.

“Episcopalians have a reputation for being generally liberal,” Martin Bartell remarked out of the blue. “I know, but Aubrey is an exception if that really is true,” Mother said, and my heart sank. “He is a won-

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1 7

derful man—I’ve come to know him since I married my present husband, who is a cradle Episcopalian—but Aubrey is very conservative.”

I felt my cheeks turn red in the cold room. I ran a nervous hand under the hair at my neck, loosening the strands that had gotten tucked in my jacket collar, and tilted my head back a little to shake it straight. Thinking about Tonia Lee Greenhouse was prefer- able to feeling like a parakeet that is extremely excited at the prospect of being eaten by the cat. I thought about the loathsome way Tonia had been positioned, a parody of seductiveness. I thought about the leather thongs on Tonia’s wrists. Had she been tied to the ornate wooden headboard? Old Mr. and Mrs. Anderton must be turning in their graves. I thought about Tonia Lee in life—tall, thin, with teased dark hair and bright makeup, a woman who was rumored to be often unfaithful to her husband, Donnie. I won- dered if Donnie had just gotten tired of Tonia Lee’s ways, if he’d followed her to her appointment and taken care of her after the client had left. I wondered if Tonia had been overcome by passion for her client and had bedded him here in the invitingly luxurious master bedroom, or if she’d had an assignation with someone she’d been seeing for a while. Maybe the house- showing had been a fictitious cover to let her romp in one of the prettiest houses in Lawrenceton. “Mackie brought her the key yesterday,” I said sud- denly.

“What?” asked my mother with reproof in her voice. I had no idea what they’d been talking about. “Yesterday about five o’clock, while I was waiting

18

~ Charlaine Harris ~

for you in the reception room, Tonia Lee called your office and asked for the key. She said she’d been held up—if anyone was getting off work, she’d be really obliged if they could drop it off here; she’d meet them. I handed the phone to Mackie Knight. He was leaving just then, and he said he’d do it.”

“We’ll have to tell the police. Maybe Mackie was the last one to see her alive—or maybe he saw the man she was going to show the house to!”

Then Jack Burns was in the doorway, and I sighed. Detective Sergeant Jack Burns was a frightening man, and he really couldn’t stand me. If he could ever arrest me for anything, he’d just love to do it. Luckily for me, I’m very law-abiding, and since I had come to know Jack Burns, I’d made sure I got my car inspected right on the dot, that I parallel-parked perfectly, and that I didn’t even jaywalk.

“If it isn’t Miss Teagarden,” he said with a terrifying affability. “I declare, young woman, you get prettier every time I see you. And I always do seem to see you when I come to a murder scene, don’t I?” “Hello, Jack,” said my mother with a distinct edge to her voice.

“Mrs. Teagarden—no, Mrs. Queensland now, isn’t it? I haven’t seen you since your wedding; congratula- tions. And these must be our new residents? Hope you don’t feel like running back north after today. Lawrence- ton used to be such a quiet town, but the city is reaching out to us here, and I guess in a few years we’ll have a crime rate like Atlanta’s.”

Mother introduced her clients.

“Guess you won’t want this house after today,” Jack

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1 9

Burns said genially. “Ole Tonia Lee looked pretty bad. I’m sure sorry you all ran into this, you being new and all.”

“This could have happened anywhere,” Martin said. “I’m beginning to think being a real estate agent is a haz- ardous occupation, like being a convenience-store clerk.” “It certainly does seem so,” Jack Burns agreed. He was wearing a hideous suit, but I’ll give him this much credit—I don’t think he cared a damn about what he wore or what people thought about it.

“Now, Mr. Bartell, I believe you touched the de- ceased?” he continued.

“Yes, I walked over to make sure she was dead.” “Did you touch anything on the bed?”