Yew to a Kill Read online

  Acknowledgements

  My editor, Wendy Strain, deserves a huge thank you for her insightful comments that made me go off and do even more rewriting. My cover art had great input and hard work done by Allan Smith, who is a wiz at creating stuff in Illustrator. And, a special nod to my mastermind group, Authors Unplugged. Angela, Linda, Kim K., Kristi and Robin--you gals are the best friends a person could ever want. Thank you for enduring hours of chats instead of writing your own work. I know I talk a lot.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my family…you inspire to me reach greatness. You are all so creative, I have to work hard to keep even a little close to the heights you scale.

  And, yes, even you little Darby – we will have time to play with Monster, Baby, and Spot a lot more for a few weeks before I am off on another adventure with these nutty characters.

  To all the writers out there who aspire to write their own book…

  GO BREAK SOME LEAD!

  Chapter One

  I carried a deep respect for professional men and Jason Scott ranked right up there. His asking to hire Video Angels for his business did nothing but raise him in my estimation. He sat in my sparsely furnished office in his ill-fitting tan suit, his blond hair stringy and disheveled. He looked more like a worn-out beach bum than a funeral home director—the kind of bum who has seen too much sunburn and had too much sand kicked in his face.

  Of course, these days he was a local businessman and member of the Chamber of Commerce, and he could afford to look any way he wanted to unlike in years gone by when appearance really mattered and only the best sufficed. His youthful good looks had smoothed his way into the inner circle of South Lake’s elite, the inner circle his wife was born into. Right now, I didn’t care if he’d married his way in or was dipped in the clique. I just wanted his money.

  We sat silently, legs crossed, listening to the quiet of the second floor of Video Angel’s building. I gazed at the picture on the wall behind his head—a depiction of Guinevere and Lancelot that Dwayne Brown, my partner, had bought for my office when I’d said I wanted to make it interesting and visual. Of course, movie posters came to my mind since we were in the video production business, but obviously “interesting and visual” means different things to different people. Dwayne is about as different as they come.

  “Do you think you can do it, Shannon?” Jason asked.

  “Sure. No problem. You have any special requests?”

  “Yeah. Don’t screw it up. Make sure you get something I can take to the cops.”

  I stared.

  His face turned red, and he dropped his gaze

  “Sure. You want evidence of illegal activity. I get it,” I told him.

  “The cops think it’s kids.”

  “And you don’t think it’s kids?” I asked.

  “Hell, no. Kids wouldn’t spend this much time tearing up crap. They don’t plan out their crimes like this.”

  I didn’t tell him I disagreed, but I did. Strongly. My aunts had a neighbor whose kid, Jimmy, was a mastermind of getting into trouble.

  “So all you need is surveillance on the cemetery grounds for a possible shot of anyone stealing or upsetting stuff?”

  “You heard about what they did?” Anger flashed across his face.

  “Heard a little gossip. Someone said gangs, someone else said devil-worshippers. Guess since we’re surrounded by churches in this town that’s to be expected.”

  He lifted his hand and rubbed his chin. “Gangs? Good grief. It ain’t gangs or kids, either, I’m telling you.”

  “Well, who do you think it is?”

  “Got no idea. Almost think someone’s out to get me.”

  “Who’s mad at you?”

  He shook his head and shrugged but made no effort to answer.

  “Okay. We’ll get out there and take shots of anything that moves.”

  He slumped in relief and pulled out his wallet. “How much?”

  “Three hundred.”

  He pulled out three bills and laid them on the desk. “If they go to jail and I get to prosecute the creeps, I’ll double it.”

  I gave him my most appreciative professional smile and shook his hand as he rose to leave. At that moment, Dwayne came through the front door to the offices, jangling the doorbell, and making a terrible racket. We joined him in the front lobby area. There wasn’t much in there aside from a reception desk and a table with magazines on it.

  “Jason Scott,” Dwayne greeted him, shaking hands. “How’s the funeral biz?”

  “Dead, man. Real dead.”

  They both laughed, and Jason made his way out.

  Dwayne gave me a raised eyebrow. “What’s up? You doing some pre-arranging?”

  I walked back to my desk and waved the cash at him. “Nope. We got a job.”

  A toothy white flash slashed across his ebony face. “Let’s see. Jason wants us to video a seminar on how to make a body look good, right?”

  “Nope. Surveillance. On his cemetery.” I strolled to the oak corner cabinet, removed my faux-leather tote bag, and turned to see what reaction he’d give.

  “Why do I always feel like Ethel on I Love Lucy at times like this?” he asked, grin giving way to that familiar raised eyebrow. I shrugged and headed for the door. “Maybe because Lucy and I are both redheads?”

  He laughed. “You got red highlights, girl. But, nope, that ain’t it. Besides, I think Lucy got her hair did. I mean done-did. You know what I’m saying?”

  A twitch started in my cheek. It was going to be a long night. “Dee, while you’re deciphering dye-jobs, let’s go get some footage at Jason’s cemetery and earn our keep.”

  He muttered. “Die, or d-y-e?”

  ###

  A penetrating cold had settled over South Lake, Mississippi like a fine dusting of talcum powder, leaving crystallized lawns and gardens in its wake. This came after several weeks of over-sixty-degree days. I worried about the flowering fruit trees with heavy white blossoms now bursting into life. This little cold snap might nip the new life right in the bud. We Southerners tried to keep an eye out for spring, knowing it always comes no matter what chills Mother Nature produces beforehand. Even now, jonquils and crocuses waved from their homes around mailboxes on every street. Channel Three’s weatherman promised warmer weather was on its way, and I held on to that promise with each frosty breath I drew.

  Doing my part to fight the elements, I held a Starbucks double chocolate chunk cookie with one hand and a Marble Mocha Macchiato with the other. I figured the warmth from good chocolate and hot coffee would keep me going awhile as we waited for trouble to head our way.

  My instinct told me having both hands full when Dwayne drove was a bad idea. My instinct told me things could get rocky. What if I needed to brace myself?

  I don’t always listen to my instinct.

  Dwayne gunned his battered red Mustang out of the coffee shop’s lot to beat a Buick, burned rubber to avoid getting hit, and then in almost the same motion, nearly rear-ended a Ford Fusion turning onto a side street. The fast-forward, quick-stop movement sent my huge cookie sailing out of its wrapper and into the car’s floorboard. The coffee sloshed loudly against the cup’s lid, and I was seriously thankful to have something covering the scalding liquid.

  “I’m not good at juggling coffee cups, napkins and cookies,” I groused as I leaned forward and felt around my feet.

  Dwayne drawled, “Simmer down now. You didn’t need it anyway. You’re supposed to go to video shoots hungry, Wall-ass. It gives you an edge.”

  Nestling my coffee in the cup holder of the console, I gave him a withering look. “Whatever.”

  Regardless, I trusted his advice. He’d been raised by his grandmother since tenth grade, and become street-sma
rt as a requisite to having a long life. He’d been pretty much an entrepreneur as he grew up, trying to make something from nothing. He’d had little success until I met up with him about four years ago in Tomlin’s Business Math class at the local community college when he’d given up hustling for learning. If anyone knew about having an edge, it would be him.

  He looked a little like a meerkat with his bald head, round ears, and skinny black body, but his soulful eyes made me feel sorry for him. Even when he played the “bad-ass from the ghetto” role, he failed at intimidating me because I’d learned who was really behind those Beagle-puppy brown eyes. I knew how much of a girl he was.

  “Would you please try to be more careful?” I asked, pulling the cookie up from the littered floor. I looked at it, covered in foreign objects and hair, and tossed it out the window. “That bit of flour and lard cost me nearly three bucks.”

  “And you are tellin’ me this because...? At least one of us has money,” he muttered. “I just left five dollars’ worth of rubber on the pavement back there.”

  Ignoring him, I gazed out of my window. People hurried to their Hummers and SUVs parked in the lots at the Bank of Mississippi, the local Krystal restaurant, and the dry cleaners. Everyone seemed jet-propelled as they moved about their daily chores, trying to ward off the icy fingers of air slithering under the layers of clothing bundling their bodies.

  Finally, we eased through the red brick columns announcing the grand entrance to Scott’s place and pulled around to the back of the building to park. “We’ll roll to the suspected area when it gets a little darker,” Dwayne said. “Don’t need to look suspicious.”

  “We could pretend to be mourners, looking for a grave.”

  He wrinkled his brow. “Um. No.”

  “Cowardly lion,” I muttered.

  He got out and strolled around, making sure we looked like we were waiting for someone and not waiting to do surveillance. The immediate assessment took all of a minute and turned up a big fat zero. No one moved; it was quite a dead place. Eventually, we adjusted our seats into comfortable reclining positions and proceeded to wait.

  Dwayne broke the silence first. “Starting a video production company has been the best idea we ever had. A damn fine way to make a purse out of a sow’s ear, as my granny says.”

  I grimaced. Our video equipment was the sow’s ear he spoke of. It once belonged to Levi Green of Green Screen Productions, videographer extraordinaire and murderer of my last boss and boyfriend, Rick Fine. There was some satisfaction in benefiting from Green’s downfall by pimping his video cameras and accessories. We could bring someone happiness using this stuff.

  We were hoping for a wedding. And as Jason Scott proved, we could make money at the same time. We just needed to make more. A lot more.

  Struggling to break free of cumulus clouds, the weak sunset temporarily dappled the ground around us, giving me a serious case of the squirmies. It wasn’t right for the weather to look so inviting yet be so cold and damp. Personally, I hoped the vandals showed themselves early. The closer to nightfall it got, the less I believed we would be able to earn our money. Our equipment included good camera lights, but it’s hard to be stealthy when you are illuminating people like deer in a cornfield.

  I looked at the darkening sky. “You think this cold snap will make nasty on our camera lens?”

  Dwayne stretched out his legs as far as he could in the cramped car seat. “Don’t know. It’s a dangerous sport to shoot outdoors in this kinda weather.”

  “Well, Scott promised us a nice follow-up if we succeed,” I said. “We have to try to get something for him. Just so you know.”

  He didn’t answer. With rent coming due at our new office, we couldn’t ignore any opportunity, even if it meant keeping company with the dead or trying to deal with the weather.

  We sat until shadows appeared long and menacing, and when darkness descended, Dwayne fired the car up and pulled away, heading for the back of the cemetery. We hadn’t been parked more than a quarter of an hour when I couldn’t take sitting another minute. I got out to stand and stretch. It felt like every muscle in my body was clenched in a twist. A few deep-knee bends and neck rolls, and I relaxed.

  While out of the car, I figured there was no reason not to test the camera. I hauled out my recent acquisition, an HD camcorder, and trained the lens on the nearby path winding around the grounds, testing the light. The shot returned to my vision via the side viewfinder wasn’t too bad, thanks to the spotlight stuck on a pole by the groundskeeper’s shack. That small bit of luminance spilled over where we were parked beside a crypt adorned with a giant angel.

  The statue glared down at us with outstretched arms and wide-open wings. I could almost feel the penetration of her cold, stone eyes. If the weather wasn’t already making me shiver, that thought alone would.

  I tapped on the window and Dwayne rolled it down a crack. “You ever see Doctor Who?” I asked. “The episode called Don’t Blink was one that made me have nightmares. In that one, angel statues could come at you with evil intentions as long as you weren’t looking at them.”

  Dwayne rolled the window the rest of the way down. “Naw, I ain’t got time to binge watch old shit. And we ain’t supposed to be chattin’ like magpies. We’re watchin’.”

  “Whose plot?” I asked in response, focusing my camera shot on the nearest grave.

  Irritated, he climbed out and joined me. “Some dude named Adams. Will you please turn that damn thing off and quit being so obvious? We ain’t never gonna catch nobody like this.”

  I switched everything off. “Happy now?”

  He nodded with a smug look on his face, and I held up my hand to silence his answer. Muffled voices came from across the cemetery, and graveyard silence elevated it a few decibels until it was easy to tell someone was mad.

  We moved closer to the shelter of the granite crypt. The voices grew louder, and I made a hasty decision to investigate, up close and personal. Is there any better way to get footage?

  Ignoring Dwayne’s hiss of hesitancy, I took our surveillance into enemy territory by strolling out across the vast cemetery toward the voices. My love of living and breathing goes on vacation sometimes.

  I eased through several rows of graves, listening as I moved forward, my camera strap looped over one hand, on record once again. If I couldn’t get a decent shot, I would have audio, anyway. The voices became hushed, but not before I made them out to be unmistakably male and possibly located in the wooded area to our left.

  Before I reached the first overgrown tree line, the talking ceased, and not even a chirp from a restless cricket sounded. It was eerie being in the thickness of dark with people ahead of me focused on probable criminal intent. Were they waiting, listening?

  I stopped, hesitant to move ahead. Dwayne shuffled behind me, his noisiness grating on my nerves. Couldn’t the men attached to the voices hear him as well as I?

  Suddenly, crashing sounds rose in front of me as someone cut tail and ran. I held the camera to my face, fingered around the gadget to turn on the light, screwed up the focus instead, and after losing important seconds, finally got a figure in the viewfinder. I followed the runner a short way across the grounds, praying something would be produced through all of my fumbling.

  A Boston Celtics hoodie, its white logo emblazoned on the back, came into view. Shorter than the other two bobbing heads, the occasional flashes of color made Hoodieman easier to follow. He glanced my way, saw the light, ducked his head, and took off at top speed. I wanted to shout at him to tell him he was busted, but I refrained. I watched the glimmer of his wallet chain, as it swung out of his pocket, enlivened by his sprinting.

  Dwayne, propelled into action by the obvious escape, passed me in a blur. “Hey! Come back here!” he shouted.

  Leaving the camera rolling, I picked up the chase. No way was he going to get the goods without me. Jolting along, I contemplated my eternal bad luck in these situations. Just ask any kid with the misfortune t
o watch me play those too-violent video games. The bad guys always kill me when I have to run after them. Sneaky little twerps.

  On this occasion, wherein the chase was real, it didn’t help matters any that I wore my new Easter heels. Here was a totally new twist to the game of catch-me-if-you-can. I had been on stakeouts before, but always from the comfort of an idling car. I’d presumed it would be more of the same and an opportunity to break my new shoes in. Chasing creeps through the spongy, pre-Spring grounds after dark was not a part of the deal I’d made, and now I wished I’d gotten more money out of Scott. Maybe hazard duty pay was in order?

  Hobbling along behind my lithe partner, I prayed he wouldn’t notice my less than full-speed attempt. He glanced over his shoulder to find me.

  He noticed. “Oh Lawd Jesus,” he huffed as he slowed to allow me to catch up. “Tell me you ain’t wearing those peach heels we bought at Macy’s.”

  “Okay,” I grunted as mud squished underfoot. “I won’t tell you. And they’re not peach, they’re apricot.”

  I skirted the edges of the larger monuments keeping the three dark silhouettes in view while maneuvering around the flat headstones. It was like playing chase in a maze in the dark.

  “Don’t step on that grave,” Dwayne yelled behind me as I jetted ahead. “That’s defacing the dead.”

  I pulled up short, tried to miss the grave in question, and ended up scraping my side on the odd-shaped tombstone. This threw my whole forward movement out of whack, and I suddenly felt my balance tilt. Holding the camera overhead, I struggled to keep my feet on the wet grass around the grave. Gravity worked against me, and I swiveled to avoid landing on my side. My butt wasn’t too happy with the change in plans when it took the impact.

  Dwayne skidded to a stop just before crashing on top of me. “Oh, shit!”

  I moaned, trying to right myself, with one hand encumbered by the camera. I handed it to him. After brushing my derriere off and assessing the damage, I took a few experimental steps. A bruised tailbone, for certain, and a sore vanity to go along with it.