Deceased and Desist by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

Author:Carolyn Ridder Aspenson [Aspenson, Carolyn Ridder]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn River Publishing
Published: 2021-05-17T22:00:00+00:00

Olivia massaged my shoulders. “You’re so tense, Chantilly.”

I pulled them in as she worked out a knot between my shoulder blade and my neck. “Ouch, not so hard.”

She giggled, then patted my shoulder. “I wanted to be a massage therapist when I was younger.” She sat in the chair next to me in Del’s café. “But my daddy said I had man hands.” She stared at her hands. “Do you think I have man hands?” She held them out for me to examine.

They were shockingly strong but not manly-looking, though she did keep her nails shorter than I expected. “Not at all, but they do seem very strong.”

Del walked over and sat next to Olivia. “Bless your heart. I never noticed before, but you’ve got your daddy’s hands.”

Olivia jerked her hands away and hid them under the table. I glared at Del.

“What’d I say? Girl’s got farmer hands. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”

“It’s my hands. That’s why I never have any dates anymore. I have man hands.”

Thelma had been pecking away one finger at a time on an ancient electric typewriter two tables away where she could plug it into a power outlet. She stopped typing and said, “Strong hands make a strong woman. If you can break a chicken’s neck, you can feed your family for a week. Nothing wrong with strong hands.”

Oddly, that seemed to give Olivia some relief, but it just made me lose my appetite.

“Can we talk about Hank Manning?” I asked.

Thelma attempted to scoot her chair toward our table but gave up quickly with a few unladylike mumbles.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Del stomped toward her and pushed her chair over while Thelma held on for dear life. It made a screeching sound as it scooted across the floor. “You’re going to have to pay for the damage to my darn floor one of these days.”

Thelma giggled.

“Let’s talk about Hank Manning,” Olivia said. She held up her hands and examined them again, pursed her lips, and then sat on them with a grumpy sigh. “What’s going on with your investigation?”

“Jack took me to the tree stand.” I pulled up the photos on my phone. “And we realized—or I realized—that whoever did it couldn’t have been too big. The stand is just too small for two people Hank’s size to be up there without both knowing. And I think the killer was waiting here.” I flipped to the photo of the branches. “Out of sight. So, when Hank was preparing to—” I paused as my brain searched for the words. “Hunt, I guess, the killer quietly climbed down and shoved him right off the stand. He never saw it coming.”

“When you say the killer wasn’t that big, what do you mean?”

“Maybe around my height or a little taller, and fairly trim to fit in that small area.”

“Or flexible.” Thelma adjusted her glasses and examined the photo of the branches carefully. “My pa could stuff himself into a tree stand with the best of them. You might be

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